The hell with 2025. Donald Trump came roaring back into office and immediately unleashed the political equivalent of shock and awe—testing institutions, normalizing cruelty, and doing real damage faster than anyone should be comfortable with. It’s been exhausting, infuriating, and at times surreal to cover, and even a fraction of the way into his term, the harm he’s caused will take years—maybe decades—to undo.
But this is also the year our staff dug in and did some of their most meaningful work. In the middle of the chaos, they never wavered in their duty to bring to light the horrors of this administration, helping readers make sense of what was actually happening in our country.
What follows isn’t a list of what performed best or went most viral—it’s a collection of the stories our writers themselves are proudest of. The ones that felt important to write, important to get right, and important to share as we head into the next phase of this fight.
Alix Breeden
Freeing Widmer: An aunt’s journey to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison
This story follows Jhoanna Sanguino’s painful, determined journey to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison to seek proof of his well-being and advocate for the release of her nephew—a Venezuelan man detained there after being deported by the U.S.This piece highlights the human cost of immigration policy and the brutal conditions at one of the region’s most infamous detention centers.
Walter Einenkel:
Zelenskyy turns the tables on MAGA fashion police
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has played Trump as well as anyone can. Hasn’t always worked, but he does score his victories.
Lisa Needham:
Maybe the judges should be the ones moving fast and breaking things
The courts are still treating the Trump administration with bizarre deference. That needs to change.
Alex Samuels:
Insurgent Democrats make waves—while Trump’s economic approval sinks
Fantastic data analysis of how the public is souring on Trump because of the economy.
Emily Singer:
Why Democrats won the government shutdown
As progressives vented at the cave of a handful of Democrats on the government shutdown, Emily explained why the shutdown was a victory for Democrats. Given that they then went on to win decisively in the November off-year elections, it seems to me Emily was right.
Oliver Willis:
Americans reject MAGA meanness as ‘Superman’ soars
One of my favorite stories this year as well, as “Superman” crushed at the box office despite a MAGA effort to boycott the movie as “woke.”
Me:
They created this violent world. We're just forced to live in it.
As the right tried to make “left-wing violence” a thing in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination, I noted how Kirk himself said he was willing to sacrifice lives for the Second Amendment. In our liberal utopia, he wouldn’t have had to die for his principles.
