The 5 most brutal political moggings of 2026
The Collins English Dictionary announced its 2026 word of the year Tuesday morning, with judges opting for “mogging.”
For readers not fluent in youth culture: Mogging “might involve making [anyone] look inferior in terms of appearance, confidence or status — anything, really,” according to marketing consultant and copywriter Rachel Quin, who authored a Collins article announcing the winner.
According to Collins, the term originated in the bodybuilding community as a shortening of AMOG (“alpha male of the group”) and penetrated into the so-called manosphere, a collection of typically online male communities united by their beliefs about masculinity.
“Fast forward to 2026 and it’s everywhere,” Quin added. And, crucially for POLITICO’s purposes, it can be applied to literally any situation.
With that in mind, we looked back at five top political moggings in 2026 — the more brutal, the better.
One minute, Keir Starmer was British prime minister with a thumping Labour majority cheering his every move. The next, he was humiliated and ousted by a northern rival who had done little to hide his own leadership ambitions.
Starmer, of course, tried to block the Downing Street takeover by Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham.
But once Burnham loyalists and grumpy ministers had quit Starmer’s government in droves, the prime minister bowed out this summer after just two years in office and Burnham — having manufactured, at the second attempt, an opportunity to enter parliament — waltzed into the top job unopposed.
Mozambique’s towering president, Daniel Chapo — who stands more than two meters tall — loomed over tiny Russian leader Vladimir Putin at a summit between African countries and Russia in Moscow last week.
Countries signed a summit declaration pledging to expand “cooperation in energy, minerals, and digital technology, establishing Russian industrial zones in Africa, and localizing production” — but the defining image of the summit was a photo of Chapo dwarfing Putin.
Looksmaxxing influencer Clavicular, real name Braden Peters, likely breathed a sigh of relief, having suffered the year’s other most notorious framemogging, at the hands of internet character ”ASU frat leader.”
In a classic case of nominative determinism, Jacob Rees-Mogg, former British government minister and current haunted pencil, pantsed American commentator Tucker Carlson in a discussion on the latter’s YouTube channel in October.
Rees-Mogg may not have expected to find himself defending Britain’s decision to fight against Adolf Hitler, but that’s what happened after Carlson questioned why Britain had even bothered entering World War II against Nazi Germany.
Rees-Mogg said he was very surprised that Carlson was “verging on defending Hitler,” adding: “I think this is not really what you want to be doing,” in a clip that went viral and catapulted the Brexit hard-liner back into the British public consciousness.
Donald Trump’s bid to clean out the iconic Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C. was initially hampered by persistent pond scum.
After a money-spinning renovation in early summer, algae came back with a vengeance, turning the water green and murky, while the blue paint job began to peel off the pool bottom.
Rather than turn his ire toward the contractors, Trump blamed vandals for attacking the pool, and his Department of Justice attempted to prosecute people it accused of damaging the site. Judges, however, dropped or dismissed the criminal cases.
Trump returned to the theme Monday — right before America went to the polls for midterm elections in which the country is laser-focused on the surging cost of living and corruption — holding a rally in front of the pool and recounting all the issues he said he’d fixed with the pool, including “tremendous algae.”
In Hungary’s biggest aura battle ever, conservative challenger Péter Magyar defeated longtime nationalist leader Viktor Orbán, ending 16 years in power for the populist prime minister.
Magyar, a former MP for Orbán’s Fidesz party, dramatically broke ranks in 2024, releasing a tape of his ex-wife apparently incriminating members of Orbán’s inner circle in a corruption scandal when she was justice minister. For two years, he consistently attacked Fidesz and Orbán over graft while building a movement to take down the EU’s problem child.
Magyar ultimately led a big-tent campaign focusing on cost-of-living concerns and pro-EU messaging, which turned into a landslide election victory that left Trump and the Kremlin salty.
