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Last week on “The ReidOut,” Joy proclaimed former Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman as the winner of 2023’s “Who Won the Year?”
Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, refused to give in as Team Trump demanded that they falsely confess to election fraud in 2020, despite the vile threats and intimidation tactics used against them. And this year, they’ve reaped the benefits — thanks to a federal defamation verdict that found Rudy Giuliani liable for nearly $150 million in damages.
But Freeman wasn’t the only one who made hay in 2023. A number of other people — for better and worse — had successful years, as well. So, without further ado, here are your “Who Won the Year?” honorable mentions.
Megan Thee Stallion
When someone who shoots you is sentenced to prison — as rapper Tory Lanez was in August — that’s a victory in my book. And rapper Megan Thee Stallion stood to gain more than peace of mind after Lanez received a 10-year sentence for the 2020 shooting. Her accusations against Lanez had become fodder for misogynistic conspiracy theorists — until a recording of a phone call he made shortly after the shooting emerged late last year and seemed to remove all doubt about his guilt.
For more on Meg’s year, check out my chat with hip-hop-loving academic Nikki Lane, who has a doctorate in anthropology.
Taylor Swift
It’s hard to argue anyone had a better year than Taylor Swift, who was seemingly ubiquitous in public discourse. She was named Time magazine’s person of the year, she concluded a world tour and turned it into a hit concert film, she garnered substantial TV time after she began dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, and she enraged right-wingers all the while. All in all, an undeniably successful year.
Aggrieved men
Unfortunately, aggrieved men managed to spread their misogynistic messaging far and wide this year, a phenomenon that coincided with some men’s outspoken support for hypermasculine authoritarian figures like Russian President Vladimir Putin, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Argentine President Javier Milei and former President Donald Trump.
For more on this, check out my post on conspiratorial hip-hop podcaster DJ Akademiks helping Trump spread misogynistic lies about Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis, as well as this post on the mad MAGA men guiding the GOP toward authoritarianism.
Abortion-rights supporters
Supporters of pregnant people’s bodily autonomy made emphatic statements at the ballot box this year. Strict anti-abortion measures — and politicians who back such measures — lost a number of highly publicized elections, including in Kentucky, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The message? HuffPost’s Alanna Vagiannos put it best: Republicans should rethink their anti-abortion platforms in 2024.
Drag performers
Despite conservatives’ obsession with restricting drag performances and maligning participants as child “groomers,” multiple courts impeded right-wing efforts targeting such performances. Federal judges ruled that GOP-backed laws in Texas and Tennessee were unconstitutional. And last month, the Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling that blocked an anti-drag law in Florida.
Backers of the Biden economy
Despite gloomy predictions from pundits — including a lot of right-wingers who seem gleeful over the prospects of a poor economy — the Biden economy seems to be humming along. The U.S. has avoided the recession that some economists had predicted, and it seems primed to do the same in 2024. Inflation has started to taper off, and the unemployment rate has hovered near historic lows. “Dark Brandon” rises again.
(For more truth about Bidenomics, check out this “ReidOut” segment from August and this “All In with Chris Hayes” segment from earlier this month.)
Corporate critics
This has been a banner year for critics of corporate profiteering. We saw a lot of reporting throughout the year indicating that corporate price gouging — and not just natural economic conditions — has been a prime contributor to inflation in the U.S. and around the world. At the same time, reporters have cited compelling data suggesting that some companies — like Target — have sowed fears about retail crime to mask other corporate issues. This reporting serves as a reminder to be skeptical when behemoth corporations try to explain why their customers are facing supposedly necessary price hikes.