It’s the last publishing day of the year at tellthetruthonthem.com and it’s time for the “report card”. About a year ago I predicted what I thought the top five political stories of the year would be and I was reasonably accurate. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I flat out missed the top two. Number one was unpredictable but I should have nailed number two.

In my mind the biggest story of 2022 was the war in Ukraine. Seeing it coming was next to impossible but its long-term impact is at this point unknowable. It is the most serious thereat to global democracy yet it is fading from the front of most Americans’ mind and it looks like the Republican Party (the current version of which is basically anti-democracy) looks like it is gearing up to effectively take Russia’s side more than anything else to make Joe Biden and the Democrats look bad.

The next biggest story was the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v Wade. Its impact was huge and I just hope it doesn’t fade from voters’ memories anytime soon.

At number three I have the mid-terms. They turned out better for the Democrats than most people expected and I have to believe that was in large part because of the Dobbs decision.

At four I have the various Trump scandals. This is a column not a trilogy of novels. For that matter I’m not even sure that the latter would be sufficient to cover just the publically known ones. If you liked them, rest assured that it’s not over yet.

At five I have the attacks on democracy. In America they are largely brought to you by the extreme right wing of the Republican Party. In Europe mainly by Russia augmented by several far right wing rulers.

Aside from the mid-terms and, as of this writing, the united front the Joe Biden led West has put up to support Ukraine 2022 was basically a bad year. Let’s hope the forces defending democracy have a successful 2023!

This article was written well ahead of publishing in order to accommodate my year end hiatus and is the property of tellthetruthonthem.com. Its content may not be used without citing the source. It may not be reproduced without the permission of Larry Marciniak.