INFLATION
Many post-election analyses blamed inflation. After all, voters commonly kick a party out of power after a spike in consumer prices. But other forms of inflation hurt Democrats too. President Biden’s inflated ego made him think he should run for reelection. And inflated claims by progressives made voters roll their eyes. Now we get more of Donald Trump’s inflated belligerent nonsense. It’s enough to inflate your blood pressure.
JOY
After successfully hustling Joe Biden off the 2024 ballot and maneuvering Kamala Harris onto the ticket in his place, Democrats were so relieved it made them giddy with joy. Then someone had a brainstorm: Make “joy” the Harris watchword! Harris proclaimed herself a “joyful warrior.” Speakers at the Democratic convention invoked the J-word repeatedly. But like Gretchen in “Mean Girls” trying to make “fetch” happen, Harris’s “joy” strategy came to naught. Soon the joyful messaging was replaced with much darker themes. The Harris campaign spent the last weeks of the race fervently warning voters that Donald Trump and JD Vance were dangerous fascists. But on Election Day the Republicans won and there was no joy in Dem-ville.
PREEMPTIVE PARDON
A pardon given before someone is charged with a crime — what President Biden is said to be considering, given President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of Kash Patel, a guy with an enemies list and a pledge to go after anyone on it, to head the FBI. There are pros and cons to this approach. It spares the recipient the expense and risk associated with fighting a criminal indictment. But a preemptive pardon could also send a signal of preemptive guilt. On the other hand, if Biden had given one to his son, Hunter, before he was charged with a crime, the president could have spared himself any post-pardon depression associated with doing it after his son’s conviction. If the concept catches on locally — how about pardoning the state Legislature before state auditor Diana DiZoglio audits the House and Senate?
BRAIN ROT/BED ROT
Saturday (morning) no plans too cozy to get up plus can’t disturb sleeping cat what happened with the guy who was ambushed by stray kittens oh look he has follow-up posts they are so cute maybe the lady with the farm in Texas has posted she has kittens look at all these farm videos I should start an ostrich farm what does that entail yikes never mind (noon) more kittens politics dancing car crash compilations I should download that weird bird game again what was that called here it is I’ll watch walk-throughs less effort someone should bring me a snack (afternoon).
CERBERUS
Must have seemed like a great idea at the time to name your private equity firm after the three-headed dog that guards the gates of hell. But then Cerberus Capital Management’s place in the origin story of the disgraced Steward Health Care gave the multi-fanged image new life (imitating art) as the health system’s collapse carved a path of misery through the most life-or-death settings. Cerberus chose the mythological symbol because one of the hound heads is always awake, presumably watching investments. But neither the investor nor Steward’s elusive leaders — nor state officials, for that matter — were looking out for the rest of us, the great unwashed and alcohol-swabbed alike.
WEIRD
Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota tried to make the concept of “weird” a Democratic campaign weapon by describing the GOP’s desire to stick its political proboscis into “your bedroom,” “your exam room,” and the book-reading decisions of “your kids” with that word. “These are weird people on the other side,” Walz said in an attention-getting MSNBC interview. “That stuff is weird.” That attempt to make hard-right positions on social issues seem beyond the American mainstream helped Walz become the Democrats’ VP nominee. But the W word didn’t help the Harris-Walz ticket win in November — and now we’re about to find ourselves awash in walloping waves of weirdness.
GENOCIDE
Antisemites always accuse Jews of whatever, in their society, is most feared or despised. To medieval Christians, Jews were Christ-killers; to Nazis, they were race-polluters; to Bolsheviks, they were capitalists. In our era, the worst of all evils is genocide. Sure enough, the Jewish state is endlessly libeled by antisemites as a perpetrator of genocide — never more so than in 2024 as Israel has fought against Hamas, a genuinely genocidal enemy that celebrates the slaughter of Jews and demands the elimination of Israel “from the river to the sea.” In the long history of antisemitic big lies, “genocide” is the biggest of them all.
LORE
This word goes back a long way. But TikTokers have given it new life. “Lore” can be a little piece of celebrity history — that time Tay-Tay was dumped by one of the Jonas Brothers on a 27-second phone call. Ouch. Or it can be a tidbit about your own life. Like that time you tripped in front of a baddie (an attractive girl or guy). Or when you got a byline with your dad, because you helped him on his “word of the year” entry.
DAVID SCHARFENBERG, ELEANOR SCHARFENBERG, SCARLETT SCHARFENBERG
MUSTAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRDDDDDDD!
When most people mention “mustard,” they’re talking about a condiment. When rapper Kendrick Lamar unexpectedly screamed that word for about six seconds on “tv off,” a song from his latest album “GNX,” it became an instant meme slathered across social media. Lamar’s exclamation was a call out to producer Dijon Isaiah McFarlane, whose stage name is Mustard. But coming from Lamar, who had a career year (which is saying a lot for someone who already has multiple Grammys and a Pulitzer Prize), it was so strange and so funny, everyone from a church pastor to McDonald’s found ways to give that word a delicious new shelf life.
BRAT
When Charli XCX released her new album “Brat” this summer, the word went from meaning badly behaved children to being an “it girl.” After the pop star tweeted ‘kamala IS brat,’ she meshed politics and pop culture and rallied younger voters to Kamala Harris’s presidential candidacy. Of course, brat summer didn’t help Harris on Election Day, but it did energize the election for several weeks. And Harris is probably hoping she is still brat.
DEMURE
Leave it to a TikTok influencer to bedazzle an old frump of a word. Since at least the 14th century, “demure” has been a sturdy catchall meaning “reserved, modest, and shy.” Thanks to Jools Lebron’s viral “very demure, very mindful” August post featuring a tip for dabbing away mustache sweat, “demure” is a lifestyle movement, a marketing gambit, and a teenager-near-you’s most overused word. Search traffic for “demure” leapt 1,316 percent in the weeks after Lebron’s post, bringing our brat summer to an unexpectedly demure end.
MANOSPHERE
Fratty bros shotgunning beers online and professional fighters might not come to mind when you’re thinking about presidential elections. But in the final stretch of the presidential election, team Trump focused on this bro army to help carry the vote. In one of the riskiest turnout strategies, Trump courted young men — a cohort that usually barely votes — by currying favor with podcasters and streamers, broey comedians, fighters, and testosterone-fueled talking heads. The final days of the election were characterized by the fact that Trump went on male icon Joe Rogan’s podcast — and that Kamala Harris did not. The risky strategy came with a big reward: More than half of men under 30 voted for Trump.
CATASTROPHIZING
Once a therapeutic buzzword, “catastrophizing” means spiraling over hypotheticals: I have a headache. It’s a brain tumor. I’m dying. But as America braces for Trump 2.0, the term feels less like cognitive distortion and more like grim foresight. A friend, a consummate catastrophizer, texted after the election: “This moment was made for catastrophizing.” Hard to disagree. The next four years aren’t about runaway imaginations — they’re about a sketched blueprint: Mass deportations rivaling authoritarian regimes, democratic guardrails eroded, and an emboldened base indifferent to facts or decency. Turns out, the worst-case scenario might actually be the plan.