6 Things That Restored Our Faith in Humanity This Year

If you spent any time online this year, it would’ve been reasonable to conclude that everything is broken, everyone hates each other, and civilization is being held together by duct tape and spite. 

And yet—zoom out just a little—and a far more hopeful story emerges.

2025 was full of moments that reminded us of something important: even in divided times, people continue to find ways to show up, work together, and surprise each other.

Here are six things that gave us real hope this year.

1. Peace Came Back Into View

For much of the last few years, peace in places like Gaza, Israel, Ukraine, and Russia felt unrealistic. In 2025, it started to feel possible again.

The suffering didn’t stop, and for many people it remains unbearable. But amid the loss, sustained diplomatic efforts, ceasefire talks, humanitarian corridors, and renewed international pressure began to point toward something that had felt absent for a long time: the possibility of de-escalation. That matters. History shows peace usually arrives not with fireworks, but with slow—sometimes frustratingly so—deeply imperfect steps forward.

Hope doesn’t mean pretending the work is done. It means believing the work is still worth doing.

2. Bipartisan Bills Quietly Did Their Thing

You’d never know it from cable news, but 2025 included a number of bipartisan bills that actually passed on things voters overwhelmingly agree on.

Healthcare expansion for people recovering from opioid addiction. Increased financial support for disabled veterans. Funding for rural school districts and county services in areas hit by disasters.

Were they sweeping, system-overhauling masterpieces? No. But they were evidence of something increasingly rare: lawmakers working together for the American people.

3. When Disaster Struck, People Didn’t Ask Who You Voted For

If 2025 reminded us of anything, it’s that nature doesn’t care about party affiliation. 

And neither did the people who showed up afterward.

When devastating wildfires erupted in California, neighbors cleared streets for emergency vehicles and mobilized to get homeless people out of camps and to secure locations away from the fires. When floods tore through the Texas Hill Country, neighbors rescued neighbors and set up makeshift relief stations days before the county showed up. When a tornado flattened North St. Louis, community volunteers created their own organization, “People’s Response,” to clean up the community and coordinate door-to-door deliveries. Across the country, donations poured in to help affected communities. 

In crises, ideology fades fast. What remains is a very human instinct: help the person in front of you. That instinct is still alive and well.

4. Even Some of Our Loudest Partisans Started Softening Their Edges

Leaders on both sides of the aisle called for more cross-party unity in 2025.

Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MINN) publicly urged fellow lawmakers to “mitigate inflamed rhetoric” after Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were shot and killed, calling for more civility in political discourse. Governor Spencer Cox (R-UT) encouraged Americans to “choose a different path” following the shooting of Charlie Kirk.

One of the more unexpected shifts this year came from people we’re used to hearing in all-caps.

Liberal commentator Dean Withers wept during his heartfelt message condemning Kirk’s shooting, despite having vehemently disagreed with the Republican activist. Firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said she regretted taking part in what she called “toxic politics” and announced her resignation. 

When people who benefit from outrage start questioning it, that’s worth paying attention to.

5. Everyday Americans Kept Showing Up to Bridge Divides—Even When They Didn’t Think They Could

During our Citizen Solutions session in Texas, we brought together people from across the state with very different backgrounds and political views—many of whom arrived convinced that productive conversation across those differences was impossible. 

Instead, they shared personal experiences with the healthcare system and worked side by side to develop practical healthcare solutions they could agree on despite their differences.

Over and over, participants told us some version of the same thing: “I didn’t think I could do this—but I can.” 

6. Hundreds of Thousands of People Chose to Be Builders

In 2025, the Builders Movement grew to over 4 million members strong across our communities.

Those numbers aren’t about us—they’re about what they represent.

In a year saturated with division, hundreds of thousands of people actively chose a different posture: unity over outrage, problem-solving over point-scoring, humanity over hostility.

That’s not a fringe impulse. It’s a quiet majority raising its hand and saying, “There has to be a better way—and I’m willing to help build it.”

A Builderly Resolution for the Year Ahead

Hope isn’t passive. It’s a decision.

As we head into a new year, our resolution isn’t to pretend differences don’t exist or that hard problems will magically resolve themselves. It’s to take these moments as precedent.

People can work together.
Conversations can change minds.
Trust can be rebuilt.
Systems can improve—if citizens stay involved.

Being a Builder doesn’t mean being endlessly optimistic. It means being stubbornly committed to the idea that we’re better off building together than tearing each other apart.

And if 2025 taught us anything, it’s that we’re far from alone in believing that.

—Alex Buscemi (abuscemi@buildersmovement.org)

Help turn common ground into real change

You’re a Builder, which means you, like us, believe that most Americans agree more than the loudest voices want us to believe—and that solutions are possible when people come before politics. In a world where extremists seek to divide for power and profit, Builders take action to unite, create, and bring light to the world. Support the development of new media, tools, and platforms to help us give power back to the people.

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