Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

As we reach the end of another year, it helps to look back on what happened in 2025.

For me, that requires too much effort, so I rely this time on PEW Research, which published an e-mail on trends in the United States in 2025.

By the way, just think about this:  It was more than 25 years ago that everyone was concerned about the effect of turning 1999 into 2000.  What affect would the new year with a “2” in front of three other digits have on, say, computers? 

Well, without much dislocation then, we made it into the 2000s, so now I include PEW’s look back.

1.  After more than 50 years of rapid growth, the number of immigrants living in the U.S. is on the decline.  Between January and June 2025, the nation’s immigrant population fell by more than 1 million.
 

2.  Views of the U.S. have worsened – and views of China have improved – across many of the 10 high-income countries we surveyed this year.  A median of 35 per cent of adults in these countries have a favorable opinion of the U.S., while 32 per cent feel favorably toward China.  These shares are the closest they’ve been since 2018.
 

3.  Seven-in-ten Americans now say the nation’s higher education system is generally going in the wrong direction, up from 56 per cent in 2020.  Colleges and universities receive poor marks in areas like affordability and preparing students for well-paying jobs.
 

4.  Americans have grown more critical of the widespread legalization of sports betting. This is especially the case among young men: Close to half say legal sports betting is a bad thing for society, up from 22 per cent in 2022.
 

5.  Around seven-in-ten Americans say Donald Trump is trying to exert more power than his predecessors.  Most of those who say this view it as a bad thing for the country.
 

6.  A majority of parents with a child under 2 years old say their child watches videos on YouTube, up from 45 per cent in 2020. This includes 35 per cent who say their child watches YouTube daily.
 

7.  Google users who encounter an AI Overview are about half as likely as other users to click on search results.  In our study, those who landed on a Google search page with an AI summary clicked on a search result 8 per cent of the time. Those who did not see a summary clicked on a search result 15 per cent of the time.
 

8.  Republicans have become much less likely to say healthy children should be required to get the MMR vaccine to attend public school. The percentage of Republicans who hold this view has fallen from 79 per cent in 2019 to 52 per cent this year.
 

9.  Partisans differ especially sharply in how much they trust Fox News and CNN.  For instance, 56 per cent of Republicans say they trust Fox News, while 64 per cent of Democrats say they distrust it.  The pattern is reversed for CNN.
 

10.  For the first time in nearly two decades of surveys, most Hispanics say their group’s situation in the country has worsened over the past year. About seven-in-ten Hispanic adults now express this view, up sharply from 26 per cent in 2021 and 39 per cent in 2019.

11.  Sub-Saharan Africa is now home to more Christians than any other world region:  About 31 per cent of the global Christian population lives there, surpassing Europe’s 22 per cent.  While Christianity remains the world’s largest religion, Islam was the fastest-growing religion between 2010 and 2020, among the seven major groups we study.
 

12.  Americans are far more pessimistic than optimistic about the effect AI will have on human creativity and connection.  About half say AI will worsen people’s ability to think creatively, and same proportion say it will worsen people’s ability to form meaningful relationships with others.

To conclude, I agree with columnist George Will, who wrote this in the Washington Post:

“As 2025 slinks offstage, at least that’s something to cheer about.  Farewell to a year that brought the Cracker Barrel brouhaha, the DOGE dud, and the Gulf of America.”

But, for me, beyond PEW and George Will, I also relish the time spent in the last year with family and friends.  I am fortunate to have both as 2026 begins, with whatever the new year holds.