Ah, the annual predictions piece, the conservative scribbler’s best friend and perennial go-to column, the easiest topic outside fake Indians, perverted presidents, and the gnarly predilections of creepy Never Trump weirdos.
First, let me review how crappy I did last year in a Stream of Kurtiousness video listing my predictions. I thought the Dems would run away from COVID insanity. They kind of walked away, but a lot of sissy Dems are still yearning for public health serfdom. I was sort of right.
I recommended that we make it harder for stupid people to vote. That did not happen. In 2022, stupid people voted in droves.
I predicted that Putin would take Ukraine, and he did take a bunch of it. But the Ukrainians took some back. I predicted Xi would take Taiwan, and he hasn’t for reasons I cannot fathom. The communist scumbag has a golden opportunity, and he’s letting it go. Well, I give him credit for his evil and renew my prediction below.
I predicted that President Gumby might leave office in 2022. He did not. I predicted that the midterm would be “an abortion.” Nailed it. Sadly, I also predicted that we would have a red tsunami, and that we would win the Senate, so there we go.
I predicted the border would “sort of close up.” Oops.
Adios 2022, you garbage year of sucking. Welcome 2023, which will also probably be a garbage year of sucking.
I think that Xi will take Taiwan, mostly because I cannot imagine him passing on the strategic synergy of failure that is Joe Biden + a woke, losing military + his own need to draw attention away from the myriad failures of communism.
I expect Ukraine to bog down into a slugging match. Even if the Russians generate the combat power to re-take the initiative in the spring, they are not going to overrun the whole country. The Ukrainian elite is trash, but the people are tough and drunk and will never quit. Look for a break-up of the blank check coalition in Congress, though. I think the American people are sick of it and it is bubbling up to Capitol Hill. Ukraine will still get money, but there will be real push-back.
There will be a terrible recession which the regime media will label a recovery. Your retirement will crater and your property values will sink. Unemployment will rise. All this will be blamed on you pointing it out.
The border will not close. Millions of illegal aliens/future Democrats will flood in. Again, the real problem will be identified as you complaining about it.
In popular culture, I predict that you will recognize maybe two of the ten Best Picture nominees and that you will not have seen any of them. I predict that Hollywood will depress summer blockbuster audiences with the new Indiana Jones movie starring an elderly, CGI-enyouthened Harrison Ford, Raiders of the Broken Hip. And Cardi B, the chanteuse behind that recent hit about erotic moistness, will have the biggest hit of the year with an autotuned opus about the sin of Onan.
In sports, I just don’t care.
Let’s talk politicians and presidents. The Republican Party will reject the insanity of re-electing 0-5 election loser Ronna McDaniel as GOP chair later this January. According to my recent poll, the GOP base has mixed feelings about her – the 3.5% who support her are mixed with the 96.5%(!) who do not. Now, if this was Arizona Ronna would be a shoe-in, but hopefully the 168 members of the Republican National Committee will not lead the party to ritual suicide. Here’s some gossip – committee members marked down as publicly supporting her are now privately saying they will abandon her on the secret ballot while others are ditching her publicly. Contact (politely) your three state committee members to share your views at www.HireHarmeet.com!
Sorry, Mitch McConnell is not going anywhere. It’s sad – the 80-year-old tortoise will continue to publicly decline and eventually have to be helped off-stage when it becomes undeniable to even his staunchest establishment buddies that his time has passed. Basically, Chuck Schumer will have a free hand to run the Senate.
Kevin McCarthy will eventually become Speaker in spite of the dumb insurgency that has dragged on far too long. I expect him to perform adequately, in large part because he knows we in the base are absolutely furious and will take it out on the party in 2024 if they botch the tiny advantage they barely managed to eke out in the 2022 midterms. The GOP’s investigations will reveal massive corruption and no one will care. Sadly, most people still think that morals, ethics, and principles still exist. I predict that in 2023, many of us will finally grasp that the only important thing is raw power.
The people who ignored the faux Cherokee and the hero of the Tet Offensive, and who spent decades rhapsodizing over the guy who drove a chick into a pond and left her to drown will whine all year about George Santos. So will the “Oh well I never!” Fredocon crowd. If McCarthy listens to them and squanders 20% of his minimal majority to please the Muh Principles hypocrites, he will fail the test.
On to the presidency. Joe Biden is a desiccated old pervert and he is stupid enough to run. I would not have thought he would, but people like the aforementioned Ronna McDaniel and Mitch McConnell, as well as Donald Trump (among others), botched the midterm, and Grandpa Badfinger took that as a collective high-five to what is objectively the worst presidency in at least a century. He will run again with Kackling Kamala. I do think there is, however, a non-zero chance that this senile pervert will be caught wandering nude and turgid through the Rose Garden, which KJP will describe as him setting a brave example in the fight against the scourge of Vitamin D deficiency that ultra-MAGA insurrectionists did so much to create.
Maybe Gavin Newsom decides to take his shot and primary the crusty incumbent. He will run on the controversial platform of making all of America into California. In California news, the rest of my conservative friends will move away.
We will see Republicans not named Don or Ron will get in the race, to widespread ennui. Mike Pompeo will jump in, and the tiny splash he makes will not be attributable to his impressive weight loss. Youngkin might run too, and he might do better than many others. I expect to see the ridiculous Larry Hogan and even more ridiculous Asa Hutchinson enter as well. I hope Liz Cheney does too, because I enjoy seeing her humiliated, but that will conflict with her future career taking Morning Joe panel slots that would have gone to Michael Steel or Amanda Carpenter. I expect that the newly-unemployed Adam Kinzinger’s new podcast, “Boys Do Cry,” will reach literally dozens of listeners.
I expect Ron DeSantis will continue to be America’s best governor and, in the fall, jump into the 2024 race, immediately topping the polls. Trump will not drop out before being defeated in New Hampshire and Iowa (assuming he is), unless he is indicted, which I expect. “Indicted for what?” you might ask, at which point I will refer you to the fact that the only thing that matters is raw power as described supra. If he tries to destroy DeSantis, I expect he will find that it is not 2016 anymore and that this Florida governor is not Jeb!. Nor is the electorate willing to take a risk when it can bet on what many see as a sure thing.
Of course, it being Donald Trump, I have zero idea about how it will go. I am probably going to be wrong about most of these predictions anyway, so I am not going to compound it by trying to predict what Donald Trump will do.
Follow Kurt on Twitter @KurtSchlichter. Get Inferno, the seventh book in the Kelly Turnbull People's Republic series of conservative action novels set in America after a notional national divorce, as well as his non-fiction book We’ll Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America.
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