At breakfast the other morning, I told my husband – also a journalist – that I had to write a newsletter introduction based on my favorite stories of 2025, and that I was going to get PTSD if I had to look over the past year’s stories to find them. His response: “There’s your lede.”

It was a rough year in America. Regardless of your political perspective, it was a year of immense and often unprecedented change in the roles, structures and institutions of government. That change extended to the very culture of government and how those in it behaved. Donald Trump aimed a metaphorical wrecking ball at Congress and its powers, at the independence of the U.S. Department of Justice, and at the very idea of free speech and dissent. He aimed a literal wrecking ball at the East Wing of the White House.

Throughout all this change and upheaval, The Conversation U.S. politics desk has attempted to provide you, our readers, with the kind of sober analysis that will help you understand what has happened since Trump became president. We wanted to do other stories, too, stories that looked at something besides Donald Trump and his revolution. But there has barely been time. From the Supreme Court rulings to ICE prowling the streets of American cities and Trump’s massive expansion of the powers of the presidency, the news has broken at a relentless, unforgiving pace.

Our strategy to help you make sense of this moment is to produce stories about the institutions and norms of government, to set a baseline for your understanding. As migrants – or people who may look like migrants – have been rounded up and deported on airplanes to faraway countries, we’ve given you stories describing due process and habeas corpus. When a patently unqualified person is elevated to a cabinet position, we’ve given you a story on what the person in that position does and is responsible for. When cabinet members appear at congressional oversight hearings and sneer at the lawmakers asking them hard questions, we gave you a story on the history of congressional oversight, and how it’s supposed to work.

We’re off for a break until 2026. I’m going to use those two weeks to cook, including my annual two-day process of making and freezing enough of Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese sauce to feed my family and friends over nine months. That’s about 60 servings, and boy does the house smell good when all that sauce is simmering on the stove. See you next year.

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