Culled from the Conversation | Lorna Grisby (Senior Politics & Society Editor)
The year 2022 has been full of confounding events. Russia invaded Ukraine. The Supreme Court overturned a 50-year precedent guaranteeing the right to abortion. Midterm election results overwhelmingly contradicted pundits’ predictions. And so much more.
But, as regular readers, you know the politics editors and the scholars we collaborate with provided deep analysis and explanation to help you make sense of it all.
As a newcomer, I really appreciated the breadth, depth and uncommon takes The Conversation delivered this year. Our readership numbers show you did, too. The stories you cared most about from the Politics + Society desk ranged from those about the effectiveness of the 1994 assault weapons ban and issues of race in the U.S. to the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago and former President Donald Trump’s role in the insurrection.
The politics editors had their favorites, too. Our new Democracy Editor Naomi Schalit, who ran the Politics + Society desk for the lion’s share of the year, was partial to a story that highlighted four reasons abortion laws in the U.S. clash with the majority’s preferences. The piece provided deep analysis into a seeming contradiction in the American political system: Elected lawmakers don’t always follow the majority will of the people. Naomi wondered, “Why does that happen?”
Race + Equity Editor Howard Manly’s favorite was the story about a family photo album including an image of a Black man being lynched in Texas. Written by Jeffrey L. Littlejohn, a historian and director of the Lynching in Texas project, the article – one of our top reads of the year – shined a spotlight not just on the hideous normalization of extreme racial violence of our country’s past, but also on proposed legislation in Texas that would prevent educators from teaching school children that racial cruelty was, in fact, embedded in American systems. “What caught my eye about this story was how lynching had become an accepted social ritual, right up there with honeymoons, wedding anniversaries and summer vacations,” Howard said.
Meanwhile, for Politics + Society Editor Amy Lieberman, selecting a favorite was challenging. Half-jokingly she asked, “How can I decide between all my children?” But decide she did, ultimately picking a story on how Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court hearing provided a flashback to how race and crime featured during Thurgood Marshall’s 1967 hearing. Amy’s reason? “I thought it was a very interesting historical comparison that really showed, sometimes word by word, how the country has not come very far when it comes to using race or gender to level political attacks on someone.”
Freelance editor Jeff Inglis had a clear favorite: a story on the legacy of exclusion and mistreatment of women in Antarctica. Jeff had lived and worked in Antartica more than 20 years ago and saw firsthand the misogynistic treatment women endured from their majority male managers and co-workers at U.S. stations and field camps. So when the National Science Foundation decided to study that environment, he wanted to know what the outcome would be. “When the results were made public, I was both horrified and utterly unsurprised,” he said. “I turned to Daniella McCahey, a historian of Antarctica at Texas Tech University, to put the new report in the context of three-quarters of a century since women were first recorded setting foot on Antarctica.”
Those are some of our favorite stories of the year. You can find some of your favorites below.
We’re taking a break now and enjoying the holidays with family and friends. But we’re buckling up, too. We know 2023 will deliver its own mix of shocking news, and we’ll be ready to help you understand it.
