Final 2025 Roundup, from Dec. 29 & 30
Featuring The Contrarian's Year in Review; Tim Dickinson; Meghan Houser; The Year in Protest Signs, collected by Jamie Riley; Brian O'Neill; Ruben Bolling; and Talking Feds. See you in 2026!
Thank you, Contrarians! You launched us in 2025 and have given us the motivation and means to keep fighting in 2026 and beyond. This effort has always been community-centered, and we’re so grateful for your support. In this final roundup of the year we offer new pieces by some of our strongest writers, a collection of signs you created and sent, and a special Year in Review video that reflects back on what this crass administration has tried to do…and the opposition we presented at every turn. We have much more work to do—so rest up, celebrate with your community, and we’ll see you Monday morning for next year’s first Coffee with the Contrarians with our courageous leaders, Jen Rubin & Norm Eisen.
Let’s continue strengthening our democracy and refusing to yield to those who would tear it down.
In solidarity, The Contrarian crew 💙
The 20 Most Unhinged MAGA Media Posts of 2025 (Part II)
PART II
From Pope Trump to ‘Chipocalypse Now,’ a ranking of the Trump administration’s social media ragebait
10-plus times MAGA asked “Are We the Baddies?”
In a 20-year-old sketch that still makes the occasional rounds online, British comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb, dressed as SS officers, are hunkered down on the Eastern Front when Mitchell’s character makes an uncomfortable observation. “Have you noticed our caps?...They’ve got skulls on them.”
The Year in Protest Signs
Americans turned out again and again with homemade signs to protest the Trump regime and its harmful policies.
Senior Editor Jamie Riley, having tracked these hopeful placards of resistance all year, chose our favorites from a sea of top contenders.
Confessions of an “And Yet” Columnist
I have a writing tic. Two words, two syllables, infinite exasperation.
Tom the Dancing Bug
Follow Ruben Bolling on Substack ; join Tom the Dancing Bug’s Inner Hive subscription club; and please visit the Tom the Dancing Bug website, with information about The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug collection of books.
Military Madness
Talking Feds closes out 2025 with a close look at the institutional damage and lawlessness Trump has imposed on an essential arm of the U.S. government: the Department of Defense. CNN’s Natasha Bertrand, the Washington Post’s Alex Horton, and retired Major General Steven J. Lepper take Harry inside a Pentagon transformed by cowboy-in-chief Pete Hegseth.…
It is gratifying to be part of the support for this fine community. I’m personally looking forward to being part of it again in 2026.
Can we start a go fund me for a class action suit vs Graham and Jordan and the Senate and House Judiciary committee for not providing checks and balances?