The Faith Remained Quite Bad In 2025
I take no pleasure in saying the American right's bad faith was front and center in the public consciousness in 2025.
When Republicans are out of power – or at least when they don't control the executive branch – their bad-faith approach to politics doesn't matter nearly as much. In fact, it's (relatively) harmless.
It's when Republicans slither their way into the White House – with a helpful boost from our fascism-curious social media algorithms – that we have to live with their bad faith every hour of every day. And so it was in 2025.
During the Biden years, the right's demands that we take seriously stances with which they purport to believe (conservatives are the victims of a totalitarian anti-free speech regime, Republicans care about the national debt and the health of Americans, things of that nature) were mostly laughable. I still think nearly four years later that that 2022 midterm elections were a rejection of the American right's bad faith.
No one believed Republicans actually cared about the shit they said they believed leading up to those midterms. Look no further than the public's reaction to the farcical Biden "impeachment" push for proof.
Denny Carter
In 2025, with Trump propelled back into power by media outlets that wanted the ocean of dopamine he provides and social media companies that essentially work for the Republican Party, the right's calculated bad faith political stunts defined national policy, confused pro-democracy forces within the United States, and forced toothless media companies to treat these deeply dishonest Republican stances as serious and in good faith. When Senator JD Vance says the key to lowering housing costs is a nationwide ethnic cleansing program, we can ignore him, know he does not actually mean this. When Vice President Vance says this, we have to pay attention and read about it as a serious housing policy proposed by the executive branch. It becomes a very real part of the discourse. That Vance doesn't give a shit about housing policy never even enters the conversation.
As the purveyor of Bad Faith Times, I take no pleasure in saying the American right's bad faith being front and center in the public consciousness in 2025 was pretty good for business. BFT subscriptions grew, as did page views and general awareness, especially on Bluesky, the only legitimate microblogging platform.
I started BFT in 2022 mostly because I was frustrated by mainstream media outlets' absolute refusal to acknowledge Republicans' bad faith, and their insistence on treating the GOP as a normal political party in a democratic republic when they are anything but. When corporations and social media moguls swept Trump back into power in 2024, I knew there was going to be a lot of bad faith to cover as it became the centerpiece of every federal policy, constitutional and otherwise. And with a radicalized, anti-constitutional Supreme Court majority, I knew this right-wing bad faith would be left to run rampant over every part of American society. Hence the existence of the infamous Kavanaugh stop. and the widespread acceptance of white students and workers as pitiless victims of oppressive diversity initiatives.
The work of identifying and analyzing the right's expert use of bad faith politics to tear apart the republic and replace it with a dystopian lawless nightmare that might make Vladimir Putin wince will continue unabated in 2026, both for me and for BFT contributing writers who have added to much to the site over the past 18 months. Elected Republicans and right-wing activists won't stop pretending to believe things that rationalize and normalize their fascist agenda, and I plan on writing and talking about it on Bad Faith Times in hopes of raising awareness of this dirty little trick that has hacked representative democracy in the US and abroad.
Denny Carter
I would very much like to thank everyone who supported BFT in 2025, especially those who have subscribed and given $3 or $5 per month. I understand not everyone can afford to subscribe to every last blog they encounter online, and for those folks, I appreciate spreading the BFT word – reposting, sending links to friend groups – whenever and wherever you can. It's helpful, if my page views over the past nine months are any indication. For those who might be interested in tipping a BFT writer, you can do so here.
In the NFL offseason, when the day job's workload lightens up a bit, I plan on doing one BFT podcast per week and making it available to subscribers who support the site at the $3 or $5 levels (it will be available both in video and audio form). Sometimes I'll take questions from subscribers and sometimes I'll just talk about whatever is bugging me (politically) that week. Some 2025 BFT podcasts I enjoyed include American monarchist Curtis Yarin seeming deeply unwell, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker as a leader of the growing Democratic Fight Caucus, and Pete Hegseth being madder than anyone has ever been. I also did a BFT podcast on Elon Musk crying on Fox News because people were being mean about his exploding cars.
I have plans for growing the Bad Faith Times audience in 2026 with some #strategic #partnerships that will get BFT blog posts in front of new eyeballs, a challenge for any small-time blogger without an ad budget. I think there's a real appetite for the identification and analyzing of how anti-democracy Republicans deploy bad-faith arguments to get what they want, control the political discourse, and set the terms of debate with pro-democracy lawmakers and activists in the US. Even if I've overestimated that appetite, I'll continue writing about bad faith politics because it is a high interest of mine, and I never stop writing about talking about my various high interests.
In case you're interested in such things, here are the top five most-read Bad Faith Times blog posts of 2025. Some of them predictably went viral (the folks love their Stephen Miller content). Others were something of a surprise to me (I did not think a piece on "banning woke" would do numbers).
- They Banned Woke And Susie Still Can't Read
- Zoomer Men Say The Stove Is Quite Hot, Actually
- Vibes Aren't Everything. They Are The Only Thing.
- The Doomers Are Inheriting The Earth
- The Stephen Miller Gaffe Every Judge Needs To Bookmark
Thanks again for all your support and encouragement over this past year. The emails and DMs sharing your own experiences dealing with this fascist shit – it means more than I can say.
As awful as its been to see Project 2025 come to life in all the most profane ways, I'm glad to have this platform and the good folks who comprise the growing BFT discord community. I hope you have a holiday that includes at least some rest and maybe a period of logging off. Remember, as I wrote in January 2025: We must not doom.
Follow Denny Carter on Bluesky at @dennycarter.bsky.social
Comments ()