2025 didn’t just expose bad ideas — it exposed an entire narrative collapsing in real time.
In this Year-in-Review episode of Stay in the Fray, Ryan breaks down the most ridiculous, hypocritical, and revealing moments of the year — from Trump’s policy wins the media tried to bury, to the left’s complete meltdown when chaos stopped serving their agenda.
This episode covers:
• Trump’s 2025 wins at home and abroad — and why they were ignored
• Media manipulation, selective outrage, and institutional lying
• Political violence and the moral failure following Charlie Kirk’s assassination
• Massive fraud scandals, government waste, and “non-profits” that didn’t even exist in reality
• The viral Target incident that perfectly captured modern ideological bullying
• How words like “racist,” “sexist,” and “fascist” lost all meaning
• Why the narrative itself has become the real danger
This isn’t a highlight reel. It’s a reckoning — with receipts.
⭐ If you value context over headlines, take a second to follow the show and leave a 5-star rating.
It helps this podcast reach people who are tired of being talked at instead of told the truth.
New episodes weekly.
Season 6 continues now — and Season 7 in 2026 is coming with more guests, viewpoints, and entertainment!
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The same people who said peace was impossible suddenly decided
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peace wasn't progressive enough. They are now silent about Gaza,
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federal money funding drag shows abroad, equity coordinators
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making more than actual law enforcement officers, and glossy
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government apps that cost millions and didn't even work.
00:00:21
This wasn't helping people. Instead of applause, the
00:00:25
Internet chose a side. Turning Point USA invited the
00:00:28
elderly woman to an event. She got a 2 minute standing
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ovation. GoFundMe raised $260.
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Probably the people who built their identity on hating Donald
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Trump can't emotionally survive it.
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They choose narrative over reality, personality over
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policy, and virtue signalling over outcomes.
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And now that it's not working anymore, they've escalated.
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Welcome to Stay in the Fray podcast.
00:01:05
I'm your host, Ryan. This is where headlines get hit
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hard, hypocracy gets shredded, and the absurd are laughed at.
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If you want comfort, this isn't your place.
00:01:15
If you want blunt and unfiltered, I'm your guy.
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Join me in the fray. All you had to do is just listen
00:01:26
up. Hey guys, I hope all of you had
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a fantastic Christmas. New Year's is upon us.
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All of a sudden it's the end of the year.
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I know everybody's doing the 2025 wrap up and I'm going to
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join them. This episode will likely drop on
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New Year's Eve day. So wherever you are tonight when
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this airs, be smart, be safe, don't be a dumbass.
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Hurting yourself is one thing that would suck, but hurting
00:01:56
someone else that's innocent sucks even worse.
00:01:59
So don't ruin 2026 before it even starts.
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If you've been with me over this year and before, you already
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know what I do here. You know who drives me
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absolutely insane? And you know my obsession with
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hypocrisy, media manipulation, the dangerous little fantasies
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that come mostly from the woke left.
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Sadly, the Democratic Party seems to want to embrace it
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rather than condemn its absurdity.
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If you're new here, welcome. There's no right time to jump on
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board. Join me here in the fray.
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That's what I do. We are a team.
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I don't sugarcoat things and I don't pretend that everyone is
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acting in good faith. This episode is a year end
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reckoning. It's not a highlight reel per
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SE. Not a here's what happened.
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This is about what we learned from what happened, what the
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left exposed about themselves in 2025.
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Because a lot of good happened this year in the country.
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A lot of good things are happening.
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I've brought the receipts through the whole ride this
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entire year. Instead of acknowledging it,
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though, most on the left continue to lose their damn
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minds. The meltdowns are plenty and the
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hypocrisy is just part of their costume.
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Let's begin the reckoning. This is Stay in the Fray
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podcast. It is December the 29th, airing
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on December the 31st. It's 2025 for a few more days.
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Let's roll. So here it is, my thesis for the
00:03:44
episode, if you will. The lefty narrative is the real
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danger. The narrative, people are buying
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into it, and that's even scarier.
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The through line of 2025 is the policies worked, are they're
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working, the results showed up, are continuing to show up.
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The people who built their identity on hating Donald Trump
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can't emotionally survive it. They choose narrative over
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reality, personality over policy, and virtue signalling
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over outcomes. And now that it's not working
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anymore, they've escalated. So let's start with the stuff
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they didn't want you focusing on.
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Border enforcement actually happened.
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Encounters dropped, jobs went to citizens.
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Inflation cooled and stabilized instead of being explained away
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by economists who've never bought groceries themselves.
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Manufacturing didn't just transition, it came back abroad.
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Trump brokers A Gaza ceasefire. Is it imperfect?
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Sure. But hostages came home, violence
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paused, and adults are back in the room.
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The same people who said peace was impossible suddenly decided
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peace wasn't progressive enough. They are now silent about Gaza.
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That's the funniest and I guess most madding part now that
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actually there's something actually got to done in Gaza.
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Do you notice what's missing? There are no riots, no screaming
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in the streets, no vandalized buildings, no college kids
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chaining themselves to fences or lighting flags on fire.
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At least it's all been heavily reduced.
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Trump helps move the needle towards peace.
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Imperfect peace. Real World Peace.
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And suddenly the outraged crowd goes completely silent.
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No marches, no gratitude, not even a performative thank you.
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Because it was never about Gaza as a whole.
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It was about chaos. It was about being mad.
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And most of all, it was about hating Trump more than they ever
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cared about innocent people. When they don't get to riot,
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they don't show up. And then there was Doge, the
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Department of Government Efficiency.
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They pulled the curtain back on billions in fraudulent
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contracts, DEI slush funds, bureaucratic money laundering
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that everyone pretended was necessary spending.
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I'm talking about tax dollars burned on things like 6 figure
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diversity consultants hired to teach engineers how to listen to
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silence, climate grants for art installations that literally
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accomplished nothing, studies on gender identity and niche animal
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populations, federal money funding drag shows abroad,
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equity coordinators making more than actual law enforcement
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officers, and glossy government apps that cost millions and
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didn't even work. This wasn't helping people, this
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was ideological indulgence. A ruling class lighting your
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money on fire so they could cosplay moral superiority on
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your dime. It's funny how the trust the
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experts vanished the second the receipts showed up and they had
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the balls to complain and cry about a White House ballroom
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being built with private funding and how this administration is a
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ruling class. It's not.
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These weren't accidents. These were outcomes, and
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outcomes are kryptonite to ideologues.
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All right, I want to talk about this notion of personality
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versus policy when it comes to the president or any other
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politician. I have this discussion with my
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best friend a lot, and he says I don't want my president to be an
00:07:54
asshole. All right, I say, fair enough.
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But does Trump being an asshole subjectively make you want to
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abandon policies that he'll push?
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The left doesn't hate Trump's policies as much as they hate
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him. They hate that he fights back
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after years of slandering against him, trying to jail him,
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putting himself in and his family in constant danger.
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They hate that he doesn't apologize for existing.
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They hate that he doesn't beg them to like him.
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History's greatest leaders weren't polite.
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They weren't all liked. They were effective, but these
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people think they are the moral compass.
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As if history appointed a bunch of blue check activists and NPR
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interns as the conscience of civilization.
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Like they are perfect. I would love to look into most
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of their closets to check on those skeletons.
00:08:57
That arrogance is what poisoned this year the most in my
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opinion. And then we get to the part they
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still refuse to talk about. Honestly.
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Charlie Kirk was murdered September 10th, 2025.
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Not controversial, not divisive. He was assassinated and the
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response from the left told you everything you needed to know
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right now. Excuses, deflection, the both
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sides nonsense and some celebrated like their favorite
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trans athlete destroyed a biological woman in the Olympic
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boxing ring. The same people who faint over
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mean tweets and posts suddenly found nuance when conservative
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voice was silenced permanently. The right called for calm, for
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conversation, for humanity. The left, they couldn't even
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pretend to condemn it. The people who spoke and speak
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poorly of Charlie don't have the brain power or straight up
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desire even to truly listen to what he said.
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He preached family, faith, and freedom.
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Those are three pretty great things.
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You didn't have to agree with everything he believed in that
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regard. But that's the point.
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The lack of context used by people who are clueless in
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regards to Charlie is telling. He was simply on the other team
00:10:19
so they'll cheer his death. It's disgusting. 2025 was also
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the year the legacy media finally stopped hiding the scam.
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Take the BBC edit scandal, splicing up Trump's January 6th
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speech to manufacture intent errors, they said.
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Funny how the errors only ever go One Direction.
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Trump is suing them, and good. How about the Minnesota fraud
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right now that's going on now. Massive welfare theft, fake
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registrations, systemic corruption.
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And yet we're told we or the threat to democracy for simply
00:10:58
asking questions about those things.
00:11:01
And Minnesota somehow managed to top itself.
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These insane leaders, Walls and Omar and all those guys, they're
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just destroying the state. It's really sad.
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It's embarrassing the country, quite frankly.
00:11:14
There's an independent journalist now, Nick Shirley and
00:11:16
some others. But Nick has come out as a young
00:11:18
man and started digging into these so-called children's
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learning centers in Minnesota that pull in millions of
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taxpayer dollars every single year.
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It sounds wholesome, except they're missing one tiny detail.
00:11:31
The fucking kids. Nick went to multiple locations,
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middle of the week, 10 in the morning, prime learning hours,
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and guess what he found? Locked doors, empty buildings,
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no teachers, no parents, no children, nothing.
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Just shell organizations collecting checks, sitting
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dormant for days while the state kept wiring money like it was a
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charity subscription they forgot to cancel.
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And when people ask questions, suddenly that was racist,
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dangerous, misinformed. It's funny how accountability is
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always offensive when the scam beneficiaries fit the right
00:12:11
political profile. This is why trust is gone.
00:12:15
And This is why people on my side are pissed.
00:12:19
This isn't propaganda, this is happening.
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This is why people do not believe the left anymore or the
00:12:26
media. They try to tell you to stop
00:12:28
noticing. And people like Nick, to his
00:12:31
credit, showed you why. And the fact that some people
00:12:34
can still align with that side of things, knowing all this is
00:12:39
the true problem. This is the perfect snapshot of
00:12:42
2025 I'm about to give you. It is the emotional spine, if
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you will, If you want the cleanest, most honest snapshot
00:12:51
of where this country is right now.
00:12:54
It's not a think piece. It's not a pole.
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It's not some expert panel on CNN.
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It's a 72 year old woman working at Target wearing a shirt.
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It's a red shirt. They're allowed to wear that at
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Target. It was a freedom shirt that
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honored Charlie Kirk. That's it.
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That was the crime. She's minding her own business,
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clocked in hanging clothes, working, doing her job, wearing
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a shirt, support of a man who shared her views, family, faith,
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freedom. A man who was assassinated in
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front of his wife and kids in some fully grown left wing
00:13:25
lunatic Karen decides that that gives her the moral authority to
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ambush her. Filming her, screaming at her,
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cursing, calling her fucking stupid, accusing her of
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supporting a racist, even though I guarantee you she couldn't
00:13:40
articulate a single actual thing Charlie Kirk ever said.
00:13:44
Just vibes, slogans, rage, slander.
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You've seen this video and if you haven't, I'm not playing it
00:13:52
all for you because I have a lot to get to.
00:13:54
Go look it up. I'm sure you've seen it already.
00:13:57
And if not, just type in elderly target woman you know, yelled
00:14:02
at. You know, I'm sure you'll find
00:14:03
it. But what did the old lady do?
00:14:06
She didn't scream back, she didn't insult her, she didn't
00:14:09
meltdown. She calmly said he's not a
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racist, have a nice day and tried to walk off.
00:14:16
That contrast tells you everything.
00:14:19
One side is fueled by moral tantrums and social media
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validation, the other wears a shirt, goes to work, and refuses
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to be bullied into silence. Let's be very clear about what
00:14:31
was happening here. This wasn't bravery on the
00:14:34
Karen's part. This wasn't activism.
00:14:36
It was self appointed hall monitor free ideology.
00:14:40
Who the hell does that woman thinks?
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Who does she think she is charging up on a senior citizen
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at her workplace like she was dispensing justice?
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That is the left in 2025, screaming moral superity while
00:14:52
knowing absolutely nothing except who they're supposed to
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hate. And here's the part that that
00:14:57
woman didn't anticipate. She hit record thinking she was
00:15:01
about to be crowned a hero in her community.
00:15:03
She thought the Internet was going to clap.
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She thought she'd get praise, likes job offers, maybe a
00:15:09
nonprofit board seat for standing up to hate.
00:15:13
Instead, reality showed up. And it keeps me hopeful.
00:15:18
Really didn't care about her feelings at all.
00:15:21
The video definitely went viral, as I mentioned, but not the way
00:15:24
she had hoped. Instead of applause, the
00:15:26
Internet chose a side. Turning Point USA invited the
00:15:29
elderly woman to an event. She got a 2 minute standing
00:15:33
ovation. A GoFundMe raised to $260,
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probably more by now, for having to go through that.
00:15:41
I'm guessing that the elderly woman doesn't need to work at
00:15:44
Target anymore and and good. Meanwhile, the woman who
00:15:48
harassed her. The most dangerous thing about
00:15:51
people like her isn't the screaming, it's the delusion.
00:15:56
She genuinely believed she was morally untouchable, that the
00:15:59
rules didn't apply to her, that her politics were a permission
00:16:02
slip. And when the illusion shattered,
00:16:04
she didn't apologize, she panicked.
00:16:07
She's not working either now, by the way, but for a different
00:16:10
reason. She was fired and good.
00:16:13
Not cancel culture. Nope, not oppression
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consequences. You don't get to scream
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obscenities at a random target employee in the name of virtue
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signalling, then film it, then post it and cry victim when
00:16:26
society decides you're the problem.
00:16:29
This is where we are now. The left performs outrage for
00:16:32
clout, the right quietly shows up, and when pushed far enough,
00:16:36
the public backs them. That incident wasn't an
00:16:39
exception, it was a mirror. So let's lightning around some
00:16:42
of the greatest hits of the left wing hypocrisy of 2025 because
00:16:47
there were a ton of them. Go back and watch the episodes.
00:16:51
I brought receipts every time Trump helped to stop or cool
00:16:55
multiple global conflicts. De escalation in Gaza as
00:16:59
mentioned. Pressure campaigns that shut
00:17:01
down proxy wars before they spread.
00:17:04
African conflicts that had been bloodbaths for decades.
00:17:08
No more, no new US wars. And the bombing of Iran was not
00:17:13
a war, no matter how much you want it as a talking point.
00:17:16
Somehow the same people who screamed World War three with
00:17:19
Trump. Oh they just stopped talking
00:17:23
about it. Funny how peace isn't impressive
00:17:25
when it doesn't come with a pride flag.
00:17:27
Then there is the daily buzzword machine.
00:17:30
I think 2025 just magnified that to no end.
00:17:34
We've all been called these things, racist, sexist, fascist.
00:17:38
These words mean nothing anymore because they used them on anyone
00:17:41
that they didn't agree with, usually because they had no
00:17:45
logic to begin with. It lets the people who are truly
00:17:49
these things true race fascists, neo Nazis.
00:17:55
It lets them off the hook quite a bit.
00:17:57
They like to yell racist while openly hating white people,
00:18:01
pushing race based policies, deciding skin color determines
00:18:05
guilt, sexist while cheering women, getting beaten up in
00:18:10
sports, stripped of records and told to shut up and share locker
00:18:14
rooms with biological men, penises and all.
00:18:18
Fascist. This one gets me probably the
00:18:19
most. Because you don't know what it
00:18:21
means. You shout that word while using
00:18:25
threats, coercion, censorship, de platforming, doxing, and
00:18:30
physical intimidation to enforce ideological compliance.
00:18:36
That's the definition. Which side's doing it.
00:18:39
You don't agree with them. You don't get debated.
00:18:41
You get labeled one of these things.
00:18:43
And once you're labeled, anything done to you is
00:18:46
justified. All of a sudden, that is not
00:18:48
tolerance. It's not progress.
00:18:51
It's definitely not compassion. That is true authoritarianism.
00:18:58
And here's the irony. They accuse everyone else of
00:19:01
violence while their side burns cities, blocks traffic,
00:19:05
intimidates judges, threatens politicians, and celebrates when
00:19:09
their enemies are hurt or killed.
00:19:12
There is nothing more hypocritical than that, ladies
00:19:16
and gentlemen. When the movement has to
00:19:18
redefine every word to survive, they've already lost.
00:19:23
So, as this year wraps up, here's the real take away.
00:19:26
For me, this summarizes everything for us here at Stay
00:19:31
in the Fray podcast. 2025 didn't just expose bad ideas, it
00:19:36
exposed an entire worldview slowly drifting into an
00:19:40
alternate universe 1 where words don't mean what they used to,
00:19:44
facts are optional, and outrage replaces thought.
00:19:48
My honest hope is that that fades in and continues to fade,
00:19:53
that this era becomes a blip, something future generations
00:19:57
look back at and say, yeah, that got weird for a minute.
00:20:02
But here's why I do this show, because getting to that point
00:20:06
where this becomes a blip isn't just automatic.
00:20:10
We need to help it. People don't have unlimited
00:20:14
time. I get that.
00:20:15
Most folks aren't sitting down to cross check sources or dig
00:20:19
through transcripts. They see a clip on Instagram,
00:20:22
headline on XA sound bite stripped of context BBC and they
00:20:27
run with it. And suddenly we're not debating
00:20:30
reality anymore. We're fighting over narratives
00:20:33
and headlines. My goal here is simple receipts.
00:20:39
I don't pretend to have every answer.
00:20:42
I don't pretend to know every detail about everything going
00:20:45
on. But I won't talk about things
00:20:47
that I can't back up, and I'll call out the people who do.
00:20:53
Friends will give me a hard time sometimes.
00:20:54
They say, Ryan, people really don't care as much as you think
00:20:59
they do. This is so few people in the big
00:21:02
scheme. And I don't agree because it's
00:21:06
the people who don't care, the ones who shrug, the ones who
00:21:09
look away and say it's really just not.
00:21:12
It's not. It's not that bad.
00:21:13
That worries me the most, probably.
00:21:16
That kind of complacency is how a country slowly stops being
00:21:19
what it was meant to be. Listen, I don't live in panic
00:21:23
mode. I can't.
00:21:25
Sometimes I have to check out mentally, especially with all
00:21:29
the trolls on social media I need to check out.
00:21:34
I need to be a dad, be a husband, be a friend, touch
00:21:38
grass, live life, play golf, watch football.
00:21:42
But pretending none of this is happening at all, That scares me
00:21:46
more than the chaos itself. So if you've been here this
00:21:49
year, thank you. 2025 helped me grow to sharpen my focus and
00:21:56
double down on calling out hypocrisy and the real danger
00:21:59
behind the woke Left's Moral theater.
00:22:03
Season 6, which is most of 2025, matters.
00:22:08
Check it out if you haven't, go back and look at some of the
00:22:11
commentary that I've I've given on a lot of these things.
00:22:14
It's not just delivering you what happened, it's trying to
00:22:17
look at it from reality, from a perspective that isn't rhetoric.
00:22:23
And in 2026, I don't know exactly what Season 7 will look
00:22:26
like. I may change some things.
00:22:29
I may take a different approach to things.
00:22:31
I do know this. I will keep showing up.
00:22:34
Keep it honest and I'll keep it entertaining.
00:22:37
I'll be bringing on guests from every possible viewpoint.
00:22:39
I know I've said that before. Kids and time have taken over,
00:22:46
but it I am going to have more guests.
00:22:48
So if you're tired of just hearing me talk, there will
00:22:52
still be a reason to swing on by all I ask, like the show,
00:22:57
subscribe all those things, pass it to one other person, one
00:23:01
that's either like minded to us and wants to maybe vent through
00:23:06
somebody or people on the other side that may just need to hear
00:23:11
it. I appreciate all of you more
00:23:14
than you'll ever know. This show does not exist without
00:23:18
the people on our side and the other side hopefully listening,
00:23:23
thinking and pushing back. I welcome that.
00:23:28
I truly wish everybody the best 2026 that you can possibly have.
00:23:34
So until then, stay curious, stay sharp, stay honest, stay in
00:23:42
the fray. I love you guys, just