Us & Them: 2025 — Changing Definitions, Upending Institutions

As we count down to the end of 2025, Us & Them host Trey Kay looks back at the year’s whirlwind of actions and reactions. 

Each week presented fresh moves in the agenda President Donald Trump outlined during his campaign. First it was a reshaping of the federal government from the Department of Government Efficiency known as DOGE, Elon Musk’s initiative, which slashed budgets and agencies and workers. At the same time, additional resources for the Department of Homeland Security led to a significant increase in the number of immigration arrests and detentions by federal agents. The use of National Guard troops in U.S. cities tests the limits of the president’s authority while those in the Mountain State mourn the death of a soldier shot in the nation’s capitol. 

We look at how one-time culture war talking points are reengineering America’s defining institutions. 

This episode of Us & Them is presented with support from the CRC Foundation.

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“Through my work on Us & Them, I’ve spent years in rooms with people who don’t trust each other, while still encouraging conversation… This year, those rooms felt different. Quieter. More cautious. More guarded… A nation without guardrails doesn’t become freer. It becomes more fragile… The only thing that has ever brought us closer together is to listen to each other. It’s not about agreement or surrender — but it’s a stubborn decision to stay in the room together. To keep talking… It may be the last guardrail we still control.”

— Trey Kay, host of Us & Them