Fifteen politics watchers attempt the impossible.

In part two of our politics year in review (part one, the champs and the flops, is here) we ask our pantheon of pundits: how would you describe the world in 2017, in one sentence?

Graham Cameron

Running screaming from climate change, wealth inequality and a worldwide refugee crisis, the USA tripped and plunged down a Trump shaped rabbit hole, taking the rest of us with it.

Graeme Edgeler

Crazier than it should have been, but less crazy than it felt at the time.

Emma Espiner

More fucked than 2016.

Joshua Hitchcock

Progressing surprisingly well despite the best efforts of Western Civilisation to destroy it.

Leonie Hayden

Like stubbing your toe every day for 365 days.

Stephen Jacobi

Confused, uncertain, dangerous, prone to following false messengers, increasingly inward-looking.

Nicola Kean

A trash fire.

Annabelle Lee

Tino pōrangi.

Toby Manhire

Deplorable.

Wayne Mapp

Despite all the noise and distractions, the world is doing better than we think, with less war and more prosperity than at the beginning of the year.

Tainui Stephens

The world in 2017 is no less riven by the acts of ugly men, their puppeteers and their acolytes; yet laughter and love somehow, somehow, busts through when we all commune as one heart and one mind, and utter the sacred incantation of yore: Fuck ’em!

Ben Thomas

Tumultuous.

Andrea Vance

Please, never again.

Guy Williams

Views not news.

Simon Wilson

Better than 2016. It’s been less the year of Trump and more the year of fighting back, especially among women, and don’t forget Zimbabwe, and in Aotearoa too.