Here are the TNR stories our editors and readers alike loved this year.

He was counting on a nation of haters. He was wrong.

The defense secretary spent Trump’s first year in office wreaking havoc on the U.S. military—and killing innocent people around the world.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is forcing his MAHA agenda on all of us—and it’s already getting ugly.

Her promise to restore integrity to the agency was one she broke on day one.

Conservatives used to think you could be a political hatchet artist or you could serve the Lord. Now they say: Why choose?

His reign of terror didn’t end after he bought the 2024 election.

All of Trump’s law enforcement people are toadies. But Patel and number two Dan Bongino have brought extra incompetence to the party.

Every single senator eagerly confirmed their former colleague to be secretary of state, but he is not at all the moderating force that they thought he’d be.

The nihilistic White House press secretary lies with abandon in defense of the Trump administration’s attempt to create a whiter America.

The Department of Homeland Security has been grotesque and incompetent from the start. In Noem, the department finally has a leader cruel and campy enough to match its stated mission.

The House speaker has perfected the art of turning a blind eye to Donald Trump’s rampage.

President Donald Trump’s second administration is a real-life horror show—and these are its most grotesque characters.

The vice president is a cynical shapeshifter, willing to say anything—and be anybody—to become the most powerful person in America.

When Donald Trump wasn’t busy falling asleep in front of the cameras, he spent his first year in office struggling to form coherent thoughts.

In a year defined by the newly lurid visibility of men’s problems, I was most moved by two series—Dying for Sex and Andor—that offered remarkable performances by women.

These businessmen have shown no shame in kowtowing to the president—and he has richly rewarded their sycophancy.

With remote locations and characters in exile, some of 2025’s biggest movies gave up on depicting social relations.

Trump’s second term has been so lurid in its corruption that it was genuinely hard to narrow this list down.

A far from exhaustive guide to the books that our critics dissected, debated, and most admired this year.