I gave you my “predictions” for 2011 yesterday.
I would not classify the following as predictions unless they come true, in which case I am a genius. Here are some things I’m looking at in the coming year (list to be updated throughout the day).
- There will be a government shutdown crisis over the House budget, which will include major spending cuts and defunding of Obamacare. Someone will blink. My guess is it will be the Republicans.
- The mainstream media will steadily chew through Republican candidates until they find someone they claim to like. Establishment Republicans will coalesce around the same person, because that person will be viewed as electable. I just can’t figure out who that person is.
- The price of gasoline will rise, and “drill baby drill” will be back.
- The housing and the mortgage bubbles will continue to deflate, and the White House will renew its “blame Bush” messaging with even more vigor than before.
- Townhall meetings during the summer of 2011 will be hotter, politically, than the summer of 2009.
- There will be war in the Middle East as a result of the build up of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran’s frustration with Israeli and western covert actions against Iran’s nuclear program. It is impossible to predict the event which will be the spark, but it will be something unexpected.
- The European economic model will fail; yet it still will be the model pushed by the Democratic base.
- The person who emerges as the Republican frontrunner through the process described in #2 above will be torn down by the same mainstream media outlets which promoted the person. Establishment Republicans will blame the Tea Party movement. This may not happen until 2012, but I didn’t want to wait until my 2012 “not predictions” to make the point.
- The media “story” of the political year will be Obama as the guy caught in the middle, the sympathetic only sane guy in the room.
- Unemployment will be about what it is now, but there will be no further extensions of unemployment insurance payments beyond the current extension. The debate will be whether to make the current extension permanent.
- The “tax deal” will not stimulate the economy.
- There will be no serious primary challenges emerging in 2011 to any Republican incumbents running for re-election in the Senate in 2012 unless those incumbents break with the Republicans in a big way in 2011. Any sins of 2010 will be forgotten, if not forgiven.
- None of the most mentioned likely V.P. nominees (Rubio, Jindal, Cantor, Christie, others?) will thrown his hat into the presidential ring, even if #14 happens.
- Boldest not prediction – at least two and possibly three of the four GOP “frontrunners” will not run, opening the door to Tim Pawlenty or Mitch Daniels. Jeb Bush will throw his hat in the ring if and only if this happens.
Please add your “not predictions” in the comments.
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Comments
The answer to #2–Mitt Romney.
#2 is a lock, but because the "establishment Republicans" will do precisely what you foresee, the game will change dramatically as Tea Party activists across the nation, even in lowly California, will punish the "eR's" by loosely forming a humongous third party. That party will then attract a significant number of Democrats and will end up changing politics as we now know it for at least five decades. All of this will sound the death knell to what today is called the RNC. A few exceptions noted, but RIP, you gutless, selfish hacks, you.
Being somewhat of a fan of conspiracy theories I shall remark that item #1 is by design and is to provoke item #5 which shall lead to an even bigger crisis….martial law. Something tells me that there are those that know the truth and it isn't pretty.
Who is the new media candidate? They seem so busy losing their jobs that they haven't been able to decide yet… McCain? That's always a safe loser bet. "Now is time for McCain to rise and not be pulled down by Palin." Decent byline.
Mmm… my predictions. Mexico and Europe will finally get so bad that Liberals will do a childish about-face and try to punish them. See: Obama and Venezuela.
The RNC will collapse in a blubbering heap since Conservatives are typically too smart (or too bullheaded) to have party loyalty for the sake of party loyalty. But the Tea Party express will be corrupted by all 'dem pretty lights of Hollywood, causing both to awkwardly share political power and creating more of an "Every Conservative for himself" environment.
Stuxnet marked the beginning of an era of crippling cyberattack terrorism/warfare.
In 2011 a huge bank, electric utilty, or other systemically important institution in Europe or the U.S. may be hit by a Stuxnet-like attack. That could create chaos unlike anything we've ever experienced and potentially undermine confidence in our economic and political system.
I hope it really does turn out to be a "not prediction".
There will be a huge scandal involving Barack Obama.
#12–Hatch and Lugar get primaried. Lugar loses and becomes the media's favorite new martyr, Hatch's will be a photo finish. If Hutchison runs again, she'll lose a primary. Corker is in deeper trouble than he thinks.
Ern– do you mean there will be a big scandal, or that the media will finally cover one?
Taranto is hammering your Ithaca homey, Hockett the pro tax Rockett. Tell that Slappie he has triggered unwarranted Big Red bashing, must be held accountable. If he wishes to make amends he must donate his calculated tax "cut" to the NRA or a Pro Drilling in the Gulf org of his choosing.
"The European economic model will fail; yet it still will be the model pushed by the Democratic base."
Prof that's a no brainer – there are still Democrats pushing the known to be faulty Japanese model put in place after the Japanese real estate crash. The most commonly cited reason is that the Japanese didn't spend enough money on their real estate bail out.
#2 is Huckabee, not Romney. Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh endorsed Romney.
Pigford…
Evan Bayh's been silent since his post-election piece, so I think we can expect something more from him, too. No way is he done with politics.
Also, I'm looking forward to more fun and fireworks between the WH and the Clintons. "One and done" HAD to come from them, so there's more to come, I'd guess.
There's a good chance someone on the left might read about the Great Depression and question BO's policies as extending what would otherwise be a brief downturn/recession (perhaps before he's all done, turning it into a depression). Okay. Just kidding on that one. No one on the left will study any history except to get tips on how to destroy a nation.
An add on to #3: When the government finally accepts the need for more drilling, and begins re-issuing permits for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, it finds that there are no leasable rigs left in the Gulf, as companies have re-tasked them to areas that were allowing drilling such as off the coast of Venezuela. Dismay follows the news that new rigs will take at least 24 months to become operational. Oooops
A dyspeptic, horizontal set of see-ings. Vertical component set is MIA. These see-ings are understandable and thoroughly reasonable, even expectable, but not more than half the field of action, surely.
Mention of STUXNET is germane, not only in itself, and for the reason it's mentioner adduces (a very serious matter indeed and far beyond my and most's control), but as illustration of the ubiquity of the surprising, of the phenomenon of paradox (means unexpected, from beyond accepted knowledge, para + docta, not irrational or opposing).
Would one have predicted the dynamics and effects of the "Tea Party" movement in JAN09? I could not, anyway, although I like some others had foreseen, before NOV08, simply by templating with the law of action/reaction, powerful push-back against the enormous, lethal communist/racist onslaught visibly aiming to invade the heart of the country. However, that seeing lacked specifics, in particular the "Tea Party" movement and its principal actors, women.
Who could foresee in JAN09 that that movement would start in an international nexus of communist/racist power: Seattle. This is significant. The movement did not start on the periphery of the statist system. It started right in its center, at Westlake Park in the Seattle CBD. (I attended.)
Again, who could foresee that the key actors of the movement, its live battery, were then and continued to be women, and not only of one type but of virtually all types, including races.
My point is that these and other unforeseens represent the effects of the vertical component influence set, the component which is by definition surprising, mostly beyond direct view, and which therefore is best included in predictions to CYA regarding unexpected developments.
Let us add "the unexpected" to the list of expectations, the unpredictable to the list of predictions. Surely these are omnipresent, if only latent, and omni-effective when patent.
Here's a conditional prediction for the horizontal component: IF a political party emerges from the "Tea Party" movement, it will be a second, not a third party presence. It would arise to oppose what is effectively the one Democrat/Republican Party. Perhaps termed, pejoratively, DemRep.
Here's an unconditioned horizontal prediction: the cabal which runs the current occupiers of the White House, Congressional Democrats and the media-entertainment complex will double-down on all their plans and iron-fist every one of them with the utmost speed, as has happened already. Through its White House, Congressional and media-entertainment tools, the cabal will attempt to keep opposition off-balance and flailing.
In other words that cabal retains the initiative, although it no longer has the advantage of surprise. All its plans are on the table, including willingness to go to martial law if necessary (i.e., effectively thwarted in the march to oligarchic tyranny). (The question of whether they would have means to pull off martial law has been raised, of course.) The "Tea Party" movement removed the cabal's potential for surprise. The word got out, at least as to what they want if not entirely as to who they are.
Final horizontal prediction: effort will be made — at this point of unforeseen puissance and persistence — to wrest initiative from the cabal. Efforts of this kind are visible already. We shall see their effect.
And a caution: a political movement, like an army, is run by its field grade officers, and to a lesser extent its company grade officers, not by its general officers, the visible, praised or blamed ones. A cabal, if there is one, is in the field grade ranks.
Nancy Pelosi will have the gavel surgically removed.