As we end another year, the infosphere is full of lists and stories of the best and the worst people, events, things and phenomena of 2023.
Daniel G. Jennings at Medium calls such a ritual “one of the most obnoxious end-of-year traditions…too pretentious a tradition not to mock.”
Aware of this characterization and although, according to Jennings, “most people hate [such lists],” we’ll proceed with a summary of such lists anyway because, paraphrasing Jennings, “It is an easy way for writers suffering from year-end fatigue to craft an article fast.”
The New York Times probably has the most such lists and columns.
In “The 2023 High School Yearbook of American Politics,” Michelle Cottle singles out some of the 2023 “exceptional events and players”:
• Most Likely to Be Picked Last in Gym Class: Matt Gaetz.
• Most Fabulous Fabulist: George Santos.
• Worst Date Night: Lauren Boebert.
• Biggest Flop: Ron DeSantis.
After a lot of sparring, persuasion and agonizing, the staff at the Times arrive at the best fiction books. Among them:
• “The Bee Sting,” by Paul Murray
• “Chain-Gang All-Stars,” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
• “Eastbound,” by Maylis de Kerangal
• “The Fraud,” by Zadie Smith
Among the best five non-fiction books:
• “The Best Minds” by Jonathan Rosen
• “Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs,” by Kerry Howley
Do not find your favorite book here? Perhaps it is on a list of books Times newsroom people enjoyed reading in 2023, or in one of several other Best Books of 2023 lists, such as The New Yorker’s “The Best Boks of 2023.”
Using a series of charts, the Times offers a series of “disparate forces” that “buffeted” the nation in 2023, “all while Donald Trump’s candidacy loomed in the background.” Among them:
• Inflation Fell, Incomes Rose
• The Economy Exceeded Expectations
• Trump’s Multiple Indictments
• Israel and Gaza
• A.I. Got (a Lot) Smarter
• Surge at the Border
• The Hottest Year on Record
A Times’ list of 2023 “consequential” lives lost emphasizes the “Very Long Lives” that were lost this past year. Among them:
Norman Lear, 101.
Henry Kissinger, 100
New York Senator James L. Buckley, 99
Bob Barker, 99
Tony Bennett, 97
Rosalynn Carter, 96
Harry Belafonte, 96
Astronaut Frank Borman, 95
Gina Lollobrigida, 95
Sandra Day O’Connor, 93
Pat Robertson,93
Dianne Feinstein, 90
And a very special place for
• Ken Potts, 102, the oldest known American survivor of Pearl Harbor.
• Guy Stern, 101, who escaped Nazi Germany as a Jewish teenager only to return to it as part of an Army intelligence unit.
• Traute LaFrenz, 103, the last surviving member of the White Rose, a resistance movement that dared to defy Hitler even at the cost of beheading.
• Benjamin Ferencz, 103, the last remaining prosecutor of Nazi Germany’s war criminals.
Finally, still with the Times, Times Opinion columnists were asked in “Our Keepers of 2023” what “permanently burned itself into [their] brains this year.
In the “Hard Truths” section, Gail Collins writes:
The photo I’ll remember forever is Donald Trump’s bathroom in Mar-a-Lago, packed with important federal documents. Trump’s been charged with violating the Espionage Act for mishandling defense secrets, which is terrible. But it’s the toilet image that’s going down in history.
Referring to a photo of newborns in Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital after a power outage, Krista mahr writes:
This photo of premature babies who had to be taken off their incubators in a hospital in Gaza felt to me like an inflection point in which the very definition of the most vulnerable among us were being swept up in the Israel-Gaza war, and the resources to save them were slipping out of reach.
Talking about photos, here are TIME’s Top 10 Photos of 2023 and and here the TIME’s “Photos That Defined the Styles Desk in 2023”
Among Gallup’s list of twelve of “2023’s Most Notable [Public Opinion] Findings” the following ones stand out:
Russia’s Soft Power Fades
As the war raged on in Ukraine, Russia lost much of its soft power around the world — even in many key parts of Europe and Central Asia.
China as Greatest Enemy of U.S
Americans now perceive China as the No. 1 enemy to the U.S.
Public Confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court
After overturning the landmark abortion decision Roe v. Wade last year, public confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court remains at a relative low.
Bad Grades for Higher Education
Americans’ Confidence in Higher Education Continues to Fall
In some good news, Young Adults Are Drinking Less, according to a three-year analysis of our drinking habits.
Continuing with good news, TIME lists 13 Ways the World Got Better in 2023
Some examples:
COVID-19 death numbers plummeted…both in the U.S. and around the world. And, as fewer lives are claimed by the virus, life expectancy I the U.S. rose.
There were major advances in surgical science, such as the world’s first whole-eye transplant. “A pig kidney and heart worked in human bodies for two months and six weeks, respectively.”
The surprising trend that Violent crime declined, by 23%.
ABC News reports on “7 of the biggest medical breakthroughs in 2023”:
• New RSV vaccines and immunizations
• FDA approval of the first over-the-counter birth control pill.
• FDA full approval of the first drug to treat Alzheimer’s.
Nicholas Kristoff also mentions some of the ways 2023 “Was a Terrible Year, and Also Maybe the Best One Yet for Humanity.”
But back to the grimy world of 2023 politics
In “Biggest Political Losers of 2023,” Newsweek provides a summary of major figures in American politics for whom 2023 is likely to go down in the history books as a year to forget:
Ron DeSantis, who began 2023 as a figure widely admired across the Republican Party only to see his support erode over the next six months.
Mike Pence, who “launched his own White House bid in June but failed to make his campaign take off and dropped out of the race four months later.”
Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted as House speaker in October.
Donald Trump, who “became the first former American president to face criminal charges,” but “established himself as the overwhelming favorite to secure the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, even if he could potentially have to run from prison…”
And, yes, Joe Biden, who, according to Thomas Whalen, an American politics expert:
Despite presiding over a domestic economy that has produced record job numbers, booming corporate profits and lower inflation, the besieged president is getting the back of the hand from Americans of all stripes who feel he is too old and out of touch to deserve a second term.
Finally, in a five-part series, Amanda Marcotte at Salon.com takes a more irreverent look at the GOP’s Biggest Losers of 2023:
• Kevin “I Never Quit” McCarthy
• Moms for Liberty has us asking: How many sex tapes are there?
• Lauren “Short of My Values” Boebert
• Donald “Smells Like A Butt” Trump and his fellow insurrectionists
Of course, we cannot forget the continuing war in Ukraine, the Israel-Gaza war, and so many more natural and man-made disasters of 2023. Such memories are probably reflected in the answers by a Times focus group to the question, “Give me a word or phrase that you would use to describe 2023.”
• Tumultuous
• Chaotic
• Perilous
• Expensive
• Stressful
• A roller coaster
• Heartbreaking
This author’s selfish, personal view of 2023? At my age, any year I can see to its end is a good year.
