To the editor:
“We the people of the United States…to form a more perfect union…establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility…promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty…”
These founding aspirations inscribed in the Constitution feel painfully distant. For many Americans, 2025 has been a terrible year, marked by a cascade of crises that demand renewed commitment to our constitutional ideals.
We face a refusal to confront systemic racism; escalating attacks on racial, gender and immigrant communities; and the troubling rise of authoritarian impulses that expose the fragility of our democratic institutions. Women’s access to essential health care continues to erode, while science and public health are too often dismissed. Economic inequality deepens, and food and housing insecurity grow. Ongoing cruelty and lies in speech and conduct continues to undermine civic trust.
We have witnessed the misuse of military and police power for domestic control, the spread of misinformation and threats against a free press, and the weakening of international alliances. Mass deportations have generated fear while destabilizing industries and communities that rely on immigrant labor and participation. Meanwhile, executive overreach — abetted by a compliant and corrupt Congress and Supreme Court — has expanded beyond anything the founders intended, including pardons for those who sought to overturn a lawful election and the unprecedented use of the Department of Justice for partisan political ends.
Aside from voting out the miscreant party responsible for these misdeeds, perhaps the best resistance and New Year’s resolutions with long-term effects are to act toward each other with kindness, caring, thoughtfulness and love.
Sincerely,
Robert Shuman
Tufts Street
