Nominations Are Open For 2025 Year-End Awards
It's that time of year again! Time to review the past 12 months and hand out awards to those who have earned them.
It's been an eventful year, of course, so many of these categories will have multiple possible winners. Listed below are the categories for the first installment, which will run this Friday. We'll open the nominations up for the second part next week.
And, as always, feel free to interpret the categories however you wish. A lot of these categories could be for a positive thing or a negative thing, depending on how you see it. I've got a lot of work to do this week to review everything from the whole year, so I need all the help I can get. So think back over the whole course of 2025 and let me know who or what you think deserves an award for the following categories:
Biggest Winner of 2025
Biggest Loser of 2025
Best Politician
Worst Politician
Most Defining Political Moment
Turncoat Of The Year
Most Boring
Most Charismatic
Bummest Rap
Fairest Rap
Best Comeback
Most Original Thinker
Most Stagnant Thinker
Best Photo Op
Worst Photo Op
Enough Already!
Worst Lie
Capitalist Of The Year
Honorable Mention
Person Of The Year
Nominations for all of these awards are officially now open! So let's see what you folks can come up with for the best and the worst of 2025....
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
Biggest Winner of 2025
tie between Bibi Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin
Biggest Loser of 2025
the US consumer
Best Politician
As much as I hate to admit it, Zohran Mamdani. It scares me how slick he is. He even got Donald Trump to defend him to the media.
Worst Politician
Pete Hegseth. I don't think there's been a less competent department secretary in my lifetime.
Most Defining Political Moment
Pardons for the January 6, 2021 terrorists
Turncoat Of The Year
JD Vance by a country mile. I don't think he's met a person, principle, policy, country or belief that he didn't betray at least once.
Most Boring
Chuck Schumer. the less said the better.
Most Charismatic
AOC, for lack of a better candidate.
Bummest Rap
Kilmar Abrego. i mean, he was deported by mistake, refused return when the courts demanded it (and even after the SCOTUS weighed in), lied about for months by the heads of two countries, tortured in CECOT prison, arrested upon return, just barely evaded re-deportation to Liberia of all places, and now is on trial in Tennessee for "trafficking" the guys he was driving to a construction job three years ago. I don't know of anyone non-fictional who EVER had a more bum rap than him.
Fairest Rap
ICE, CBP and the rest of the masked secret police who regularly kidnap and rendition whomever they damn well please, alien and citizen alike.
Best Comeback
in the "comeback" as "response" category, and she's still an absolute loon, but i'm going with Margie 3-names on this one. defiant, near-immediate resignation may not have been what Donald was going for when he turned on her.
Most Original Thinker
Vanessa "nezza" Hernandez, for singing El Pendon Estrellado (the official FDR commissioned translation of the star spangled banner) at a Dodgers game, even after being told not to.
Most Stagnant Thinker
Robert Lighthizer, Stephen Miran, Peter Navarro & Howard Lutnick - the architects of Trump's tariff policy. "Herbert Hoover called..."
Best Photo Op
Heard and McDonald Islands penguins who will be subject to new tariffs.
Worst Photo Op
Trump and Vance berating Zelenskiy for his combat gear
Enough Already!
The 8 democratic and independent lawmakers who spelunked on healthcare premiums. Spare us the excuses.
Worst Lie
Executive Order (EO) 14160 denying citizenship to babies born in the USA based on their parents' immigration status.
Capitalist Of The Year
Melakon Musk, for axing all the government departments that might potentially regulate any of his businesses.
Honorable Mention
Bernie Sanders, Chris Van Hollen & Glenn Ivey, the No Kings protests, the Israel-Palestine ceasefire, everyone fighting for Ukraine, citizens protecting their immigrant neighbors from ICE, district and appellate judges limiting the worst of the worst policies, universities and law firms who have refused to capitulate, and journalists with integrity (looking at you, CW).
Person Of The Year
Donald Trump (no matter how awful, there's no denying he's the guy this year has been about)
Biggest Winner of 2025: As far as biggest political winner this year, seems to me like it's the Democratic Party for sweeping key elections all across America, many by large margins and huge point swings. Flipping Virginia governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general and 13 seats in the House of Delegates and turning their 51-49 narrow majority into a huge 64-seat majority. Also keeping New Jersey governorship and flipping multiple seats in the NJ General Assembly to create a supermajority, flipping Miami mayoral election against Trump-endorsed candidate by 19 points, maintaining the Democratic majority on the PA Supreme Court (huge), Prop 50 in CA.
Biggest Loser of 2025: The Republican Party (see above).
Best Politician: In 2025 it appears to be Mamdani in NYC who began the mayoral race polling at 1% and will be "moving on up to the East Side" where he can warm himself by the mantel of the fireplace in front of which Alexander Hamilton died after being fatally wounded by the then sitting Vice President of the United States, but I digress. Notwithstanding partisan political beliefs, that kind of historic win indicates a "mover and shaker" with political talent.
Worst Politician: Donald Trump for 2025. It seems Trump's tiny little ego where he cannot admit to anything less than perfection (the "perfect phone call"), cannot admit to losing an election, cannot admit that his illegal policies are driving up prices to new heights, that Trumpian gaslighting bullshit wherein there is nothing that cannot be blamed on somebody else appears to be catching up to him, and he is a total drag on the Republican Party (see above). You got to hand it to Trump, though, for admitting that whole "shithole countries" (his term) and proving beyond doubt this year that he's always been a prevaricating misogynist racist bigot constant con.
Most Defining Political Moment: Implementation of Project 2025 which Trump lied about when he distanced himself from it while campaigning. Yes, Project 2025 was definitely Trump's agenda. Don't believe me; read it.
Turncoat Of The Year: Donald Trump (still) but also Trump's Vice President who never met an issue on which he wouldn't do a complete 180 to benefit himself politically. "Vance" is total phony... and his name isn't actually Vance but Bowman, which suits him to a "T" because that man will bow to anything and anyone. Having said that, I would definitely ditch my given middle name too if it was "Donald."
Most Boring: Subjective, obviously, but personally I find that Charles Shumer bores me to death. I'd rather watch paint dry (which I am actually currently doing).
Most Charismatic: Can I say none of them? I suppose if forced to choose, it appears to me that Barack Obama is at the present time the most charismatic politician, and I think AOC is also. As for Trump, I personally think he appears charismatic to people dumb enough to fall for his gaslighting total bullshit and constant con, and I see Trump very much as the lying babbling monotonous moron and toxic narcissist that he actually is.
Bummest Rap: The Trumpian and GOP gaslighting bullshit about immigrants. Research over 150 years overwhelmingly shows that immigrants do not commit the most crime in America and are significantly less likely to commit crimes than native-born U.S. citizens. I'm not an immigrant and have to go back multiple generations to find one in my family tree that includes native Americans, but I'm also not stupid enough to believe the right-wingnut absolute garbage on the subject. So, to recap: Both legal and undocumented immigrants have been observed for over 150 years to consistently have lower incarceration rates compared to U.S.-born individuals. Case closed.
Fairest Rap: I would say the vast majority of the over 1,600 individuals pardoned or given clemency that were convicted and/or charged with federal criminal offenses in connection with J6 and the vast majority of the over 100 criminals with drug offenses granted same by the 34-time convicted felon who is desperately attempting a rewrite of history.
Best Comeback: Trump made quite a comeback, and now the Democratic Party is wiping the floor with Republicans all across America so it's a twofer... because the pendulum always swings back, sometimes in rapid fashion.
Most Original Thinker: I don't personally see much original thinking going on in 2025. This year seems more like same shit different day/year; although, Marjorie Taylor Greene seems to be actually thinking some original thoughts versus spewing the stale GOP Party line. As for the Democratic Party, Hakim Jeffries, the future Speaker of the House.
Most Stagnant Thinker: Besides Dozing Donald? The current Speaker of the House, another ginormous phony and absolute total transparent lunatic who would do well to figure out what his actual job entails and then do that instead of that which he is currently doing.
Best Photo Op: I have two favorites, one political and one historical: Thousands of peaceful protesters in San Francisco who spelled out "NO KINGS" and an American walking out on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome as Pope Leo XIV. We live in historical times.
Worst Photo Op: Putin's Puppet sitting in the Oval Office (that he's now decorated in the appearance of a visual whorehouse) and "JD Vance" (formerly Hamlin but actually Bowman) telling Zelenskyy that the war had to be ended through diplomacy and whining that it was "disrespectful" for him to come to the Oval Office and make his case in front of the American media and then demanding that Zelenskyy thank Trump for his leadership. Trump interjecting: "You've done enough talking. You're not winning this," Trump bullies him. "You gotta be thankful. You don't have the cards."
"I'm not playing cards," Zelenskyy replied. "I'm very serious, Mr President. I'm the president in a war."
Trump continues bullying him while Vance retorts: "Have you said 'thank you' once this entire meeting? No."
If that isn't aligning America with Russia and doing Putin's work like a dutiful little puppet, then tell me what is.
Enough Already!: Bullying and claiming your political rivals are committing sedition for speaking facts and pretending as if multiple persons in the current administration aren't violating the law with their extrajudicial killings as if they are judge, jury and executioner. Executions without trial and disappearing people without giving them due process is unconstitutional. If people are guilty of crimes, give them their day in court as mandated by our written law. No kings. So, to recap: Enough of the bullying and lawlessness and the attempts by the right wingnuts to defend it and therefore normalize it.
Worst Lie: "Affordability is a Democrat hoax." Pay no attention that Trump promised repeatedly to "make America affordable again," so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to determine that if it's a hoax, Trump is the con who promised to fix it and has done exactly the opposite by unilaterally instituting tariffs (taxes on Americans) that are illegal. The power to institute taxes lies solely with Congress.
Capitalist Of The Year: Elon Musk. He would have been a better capitalist too if he hadn't forgotten who was buying his cars and not pissing all over them. He also has one of the worst photo ops with that stupid chainsaw.
Honorable Mention: For what? Capitalist? Trump for profiting off the gullible rubes who mindlessly buy his worthless meme coins and bastardized Bibles made in China and too numerous other junk from China to list wherein he parts fools and their money and laughs all the way to the bank.
Person Of The Year: From the South Side of Chicago to the Vicar of Christ on Earth: Robert Francis Prevost formally known as Pope Leo XIV. No, I'm not Catholic, but that is history making.
nypoet22
1
Oh, these are great! Melakon. *laughs* :)
Thanks to both of you for doing this!
Kick -- I think Honorable Mention is just generic, like "for the whole year" and not modifying the previous category... that's how I've always read it...
-CW