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To nobody’s surprise, 2025 was a tumultuous year. Reversing a half-century of cultural, domestic, and geopolitical rot had to take a heavy toll, which it did in the blood of one crusader. Yet while the denizens of Leftist Hell increased their demonic shrieking, fearless conservative leaders began to expose them as the denuded maniacs they are. This, despite dissension on the Right — though not the true spiritual Right, led by the man shot dead in Utah last September. Whether common sense will be in ascent or descent next Christmas depends on who will follow in his footsteps over the next few months.
Heroes
"Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk earned his place as the most influential traditionalist Christian leader of American youth. To be 18 and realize everything you learned from academia, news media, and entertainment media was a lie is shocking enough. But then, to do something about it, out of your garage, founding an organization to uncloud young minds; that is historic. Charlie didn’t rest on the triumph of Turning Point USA. He went into the trenches, debating the deluded. And the more of them he turned to reason, the more the rest despised him. Last fall, one killed him. But because Charlie lived the faithful life he championed, the right person succeeded him.Erika Kirk. The whole world watched the moment Erika Kirk became a widow and the single mother of two little children. Most people were horrified, even on the Left, yet far too many were jubilant, only on the Left. Through the unbearable darkness of being, Erika’s courage and class shone brighter. She publicly forgave her husband’s depraved assassin and took the helm of TPUSA, vowing to make it into a formidable force for truth, justice, and the American Way. She’s not a superhero, but she is a wonder woman, empowered by love of family, country, and God.
"Donald Trump. "The Soviet Union outlasted Ronald Reagan by three years before falling from the mortal wound he dealt it. The Democrats may not survive Trump for that long, though their hatred for him is the glue holding them together. No Republican president ever damaged them the way Trump has so soon in his second term, by extracting every card in their house of marked cards — DEI, the open border, trans equality, a nuclear Iran, even artistic hegemony. I look forward to attending the Trump Kennedy Center in the New Year, and laughing off leftist howls.
"Marco Rubio. "I voted for Rubio over Trump in the 2016 Florida primary. Not because he’s a fellow Cuban (though that helped) but because, like many, I thought Trump was nuts. History not only proved me wrong, but it slapped me by making Trump the second greatest president of my lifetime (with a shot at the title) and Rubio the greatest secretary of state. Just three of his accomplishments: securing NATO countries’ spending commitments, countering Chinese influence (no ChiCom spy balloons over secret bases this year), reducing illegal migration.
"Scott Adams. "Also in 2016, Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams shocked everyone by predicting Donald Trump would become president. Leftist outrage when he was proven right didn’t prevent the then-progressive Adams from becoming a hugely successful podcast host, even after a logical racial statement in 2023 got Dilbert canceled by every newspaper in the country. Adams’s deadpan, humorous observations on Democrat lunacy have driven them crazier, especially before and since the ’24 election. He is currently and heroically battling Stage 4 prostate cancer, and could use all our prayers."
Zeroes
Tim Walz. "The goofy, effete — but amusingly macho posturing — governor of Minnesota had an awful 2024 as Kamala Harris’s VP running mate. He’s had a much worse 2025 as reports of multi-billion-dollar Somali immigrant welfare fraud keep flooding in, though not from the mainstream media. Whatever presidential race plans he made are gone with the taxpayers’ money.
Ketanji Brown Jackson. "It was no surprise that Supreme Court Justice Jackson dissented in the August decision pausing DEI-based NIH funding (along with her two progressive sisters on the Court and the ever disappointing Chief Justice John Roberts). Without DEI, Jackson wouldn’t be on the Court. Her opinions this year were so absurd and liberal protective, even the demure Amy Coney Barrett had to mock one as “tethered neither to these sources [precedent and the Constitution] nor, frankly, to any doctrine whatsoever.”
Keir Starmer. "Great Britain declined gradually in the 20th Century (following the suicide of World War I) and rapidly in the 21st, but at warp speed in the last year under the Labour Party and its twit PM Keir Starmer. His government has been arresting or hassling citizens for such hideous offenses as citing Muslim immigrant criminality on social media — such as raping young girls — or praying outside abortion clinics. Starmer appears to be reading Orwell’s 1984 as a “How to Govern” guide.
Hollywood. "After I fulfill my contract for three Mark Slade-Neil Cork political detective thrillers (book two out in Fall 2026), I intend to write the Great Hollywood Novel. It will be an epic story of the studio years from 1927 to 1980. But a new story idea may forestall it. For a Joseph Heller-type comic novel about the once great industry’s meltdown under woke idiots with no clue about the screen art they inherited from virtue-signaling male fools. And how their diversity hiring, fantasy agenda, and contempt for their audience have collapsed the industry, especially this year. Of course, the argument against my writing this book is — they’d never make it into a movie.
Lou Aguilar is a published novelist, produced screenwriter, and arts culture essayist. His latest novel, “The Christmas Spirit,” a Yuletide romantic ghost story, and two earlier books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and great American bookstores.
