News stories come and go every year, but what we remember are the people at the center of them. The Federalist staff has a few of those people in mind, for better or worse, that stood out in 2021. Here are our picks for the winners and losers of 2021.
Jordan Boyd
Winner: Parents
Some of the biggest winners this year were parents who saw the radicalization of their children’s education and fought back. What started as fighting against the tyrannical teachers unions and schools that wanted to keep kids at home glued to screens in the name of protecting them from COVID morphed into a national movement of people young and old who saw something wrong in their communities and did something about it.
Parents upset by the prevalent racism and radical gender ideology in their children’s schools found their voices in social media groups and at protests, spoke out at school board meetings despite hurdles created by schools and the Biden administration, learned how to file open records requests, and, in some cases, even gained enough traction to vote out corrupt and woke school officials and replace them with better candidates. Parents in Loudoun County specifically are highlighted in The Federalist’s documentary “Meet The Parents: How The Moms And Dads Of Loudoun County Took Back Virginia.”
[WATCH: Meet The Parents: How The Moms And Dads Of Loudoun County Took Back Virginia]
Loser: Anthony Fauci
It should be no surprise that Fauci is at the top of the “loser” list this year. In addition to being a complete political hack who moves the goalposts to suit whatever agenda keeps him on TV and in the good graces of the corporate media, reports released this year found that Fauci lied to Congress about funding for gain-of-function research, colluded with Big Tech to censor conservatives, and even authorized the torture of beagles in the name of “science.” Emails obtained by corrupt media who were unwilling to criticize Fauci also detailed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director’s tendency to hide key COVID-19 information from the public to protect himself.
John Daniel Davidson
Winner: Kyle Rittenhouse
Defamed and smeared as a white supremacist and domestic terrorist by President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the entire corporate press, Kyle Rittenhouse was vindicated by a jury of his peers last month year, acquitted on all counts and completely exonerated. The verdict affirmed what everyone who had seen video footage of that night of rioting in Kenosha, Wis., in August 2020 already knew: Rittenhouse was chased by a violent mob that meant to harm or kill him, and he shot three men, killing two of them, in self-defense. His victory in the courtroom was a powerful reminder that the American judicial system, despite its flaws, can still work — no matter what defamatory nonsense is spewed by our elites on social media.
Winner: Mexican drug cartels and migrant traffickers
The Biden border crisis, which began as soon as President Joe Biden took office in January and signed a raft of executive orders undoing most of former President Trump’s successful border policies, has massively enriched the cartels and migrant smugglers who control northern Mexico. These criminal organizations force migrants to pay thousands for passage through cartel-controlled territory and over the border, often collecting information on migrants and their families and forcing them into debt bondage long after they have settled in the United States.
Thanks to Biden’s failed border policies, which have created massive incentives for illegal immigration, cartel-associated smuggling networks are making billions in annual profits at the border. As long as Biden’s policies remain in place, this will be the new normal: record levels of illegal immigration and record profits for the cartels that control the border.
Kylee Zempel
Winners: Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers
In a year full of elite losers, two football stars won big — for very different reasons. My winners for 2021 are Tom Brady — who carried a host of fans with him to Tampa Bay and now looks poised not only to be in (and win?) Super Bowl LVI, but to clinch his fourth MVP title — and Aaron Rodgers. Although Rodgers suffered a toe injury, missed a game with the Wuhan virus, and continues a rocky relationship with Green Bay, he showed some real tenacity and came out on top on vaccines and his bodily autonomy.
Losers: The Cuomo Brothers
Where to even begin with the losers? Honorable mentions include the entire “Bachelor” franchise, which went up in the woke flames and never recovered; the Pulitzer Prize board, whose credibility is just completely gone after Russiagate; and Jussie Smollett, who will never be the guy who didn’t say this:
The losers of the year, however, are the Cuomo brothers, who started on top of the world and couldn’t have ended lower, mired in sexual scandal, exposed lethal policies, corruption, and an embarrassing resignation and termination. Farewell, losers. You won’t be missed.
Madeline Osburn
Winner: Kim Kardashian West
In reality, Kim Kardashian West has been winning for many years now, but 2021 seems to be the year that the rest of the world truly started taking her seriously. Maybe it’s because it was the year she finally ditched her manic, genius husband (although that’s no doubt a loss for her family and her children), or maybe it’s because she finally ended her family’s iconic reality television show (only to start filming another). Whatever the reason, the wins keep coming to Calabasas.
Her most recent win is passing the California “baby bar” exam, also known as the First-Year Law Students’ Examination. She failed the exam three times during the last two years, but after finally passing, Kim is eligible to sit for the final bar exam.
Other wins include her October hosting of “Saturday Night Live,” which may have been one of the only funny episodes this season, as well as her growing name recognition in the world of high fashion. Kanye introduced Kim to the world of fashion, including design icons like Balenciaga and Fendi, but this year Kim proved she has style beyond what Kanye emails her. Besides winning fashion awards and launching her own high fashion lines, Kim dominated the fashion event of the year, Anna Wintour’s Met Gala, with her transgressive, faceless Balenciaga ensemble.
Loser: Travis Scott
The loser of the Kardashian-Jenner circle is not Kanye, who is sadly still pleading with Kim to come back to him (and refusing to sign the divorce papers), but Kylie Jenner’s partner and baby daddy, rapper Travis Scott. We already knew Travis was a loser when he committed to a second child with Kylie while still failing to commit to her in marriage, but the bigger loss this year happened at his November Astroworld music festival that left 10 fans dead in Houston.
Scott now faces a $750 million lawsuit and has angered the families of the victims after his first interview in which he failed to take any responsibility for the violent crowd. Even though Scott has a history of inciting music-festival crowds to ignore security and violently storm the stage, he has painted himself a victim of the tragic Astroworld incident, claiming his earpiece rendered him completely unaware of the stampeding crowd in front of him.
Loser: Simone Biles
Because she literally lost – err, decided not to compete – for her team at the 2021 Olympics.
Tristan Justice
After being locked under the bondage of conservatorship for more than a decade, the princess of pop is finally free. In November, Britney Spears reclaimed her autonomy when an LA judge ruled the singer’s court-ordered conservatorship had finally run its course.
Reserved for those who suffer debilitating conditions, which include severe mental issues or old age, Spears spent years fighting for her freedom. The pop star’s productivity over the 13 years since her conservatorship’s inception cast doubt the arrangement was ever needed, where the world-famous icon filled stadiums on three world tours with four new albums amassing a Forbes-estimated fortune of $60 million in the process, a fortune off-limits to the singer who earned it.
In June, Spears gave a full-throated plea for the conservatorship to end in her first public remarks on the arrangement that suffocated her for years. “I truly believe this conservatorship is abusive,” she said. Five months later, the judge agreed.
Losers:
Liz Cheney
Liz Cheney started the year off on a crusade to recruit Republican support for the Democrats’ snap impeachment of President Donald Trump in January. She finished the year fabricating evidence in pursuit of the same goal ridding the Republican Party of Trump’s influence post-presidency.
In the end, only nine other Republicans voted with Cheney in support of conviction, several of whom had already declared their intent to do so. The futile effort offered a preview of bad year for the Wyoming lawmaker who now faces a competitive primary challenge from Trump-endorsed attorney Harriet Hageman.
After getting kicked from House leadership for her persistent antagonism of the Republican voter and efforts to undermine the conference she chaired, Cheney is now raking in money from the same donors who fund the Lincoln Project to save her hopes of securing a fourth term.
Lincoln Project
The Lincoln Project continued to expose itself as a haven for bad-faith grifters this year when the blue-dollar-funded PAC was caught staging a race hoax in Virginia.
Its leadership began to flee at the start of the year as the scandal-plagued group cratered under credible allegations of sexual misconduct against co-founder John Weaver, who resigned after 21 men came forward. Some were underage when Weaver allegedly approached them inappropriately.
A Democrat super PAC masquerading as Republican, the latter label given to the group by a complicit media establishment, the group founded to oppose Donald Trump has struggled to find relevance in an era of the post-Trump presidency. Just two weeks ago, Politico ran the headline, “No one seems to like the Lincoln Project anymore.”
Girls’ Sports
A lot of men are breaking records for women. On day one of his presidency, Joe Biden signed an executive order seeking the erasure of women’s sports by mandating federally-funded schools allow biological males compete in female leagues.
Earlier this month, 22-year-old Lia Thomas, who spent three years swimming for the University of Pennsylvania as Will Thomas, set another record in the 1650-meter freestyle. In November, Thomas set records in the 200-meter and 500-meter freestyle races.
More women’s records will be broken by more men competing as women.