Joseph Sabino Mistick: Hope is alive for 2025

This last week of the year is all about hope — a short pause between the old and new year, a time when we can reflect on the past and ponder the future. Commerce has finally slowed, unused vacation days are being used up and there is even a break in what has become the year-round drumbeat of politics and government.

This year, Donald Trump’s supporters are hoping that he will not forget them as he cuts government spending, imposes massive tariffs and gets tough on refugees. Enough traditionally Democratic voters gave Trump enough votes for him to win a second term. Now they are counting on him to come through for them.

In a Washington Post article last week about voters from New Castle, Pa., retired artist and Trump supporter Kathy Davis said, “We are old and tired and just want to be taken care of, and Trump has too much common sense, so I don’t think he is going to do anything to hurt us.” Davis lives off her Social Security income and food stamps and believes that Trump is “too smart” to hurt the poor.

Others, like 86-year-old Tom Jones, are not so sure. “My fear is, they will get rid of Obamacare, and mark my words, this will just be the beginning of their troubles,” Jones said. “These people who voted for him didn’t look at the big picture.”

Farmers who supported Trump face a double threat from his policies. Mass detentions and deportations of farm workers would make life much harder for farmers. As the Los Angeles Times reported last month, “California farmers, who are some of the most ardent supporters of Donald Trump, would seem to be on a collision course with one of the president-elect’s most important campaign promises.

“Without sufficient workers, food would rot in the fields, sending grocery prices skyrocketing.”

And the tariffs that Trump has promised to impose on China could prompt China to impose retaliatory tariffs on American agricultural exports. It happened before during Trump’s first term in office, and California exports of some of its most important crops suffered. Farmers are hoping that he doesn’t do it again.

Locally, there is hope among some Pittsburghers that an upcoming 2025 election will result in a new mayor who can stop the economic decline and quality of life setbacks that have plagued the city since Mayor Ed Gainey took office three years ago.

Gainey proposed and signed an election year budget for 2025 — with questionable numbers, overstated revenue projections and understated costs. It does not include a tax increase — which would be a fatal flaw in an election year — but the budget will clearly be trouble in the future.

Add that to the bridge closures, misspent federal funds, bungled social services and a recent snow removal failure, and it becomes clear that the Gainey administration has been struggling to govern.

The 18th-century English poet Alexander Pope correctly stated that “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.” And it is important to continue to hope for the best until we learn otherwise. So let us take full advantage of this final week of the year to do just that.