Mother Jones illustration; Getty; Jeff Kravitz/Getty for MTV

The staff of Mother Jones is, once again, rounding up the heroes and monsters of the past year. This is a non-exhaustive and totally subjective list, giving our reporters a chance to write about something that brought joy, discontent, or curiosity. Happy holidays.

It seems like a relic now. But Donald Trump’s presidency once saw some of the culture’s most high-profile rappers grab their mics to condemn the president’s authoritarian policies. There was Ice Cube, dropping songs like “Arrest the President,” Childish Gambino shaking the world with the provocative music video for “This is America.”

But for some of those very same artists, Trump’s return to the White House is suddenly sounding copacetic, even good. The worst offender? Nicki Minaj.

There she was last week, a surprise guest at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, where, sitting next to Erika Kirk, Minaj praised JD Vance as an “assassin” and called Trump “dashing” and “handsome.” That was roughly one after Minaj accepted the Trump administration’s invitation to speak at the United Nations, only to parrot Trump’s false claims that the Nigerian government is purposefully ignoring the persecution of Christians by Islamic extremists in the country.

“Churches have been burned,” Minaj said sorrowfully. “Families........

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