October 2025
Dear Reader,
Every October, like many people, I return to my annual media-consumption rituals.
It starts on October 1st. I watch Dead Poets Society or Over the Garden Wall, begin my annual re-read of Wuthering Heights, and ceremoniously rename my countdown Spotify playlist to “0 MONTHS UNTIL HALLOWEEN.” Quite an important day.
I am not the only one who marks October this way. Every year, almost everyone becomes excited to eat a pumpkin pastry and watch Hocus Pocus or Fantastic Mr. Fox. In a season notorious for change– not quite summer, not quite winter– these rituals remind us that stories are our medium to navigate and understand the unknown.
Each piece in this issue does the same. Our writers revisit history, literature, and current events to sift out meaning from life’s riotous mess. In their own way, they too are exploring the power of narrative in our understanding of the (political) world. What role do the stories, events, or policies we retell play in turning uncertainty into meaning?
Whether or not you agree with them, I hope that, if nothing else, reading these articles inspires both comfort and provocation. As the leaves fall, as midterms (both academic and political) loom, let these pieces remind you that clarity is rarely immediate but is always worth seeking. Most importantly, be willing to sit with the mess and wrestle with the ambiguity.
Go read, write, watch a good movie with some good people. Try not to catastrophize about the state of the world. Politics, after all, is never tidy. But perhaps, like autumn, it is most beautiful when it is in transition.
Time to go drink apple cider!
Annie Walker
Editor-in-Chief
BYU Political Review
