Year-end columns usually highlight the high points. What to do with a year that is an accumulation of “low points?” If “Comedy is tragedy plus time,” this could be a very funny column for future historians..

Life does seem to imitate art, and we have artlessly played out a twisted version of Pirates of the Caribbean by becoming Pirates in the Caribbean, boarding tankers and blowing up small boats. Captain Jack Sparrow is played charmlessly by Pete Hegseth, not Johnny Depp.

Earning the George Orwell Award in Newspeak is CBS News Director Bari Weiss’s spiking a 60 Minutes piece on the deportation for torture of alleged “worst of the worst” immigrants from Venezuela. Bari is not the “News Director.” She’s the “Censorship Enforcer.” In the Soviet Union, there was a saying, “There is no truth (Pravda) in the news and no news (Izvestia) in the truth.”  We’re getting there. 

Trump’s also trying to drive satire off the air. He succeeded with Colbert but failed with Kimmel (so far). Shakespeare wrote that the path to autocracy starts with, “Let’s kill all the lawyers.” Trump’s motto seems to be, “Let’s kill all the funny people.” 

He’s trying to intimidate the media. He can do this because major media are now owned by mega corporations that have government contracts, subjecting them to regulations and control. It’s not just CBS. It’s Paramount and the Washington Post and its sibling Amazon. Our airwaves are regulated by Trump enablers in his FCC. 

Irony Alert! Trump is running for the Nobel Peace Prize, while, at the same time, promising to go into Gaza and “Finish Hamas off quickly, and it won’t be pretty.” And he’s threatening Venezuela and bombing Nigeria (?!?) 

Though no Don Quixote, Trump is jousting against windmills and windfarms. He calls them bad for the environment, a threat to birds and eyesores that undermine our national security. How? Big oil is necessary for our national security and his economic security. 

This Christmas Season, JD Vance, in a speech to Turning Point USA, said “Christianity has truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is (sic.) that we have been and by the grace of God, we always will be a Christian nation.”

No! We have never been a Christian nation. Our Founders, whom MAGA worships without understanding, fought to avoid the religious wars of Europe by separating “Church and State.” They were not traditional Christians. Most, like Franklin, Jefferson, both Adams’ and Paine were Deists who didn’t believe in a God who intervened in history. Yes, we have had more people who went to Christian churches than any other faith. But that doesn’t make us a doctrinally Christian nation. 

Our emphasis on Christian identity relates to the growth of public anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism has always been present, but following WWII and the Holocaust, it was whispered and not spoken. Now, no more dog whistles; it’s bullhorns. Our schools, universities and arts communities are filled with self-righteous folks expressing their anger at Israel and taking it out on Jews, Jewish institutions and businesses. Strange that with Russia bombing Ukraine, kidnapping children and raping women, no one thinks to picket Russian markets or random individuals. People can oppose China’s treatment of the Uighurs and not vandalize Chinese restaurants or attack Chinese people. Vance was unwilling to condemn or distance himself from blatantly anti-Semitic and racist elements in MAGA. All in the name of a big, bigoted tent. 

I’m being asked if Jews should hide their menorahs. They’re asking if they should remove the Mezuzahs from their doors and stop wearing Jewish jewelry? These questions themselves reveal how much has changed. We now go through armed guards and magnetometers to enter our synagogues. My Rabbi “assured” the congregation that there were armed guards in the sanctuary. This is not freedom of religion.

Anti-Semitism never stops with Jews. Xenophobia always spreads to other religious and ethnic groups. This year, we saw intentional cruelty towards brown people, who were assumed to be arrestable and deportable for being brown or speaking Spanish. Cold-hearted ICE agents broke car windows, dragged people out, threw by-standers to the ground and charged them with assault.

Science is under attack. RFKII fights vaccines that have proven records of saving lives. His Make America Healthy Again programs are killing people. He is revisiting established medicines because they have side effects. MAHA too often has fatal side effects. But what do scientists know? A science teacher was just fired for giving a failing grade to a student who answered a scientific question on a test with Genesis. This is how we enter a new Dark Ages.  

Finally, there’s Trump, the insult comic, who calls women ugly, even too ugly to harass. He demeaned a reporter with a rude “Quiet piggy.” Unbelievably, he can’t offer comfort following the tragic murder of Rob Reiner and Michelle. He blames Reiner, who was “Not good for our country,” and adds that Reiner’s death was due to their Trump Derangement Syndrome. 

Who’s deranged? We the People or the gold-plated graffiti vandal who tears down the East Wing, plans a giant ballroom, smears gold on any surface, imposes his name on The Kennedy Center and inserts his aesthetic gifts into the design of Trump (No) Class Battleships?

Trump learned from Putin that if you want something, just grab it. Ukraine is in Putin’s neighborhood, so he invades. Trump sees Greenland and asserts that we need it for our security, which “trumps” international law. Might as well take out Venezuela’s corrupt leader and seize the oil. Everything in our hemisphere is ours. Thank you, Putin and President Monroe.

What a year! Some try to console themselves by saying, “Well, at least it can’t get worse.” Yes, it can.There were some highlights. The Dodgers won the most exciting World Series in my life. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene came halfway to sanity and split with Trump over Epstein. Most inspiring is Syrian refugee, Ahmed al-Ahmed, who stepped forward and risked his life for the sake of Jews who were under attack in Sydney, Australia. The courage and generosity of ordinary people inspire me. I also draw hope from the millions of regular Americans who show up to demonstrate across our land in defense of freedom, decency and our Constitution. Our Supreme Court, elected representatives and corporate interests will not save us. It is, perhaps as it should be, up to us to passionately participate in writing our own common destiny.

To a Good, I mean Better Year!