Staring down the end of 2022 burdened by rumblings of nuclear war, news of collusion between corrupt intelligence agencies and Big Tech to silence Americans, and the threat of a rabid Justice Department that’s trumping up charges against peaceful pro-lifers, plenty of Americans may feel they’re closing out the year with less hope than they began it. Radicals are trying to trans the kids, and conservatives’ most powerful officeholder is Mitch McConnell.
But darkness in this world is nothing new, and until Heaven comes to Earth again, we will have battles to fight. The year of our Lord 2022 brought several promising developments, and a few honest-to-goodness wins.
I’m far from the first to compile a list. The Washington Post has its own “good things that happened in 2022” roundup, but if you think the editorial board that came up with the list isn’t completely detached from reality in its D.C. bubble, consider that one of the 22 things they chose to include was the Washington Metro reaching Dulles airport. (The editorial board also included butter boards, which, as my colleague Madeline Osburn has pointed out, represent the decline of civilization.)
So, if you’d prefer not to depend on the butter board propagandists at WaPo for your good news, here’s an alternative compilation.
1. The Dobbs Decision Overturned Roe
In June, the Supreme Court overturned its previous invention of a federal “right” to abortion, empowering state legislatures to ban the barbarous practice of killing babies in the womb. Now abortion is illegal in 13 states, with partial bans in place in at least five other states.
In November, a pro-abortion group estimated that 10,000 lives had been saved since the Dobbs decision dropped. The chance at life for thousands of babies — and the chance their mothers and families have to know and love them — is the greatest win for life-loving conservatives in decades. Further, it underscores the importance of a shift on the right to fighting for cultural wins, not just political ones.
2. States, Courts, and Parents Pushed Back on Trans Agenda
As the Biden administration pushes parents, schools, and the rest of America to embrace its transgender agenda, 2022 saw several victories in the fight against adults who try to sexually manipulate confused children.
After the U.S. Department of Agriculture added “sexual orientation and gender identity” to its interpretation of “sex” in Title IX — a move that could see schools “lose federal funds for lunch programs unless they allow boys in girls’ bathrooms” — 22 states sued the USDA and insisted that the rule change was in conflict with Title IX. Earlier this month, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Biden administration’s attempt to force religious medical providers to perform sterilizing sex surgeries on patients with gender dysphoria.
Meanwhile, states such as Alabama and Arizona approved legislation this year banning doctors from deforming the sexual organs of minors. The Florida Board of Medicine passed similar protections, and Texas’s executive branch began investigating such procedures as child abuse. Roughly a dozen other states considered similar measures. And Virginia’s Department of Education released policies requiring students to use bathrooms corresponding with their sex, and requiring parental involvement and approval before school personnel could address minor students by any pronouns but their biologically accurate ones.
Parents and pastors have continued to fight back against the sexualization of children, too.
3. Americans Realized the Corporate Press Is a Threat to Democracy
In an October poll published by none other than The New York Times, a whopping 83 percent of likely voters said they believe the corporate media are a “threat to democracy.” More than two-thirds of that number called the media a “major” threat.
While that’s a sobering reality, it’s about time the average American realized how widespread are the lies and left-wing propaganda in what used to be termed the “mainstream” media. From burying news of the FBI terrorizing pro-lifers to concocting imaginary scandals about Republicans to patting themselves on the back for pushing the debunked Russia collusion hoax, the surreptitious mind games of corporate journalists threaten Americans’ self-government. Add to that the media’s eager role in helping Big Tech outlets censor dissent, and it’s undoubtedly a good sign that Americans’ trust in media hit an all-time low in 2022.
4. The Supreme Court Upheld Second Amendment Rights
In New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen in June, the Supreme Court struck down a New York gun control law, stating that its “proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in public for self-defense.”
Requiring applicants for a gun permit to prove they have a particular need to exercise the right of self-defense, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority, is not how any other constitutional rights work and is not how the Second Amendment works either. And as The Federalist’s Senior Legal Correspondent Margot Cleveland pointed out, the win for gun rights signaled an end to the Supreme Court’s “two-decades long punt on Second Amendment jurisprudence.”
5. Wyomingites Threw Liz Cheney out of Congress
After Liz Cheney turned her back on her constituents to hobnob with East Coast donors and help weaponize the sham Jan. 6 investigation against former President Donald Trump and his supporters, Wyoming Republicans kicked her out of her at-large congressional seat by a margin of almost 40 points. The victory for challenger Harriet Hageman would likely have been far more drastic had Cheney not recruited Democrats to vote for her in the GOP primary.
6. A Federal Judge Smacked Down Biden’s Unlawful Mask Mandate
It should have happened long before 2022, but better late than never. In April, a federal judge in Florida vacated President Joe Biden’s unconstitutional federal mask mandate for passengers on airlines, trains, buses, and other kinds of transportation. In an overdue smackdown of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s overreach, U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle found that the rule muzzling Americans “exceeded the CDC’s statutory authority, improperly invoked the good cause exception to notice and comment rulemaking, and failed to adequately explain its decisions.”
7. ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Celebrated American Greatness
In what most would agree was the best blockbuster of the year, Tom Cruise and company returned to the skies in “Top Gun: Maverick.” A welcome change from the CCP-pandering, leftist agenda-filled content Hollywood often cranks out, “Maverick” was an unabashed celebration of American greatness. It bucked Chinese censors to the point that a multibillion-dollar Chinese investor backed out of it. As I wrote at the time, the movie is “unapologetic in cheering for America, her heroes, and the greatness they pursue.” And fans loved it, making the movie the fifth-highest-grossing movie in North America ever.
8. Loudoun County Schools Saw a Measure of Justice
After the Loudoun County School Board in Northern Virginia earned fire last year for covering up the rape of a female student in a school bathroom by a boy in a skirt — while trying to push through a policy that would allow sexually confused male students to use women’s bathrooms and locker rooms — new Attorney General Jason Miyares launched a probe into the board’s wrongdoing.
Earlier this month, the grand jury commissioned to review the investigation slammed the school board’s legal counsel for “witness tampering,” and concluded that Superintendent Scott Ziegler lied during a public board meeting about whether he knew of “assaults in our bathrooms.” In a long-overdue (albeit insufficient) measure of justice, the school board fired Ziegler following the release of the grand jury report.
9. Twitter Censors Lost Their Stranglehold on Speech
After eccentric billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter, the release of the “Twitter Files” has revealed rampant and targeted censorship by the Big Tech platform’s previous management, in cahoots with the FBI and other federal agencies. Now that Musk has reinstated many formerly suspended accounts — though my colleague John Daniel Davidson is still in Twitter jail for calling a man a man — and punished leftist accounts for activities such as doxxing, the monopoly that Twitter’s left-wing censors used to enjoy is starting to crumble and their hypocrisy on free speech is on full display.
10. States Started to Fight for Election Integrity
While Republicans and state election officials have a lot of work left to do, 2022 saw some administrators realize what time it is and start pushing back on Democrats’ coordinated effort to federalize elections and institute mass mail-in voting and get-out-the-vote campaigns that overwhelmingly help Democrats. In August, 15 secretaries of state demanded a halt to the Biden administration’s plan to federalize elections via executive agencies.
In 2022, Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, and Virginia all passed laws banning private groups like Mark Zuckerberg’s Center for Tech and Civic Life from buying elections with grant cash. They joined Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, North Dakota, Ohio, and Tennessee, which banned “ZuckBucks” in 2021, and Texas and West Virginia, which have regulated their use. Furthermore, at least seven states passed 10 new laws tightening mail-in voting requirements, voter ID laws, address requirements, restrictions on Election Day voter registration, and voter-roll maintenance.
Elle Purnell is an assistant editor at The Federalist, and received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. Follow her work on Twitter @_etreynolds.
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