Dirty Rotten Days

Just last week, a towering replica of the Statue of Liberty in a parking lot outside a megastore in Guaíba, Brazil, came crashing down during a windstorm. Here, at last, was a tidy encapsulation of the wide-ranging depredations and derangements of the year: a beacon of liberty, installed on a faraway teeming shore to help sell discount televisions, toppled by an act of God while, in the middle distance, the Golden Arches endured.

But consider, too, AI-generated images of the slain bigot Charlie Kirk chilling in Heaven with Jesus and Malcolm X; President Trump pondering if he’ll one day be able to join them (“I’m hearing I’m not doing well.”); Trump demolishing the East Wing of the White House while glitzing the rest of it in gold filigree; Trump appearing to nod off at his own multi-million-dollar military-cum-birthday parade; Trump floating the idea of erecting a Trump casino on the ruins of Gaza; Trump launching illegal military strikes on Iran and then on boats in the Caribbean, all the while demanding a Nobel Peace Prize . . .

What brands of idiocy are loosed upon the world? Consider the Totino’s Pizza Rolls Presents Gulf of America Powered by The Home Depot; the inane uproar over the proposed redesign of the Cracker Barrel logo; AI chatbots advising suicidal teenagers how to most efficiently tighten the noose; the UN’s COP30 climate conference quite literally going up in flames; former daytime talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw bumbling around in pancake makeup with Trump’s masked gestapo—err, ICE agents—to get an insider’s view of the mechanics of mass deportation. Plus, there was that one raccoon that broke into a state-run liquor store in Virginia, got schnockered, and passed out cold in the bathroom.

Yes, a benumbing incoherence reigned in the year 2025. While the Trump administration set about torching the federal government and cutting taxes for the turbo-wealthy with a mix of malignance and ineptitude, the rest of us were subjected to ever-higher prices and gooners and sharks in Nikes. The future is here, and it is undoubtedly stupid. Is there cause for hope, however slight? Well, if you ask Google, its AI agent responds that it “depends on your perspective, with significant optimism for economic growth, especially driven by AI.” In other words, no.

As we wait for the cases of hooch to arrive so as to commemorate another dismal trip around the sun, why not take a moment to revisit some of the most sustaining salvos, essays, criticism, and fiction The Baffler published over the last year?

Bang the World 
By Adrian Nathan West, Issue no. 77

“Whereas sex tourism is seen as the seedy last recourse for losers who can’t get any in their home country, xenophile pickup artists see themselves as incipient alpha males.”

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Fiction by Rodrigo Fresan (translated by Will Vanderhyden), Issue no. 77

“In a way, I’m the perfect target for the ire of a conflicted god: Argentine from a well-to-do family, there I am, in range of his wrath and under his command.”

What’s the Matter with Abundance?
By Malcolm Harris, March 18

“Abundance” by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson is new packaging for a tried-and-failed attempt to escape from history on a rocket ship.

Blame It on Kane
By J.W. McCormack, Issue no. 78

Why is the mayor of Knox County a professional wrestler?

Wrenching the Ranchers
By Christopher Ketcham, Issue no. 78

In the American West, grazing by cattle has come at a devastating ecological cost. One man wants to upend it—at whatever cost.

Heteropessimism of the Intellect
By Arielle Isack, April 25

In Sophie Kemp’s fiction, gender roles are a prison.

Humping Iron
By Petra Browne, Issue no. 79

Women bodybuilders have become increasingly reliant on muscle-worshipping patrons to foot the bill required to compete at the highest levels.

Changing Lanes
By Dave Denison, Issue no. 79

How long can bowling endure the vulture capitalists buying up alleys around the country?

Another Bullshit Night in Slop City
By Will Harrison, June 21

“Slop is the sinister child of scandal and banality, it is Pinterest board Cronenberg, it is the exact midpoint of a bell curve. It is a punishing, cynical aesthetic that has infected the very texture of our lives.”

Alien Enemies
By Brandon Shimoda, July 9

“The torturers have been revising, the gestapos have been busy, and the prisons have been full for generations.”

The Executioner
Fiction by Daisuke Shen, July 25

“It’s a baptism, I thought, a clear voice within the vacuum of silence, a baby being born into the world, acknowledging its darkness before fading out of existence.”

Reject Transgender Liberalism
By Jules Gill-Peterson, July 21

“​​It is no coincidence that the battle over ‘transgender rights’ is being waged as a struggle over the meaning and force of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

You’ll See
By Mary Turfah, August 6

Iran’s nuclear threat is a pretext for preemptive, permanent warfare.

A Fair Slice
by Becca Young, September 2

“We quickly found that the power we wanted most, the power to protect the restaurant’s culture, couldn’t be granted by a union.”

Bambi
Fiction by Sophie Dubber, Issue no. 80

“I am not got to be kidding you. I am not got to be kidding you.”

The NAFTA Novel
By Nicolás Medina Mora, Issue no. 80

“Consciously or not, these writers became interpreters, translators, and mediators who could explain Mexico to America and America to Mexico. The NAFTA Novel—how else to call it?—gives voice to an antineoliberal cosmopolitanism.”

Home City, USA
By Pooja Bhatia, Issue no. 80

“The greatest tragedy of Springfield may also be the oldest—a failure of sight and solidarity that has let politicians get away with anything they want.”

We Used to Read Things in This Country
By Noah McCormack, Issue no. 81

“It’s easier to put your hand in the next guy’s pocket if he’s illiterate.”

The Hatred of Podcasting
By Brace Belden, Issue no. 81

“These days we’re happy only if everyone else is unhappy. It’s a perfect relationship.”

Trying to Sound Sincere
By Dale Peck, November 5

“As a gay man who lived through the worst years of the AIDS epidemic, I sometimes feel like I inhabit a world of shadows, of friends never met and things never made—a world of grief.”