Together we made it to the end of another year, which, in Trump administration time, has felt more like an eternity — with a few extra hours to boot. Before we submit ourselves to three more years in the politics-obsessed reality television show that is modern-day America, let’s look back at the winners and losers of 2025, remembering who succeeded and who has seen better years.
Winners
Charlie Kirk’s legacy
This year will always be associated with the horrific assassination of Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk. While both his murder and elements of the aftermath were terrible to witness, the outpouring of love for both Kirk and his legacy showed the best side of American conservatism and America more broadly. It should make Kirk’s family proud of what he accomplished in his short time on Earth.
Interventionists
Despite the hand-wringing of the isolationists who are seeking to take control of the Right, it was a great year for the “neocons,” the now-meaningless catch-all phrase used by these isolationists to describe anyone they don’t like. But with President Donald Trump fully engaged on the world stage — and even bombing the Iranian nuclear program into smithereens — it’s clear that the America-Only wing of the Republican Party is, for now, limited to complaining in the corner.
Islamism
Despite the efforts of the Trump administration both domestically and internationally, there have been massive gains made by radical Islam across the world. Thanks to the efforts of terrorism-funding, slave-owning Qatar, and others, radical Islam has become prevalent across the West. Terrorist attacks targeting Jewish people have become routine, Islamist massacres of Christians in Africa are completely ignored, and the continued prevalence of sexual violence in Europe by migrant hordes is explained away. Westerners become complicit when even the most specific criticism of the ideology behind such horrors is condemned as Islamophobia.
The unflappable Sydney Sweeney
Special mention must go to the somewhat inexplicably famous actress Sydney Sweeney, simply for her refusal to throw herself under the bus for daring to appear in a commercial campaign for jeans. Writer Suzy Weiss even celebrated Sweeney, along with other celebrities, for standing her ground in the Free Press: “The Year the Celebrity Apology Died.” If this is true, let’s hope the celebrity apology stays dead.
Losers
Tucker Carlson
The first loser of 2025 has to be commentator Tucker Carlson. Named Antisemite of the Year by StopAntisemitism — beating out even Candace Owens — his bizarre descent into Jew hatred and Qatari propaganda has been both embarrassing and maddening, including the unimaginably inappropriate giggle at Kirk’s memorial service as he implied that hummus eaters, i.e., Jews, were responsible for the death of Jesus Christ and perhaps Kirk himself.
Iran
The second loser is the Islamist regime of Iran, whose decadeslong ambition to eradicate Israel was kneecapped by Trump and Israel itself. In just a few years, Iran went from receiving pallets of cash thanks to the feckless Obama administration to staring into the pit of rubble that used to be its nuclear program. Even its supposed allies — you know, Russia, China, and other countries that were going to ignite a global war in defense of Iran — were nowhere to be seen. Other power players in the region, most notably Saudi Arabia, were either silent or offered meme-worthy faux condemnations before popping the champagne.
The economy
The third loser of 2025 is economic reality, thanks to Trump’s obsession with tariffs, which has single-handedly prevented the U.S. economy from thriving. While his administration pumps out limitless and contradictory excuses for the scheme, including claims that tariffs will replace income taxes, reduce the debt, or undermine China’s growing influence on the world, it’s becoming clear that tariffs are a failure. If they continue, they will usher in an electoral bloodbath during the midterm elections.
IN FOCUS: THE BIGGEST POLITICAL LOSERS OF 2025
The Heritage Foundation
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts degraded himself online in service to Carlson after the commentator’s interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes. Carlson, in thanks, immediately threw Roberts and Heritage under the bus. Soon after Roberts’s prostration before Carlson, practically everyone fled Heritage in favor of Mike Pence’s nonprofit organization, Advancing American Freedom, where, at the very least, it’s infinitely less likely that the former vice president will humiliate himself in his worship of, as commentator Mark Levin puts it, “Tucker Qatarslon.” With just one ill-advised video, Roberts disgraced the once unquestionably principled institution that was Heritage, destroying its legacy and turning it into nothing more than another mud-slinging actor in the world of social media team sports.
What a year it was! Bring on 2026.
Ian Haworth is a syndicated columnist. Follow him on X (@ighaworth) or Substack.