With 2020 still new and promising — or, if you prefer, depressing and terrifying — maybe it’s time to highlight a few uncontroverted milestones, plainly evident at the dawn of a new decade.

My thought is hardly original. In fact, it’s taken directly from the Pew Research Center which, each year, publishes a list of some of its most striking research findings from the previous year — a compilation of hundreds of reports, blog posts, digital essays and other studies examining key social and political changes shaping life in the United States.

One prominent Pew finding is especially relevant this year: “Hispanics are projected to be the largest racial or ethnic minority group in the 2020 U.S. electorate, overtaking the number of black eligible voters for the first time.” In absolute numbers, a projected 32 million Hispanics will be eligible to vote this year, compared with 30 million black adults.

Together, these nonwhites (along with another 11 million Asian voters) will account for one third of all voters, “their largest share ever.” And, as we already know, the U.S. is on an irreversible path toward becoming a “majority-minority” country — projected to occur sometime in the next 20-25 years, at which time the overall white population will slip below 50%.

The long-term implications of this seismic shift in demographics are far-reaching — for our politics and for our social order. For instance, with the prospect of such profound, permanent diversity nationwide, how can one political party (the GOP) remain vital if it continues to trend so conspicuously and overwhelmingly white?

Will we, finally, reach a point where a replacement or third party might surface, altering the tribal divisions we see today? Moreover, how much longer can presidential elections concentrate so heavily on two of the whitest states in the nation (Iowa and New Hampshire)?

Another notable change reported by Pew is the continuing “decline of Christianity.” While nearly 65% of U.S. adults still describe themselves as Christian, that figure is down 12 percentage points, just since 2009. Meanwhile, the share of “nones” — religiously unaffiliated adults who describe their religion as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” — has grown from 17% to 26%.

Pew also reports that 2018 marked the first time in recent history that the U.S. did not lead the world in admitting refugees. It’s clear, the Trump Administration is perfectly comfortable closing America’s doors and abdicating U.S. leadership — brazenly turning its back on the nation’s long and proud history of welcoming refugees.

Separately, Pew found that most Americans now accept the fact that they can no longer go about their daily lives without corporate and government entities collecting their personal data. A begrudging acknowledgement, for sure. But what choice does anyone have, given how easily mobile phones can be traced and how ubiquitous surveillance methods have become?

Compounding the loss of personal privacy is the daily challenge of navigating today’s boundless cascade of information To illustrate, Pew found that one person, watching videos eight hours a day, would need more than 16 years to watch all the content posted just on YouTube’s most popular channels — during a single week.

Far worse than information overload, however, are the shadowy forces purposely spreading disinformation or plotting outright falsehoods in every nook and cranny of cyberspace.

Before the emergence of unfettered, unstructured web browsing, most Americans looked to certain filters to help gather news and information — chief among them being the daily newspaper. Now, newspapers, especially local newspapers, are shrinking and fading away. Pew reports that U.S. newspaper circulation has fallen to its lowest level in 80 years.

With readers shifting to electronic sources and only a small segment of adults still willing to pay for journalism that counts (only 14%, according to Pew), it means more citizens increasingly dependent on computer-generated algorithms (instead of humans) to produce the information they receive. It also means fewer resources capable of holding local officials accountable.

As we leave behind a purported impeachment “trial,” and rush headlong into a national election of monumental consequences, let’s not lose sight of certain unrelenting phenomena of daily life that are likely to shape America’s future even more than any single election.

Carl Ramey, a retired Washington communications attorney and monthly contributor to The Sun, lives in Gainesville.