2018 predictions
First of all, Happy New Year once again!
You may have noticed I don’t tend to make a whole lot of predictions. Every now and then, though, I offer one up. For example (and of course, here I’m remembering the ones that came true), I predicted right after Obama’s election in 2012 that Hillary Clinton would run in 2016, and that she’d have an excellent chance of winning. Well, she came awfully close, didn’t she?
And then there was the time in 2010 when I made this prediction about an Obama second term. I thought that, if he did get re-elected, his second term would look like this:
And then, and then””voila! Four more years! Four years in which he won’t have to answer to the electorate at all. He will be unleashed to do whatever it is he really wants. And does anyone think that would look moderate at all?
In my mind I never really thought that Trump would win the 2016 election (although I always thought there was a possibility). But quite early on I believed that he had an excellent chance of winning the nomination. Here’s my post from August of 2015:
From the start of Trump’s rise in the polls I’ve taken him very seriously as a phenomenon. I haven’t understood those who casually asserted “He’s never going to win the nomination.” I’ve long thought he could, because the force of that appeal is obvious, and he’s somehow made himself immune to being criticized for anything he says. His niche is “the more outrageous, the better,” and the more extreme his utterances the more his supporters seem to like him””although not all of what he says is extreme, of course, and some is just common sense.
If I were one of the other Republican candidates I’d be very very scared. And if I were one of the Democratic candidates I’d be scared, too.
I’m sure I made other predictions that didn’t turn out to be so prescient. But fortunately, I don’t remember what they were.
As a member of the Legal Insurrection group, this year I was asked to make three predictions for 2018 and to offer one resolution for the New Year. Here’s the post where you can read the responses of the entire LI crew. Most of the writers were much wordier than I; I was uncharacteristically brief—maybe due to my general reluctance to make predictions. Here’s my offering, though:
1. At the Oscars, most of Hollywood will manage to be self-congratulatory about its own sins.
2. There will be several articles a day in the MSM about how Donald Trump is about to have a breakdown and that everyone on the White House staff is worried. But Donald Trump will not have a breakdown.
3. We will never hear from a single one of Roy Moore’s accusers again.My New Year’s resolution is not to make any more predictions for 2018. I may even stick to it for a few weeks.
And you?
Don’t know about the first because I never watch the ocsar’s thus lack a basis for comment but 2 and 3 seem more like certainties rather than predictions.
every conservative should engrave it in their mind how the democrats stole a senate from the republicans with fake accusations. All accusations raised by democrats and their associated media arms are false until proven with indisputable evidences.
My prediction is that “These are the voyages of the Starship America….”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqEdLO7kpdQ
No matter how much they have championed the policies enacted by the Trump administration in the past the NeverTrump ‘conservative’ crowd best personified by Bret Stephens and Bill Krystol will still pine for that Hillary presidency.
Yeah, TDS will not only continue, but will become even more hysterical and wacky. Moore’s accusers will disappear, and accusers of djt will become legion.
Hmmm, your predictions, Neo, seem too easy, I don’t see that you’re taking any risks with those. 🙂
Here are mine, in no particular order:
1. The real world proof that Paul Krugman is an awful prognosticator, possibly an anti-predictor, will continue to accumulate.
2. Senator Franken will recant his resignation and remain in the Senate citing the State’s voters as begging him to stay.
3. As PDT’s policy accomplishments continue to increase and to successfully Make America Great Again, the calls for his impeachment will likewise increase among those of the Left.
I’ve more but really like triples so will leave it at that.
steve walsh:
I don’t think yours are any riskier 🙂 .
Neo, do you think accusations of sexual misconduct will remain an effective weapon in 2018? Yes, it backfired a bit in that it took down Al Franken, but his seat is solidly blue. Oh, and John Conyers, and my first thought when I heard his name was, “I don’t even remember the last time I heard his name.”
The thing about Moore, is that even if everything that was accused actually happened, the thing that bothers me the most is that the press waited and released the information at the precise best time it would do the most damage to the Republicans. Whatever missteps the Republicans took, and they took several, as usual, they were mugged. This is a 40-year-old story. You cannot convince me this wasn’t timed to be of the most benefit to the Democrats.
No predictions, but wishing all here a very Happy and
Productive New Year. My wish for you all is that as we move forward we find increased value and meaning each in our own lives.
The one thing we all have in common, and the thing that we often forget, is that we’re all winners in the biggest lottery of all — we exist!
My predictions for 2018:
1) CNN wins a Publitzer Prize for its coverage of the Russian Trump collusion story.
2) The Europeans will denounce the Palestinian authority as terrorists and collectively move their embassies to Jerusalem.
3) Hillary will be prosecuted. I am not sure for what as the list seems to be growing longer every day.
4) Polls will reflect that the public understands that there is difference between a Presidential election and a vote for American idol. Obama’s popularity will subsequently disappear and Trump’s skyrocket.
5) Darkest Hour, the movie about Churchill in May-June 1940, will become the most popular picture of 2018, due to its mature subject matter.
With experience in any field comes increased confidence, no? And as confidence rises so, too, does assertiveness. That’s human nature and Trump is all too human.
Trump came to the White House without any experience at all in public office and has thus been on a sharp learning curve these last 12 months – particularly when it comes to some of the limitations on the power of the executive branch.
I have no doubt some of these restrictions on his power would have shocked and frustrated him as a man without a legal or constitutional education and coming as he does from the private sector where the will of the chief executive is pretty much the law.
But our man is a quick learner and no doubt now is feeling more confident with his hands on the wheel and in manipulating the gears. Look at how much he has already done while only on a “Learners” permit.
My prediction? Just as that other Titan, Prometheus, defied the gods to deliver the gift of fire to mankind I predict that 2018 will deliver to us: “Trump Unbound”.
He will defy the swamp-gods to deliver the gift of a big, beautiful wall and comprehensive, meaningful immigration reform to the people of the US who for too long have found themselves either locked out of work or on stagnated wages due to a flooded labour market.
Economists tell us, don’t they, that all other things being equal: to increase the supply of a commodity is to lower its price?
Trump Unbound is both a conviction politician and a practical man so he not only wants to do it but knows he must deliver- or lose his base.
(In this respect, I am very gratified by the remarks the under-rated orator, Steve Bannon, consistently makes in recent addresses that Trump habitually refers in meetings to “my people” and ponders intensely on how measures might play among his base).
I look in each week on Laura Ingraham and Anne Coulter, (I particularly like Ingraham’s personal style and the way her mind works. I think she would have been a formidable practitioner in her lawyering days). Both ladies have their finger on the pulse of Trump’s people when they promise to turn their backs and walk away from him if he does not deliver on his border wall and immigration promises.
The base will accept as a practical matter the 800,000 or so DACA “dreamers” but only at the price of the wall, an end to chain migration and the visa lottery. They will not accept an amnesty for the estimated 8 to 30 million illegals.
Wasn’t that, afterall, the whole point of backing Trump in the primaries against safer, more personally-palatable and seemingly more electorally-viable establishment choices? The certain knowledge that since the Republican establishment never heeds the popular will anyway then there was no point in electing them and no loss suffered if they weren’t.
The climate won’t change very much.
People will start hating Facebook the way they used to hate Microsoft, and the European Union will sue FB for monopoly practices.
Amazon will start paying customers to download music. In return, each song will include spyware to record customers’ internet use. Musicians will be replaced by robots. Jeff Bezos will reveal that Washington Post reporters were replaced by robots, and nobody noticed.
More people will become deplorable. Before the year is out, it will become a synonym for “white people.”
Rachel Dolezal will run for President.
Cassandra will be become the most popular name for baby girls.
I share Bob from Virginia’s admiration for the movie, “Darkest Hour”.
Must, respectfully, disagree with his prediction that it “will become the most popular picture of 2018, due to its mature subject matter.”
Agreed that it deserves to be. But it will not do the box office it deserves precisely because of the qualities that make it so good. Intellectual and emotional intelligence is required to enjoy it. The market for that just isn’t big enough.
Spoiler warning: No nudity, no heaving bosoms, no foul language, shootings, stabbings, bombings or clubbings. No panoramic vistas of people sunning themselves on beaches and no car chases.
Instead, an extremely, (and no doubt deliberately), dark and claustrophobic world set in and about Churchill’s underground command bunker, Westminster and what is probbaly meant to be Chartwell. It’s all about language and ideas and principle.
To be the most popular movie today one needs to capture the masses which, unfortunately, is represented by the wonderful Amy Adams and Mark Wahlberg characters in Fighter, (2010).
Discussing what movie to see on their first date Amy’s character rejects the new Australian film because “I don’t like subtitles” and, then, coming away at the end of the movie, we get Amy as Charlene, speaking for everywoman today:
“That’s the movie you wanted to see? There wasn’t even any good sex in it.”
Rick Gutleber:
Accusations of sexual misconduct have been effective for decades. I doubt they’ll ever go out of style, and certainly not in the next few years. Accusers have gotten more sophisticated in their coordination, as well.
No predictions, other than that Democrats will continue to be the Party of Hypocrisy and Republicans, the Party of Stupidity.
However, here is an interesting look at how the News World works today, via PowerLine, which can be used to predict that TDS will not change or go away.
Or rather: how it doesn’t work (as in, function effectively or properly for its purported purpose: disseminating news).
It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the people at Associated Press are not the sharpest glyphs in the typesetter’s box.
Or, they are deliberately malicious.
Or, most likely, both.
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/frank_miele_editors_2_cents/20171230/column_a_finger_in_the_dike_holding_back_the_fake_news
“I took a rare shift as news editor last Saturday, which gave me an unexpected chance to put my finger in the dike holding back the flood of fake news caused by those afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome.
As I was sifting through the Associated Press news report looking for wire stories worth putting into the Sunday paper, one story on the news digest caught my attention right away: “President Donald Trump reacts to reports about the retirement of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe by retweeting falsehoods about McCabe’s wife.”
“Oh no,” I thought. “What has Trump done now?” Because even though I am a Trump supporter, I’ve learned that Twitter can be a cause of trouble in the Trump administration as well as a frequent force for good.
But when I looked up the story, I discovered that my worries were unfounded. So, unfortunately, was the story.
When I read AP reporter Darlene Superville’s story, it was immediately obvious that she had either misunderstood Trump’s tweet or intentionally lied about it. She also plainly didn’t know the meaning of the verb “retweet,” since Trump had tweeted an original statement, not a quoted one.
Getting to the truth will take a bit of context, so here goes: …”
RTWT – his attempts to convince the AP desk that they ran with “fake news” are both sad and funny, as are so many episodes of TDS.
The interchange reminds me of the very, very old (now) “conversations” between people and the new-fangled automated billing machines/computers — some of you will remember them, I suspect (mostly printed in Reader’s Digest IIRC).
The author’s other columns are worth a read as well, such as this one:
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/frank_miele_editors_2_cents/20171216/swamp_critters_target_ryan_zinke_but_im_betting_on_the_seal
Peter Strzok is indicted. He cuts a plea deal. McCabe indicted.
It might be 2019 before Hillary, Huma and Mook are indicted, but they are all going down.
Aesopfan,
That story by the editor in Kalispell should get lots of play because it really lays bare how bias gets placed in supposed news stories. The AP is a joke at Hinderaker at Powerline seems to have a story every week by some AP writer.
An argument can be made that the AP is far, far more damaging than NYT or the Post because there stories are picked by thousands of newspapers and web sites and printing unquestioningly which makes what this editor very commendable.
I wholeheartedly agree about Roy Moore’s accusers. Whether they were telling the truth or not, they served their purpose and that’s that.
Here’s mine:
1. Trump will continue to deliver on conservative policies while continuously offering outrageous rhetoric. Trump Derangement syndrome will thus, continue to grow as lefties and Never Trumpers revel in endless virtue signaling. Yet it will start to be accompanied by a small but burgeoning phenomenon: Trump Fatigue Syndrome. This will largely affect ordinary lefties (those who don’t get paid to scream about their hatreds). It will just grow too much bother for a small but significant portion of the mainstream left. They’ll start tuning out and…just possibly….resume being ordinary, decent people.
2. Justice Kennedy retires. Trump nominates a solid, Gorsuch-esque replacement. The media goes ballistic, Twitter explodes, leftists scream, gnash their teeth and best their breasts. But in the end the nominee is confirmed 56-44 or so, with Manchin, Heitkamp, Donnelly, Casey and Jones voting with the GOP.
3. MeToo runs its course and peters out buy not before taking out at least two more Comgressmen, three prominent journalists, two A list actors, two large corporate CEOs and Stephen Colbert (the latter just a fond wish more than a prediction).
4. Endless smoke and mirrors from Mueller, making headlines daily but with no real substance. Nonetheless, we will be assured each new revelation (Donald Trump Jr. ordered borscht at a Russian restaurant in 2014!) is the harbinger of a smoking gun of a scandal 10 times bigger than Watergate that is on the precipice of Trump’s impeachment and imprisonment for life.
5. Several more damning revelations about HRC will be met with a shrug by the mainstream media. HRC will continue to position herself for 2020, while denying the same…plugging her book and campaigning for any midterm Congressional candidate stupid enough to seek her support. The shrinking, yet adamant, cavalcade of Clintonistas will continue to defend their dear Queen Bee against even the most superfluous (i.e. Vanity Fair) criticism.
6. In the midterms, Democrats gain 10-15 seats in the House; significant, but short of a majority. Due to the lopsided number of Democratic seats in the Senate, the GOP will gain 2-4 seats. Nonetheless, the MSM will hail this a decisive repudiation of Trump.
7. Both the Iranian regime and Kim Jong-Un will be overthrown. Neither will receive much attention in the MSM, because…Mueller, Russia, collusion, Eric Trump drank Stoli vodka one time, Ivanka saw the Nutcracker with her kids!!! Ahhhh!!
8. Academia will continue to spiral into absurdity. A couple liberal arts colleges will start offering majors in “Anti Trump Studies”; several schools will name endowed chairs after a Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin; the number of six figure administrative positions in diversity will increase tenfold; acrimonious campus protests will result in at least five violent Middlebury type altercations. But, overall enrollment in four your institutions will drop, as students and parents continue to realize the scam much of higher education has become.
Happy New Year, Neo! And thank you for all your work.
I have a prediction. In 2018, Neoneocon will continue to write some of the most interesting pieces on dance that you can find on the web. 😉
BTW, did you see that Peter Martin retired today from the NYCB? “In his letter, Mr. Martins said the abuse and harassment accusations by dancers had ‘exacted a painful toll on me and my family.’ He said he had decided to retire to ‘bring an end to this disruption.’”
Link to the NYT’s article: https://tinyurl.com/ybr96vlu
Thirty years too late, in my estimation….
My prediction.
Whatever I predict, no matter how outrageous, will seem tame in 2019.
Excellent predictions, Ackler. I hope you are right about #7. If both NK and Iran do fall it will be hard for even the MFM to cover it up though they will provide not just spin but insane contortions to prove either a) Trump deserves no credit or b) not really that big a deal or c) both.
If Iran regime would be overturned by protesters or a civil war there starts, all the strategic calculation in ME would be busted. Everything will became possible, all bets are off.
How many times have the democrats and the left been on the wrong side of the history? They were the enablers of Slavery, Soviet Union, Castro, Mao, Khomeini, why do they have the nerve to call the other side being on the wrong side of history?
Obama is Jimmy Carter 2.0 and Trump is Ronald Reagan 2.0, both times Americans voted in the right men to correct their previous mistakes
Griffin Says:
January 1st, 2018 at 11:12 pm
..
An argument can be made that the AP is far, far more damaging than NYT or the Post because there stories are picked by thousands of newspapers and web sites and printing unquestioningly which makes what this editor very commendable.
** *
Very true.
It is why the “heartland” isn’t even more Republican than it is trending now, IMO. Although, sometimes the “small town” newspapers are more balanced; I’ve seen them run op-eds on the same page by both left and right.
However, it’s the relentless injection of bias into the “straight news” that does the most damage, by setting up unmediated assumptions which stealthily move the Overton Window to the left.
Thanks FOAF! And I agree!
FOAF Says:
January 2nd, 2018 at 4:01 am
Excellent predictions, Ackler. I hope you are right about #7. If (substitute positive achievement of your choice occurs) it will be hard for even the MFM to cover it up though they will provide not just spin but insane contortions to prove either a) Trump deserves no credit or b) not really that big a deal or c) both.
* * *
Just a little editing there, but you are very correct. It’s what they (MFM – I see what you did there!) do to every Republican administration. Cue Iowahawk’s Media Maxim.
One serious problem I have noticed, in skimming through articles from the Left, is that whatever we might view as positive, they condemn as negative, so they get a little bias-boost on most, if not all, Trump’s policy wins.
In re Acker’s #7: Looking at how the NYT has recently attempted to rehabilitate the Stalin-USSR regime, I suspect some pundit will be found who can tell us why replacing the Ayatollahs in Iran is a disaster, and ending the Kim Dynasty is Bad Diplomacy.
IF there is any eruption of battle or bombs, then opposing them is equivalent to ushering in Armageddon.
Ed Bonderenka Says:
January 2nd, 2018 at 2:41 am
My prediction.
Whatever I predict, no matter how outrageous, will seem tame in 2019.
* * *
This has been true of every year since the election of Mr. Obama.
One that I meant to add: Orrin Hatch announces retirement. This has now been fulfilled. But in addition, Mitt Romney exploits endless media attention about a possible run (as a step to challenge Trump for the nomination in 2020) but ultimately decides against it. If Mia Love runs, expect a cyclone of vile, racist, misogynistic tirades from the progressive commentariat (with Bill Maher leading the charge)
Ackler Says:
January 1st, 2018 at 11:16 pm
I wholeheartedly agree about Roy Moore’s accusers. Whether they were telling the truth or not, they served their purpose and that’s that.
* * *
I concur, and this is a very easily testable proposition, which is unusual in Pundit Prognostication.
On your other points, I think the TDS fatigue is already setting in, as the MFM’s (thanks, FOAF) dud “bombshells” continue to condition the non-Left hysterics (aka normal people) to discount or dismiss their stories (and I mean that they are, literally, stories, not “news stories”).
We ran into a problem with anti-HRC fatigue on the emails (abetted and pushed by the media) going into the election (even with the last-minute bait-and-switch by Comey on the Weiner laptop-dance), but the ongoing revelations about the Democrats at least have the advantages of being (1) increasingly outrageous, rather than diminishing in import; and (2) true.
I predict that Buffalo will have snowstorms in January or February.
Summer highs in Texas will be above 90.
Democrats will be hysterical.
I give you these predictions which will turn true, and I won’t make a cent off them. I am a prophet without profit.
Dave Says:
January 2nd, 2018 at 12:10 pm
How many times have the democrats and the left been on the wrong side of the history? They were the enablers of Slavery, Soviet Union, Castro, Mao, Khomeini, why do they have the nerve to call the other side being on the wrong side of history?
* * *
Their view of history is a Moebius strip: they simply manipulate documents, memories, and perceptions to put the Republicans into their own previous positions, and slide around into being on the “right” side rather than the Right Side.
We saw that happen with slavery, when they used Goldwater’s principled objection to some portions of the Civil Rights Act as a lever to saddle the Republicans with supporting slavery in the Civil War instead of actually being the abolitionists opposed to Southern Democrat secessionists.
The Left and Dems supported the USSR, covering for countless atrocities, and fought Reagan every step of the way to the fall of the Evil Empire; now (as Acker and others noted), anyone who has any contacts with Russia is in league with the Devil. (Not sure how that squares with NYT’s latest love-letters to Stalin, but they’ll find a way to twist things, as usual.)
The bigger reason they make the claim is that they actually believe that their side is correct aka best (although that breaks the fourth-wall about their contention that all cultures are equal).
If the Left ever does decide to break with China’s communists, they will declare that the problem was not with their uncritical adulation of Mao’s also-countless atrocities, but that Nixon opened up trade and quasi-normal relations (so Republicans obviously were always complicit in the Cultural Revolution).
Ditto with Castro and Khomeini. Besides, it’s already the Republicans’ fault that Cuba and Iran are being victimized by the West, so anything that requires a turn-about in Leftist allegiance can be blamed on that.
Twisting history is not hard to do if you control both the news media and the academic blather (I hesitate to call it “scholarship” these days).
Ackler Says:
January 2nd, 2018 at 2:34 pm
… If Mia Love runs, expect a cyclone of vile, racist, misogynistic tirades from the progressive commentariat * * *
My dream ticket for 2024 (since the Left is doing its best to re-elect Trump in 2020) is Nikki Haley-Mia Love, with Sarah H. Sanders as Chief of Staff.
my prediction:
in 2028 the democrat president candidate will represent himself/herself the Trump democrat and declare to be the true successor of Trump economy.
Here is a prediction from POTUS himself:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/948211438472089600
Say what you like about him, the man has a sense of humor – and it seems often to take a self-deprecating form.
Unlike Hillary, I suspect that his laughter is seldom if ever feigned.
What really happened in 2017 was world-wide destabilization. Unstable systems are inherently unpredictable.
Just saw, one of Moore’s accusers is suing him for defamation. Should be interesting to see how that unfolds. She’s the one who was 14 when Moore allegedly assaulted her.
Shepherd:
Although one never can predict what courts will do, I would call Corfman’s lawsuit against Moore frivolous, for the simple reason that whether or not she is a liar or he is a liar is completely impossible to prove. Truth is a defense against defamation, and he can always say she is lying and he is telling the truth. There is no way to prove or disprove that because only Corfman and Moore know what happened (and sometimes I wonder if even they know).
Now you’ve got something to live for, Shepherd.
FOAF:
It’s what’s known in the trade as “concern trolling.”
Again, not a troll. You made a prediction that immediately turned out wrong. Not a judgment, since I try not to make public predictions (I am wrong too often). But I guess simply and plainly stating a fact makes me a troll in your biased eyes. I have no idea what kind of case she could make since this is a decades old he said she said (unless she can prove he did know her and can link it to that, but I’m not a lawyer).
Shepherd:
By telling me I made a prediction that turned out to be wrong you are not functioning as a troll. That doesn’t make you not a troll in the main. Trolls sometimes take a break from trollling 🙂 . The “concern troll” comment was somewhat of a joke.
Fact is, I did make a prediction that turned out to be wrong. I knew that these women might sue for defamation because I’d read about it earlier, but I actually had forgotten that when I wrote the somewhat tongue-in-cheek predictions (including the one about not making any more predictions for a while—I’ll probably stick to that one, because I rarely do make predictions, actually).
However, you may have noticed that the news about Corfman was such that it didn’t get much attention. I’ve already predicted the suit won’t go anywhere, although that prediction could be incorrect too, because of the already-stated difficult-to-predict nature of the courts.
However, this defamation suit is actually a topic I plan to write a post about, because I find it interesting. Therefore it’s one of those “interesting” topics you’ve introduced.