[What follows is one of the many merry articles in the Mercury's Winter Guide 2025. Find a print copy here, subscribe to get a copy mailed to you here, and if you're feeling generous this holiday season, support us here.—eds.]

This just in: 2025 has been a real shit show.

Trump’s reign of incompetent terror has already eclipsed the ham-fisted attempts of his first presidency—which was a dictatorship on training wheels. But! There is a weird silver lining here: Thanks largely to the recent thoughtless actions of King Fool, Portland is suddenly feeling itself again.

Apparently it took a demented despot to get everybody in Portland back on the same page, following a pandemic and a summer-long series of racial justice protests that caused the city’s millionaire class to lose their got-damne

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