There’s no point pretending 2025 was a good year.
It wasn’t.
It was loud, ugly, and exhausting. Truth bent more easily than it should have. Power felt less accountable. Too many leaders mistook cruelty for strength and noise for conviction. Too many ordinary people paid the price – financially, emotionally, and sometimes far worse.
If you’re arriving at 2026 tired rather than hopeful, you’re not broken. You’re paying attention.
We’re often told that a new year is a “fresh start”, as if the calendar itself can fix what politics, economics, and human behaviour have made so brittle. But nothing truly resets at midnight. The same systems remain. The same incentives reward the same bad actors. The same inequalities carry over, untouched by fireworks.
So no – this isn’t a promise that 2026 will be better.
What it is is a refusal to surrender.
Hope doesn’t come from pretending things are fine. It comes from refusing to normalise what shouldn’t be normal. It comes from people who keep asking questions when silence would be easier. From readers who care enough to stay engaged even when disengagement looks tempting.
If there’s one thing 2025 confirmed, it’s this: progress doesn’t arrive because history bends kindly. It arrives because people push – sometimes slowly, sometimes imperfectly, often at personal cost.
And people are still pushing.
They’re organising locally when national politics fails them. They’re helping neighbours instead of waiting for governments. They’re telling the truth when lies are more profitable. They’re voting, volunteering, writing, donating, teaching, arguing, and caring – even when it feels futile.
That matters more than any speech or slogan.
This site exists because of readers who haven’t given up on the idea that facts matter, that empathy matters, and that democracy – flawed as it is – is still worth defending. Not because it’s guaranteed to win, but because the alternative is resignation.
So if 2026 brings change, we’ll welcome it.
If it doesn’t, we’ll keep going anyway.
We’ll keep calling things by their proper names. We’ll keep resisting the slide into cynicism masquerading as realism. And we’ll keep making space for serious discussion, humour where it helps, and solidarity where it’s needed.
Thank you for staying with us through a difficult year. Thank you for reading, sharing, disagreeing, and thinking. And thank you – genuinely – for not switching off when switching off would be understandable.
Here’s to a year of clear eyes, steady nerves, and the stubborn belief that things can be made better – not by wishing, but by doing.
We’ll see you in 2026.
Michael, Carol, and all at The AIMN.
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“Hope doesn’t come from pretending things are fine. It comes from refusing to normalise what shouldn’t be normal. It comes from people who keep asking questions when silence would be easier.” Thankfully, there are still plenty of us here still willing to do that. Let’s hope some of the most abnormal things come to an end in 2026. That’s my wish for us all.
Ditto Jen, Happy New 2026 for all.
For some, time to wake up and smell the coffee and the wreckage that they have caused the planet.
All the best for a better year for everyone.
Thanks for that Michael and Carol.
It has been a trying year and the forces of darkness have notched up a few wins largely thanks to the efforts of those who are pulling the strings on Trump.
For January one, Netanyahu has once again ‘flipped the bird’ at the civilised world and just as limited aid was getting into Gaza he has arbitrarily banned thirty-seven aid agencies from entering Gaza, using ‘ inadequate paperwork’, as a handy excuse: he has not banned them pending the paperwork issue being sorted, he has banned them forever from entering Gaza.
Sadly, the United Nations who we used to rely on to step in and coordinate aid and peacekeeping in former battle zones are being excluded by Israel, as are journalists, all with the Trump backing.
One bright prospect to look forward to; Bibi standing trial in the Hague at some date in the future.
In the meantime, all at AIMN, have a good 2026.
PS: Aren’t the mangoes good this year? ‘Not easy to deliver unblemished fruit to market, the slightest splash of sap will burn the skin of a mango – well done growers
Ahh…made it, 2026..only 9 more weeks till retirement, woo hoo. 🙂 Hope you all have a good year.
Thank you Michael and Carol and all the AIMN Team – fellow contributors and readers. It takes exceptional editorial and journalistic courage to maintain a healthy heartbeat for this feisty and energetic site. At times, the staggering amount of daily new postings appear to outnumber postings on legacy media sites. I hope this year brings some financial security for AIMN, that has come close to being in palliative care, at times.Let us all become PR warriors for AIMN and encourage new subscribers and contributors. The calibre of my peers on this site is breathtaking and the depth of intellect and original thought, inspiring.
Jen’s comment…
I don’t feel optimistic, more strangled in this era’s computerised versions of red tape.
I won’t do anything but endorse tess lawrence, after the alarming decline in mainstream media and press.
GLAD I stayed with AIM. The future gets difficult, well, at least we get some warning here. To Carol and Michael, your nostrums seem to have revived the site.
Congratulations.
Terry’s comment..”flipped the bird”.
How appropriate. The US and others should hang their heads in shame also..
Here for a second look. Taking it a little further, complicity?
Since joining AIMN I have really appreciated the contributions and, for the most part, the comments. There is a bravery to many of the contributions that the MSM would do well to emulate but won’t because it doesn’t fit their narrative of suppressing the majority and elevating the wealthy which includes those who profit from conflict and war. I am hoping 2026 is the year the Australian government finally realises the mandate it has and does the many things necessary to eliminate inequality, redress the reliance on outsourcing in all its forms and acts on a true appraisal of all our international obligations. I am not holding my breath. I join in congratulating all who make AIMN the stimulating forum that it is.
My new year resolution for 2026 is to make a new year resolution in 2027.