There’s no hack cliché like the New Year’s prediction column cliché, so with that in mind, here’s my Top 10 Predictions for 2019 column, and my general prediction is that 2019 will be even crazier than 2018!
10. Out of Afghanistan Too: Yeah, our 17-year war will largely end as we bring most of the boys back home. As always, Trump will make his opponents go nuts. What will be a big part of the fun is watching the liberal media that slobbered over Obama’s tragic, premature Iraq pullout posing as hawks over this long-overdue strategic rethink. What you won’t see is an alternative articulation of objective goals or a strategy to achieve them. You’ll never see the NeoHawks explain “Here’s exactly what we intend to do and here are the additional resources we need to do it.” Instead, you’ll get another tired embrace of the useless status quo and fury that Trump is finally rejecting it.
9. Michael Cohen Will Join A Prison Gang: Not really. He’ll get a book deal though. And libs will buy it and put it on the shelf next to Stormy Daniels’s tome.
8. Tackling Monster Tech: The Silicon Valley titans have gotten too big for their skinny jeans, imagining that they should wield unchallenged power over what we can and cannot say and think. I guess they thought parroting the term “private companies” was going to protect them from conservative pushback, both at the federal and state level. Nope. I’m not a fan of regulation, but I’m less of a fan of being bossed around by a bunch of Bay Area leftists. Look for all sorts of fun initiatives to curb their power.
7. Lindsey Graham, American Hero: The most improbable conservative icon of 2018 is going to turn into the Right-Wing Avenger in 2019. As head of the Judiciary Committee, he’s going to provide us endless moments of amusement.
6. Hollywood Will Continue Its Ritual Suicide: Did they ever pick a new host for the Oscars, one free of the sins of wrongthink and badsay? Who cares? You don’t and I don’t. And despite a flood of options, when you look at the marquees and click through NetFlix, there’s a plethora of stuff to watch yet there’s nothing on. Look for smaller box office, a collective yawn at the next bunch of woke superhero and Star Wars flicks, and more Tinsel Town pervs getting busted.
5. Candidates and Candidon’ts: Some Democrats we thought might be 2020 contenders will either not run (Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit, Old Joe Biden) or run and stumble at the gate (Tex Kennedy O’Rourke, Big Chief Warren, Nuke ‘Em Swalwell). Kamala Harris will come out of 2019 the frontrunner. Pray for America.
4. It’s the Stupid, Economy: The establishment will do everything it can to slow down the Trump economy going into 2020. The fact is that the nearly full employment that has helped so many Americans puts pressure on the wealthy Democrat donor class to pay workers more, and they hate that. Nancy Pelosi’s House will do what it can to wreck things, with the Fed’s help, but the economy will do surprisingly well next year.
3. Justice Roberts, the Enleftening: Look for John Roberts to go Full Souter on us in 2019. Never go Full Souter.
2. Another Justice, And Full-Scale War: Besides a ton of new lower court judges who will remake the federal bench, there will be a liberal SCOTUS justice leaving next year, and the left will get out their handmaid suits and go totally bonkers. Look for Trump to shrewdly pick a female Catholic (Guess who!), and look for the Democrats to be unable to control themselves and thereby alienate Catholics with ugly, bigoted attacks going into 2020. She’ll get confirmed.
1. Mueller’s Crock and Impeachment: Righteous Integrity Bob and his pack of Democrats will drop their report next year, and it will show no collusion but hint at all sorts of nefarious stuff. MSNBC will go 24/7; patriots will shrug. But that doesn’t matter. No matter what, the Democrats are going to impeach Trump. But then the Senate has to remove him and that won’t happen. There are just not 20 or so GOP senators willing to destroy their careers and their party. This cheesy coup will actually boomerang and help the president. Trump thrives in this sort of octagon deathmatch stuff - remember how they counted him out when the clutching the kitty video dropped? The independents will be annoyed that the obstructionist Dems are not willing to work with the GOP and turn rightward heading into 2020. If you’re going to strike at the king, you really ought to make sure you don’t miss!
And, as a special bonus prediction, I predict a new novel in 2019, but until then you can get my latest novel, Wildfire! It asks what America would look like if it split into red and blue halves, and the answer involves lots of action and mockery of liberals. Check it out, along with the first two novels in the series! I predict awesomeness.