Welcome back to the second of our year-end awards columns! And if you missed it last Friday, go check out [Part 1] as well.

It was a rather eventful week in politics this week, as Elon Musk completely eclipsed Donald Trump as the biggest bomb-thrower in the Republican Party. He was so spectacularly good at blowing everything up that none other than Newt Gingrich (the original Republican bomb-thrower) suggested the incoming House of Representatives should elect him speaker. Democrats are smirking on the sidelines and calling him "President Musk," in an effort to get under Trump's infamously thin skin, so we'll have to see where all of this goes in the coming days. As of this writing, House Democrats took pity on Speaker Johnson and provided him with enough votes to pass a continuing resolution that will avoid a government shutdown at midnight -- but still, 34 Republicans voted against it. One has to wonder whether that will spark Musk's rage or not... oh, beg your pardon... we meant to say Trump's rage, of course (heh).

All we've got to say about the legislative Dumpster fire that was the past few days is: Welcome to the next few years! Buckle in, it's going to be a wild ride, that much is for certain.

But we've got to put current events aside, because it is time to finish up our year-end awards columns with this week's [Part 2] offering. As always, we must begin with a warning for all readers. It's long. Really, really long. Horrendously long. Insanely long. It takes a lot of stamina to read all the way to the end. You have been duly warned! But because it is so long, we certainly don't want to add any more here at the start, so let's just dive in, shall we?

 

   Destined For Political Stardom

Robert F. Kennedy Junior's brain worm, maybe?

Kidding aside, we had two big contenders for this award, both from the Republican side of the aisle. Both have a shot at the same entry-point into political stardom, but one is only aspirational right now, while one is a lot more solid.

First, the runner-up. Lara Trump, the wife of Eric Trump, became co-chair of the Republican National Committee early this year, so that the R.N.C. would be fully under the thumb of her father-in-law throughout the election season. She resigned from this position earlier this month, and reportedly really wants to be Florida's next senator.

She won't have to convince Florida voters to put her there, she only has to convince one of them -- Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Since Donald Trump will be nominating Marco Rubio (one of the state's current senators) to lead the State Department, there will be a vacancy (assuming Rubio is confirmed, which seems a pretty safe bet at this point). So DeSantis could just name her to the Senate and she'd waltz into the position without having to go through an election to get there.

However, Donald Trump doesn't seem to be pushing this idea very hard, and DeSantis could name anyone he wants, so it's not like it's a done deal yet. If Lara does make it to the Senate, she would be in line to carry on the Trump dynastic name, though.

However, we're going to give Destined For Political Stardom to JD Vance instead, who is also currently a senator but in January will be sworn in as Trump's vice president. Even though he's not related to the Trump clan, he will then become the true heir apparent to the Trump political machine.

Trump, after all, is going to start as a lame duck. He can't win re-election again (due to that pesky Twenty-Second Amendment), therefore someone is going to have to carry the MAGA torch forward in the 2028 election. And Vance has positioned himself to be that torch-carrier.

Whether he wins or not, it does seem like JD Vance is going to have a bright future in the Republican Party, which is why we're handing him this year's Destined For Political Stardom award.

 

   Destined For Political Oblivion

We've got an absolute plethora of nominees to choose from here.

Merrick Garland, for starters.

Marianne Williamson? One can only hope.

Matt Gaetz? Ditto.

We would include Rudy Giuliani again, but we think he's already achieved political oblivion, personally.

Mitch McConnell, after he steps down. And good riddance, too.

Mark Robinson, one would sincerely like to believe.

The "never Trumpers" as a force within the Republican Party -- not that they ever were all that powerful a force, but they're going into hibernation for the next four years, that's for sure.

We thought about Tim Walz, but who knows -- he might have a second act. Stranger things have happened.

We also would hope that Elon Musk is headed for political oblivion, but we're not so sure about that one -- call it wishful thinking, for now.

Which brings us to our two real runners-up and our two winners.

Second runner-up in the Destined For Political Oblivion category is the No Labels movement, based on the seriously flawed premise that Americans are hungering for a presidential/vice-presidential split ticket between the two major parties. No Labels seems destined for the ash heap of history, especially now that Joe Lieberman is dead.

First runner-up is the Commission on Presidential Debates, which has likely outlived its purpose. Created to bring some sort of neutral referee to the process of the debates, for the first time this year it was completely and utterly ignored. The two campaigns (three, really, counting both the Biden and the Harris campaigns) negotiated directly with the television networks, and we think it is likely that this is the way things will happen for at least the next few presidential cycles.

But our winners are -- and once again, we sincerely hope we are right about this one -- Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin. Both didn't even bother running for re-election, Manchin because he knew he'd lose and Sinema because she was greedily eyeing cashing in on her notoriety in a big way. Both were the most disgusting "pay to play" politicians imaginable, defending the agenda of whomever gave them gobs of campaign cash, and they'll now both be free to cash in directly rather than have to cycle it all through campaign accounts. Now they'll be able to stick all that filthy lucre directly into their pockets. They may still stick around behind the scenes, but both are indeed Destined For Political Oblivion.

 

   Best Political Theater

We did get a tongue-in-cheek nomination from reader nypoet22 that the play Hamilton was the Best Political Theater of the year, which did make us laugh, we have to admit.

Another amusing idea would be to give the award to the "Trump Debt Counter" which shows a running total of how much Donald Trump owes to the state of New York (with interest), after losing his civil fraud trial in court. As of this writing, it is nearing $500 million... and counting....

We could give the award in a "dog that didn't bark in the night" sort of way, by awrding the Best Political Theater to the Mayorkas impeachment trial in the Senate -- which didn't actaully happen. They voted to just dismiss the entire thing from the get-go, to deny the House Republicans their dog-and-pony show. That was pretty good political theater, we have to admit.

A case could be made for the presidential debates, as they were both riveting and (in the case of Biden's) quite impactful, but somehow we felt that "best" is perhaps not the best adjective to use (in any award given to the debates).

But instead, even though we cringe at the concept, we have to give the Best Political Theater award to Trump's reaction to the first assassination attempt against him. He milked it for all it was worth, and the moment will definitely go down in American history right up there with Teddy Roosevelt getting shot in the chest and then delivering a one-hour speech -- with the bullet still lodged in his body -- before he sought medical attention for the wound (look it up).

Trump's innate showmanship kicked in, he knew the cameras were on him, and his raised fist and chant of "Fight! Fight! Fight!" were (loath as we are to admit it) the Best Political Theater of the year.

 

   Worst Political Theater

Um... what's going on in Congress right now, maybe? Elon Musk grabs the spotlight by tanking a budget deal with only days to go until a government shutdown, while Donald Trump meekly follows Musk's lead? This has led Democrats to begin calling him "President Musk," while relegating Trump to vice president, at best. And for what? For absolutely nothing. Musk spread a whole bunch of vicious lies about what was in the budget deal which had no basis in reality, while Trump decided he wanted the debt ceiling abolished (which isn't going to be part of whatever emerges as an eventual face-saving deal). The whole thing was very bad political theater from the start, and it presages a whole lot of very bad political theater to come.

Getting back to the rest of the year, though....

The "impeach everybody" impulse among House Republicans was nothing more than the worst political theater imaginable. They failed to impeach Joe Biden (their main target), and had to settle for impeaching the first sitting cabinet member ever, for no particular reason -- and then the Senate just thumbed their noses at the entire bad theater exercise.

We would say "R.F.K. Jr.'s Nepo Baby Super Bowl ad," but we already gave it another award....

The guy who died from self-immolation outside the Trump trial in New York was horrifyingly bad theater, but it wasn't exactly political in nature, the guy was just insane, so we had to say that doesn't really qualify.

Biden's disastrous debate performance was pretty bad political theater, but we're only going to award that the runner-up.

Because the Worst Political Theater of the year was No Labels spending tens of millions of dollars to get their "political party" (it wasn't, technically) on the ballot in a number of states, only to crumble in the end because they couldn't convince anyone to use this groundwork to run for president. The whole thing was an exercise in futility, born of the warped notion that "both parties are too extreme" and the public was hungering for some sort of "centrist" ticket composed of one Republican and one Democrat. Neither was true, and the entire effort was nothing more than a stalking horse that would have helped Trump get elected. It was bad political theater from beginning to end.

 

   Worst Political Scandal

This one was a tough one, because we had some doozies to choose from this year. First and foremost was Donald Trump's election interference case for paying hush money to a porn star and then cooking the books to cover it up, during the 2016 election. For the first time in American history, a former U.S. president was found guilty of not just one felony, but 34 of them. This was indeed "worst" in a lot of ways, but the upshot of it all was that it didn't matter one bit to his electoral chances.

On the other side of the aisle, there was the effort by the White House staff to cover up what must have been rather obvious to them -- President Joe Biden's mental decline. This didn't become painfully apparent to the public until he held his debate with Donald Trump, but it must have been apparent to those working closely with Trump in the White House long before then.

There were other contenders for Worst Political Scandal as well -- Matt Gaetz (the full extent of which won't be known for a few days, when the House Ethics Committee report on Gaetz is publicly released), New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Senator Robert Menendez being found guilty of accepting bribes from foreign entities, and North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson's mind-blowingly offensive comments on the porn site he regularly visited.

But we're going to give Worst Political Scandal to Fani Willis, for hiring her boyfriend to work on the case she was putting together against Donald Trump (and all his henchmen) for election interference in Georgia.

Although Willis was aiming high (charging Trump with RICO crimes), it was a pretty easy case to prove -- there was that recording of Trump's "All I need is 11,780 votes" phone call with Georgia Republicans, begging them to overturn their state's 2020 election result.

But that case never went to trial, and it is quite likely that it never will, now. Because Willis thought that ethical rules didn't apply to her (or something -- it's pretty hard to figure out what she was really thinking).

This case was at the state level, meaning Trump's friendly Supreme Court couldn't have interfered in it (much). And the evidence was pretty obvious (that phone call). If it had gone to trial this year, it could have changed the entire dynamic of the presidential race. Instead, it was bogged down in rulings about the Willis scandal itself all year, which has to be laid at the feet of Willis.

So like we said, this was a tough choice, but we're going to give Worst Political Scandal to Fani Willis for her romantic hijinks sinking what could have been a solid conviction against Donald Trump.

 

   Most Underreported Story

This one is easy: Donald Trump is old, too.

The media spent all kinds of time covering -- in excruciating detail -- the fact that Joe Biden was pretty darn old and was slipping a few mental gears, but applied a jaw-dropping double standard to examining Donald Trump on the same basis. Trump got away with mental lapses that were far worse than anything Biden did all year (including the debate), without covering it with anything more than a shrug and: "Trump's just being Trump again, whaddyagonnado?"

Our favortie was when Trump, during the campaign, bragged about a cognitive test (once again speaking of it as some kind of I.Q. test, which it is not) and challenged Biden to take one -- while getting the name of the doctor who administered the test to Trump wrong. There's a quick cognitive test for you, and Trump failed it.

Trump spoke of how much better off everyone was "four years ago," even though America was in the grips of the COVID pandemic and economic life was in tatters -- which the media failed to point out (call it a sub-category of Most Underreported Story).

Trump got so many facts wrong he started demanding that any interviews he did not have any fact-checking. The media barely bothered to point out any of the multitude of facts Trump got wrong at all, though -- he really didn't have all that much to worry about.

Trump mispronounced words constantly, slurred his speaking, lost his train of thought (which he tried to put a positive spin on, calling it "the weave" as if it was a mark of brilliance instead of a mark of an addled mind that couldn't stay on subject for more than a few seconds at a time), misunderstood questions, got facts unbelievably wrong, mixed up people constantly (such as complaining about Nancy Pelosi when asked about Nikki Haley), and suffered what can only be called fugue states on several occasions.

The most notable of these fugue states came during a televised town hall, where after answering only a few questions Trump forced everyone to just listen to his playlist of music while he moved his arms around occasionally (to even call it "dancing" is ridiculous) for a whopping 39 minutes. The New York Times reported on the shocking incident by "sane-washing" it into something much more benign:

Mr. Trump, a political candidate known for improvisational departures, made a detour. Rather than try to restart the political program, he seemed to decide in the moment that it would be more enjoyable for all concerned -- and, it appeared, for himself -- to just listen to music instead.

Now just imagine what the press would have said if Joe Biden had drifted off for 39 minutes during a town hall. They would have spent an entire week discussing Biden's fitness for office, interviewing experts and medical professionals on the question of geriatric mental decline. None of that happened for Trump. You know, because it was just "Trump being Trump."

Need more proof? Trump on several occasions tried to explain what were obviously radically new concepts to him to his adoring crowds. Only problem was, these were concepts that everyone in America already knew and did not need explained. Here's one example quote, as Trump spoke about immigrants:

They have a phone app so that people can come into our country. These are smart immigrants, I guess, because most people don't have any idea what the hell a phone app is.

OK, Grandpa... sure... most people have no clue what a phone app is... why don't you just go sit on the porch for a while and calm down... wouldn't that be nice?

For those willing to give Trump a pass on technology, here he is mangling his own native language while Trump-splaining the concept that other people (gasp!) actually don't speak English! Who knew?

Nobody can explain to me how allowing millions of people from places unknown, from countries unknown, who don't speak languages. We have languages coming into our country. We have nobody that even speaks those languages. They're truly foreign languages. Nobody speaks them.

What would the press have said if Joe Biden had uttered a sentence like "We have languages coming into our country"? Or said immigrants "don't speak languages"?

Here's an even more astounding example of Trump-splaining. In October, Trump apparently learned a new word:

I have more complaints on "grocery." The word "grocery," it's sort of a simple word. But it sort of means, like, everything you eat. The stomach is speaking, it always does.

Seriously? Trump thought he was showing his brilliance by defining a word -- and using it wrong (as a singular noun, which nobody ever does) -- which everyone who speaks English already knows? After he was elected, he (as is his wont) tried to claim credit for introducing the word to the American vernacular:

I won on groceries. Very simple word, "groceries." Like almost -- you know, who uses the word? I started using the word -- "the groceries."

Not exactly a textbook definition of a "stable genius," is it? At least he had learned by then that you're supposed to use it as a plural, we suppose.

And yet throughout it all -- all the stumbles, verbal gaffes, out-of-touch meanderings, mental lapses and fugue states -- somehow it wasn't a story worth the media's time to pursue. Which makes "Trump is old, too" the Most Underreported Story of the year, hands down.

 

   Most Overreported Story

The trial of Donald Trump was pretty heavily overreported, we have to admit. The media went into an absolute frenzy, which was exacerbated by the fact that there were no cameras allowed in the courtroom. So we got lots of courtroom artists' renditions of Trump falling asleep and glowering at the courtroom.

But to be fair, it was a big story. The first former president to face a criminal trial in all of history deserved to be heavily reported.

Which is why we're going to instead give Most Overreported Story to the primaries. There simply was no story. There were no valid challengers on the Democratic side, and the ones on the Republican side never had a chance. Ron DeSantis was supposed to somehow be the man who would swoop in and save the Republican Party from Trump, but he was so pathetically uninspiring that it was laughable, in the end. Nikki Haley could never figure out whether she was trying to praise Trump or rip into him, and the GOP voters never put her within reach of beating him even in a single state (even her own home state).

There just was no story to tell in either party's primaries. But that didn't stop the media from trying to tell the non-story with as many words as they could. Which is why the entire 2024 primary season was the Most Overreported Story of the year. There just was no there, there.

 

   Biggest Government Waste

We considered giving the Biggest Government Waste to the impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, since it was a gigantic waste of everyone's time, but then we saw reader nypoet22's suggestion and had to agree.

The Biggest Government Waste were the trials of Hunter Biden. He was ready to enter a plea deal, after all. He thought he and his lawyers had worked one out. And then the judge rejected it. After which, the government could have gone back to the bargaining table and worked out a slightly different plea deal and saved everyone a lot of time and money. Biden knew he was technically guilty of the crimes he was charged with, but he also knew that these crimes were seldom prosecuted on their own (absent more serious charges being attached to them), so they could have worked something out pretty easily -- if he hadn't been the sitting president's son.

Politics intervened. Republicans were screaming for Hunter's head on a pike, and so the Justice Department went back and threw the book at him instead. One trial was held and Hunter was found guilty, and right before his second trial he went ahead and entered a guilty plea, but the entire thing could have been easily avoided.

So we have to agree -- the Biggest Government Waste was all the time and effort spent hounding Hunter Biden for no reason other than politics. No wonder his father pardoned him, in the end.

 

   Best Government Dollar Spent

We're going to hand this award in a generic fashion to "every dollar spent on every program that Joe Biden got through Congress that improved the American economy or individual Americans' lives -- that neither Biden nor the White House communications team nor the political media nor the Democratic Party ever bothered to make a huge stinkin' deal about."

(Sigh...)

If pressed, we'd have to single out "negotiating through Medicare to bring prescription drug prices down," or (a program which won't begin until 2025, sadly enough) "capping prescription drug out-of-pocket costs at $2,000 for those on Medicare." Next year, seniors will only have to pay $2,000 and then all their prescription drugs for the rest of the year will be free to them -- which (undoubtedly) Donald Trump will unjustly try to claim credit for.

Why oh why can't Democrats ever learn to toot their own horn effectively?

(Sigh.)

 

   Boldest Political Tactic

Kristi Noem writing about shooting the family dog to death in a gravel pit? That was a pretty bold thing to do, you've got to admit!

But seriously, we had such a hard time with this one that we're going to punt and award it to the top three nominees in the category, because all were so unprecedented and equally bold political tactics.

The first was Joe Biden dropping out of the campaign in the middle of the summer. No sitting president has dropped out at such a late date before in modern times, and it was a very bold thing to do (although it would have been a lot more helpful if Biden had decided to do this a lot earlier in the race -- before the primaries had happened, say...).

The second was Donald Trump running for president in a naked bid to stay out of jail. This was beyond bold, it was jaw-droppingly astounding. Trump figured that if he won, all his legal problems would melt away like the morning dew, and even if he lost he could blame the whole thing on those dastardly Democrats "weaponizing the legal system" against him. For anyone else in politics, this wouldn't have worked. For Trump, it worked like a charm.

And lastly, Elon Musk openly buying his way into power. This sort of thing used to happen a lot more quietly, behind closed doors. Elon figured, with Trump out there running to stay out of jail, who cares anymore? And (so far, at least) it turns out he was right. Musk knew that the elections laws were no more than a joke, since any penalties are imposed long after the election is over, so he just offered up a raffle and started handing out million-dollar prizes to Trump supporters, both to gin up excitement and to get his own name in the campaign news. Since Trump won, Musk has been so blatant about using his leverage (this week is a prime example) that people first started calling him (after he used the term himself) Trump's "First Buddy," then "co-president" or "shadow president," until finally just calling him what he now seems to be: "President Musk."

All three were so equally bold that they all deserve Boldest Political Tactic (even if we do admit it is a cop-out not to pick just one of them).

 

   Best Idea

We would say "ending income taxes for tips," since it is such a good idea that both Trump and Kamala Harris began supporting it (neither one of them thought it up on their own, by the way), and since the income tax code and the minimum wage laws so royally screw over tipped workers (ask a waitress, they'll explain it to you at length).

But instead, we're going all symbolic on this one.

The Best Idea of the year was to make the bald eagle the "national bird." This was the brainchild of a single person, Preston Cook, who pretty much singlehandedly got his idea through the Byzantine maze of congressional legislation this year -- since once he turned 78 years old he knew he didn't have a whole lot of time left to make it happen.

But he did, and what everyone assumed was already true will now become an official reality. The bald eagle has been our nation's symbol from the very beginning (much to the disgust of Benjamin Franklin, famously), but has never been proclaimed our national bird before now.

The whole story is an endearing one, which is why we had to award it the Best Idea of the year.

 

   Worst Idea

There were a lot of very bad ideas this year to choose from, sad to say. Let's just quickly run down the list (in no particular order):

Democrats not calling Trump a "sore loser" for the past four years, every chance they could get.

Fani Willis hiring her boyfriend to work on the case against Donald Trump.

The Alabama supreme court deciding that in-vitro fertilization practices are the legal equivalent of murder.

The Arizona supreme court deciding that an anti-abortion law from Civil War times was still constitutional and valid -- a law so Draconian that even Republicans balked and overturned it within days of the decision being announced.

Bringing back the Comstock Act.

Andrew Cuomo making a comeback as New York City's mayor, because why not trade one scandal-ridden politician for another one?

Trump filming a campaign ad at Arlington National Cemetery, shoving a worker who tried to stop them aside, and then appearing in a photo over a dead soldier's grave with a big smile while giving a "thumbs up" sign.

Allowing Elon Musk to "audit" the federal government with his "Department Of Government Efficiency."

Joe Biden deciding to run for a second term in office.

But all of these paled when stacked up against the Worst Idea of them all -- the United States Supreme Court bestowing kingly powers upon the president by declaring that anything any president does that can be called an "official act" -- up to and including ordering SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival -- is not only immune from prosecution forever, but that it can't even be brought up in a trial accusing an ex-president of an illegal unofficial act. We're all going to pay the price for this horrendously bad decision, quite possibly in the very near future. It was without doubt not only the worst decision the Supreme Court has made since Citizens United, but the Worst Idea of 2024.

 

   Sorry To See You Go

This can always be interpreted as "exited the spotlight" or "passed away." We tend to keep the two separate, and our main list only contains those who shuffled off this mortal coil forever this year. We'd also like to thank reader nypoet22, to give credit where it is due, for providing a goodly chunk of our list this year.

Before we get to the serious list, however, we have a few snarky things to say. We will indeed be sorry to see President Biden go, and look forward to his approval rating going up in the years to come as historians mark his legacy for what it truly was: one of the most progressive and productive presidencies in the last half-century (at the very least). The crisis of COVID gave rise to the opportunity for Democrats to pass some very sweeping legislation that even today is not appreciated for all the positive changes it made. Some day it will, however.

As usual, we have our "NOT sorry to see you go" list as well, which includes one politician who passed away (Joe Lieberman) as well as four who have merely exited the political stage (Matt Gaetz, Kyrsten Sinema, and Joe Manchin).

But more seriously, here is this year's list of people who deserve mourning or at least noting their passing. Here are the people on our Sorry To See You Go list:

• Phil Lesh
• Quincy Jones
• Teri Garr
• Carl Weathers
• Nikki Giovanni
• James Earl Jones
• Phil Donahue
• Shannen Doherty
• Dr. Ruth Westheimer
• Donald Sutherland
• Charles Osgood
• Dickey Betts
• Willie Mays
• Kinky Friedman
• Richard Simmons
• Bob Newhart
• Kris Kristofferson
• Pete Rose
• Mitzi Gaynor
• Ethel Kennedy
• Maggie Smith
• Shelley Duvall
• Alexei Navalny
• David Soul ("Hutch")

 

   15 Minutes Of Fame

As always, with the obligatory genuflection towards wherever Andy Warhol is buried (Pittsburgh, one would assume?)....

Here is our 15 Minutes Of Fame list for the year:

R.F.K. Jr.'s brain worm.

R.F.K. Jr.'s dead bear carcass.

R.F.K. Jr.'s dead whale carcass, the head of which was chainsawed off and transported home on top of the family station wagon.

The Trump assassin (both of them, really).

The health insurance C.E.O. assassin.

Don Blankenship, who ran for the Senate in West Virginia as a Democrat. The former C.E.O. of Massey Energy, which was responsible for the death of 29 workers in a mine explosion, for which Blankenship served a year in federal prison. When he announced his candidacy to fill the retiring Joe Manchin's seat, the head of the West Virginia Democratic Party immediately disavowed him, calling him: "Blankenship, or as he'll forever be known, federal prisoner 12393-088." But that wasn't why he's on this list. Instead, it was for his campaign slogan, which is a contender for "most bizarre campaign slogan ever." He ran several campaign ads with the repeated tagline: "If they tell you I fell out of bed and hung myself: I didn't." We don't have a clue what he meant by this, but boy it sure was memorable. For about 15 minutes, that is....

On the brighter side of things (to end on, here), Jimmy Carter, the first former president to ever last until his 100th birthday, certainly deserves his 15 Minutes Of Fame this year. Many happy returns, Jimmy!

 

   Best Spin

Some pretty good spin came out of the Harris/Walz campaign, most notably Walz calling Trump and Vance "weird." The best press release they put out was after a particularly incoherent press conference Trump gave, which was titled: "Split Screen: Joy and Freedom vs. Whatever The Hell That Was."

But the best spin of the year was an old slogan that should really need no explanation. After watching most of Trump's legal strategy of delay, delay, delay actually work wonders for him in his various criminal trials (except for the porn star one in New York), we have to say the Best Spin of the year was: "Justice delayed is justice denied."

 

   Worst Spin

The House Republican hothead caucus was at one point frightened that the speaker was somehow going to sneak a vote onto the House floor without warning them, catching them off-guard and allowing some actual business to be conducted. So they set up a sentry system where one of them was always on guard against such sneaky moves (by their own party's speaker, mind you). To make it sound impressive (you cannot make this stuff up, folks!) they gave it a snazzy name: the "Floor Action Response Team." [Cue: Beavis and Butt-Head style laughter... "Huh huh huh huh... yeah... they're silent... but deadly!"]

Team Biden -- while the debate was still happening -- rolling out their spin for why Joe was going down in flames: "He has a cold." That was some Grade-A bad spin, folks.

But the Worst Spin of the year (which was introduced to explain how bad he was at the art of spinning, in a way) was Donald Trump insisting that he wasn't some doddering idiot of a septuagenarian who couldn't for the life of him finish a coherent thought -- instead going on endless tangents down endless rabbit holes -- but it all was instead a mark of his sheer brilliance.

Yes, the Worst Spin of the year was indeed "the weave."

 

   Most Honest Person

A little late, but brutally honest. Retired four-star Marine General John F. Kelly made such a big splash in the news a little over a week before the election happened that Republicans started calling it an "October surprise." But what he said is undeniably true. Here's how we wrote about it at the time:

Today the political world is in a tizzy as Democrats from Kamala Harris on down have latched on to a recent New York Times article in which Donald Trump's longest-serving White House chief of staff, retired four-star Marine General John F. Kelly, stated that he believed Donald Trump fit the definition of a fascist. Here's how he defined the term fascism: "It's a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy." That's pretty close to that dictionary definition, you've got to admit.

Kelly then applied the definition to Trump: "Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he's certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators -- he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure." Republicans called the whole thing a weak attempt at an October surprise.

Granted, it may have been too little, too late (perhaps he should have said this at the start of the campaign instead of at the end?), but for standing up and saying it, we have to give the Most Honest Person award to General Kelly.

 

   Biggest Liar

This one's pretty easy. Almost by default, at this point, the Biggest Liar of the year was once again Donald Trump. It'd be almost impossible (a Herculean task, at any rate) to quantify the number of lies Trump told during his campaign, all year long. There were whoppers, there were head-scratchers, there were lies of omission, there were lies where Trump just obviously had no idea what he was talking about, and plenty of garden-variety lies in between all of those.

In fact, we have an easy prediction here -- Donald Trump is quite likely to sweep this category for the next four years to come as well, since nobody lies like he can. Donald Trump is the Biggest Liar American politics has ever seen, hands down. There's really no competition, even.

 

   Most Overrated

Donald Trump's dance moves?

Seriously, though, we have one runner-up here and a sort of three-way tie that is really just one idea writ large.

Our runner-up is "public opinion polls." Add this to the growing number of things the American people just don't trust anymore -- with good reason, in this case.

And two facets of our winner are people: Merrick Garland and Jack Smith. Both were lauded when they first appeared on the scene as being stalwart defenders of justice, but in the end both fell down on the job. Garland, for wasting two entire years before seriously investigating Donald Trump, and Smith, for not being nearly smart enough to outwit Trump's "delay, delay, delay" legal team. But we're wrapping both of these into a much bigger-picture concept, as our Most Overrated winner is "the guardrails of democracy."

We're all about to find out how flimsy and ineffective these guardrails are. There are still those who trust that Donald Trump will somehow be constrained by tradition, or "unwritten rules," or the institutional strength of our government, or the courts themselves. Trump will blow through all of these (with the possible except of the lower courts, but then again he's got the Supreme Court in his back pocket now, so that doesn't even matter much) over the next four years. The vaunted "guardrails of democracy" only work when the concept of shame still exists in the body politic. And with Trump, that went out the window a long time ago.

 

   Most Underrated

The Most Underrated of the year were all the down-ballot Democrats who won tough races. This wasn't a gigantic landslide year for the Republicans. Trump did well (although nowhere near a landslide), but his coattails weren't all that effective. Republicans did wrest control of the Senate back, but they actually lost a seat in the House, in an otherwise-favorable year for them. If Trump's coattails were stronger, Republicans might now have north of 55 senators, but they don't. Once again, they nominated some real doozies who went on to lose what could have been winnable races for them.

This was because the down-ballot Democrats outperformed the top of the ticket. Which is why we are giving all the down-ballot Democrats who managed to beat expectations the Most Underrated award for the year.

 

   Predictions

As always, let's start with a scorecard of what we got right last year and what we got laughably wrong. Here's our list of 2024 predictions, from last year's column:

Speaker Mike Johnson will cut a deal in January with Democrats and the federal budget will pass without the government shutting down. Almost all of the poison-pill stuff the MAGA Chaos Caucus demanded will wind up on the cutting room floor. But in the end (through sheer exhaustion with the process involved), Johnson will survive as speaker for the rest of the year.

A deal on the border and immigration will be cut between Biden and the Republicans, and the supplemental package of military aid to Israel and Ukraine will pass with the border deal. Biden will be seen by many on the left as having caved on immigration, but it will turn out to be a smart political move that helps Biden in the general election campaign.

Ukraine and Russia enter into talks to end the war, but they are not resolved by the end of the year and the fighting goes on in a long stalemate.

The Supreme Court will rule that Trump can appear on the presidential ballot, at least until he is actually convicted of crimes related to the January 6th insurrection attempt.

The Supreme Court also denies Trump's claims of absolute blanket immunity for everything, and upholds the principle that "no man is above the law in America."

More of Trump's co-defendants will flip and turn state's evidence in the Georgia case, including Rudy Giuliani (who won't be able to afford decent legal help by that point).

During at least one of Trump's trials, he will be cited for contempt of court for either (take your pick) an unhinged outburst in the courtroom, or for standing up and attempting to storm out unexpectedly.

Trump will be tried and convicted by a jury in at least one of his criminal cases (and, furthermore, this doesn't even include the Stormy Daniels hush-money case -- Trump will be convicted of other serious charges instead).

Some outbreaks of small-scale violence will follow Trump's conviction, but they will also quickly die down.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden will be the major parties' nominees for president.

Joe Biden will win the election.

Trump will (of course) go ballistic and insist that the election was stolen (again!). This also will quickly die down, as most Americans will be finally ready to move on from Trump.

Very quickly, one by one:

Biden and Johnson did make a deal, the government did not shut down, and Johnson is still speaker (for the time being, at least). So that's one right.

Biden and the Republicans did indeed cut a deal on the border and immigration, and they indeed did pass military aid to Ukraine and Israel, but only the military aid passed as Trump decided he'd rather have the immigration issue to run on than allow Republicans to do their best to fix it, so he tanked the deal in Congress. Partial credit for this one.

We certainly didn't notice any formal talks between Russian and Ukraine, but they are indeed still fighting in a stalemate, so again, partial credit.

The Supreme Court did rule Trump can appear on ballots, so full credit for this one (for a total of three points out of four, so far).

However, SCOTUS failed to do the right thing on immunity, preferring instead to pre-emptively crown Trump king. No credit for this one (for either my prediction or for SCOTUS).

Nobody else flipped in the Georgia case. No credit.

Trump wasn't cited for contempt of court, so no credit for this one, either.

See now, if I had just ended that next one without the parenthetical added, I could have claimed a point here. But because I specifically excluded the Stormy Daniels case, no credit at all.

No violence happened after Trump's porn star conviction (the self-immolation guy doesn't count).

Trump and Biden were their parties' nominees... at least at first. I'm going to claim full credit for this one, though, as I was really just predicting the outcome of the primary season.

And, of course, the last two were (sadly) totally wrong.

All told, that's only a score of four points out of a possible twelve -- not very good, we have to admit. Well, let's see if we can do better next year.

Here are our predictions for 2025:

Donald Trump will not end the war in Ukraine on Day One.

Donald Trump will soon tire of being overshadowed by Elon Musk. He will probably allow Musk to continue his DOGE effort, but he will tell him to do it a lot more quietly and report to Trump directly, so that Trump can announce any proposal (and claim all the credit for it) rather than have Musk continue to overshadow and/or outshine him (we realize those are contradictory metaphors, but hey...). What will really grate on Trump is if Democrats continue calling Elon "President Musk."

Musk will not be elected speaker of the House.

Mike Johnson will continue to be speaker, but only after a very fractious speakership election in early January.

The entire Trump agenda will hinge on the willingness of the Republican House to follow his lead blindly, and with a razor-thin margin of victory, this will be even more impossible to do in 2025 than it was in the past two years. Meaning not much of anything will get done, beyond the core things Trump absolutely demands.

Almost all of his cabinet choices will be confirmed by the Senate. Two will not make it (although our crystal ball is fuzzy enough that we are not going to name names here).

[From nypoet22's crystal ball, which we agree with:] At least a third of Trump's cabinet will be fired/and or replaced before the end of 2025.

Trump will start rounding up undocumented immigrants, but will stick to concentrating on people who have committed other crimes at first.

When his immigration czar moves beyond this, there will be a public backlash because he will go too far for the general public to stomach. Trump will then dial down his efforts considerably.

Trump will succeed in getting more massive tax cuts passed (it's what Republicans do best, after all), but he won't get everything he asks for. The tax cuts will heavily benefit the ultra-wealthy and corporations, while average workers will get peanuts, once again.

Trump will not be able to make good on his promises to bring the price of gasoline and groceries way, way down -- but his followers will largely forgive him (or just forget he ever promised to do so).

And a general sort of prediction -- one we feel pretty confident about, in fact: things are going to get a whole lot worse before anything gets better. Under Trump, this is almost inevitable.

OK, that's it for our guesses for the coming year. We end by congratulating you for making it all the way through and we sincerely wish all our readers a happy holiday season and a spectacular new year! And, as always, to end in true McLaughlin fashion, we now say to all of you:

"Bye-bye!"

-- Chris Weigant

 

If you're interested in traveling down Memory Lane, here are all the previous years of this awards column:

2024 -- [Part 1]
2023 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2022 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2021 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2020 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2019 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2018 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2017 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2016 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2015 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2014 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2013 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2012 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2011 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2010 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2009 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2008 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2007 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]
2006 -- [Part 1] [Part 2]

 

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground