Well That Happened...
A selection of my favorite 2025 writing.
My personal version of Spotify Wrapped is that every December, I read through everything I’ve written and see what I can learn from it. What did I choose to focus on vs. ignore? Which topics were sticky or remained relevant? Was I ahead of the curve, or did I miss something big?
Depending on the year, it can be a painful ritual. My certainty in 2024 that Biden wouldn’t drop out and, once he did, that Harris would squeak out a win wasn’t easy to revisit. But it’s essential to do so, and it’s how I grow as a writer and an organizer.
Below are my favorite pieces from 2025, from the newsletter and some external writing. I’m sharing them with you so that you can read and revisit 2025 as we lived it together. I’d love to hear what resonated with you and what you learned this year. Reply directly to this email or hit me up on Bluesky.
After the Wreck I wrote this piece for this month’s print edition of The Progressive. It’s a reflection on where America is in this moment, and the radical changes in our thinking and advocacy that I think are necessary to take back power from MAGA once and for all. In writing it, I had to reflect on and acknowledge how 2025 had radicalized me politically. If you can’t already tell, I’m pretty proud of how this one turned out.
Big Tech Chose Violence Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was one of the first elites to not simply capitulate to Trump and Trumpism but to embrace it. It was notable that Zuckerberg proclaimed this and announced policy changes against hate and harassment not long after two terror attacks.
One voice begging for mercy While business and academia caved to Trump, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, the Washington Bishop of the Episcopal Church, chose a different path. At a prayer service attended by Donald Trump, JD Vance, and their families, Budde spoke truth to power, directly to them, begging for mercy for immigrant communities. As I wrote, “I’ve made my peace with the fact that many will fall short, but I’m heartened knowing that even in our darkest hour, we live amongst people who will choose courage over fear and stand in solidarity with those who need it most.”
Militias and Mafias As DOGE continued its assault on the Federal government, I wrote about the similarities between Trump’s Tech allies and the militias who stormed the Capitol. The tech bros probably see themselves as the brains and the pardoned felons as the muscle. But their actions show no evidence of this. If anything, the tech bros are merely another kind of foot soldier.
CPAC and ProNatalism “News coverage of CPAC tends to treat it as a freak show, a collection of oddities and curiosities. But these folks are the people in power. Yes, their beliefs are weird. But what matters is that collectively, the MAGA coalition seeks to force the rest of us to exist in a society created by their bizarre fetishes and ideologies.”
Wisconsin Curd-Stomped Elon Musk One of my favorite moments of 2025 and my absolute favorite headline. Celebrate the wins, especially when those wins happen in Wisconsin.
Ms. Rachel: Toddler Whisperer or Hamas Propagandist? The MAGA Right put a lot of energy into trying to cancel Ms. Rachel this year. But as she’s raising all of our children and is often referred to as a modern Mr. Rogers, they never succeed. I know the assault has taken its toll on Ms. Rachel and her family, though. Protect this woman at all costs!
No More Lone Wolves Another piece for the Progressive, and one that still haunts me. I explored how teenage mass shooters are now radicalizing online through interacting with one another and admiring the extensive online archive of previous mass shooters. “Online communities and platforms offer encouragement and support every step of the way as young people become radicalized. The forums’ continued existence assures would-be terrorists that their acts will live on and they, like the violent criminals they admire, will be lionized and canonized in these online spaces; that their mutual followers will become fans who spread the word about their acts of terror and inspire the next wave of mass shooters and terrorists.”
Elbows Up, Musk Down A fun post on Mike Myers’ foray into American and Canadian politics via Saturday Night Live appearances. Normally, when I write about pop culture, I get complaints and hate mail, but it turns out that when you cover a middle-aged white guy (as opposed to women and celebrities from marginalized communities), no one feels the need to call you an idiot or tell you to stop writing about frivolous things.
The 4chan to Grok pipeline False white genocide conspiracy theories about South Africa continue to fester online, and were given new life this year thanks to Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Grok. I explain what they are and the latest iterations here.
The End of Partisan Politics “Given where we’re at, terms like left, right, nonpartisan, and bipartisan don’t feel especially useful for political organizing anymore. These are no longer the power dynamics at play. I’ve begun to think more around a spectrum of tolerance of the MAGA Regime and its goals.” This newsletter outlines how I now view the spectrum of American voters.
Call your MAGA uncle? Maybe. In the wake of Trump’s Epstein file, many of you had questions about Trump voters in your lives, whether now was the time to engage, and how to go about it. I did my best to gather the available research and offer practical advice. A good one to read again before heading home for the holidays.
DC Defies the Trump Regime “MAGA is a movement built on violent fantasies of jailing and executing marginalized communities and its political opponents. Trump wants to give his base a Tiananmen Square moment as much as they’re thirsty to see it (which is why so many red states are more than happy to deploy their national guard troops to the District). But as of yet, that hasn’t happened. There are plenty of visuals of DC under occupation, some of which are violence in the form of arrests. But most of the footage is of a city resisting an occupied force in creative, raucous, and even joyful ways.”
Half-Staff The attempted whitewashing of Charlie Kirk after his murder remains one of the most troubling stories of the last year. There’s a difference between mourning a loss of life and canonizing them unnecessarily. Tressie McMillan Cottom called it “class solidarity” at the time. She’s right.
Jimmy has friends everywhere An extraordinary moment in politics and activism. At the time, it felt like this was when the MAGA dam broke, and looking back, that hasn’t changed. I wrote about the lessons we learned and how to apply them in the fight ahead.
To RSVP or not to RSVP I wrote a guest post for one of my favorite newsletters, FWIW, exploring whether or not you should RSVP online for a protest. Like many of my favorite posts, this idea came from your questions about the risks vs. benefits of doing so.
The Epstein Storm If you want to understand why Epstein broke Trump’s hypnotic hold on MAGA, you have to understand the false conspiracy theory singularity that is QAnon. “The vast majority of Americans want the complete Epstein files released. It’s the one thing we can all agree on, an issue that might even allow some of us to find common ground with our MAGA relatives at the Thanksgiving table this year.”
Messy Breakup Finally, we have to revisit Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Why I Divorced Him video. I have no interest in helping Taylor Greene rehabilitate her image, but it’s objectively good when MAGA fights. And this fight was wild!
This post was brought to you by paid subscribers, who receive bonus content on Fridays. Many of my 2025 favorites started out as bonus pieces released early to paid members. Newsletters that I otherwise wouldn’t have had time or capacity to write. Thank you to everyone who contributed and helped make the magic happen!
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