1/2/25: This new year is already outrageous

**David Pakman** (0:07)
Welcome to 2025, everybody. I hope that your New Year celebrations were, how do I put it? Exactly what you would want. I'll admit, I was asleep by 1045, and it was great. We are going to have an insane year. And I know four years is what a lot of us are thinking about because of the incoming Trump administration, and that's completely reasonable. I understand why that's your expectation. It's mine as well. But I want to talk specifically about 2025 because it's very clear, based on the first 24, 36, 48 hours of the year, and based on everything we were observing from November 5th through December 31st last year, it's abundantly clear that this is going to be a particularly bonkers year. We've been trying to prevent it. Many of us voted in ways that we thought would make it less likely. But I don't think at this point it's possible. Twenty twenty five will be nuts. Just in the first thirty six hours of the year, we saw a Tesla Cybertruck loaded to the gills with what appear to be fireworks explode at a Trump hotel. And then we saw police supplicate about how lucky we all are that it was a Tesla Cybertruck. We'll get to that later. Maybe it's sort of a metaphor for the MAGA movement. It's flashy. It's chaotic. And it's bound to blow up in everyone's faces. We had an absolutely terrifying attack in New Orleans, Louisiana, on Bourbon Street, which we will talk about. We saw in this nascent stage of the year Donald Trump double down on being completely owned by Elon Musk again on the topic of H1B visas, visas at his New Year's Eve party. And he's now pretending he never had a different position, except he's on video clearly having different positions. And in the last few hours, we have learned that Donald Trump is going to be holding a rally just before his inauguration on January 19th. And this is going to be Trump Global Chaos 2.0. We made it a few hours into 2025 before the mass carnage and the political fiascos started. And Trump is still weeks from even being inaugurated. He has ideas about Ukraine and Russia, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, about taxes, about health care, about tariffs that are all disastrous or childish or impossible ideas. Now, I expected it to be very bad. I was kind of chatting back and forth with a few people on blue sky over the new year. I expected it to be bad. And I know many of you did as well. But I don't know that I've ever expected such atrocities as I do this time. And I'm including when Trump was elected in 2016 And we waited for his inauguration in January of 2017, almost eight years ago to the day. If you can imagine, I expected it to be bad and it was bad. But this is all seeming like it's going to be much, much worse. And then, of course, let's not forget Project 2025 and the havoc that it will clearly reek. We've spent years warning about the consequences of this type of leadership. We've spent years warning about how populist rhetoric can be used to bamboozle people into electing strongman authoritarians, the lies, the recklessness, the corruption. It was never just about Donald Trump. And we are about to see the infection of government with a sort of virus for which I don't know if we have any cure or vaccine for. I guess the vaccine would be education to a degree. And we know they've decimated that it is going to infect and invade every corner of public life. And so we are buckling down to watch it unfold. We're not going to go quietly. And although this is sounding like a very dark and dystopian way to start the year, I am inspired by much of what I'm seeing. The immediate tune out that we saw after November 5th has dissipated. And I am now getting emails. Remember, November 5th through 25th, let's say I was getting dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of emails saying, David, I can't do it anymore. I have to tune out. It's bad for my health. I'm despondent. I don't think we can do anything to stop it. They are too well organized and on and on and on. And I respected that very much. And I said, do what's good for you. Do what you feel you need to do for your mental and physical health. We're going to sort of regroup. And I believe we will be ready by January 20th. And what I am now seeing is that becoming a reality. Now, I'm no longer hearing from the I'm tuning out for years. David, maybe some of those folks did leave. But so many people are now getting ready for what is coming. And I do think, as Mark Elias said, we need to build an opposition, not a resistance. I see it being built. The conversations I had in DC two weeks ago with other creators inspire me that we are all seeing the same thing. We ran this New Year's Day membership special yesterday, and one hundred and seventy people signed up in one day. If you miss that membership special, by the way, just email info at David pakman.com. Say, hey, I'd like that code. David will give it to people. You can take advantage of it through the end of the week. What I am seeing is that people are getting ready. They are motivated and activated. And I do not believe that we are going to go quietly into the night. So that's my it sounds like we're starting in a dark place, but I actually think we're ending in a good place. People are ready. Let's get into it. And next week, we've got a lot of important stuff planned in terms of the strategy for this year and beyond. All right. You know, people are very much right to be furious at what's going on with the health insurance companies. What we can say, of course, I don't support vigilantism. Of course, I don't support criminality, murder, homicide, assassinations. Of course, I don't support any of that. That is not a way to fix systems that I have ever seen work in history.