The new year has begun the way 2016 ended—fraught with unsettling challenges. Typical year-to-year political carryover is scary enough. But 2017 is no typical year; it marks the beginning of a new era in U.S. politics, a seismic shift not only in the meaning of politics and how it gets done, but also in how we deal with it.

On Jan. 10, when President Barack Obama gives his farewell speech in his hometown of Chicago, he’ll recite for the record a litany of breakthroughs, progress and accomplishments the nation experienced under his two terms in office. On Jan. 20, when President Donald J. Trump takes the helm, he’ll give a snapshot, in his inaugural address, of the sweeping changes his fear-inducing administration will make.

The changes they have made or will make notwithstanding, the question, says Leid Stories, is: What changes have we made?