The top political stories of 2015

Donald Trump at an October rally in Nevada. (Photo: Lance Iversen/AP)

The Donald’s rise, and rise

Without a doubt, Donald Trump was the biggest political story of 2015. No one, anywhere, believed Trump would be the frontrunner in national polls from August to December. If anyone tells you they expected the Trump phenomenon, ask them to make a New Year’s resolution to stop telling lies.

The only ones really paying any attention to the presidential primary in mid-June when Trump held his kickoff announcement at Trump Tower were political insiders and junkies, and most of them laughed off the real estate magnate’s candidacy as a joke. But cable TV news channels — Fox News, MSNBC and CNN in particular — were the biggest entities with something to gain from Trump’s entry into the race, and they put him on the air and talked about him far more than any other candidate in the race. As the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple put it, “Because ratings.” It’s a dynamic that has persisted since Trump entered the race. And so Trump, already famous for being famous, went from punch line to legitimate candidate largely because of cable TV’s insatiable appetite for profit. Nobody thought it would last. It was all a fun summer fling.

But Trump’s national poll numbers rose to 6 percent in two weeks, and by mid-July he was at 10 percent, trailing only Jeb Bush. By the third week of July he had passed Bush. He has led in the national polls — which are testing name recognition more than anything — since then.

As cable TV exposure begat rising poll numbers and support from survey respondents who might not have known anyone else was even running for president, the nation began to consider Trump an actual presidential candidate. And Trump’s rhetoric began to resonate with the non-college-educated white working class, channeling their anger at feeling left behind economically and culturally. Illegal immigration was his first and primary bogeyman. Trump’s promise to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico and make the Mexican government pay for it only demonstrated the ludicrousness of his candidacy to elites. But to the blue-collar worker struggling to pay the bills, it was at least something to make up for the rising cost of goods and services while paychecks stayed flat, or for lost jobs, or for the fact that life seemed increasingly overwhelming and, to some, maybe even meaningless.

The terrorist attacks in Paris, followed by the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., elevated concerns about personal safety and national security to the front of many voters’ minds in November. Trump’s bellicose manner — a dangerous carelessness to veteran political watchers — won over more casual observers. When Trump sought to address concerns about terrorists coming to the United States, he did not propose a ban on or a delay in immigration from certain countries or parts of the world. He said the U.S. — a nation founded on the principle of freedom of religion — should ban new entries from an entire faith group. And his national numbers went up, again.

The questions that arise from Trump’s candidacy are many. First among them is whether he can actually win contests when the voting starts in February, and how he’ll respond to those he loses. Then there is the question of whether the Republican Party will survive if he does, somehow, become the nominee — and what will come out of a fracturing that is likely in such a scenario. — Jon Ward

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie during a tour of Volunteers of America Hope Hall in Camden, N.J., as part of a focus on criminal justice reform. (Photo: Chris Pedota/Northjersey.com via AP, Pool)

The year ‘tough on crime’ died

In 2015, for the first time in decades, it became more common for national politicians to talk about how too many people are in prison for the wrong reasons than for them to talk tough on crime.

In New Hampshire, a state racked by a heroin crisis, Republican presidential primary candidates from Chris Christie to Jeb Bush competed over who could be more empathetic about drug addiction, advocating for treatment — not prison — for people suffering from the syndrome. Carly Fiorina spoke during a Republican debate of her stepdaughter’s struggle with drug addiction, saying she “buried a child” to addiction. And nearly every candidate running for president — from both parties — called for reforming the criminal justice system in some way.

The change comes on the heels of a broader shift in public opinion. Crime has fallen dramatically since tough drug and other criminal laws in the 1970s and ’80s helped bloat America’s prison population, making the country the largest jailer in the world.

Today, the majority of Americans believe that too many people are in prison. Polling from the U.S. Justice Action Network, a nonprofit that advocates for criminal justice reform, reveals strong support for key reforms like doing away with mandatory minimum sentencing. And President Obama in 2015 began an effort to use his clemency power to free people from federal prison who are serving time on nonviolent drug charges.

Whoever wins the White House in 2016 will have to lay more groundwork for this major social and political shift to have a real impact on the ground — including such efforts as helping felons reintegrate into the workforce and stay out of prison for the long term. If they do, 2015 will be looked back on as the year that politicians set a new course. — Liz Goodwin

President Obama speaking from the Oval Office on Dec. 6, after the attack in San Bernardino, Calif. (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Obama escalated his war against the Islamic State

President Obama took office promising to get U.S. troops out of Iraq and end America’s longest war by withdrawing forces from Afghanistan. But 2015 left no doubt that his successor will inherit a world in which Americans are fighting in both of those countries and confronting the so-called Islamic State around the globe, chiefly in Syria.

Over the past year, Obama has escalated his undeclared war against the group, also known as ISIL or ISIS, notably by basing up to 50 elite U.S. commandos inside Syria. He has also ordered a “specialized expeditionary targeting force” to Iraq, comprising an undisclosed number of Americans working with allies like the Kurdish peshmerga militia or Iraqi government troops. U.S. officials say that the force inside Syria could also grow in number.

The second ramp-up came after ISIS carried out a series of coordinated attacks on Paris, killing at least 130 people and defying Obama’s diagnosis that the group was “contained” on the battlefield. The group also claimed authorship for the bombing that destroyed a Russian airliner in Egypt. And with ISIS offshoots sprouting up and claiming responsibility for terrorist attacks in places like Libya, Afghanistan and Algeria, the escalation is clearly happening on both sides.

It’s also happening without, to date, a real debate and vote in Congress on formally authorizing the war. Obama’s proposed legislation stalled instantly upon arrival on Capitol Hill in February. And it’s not clear that Republicans (who don’t want to impose limits on the president’s war-making powers) can compromise with Democrats (who worry about another ground war in the Middle East) enough to get what everyone claims to want: a strong bipartisan majority in favor of that kind of blueprint for a war everyone agrees will outlast Obama’s time in office. — Olivier Knox

Outgoing Speaker of the House John Boehner in an emotional moment during his farewell speech in the Capitol. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Speaker John Boehner made an early exit from Congress

On a Friday morning in September, longtime congressman and embattled Speaker John Boehner of Ohio woke up and decided he didn’t want to be in Washington anymore.

A day earlier, he had hosted Pope Francis for a historic first-ever papal visit to Congress. And then the speaker was done.

Done fighting the far-right conservatives who didn’t want him to have his job. Done battling to accomplish what were once considered the basic functions of Congress, funding the government and paying its debts. Done with the city that made him a national figure and its toxic political culture.

Boehner’s departure, and the chaotic process to replace him after the frontrunner for the job, No. 2 House Republican Kevin McCarthy of California, bowed out of the race, marked an uneasy transition for the job that most embodied the power of the Republican establishment.

The fight within Congress mirrored the one taking place on the 2016 presidential primary campaign field, with establishment GOP operatives confounded by what might come next as they contended with insurgent forces on their own side.

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., beloved by establishment Republicans and admired by conservatives, reluctantly accepted the job, in large part because he had no other choice politically . He’s now running a campaign-like operation, complete with constant full-court press, in hopes of setting the narrative for House Republicans himself.

After all, leaving it up to rank-and-file members led to a fate for Boehner that he’d like to avoid repeating. — Meredith Shiner

Bernie Sanders speaks to a sold-out crowd in Los Angeles. (Photo: Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

‘Berniementum’ sweeps the nation

Of the five senators who launched presidential campaigns from the Senate, perhaps no other candidate better translated his message for the campaign trail than the democratic socialist from Vermont, Bernie Sanders.

Sanders spent years on the Senate floor, railing about big banks, calling for an increase in the minimum wage and even launching his own 10-hour filibuster in 2010, dubbed the “Filibernie,” to oppose President Obama’s deal with Republicans to extend the Bush-era tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. He built a reputation in the Senate for carefully toeing the line between challenging administration positions he did not believe were progressive enough (read: most of them) and supporting Democratic leadership on bills he didn’t love but were necessary to keep the government open. And while most people were not watching C-SPAN constantly awaiting his floor appearances, progressive grassroots voters were finding Sanders and his message — on social media.

Sanders’ 2015 presidential primary success came as a surprise to many (including himself), but his political traction in the Democratic primary was presaged by his massive audience on social media, where the 74-year-old politician built one of the largest followings of any sitting senator.

Sanders was never afraid to acknowledge the power senators can have from within Washington — he soft-launched his campaign from a lawn on the Capitol grounds — and that’s part of what made his rise different from those of other senators vying for the White House. Having galvanized the progressive base in 2015, in 2016 he’ll be well-positioned to continue to push his message from the halls of Congress if he loses to Hillary Clinton in the primary and returns to working there. — Meredith Shiner

Black Lives Matter protesters marching in Seattle. (Photo: David Ryder/Reuters)

Black Lives Matter became a force to reckon with

The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter first began circulating on social media in 2013 in the wake of George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. But it was the protests in Ferguson, Mo., over the fatal police shooting of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown in August 2014 where Black Lives Matter really started to gain momentum — and national recognition — as a rallying cry against systemic racism and police brutality.

More than two years later, Black Lives Matter has evolved from a hashtag into a major social and political movement. Since Ferguson, members of the decentralized organization have led protests in response to police killings in New York City, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Chicago and elsewhere. Not only have these protests attracted national media coverage for incidents that would most likely not have made headlines previously, but in the cases of Ferguson, Baltimore and most recently Chicago, they’ve helped prompt the U.S. Justice Department to investigate those cities’ police departments.

Further evidence of BLM’s influence is not hard to find. In September, a North Carolina police chief was reportedly forced to resign after writing on Facebook that Black Lives Matter “is nothing more than an American-born terrorist group.” In October, President Obama defended Black Lives Matter during a White House panel on criminal justice reform, crediting the movement with drawing attention to the “legitimate issue” of police bias against African-Americans in some communities. And since the start of the 2015-16 school year, protests against campus racism have been sprouting up at colleges across the country.

Perhaps most notable, however, has been the group’s ability to make its voice heard in the noisy 2016 presidential primary race. This fall, after BLM activists shut down a Seattle rally for Bernie Sanders and attempted to do the same at a Hillary Clinton event in New Hampshire, both the leading Democratic candidates sat down with members of the movement to discuss how their campaigns planned to address issues of racial injustice and police violence and have since incorporated criminal justice reform into their respective campaign platforms.

While the movement has largely targeted Democrats, Black Lives Matter has hardly been absent from the Republican presidential primary. Activists have disrupted campaign events for Donald Trump and Jeb Bush, received criticism from Ben Carson and been accused by Chris Christie of inciting violence against police. Not all the GOP candidates’ stances on BLM have been negative, however. Despite saying that he isn’t “a big fan” of the movement and suggesting the group change its name to Innocent Lives Matter or All Lives Matter, Rand Paul has said, “I am starting to understand where the anger comes from, and that we need to fix things as far as the law and criminal justice in our system.”

In fact, Black Lives Matter has become so ingrained in the campaign conversation that both the Democratic and Republican national committees agreed to let activists host a presidential town hall on racial justice. But the movement’s leaders declined the gesture, instead calling on the DNC to hold a formal Black Lives Matter-focused presidential debate.

“It’s not enough to say ‘black lives matter’ on a presidential debate stage absent a black presidential contender or political perspective,” Black Lives Matter stated in response to the DNC. “We want tangible responses. We deserve better.” — Caitlin Dickson

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