Some Grim Predications
“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo."So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
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I still think that Vance will be President within 18 months of the inauguration. Trump's clearly a demented, unhinged, fool who always had a defective narcissistic personality made worse by his declining mental status. It's really impossible to ignore at this point, although the damage he does will be lasting. Vance can't act immediately, as Trump put in sycophants and lackeys in his cabinet, but it's increasingly clear to non Maga Republicans that Trump's unhinged.
Indeed, Vance acting quicker than 18 months, maybe even with in the first six months, is becoming an increasing likelihood. The nation will breath a sigh of relief no matter what Vance is like, as he isn't Trump, and by that time all the dirty work of firing government employees will have been done.
But I also think I can, at this point, see some other things happening with a high degree of probability, all of which depend to some degree on what Vance ultimately does, that will result from his administration, or occur during it. Some will surprise his supporters. Here's what I think we're going to see, which the assumption being we're within the 18 month window, or perhaps that I'm wrong on that. Indeed, if I'm wrong, the likelihood of these predictions goes up.
Note that predicting these events isn't the same as cheering them on, or hoping for them, or even remotely wishing for them. What I hope and pray is that God deliver the United States and grant to it what is his will. I don't wish harm or disaster on anyone. I think, at the end of the day, that Donald Trump is a demented old fool who deserves pity, the nation that has chosen him as the Chief Executive is suffering from a sort of foolish dementia itself, and that all the proof that ever needs to be given on why people shouldn't be allowed to get massively rich has been given.
70% Chance
How solitary sits the city,
once filled with people.
She who was great among the nations
is now like a widow.
Once a princess among the provinces,
now a toiling slave.
Lamentations.
I'd give the following about a 70% chance of occurring.
Get ready for massive gun control (and worse).
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Eh? With the NRA in Donny's pocket.
Yep.
The reason for this is pretty obvious. Trump has no natural affinity for firearms, although apparently his son Eric does. Trump's love for the NRA was because they loved him more than they loved their country, or anything else. The NRA was and is his tool. The NRA can thank Wayne LaPierre's leadership for that.*
But we're about to see some massive violence in American society, which gets to a couple of other predictions
Mass shootings, and by that I mean real ones, not ones where five people are shot up in a gang fight, are probably likely to break out here soon on an increased scale. Political violence is about to occur. You can't release 1,000 Brownshirts into society and not have violence break out and you can't routinely insult up to half the nation before somebody gets mad.
And sooner or later, some of that is going to be directed at Trump himself.
Of course, it already has. There's been two attempted assassinations of Trump already. That's not going to stop, it will occur again.
I'm not wishing that on him, or anyone else, but only a fool could deny that it might occur, or indeed that it will occur. The level of tension is too high in the country for this not to start playing out, and Trump is making it worse on a daily basis.
The last President this hated was Abraham Lincoln, who was perhaps ironically hated by the same people who are MAGA today. That's the last time the country was this divided, and that division resulted in John Wilkes Booth killing Lincoln. Trump isn't comparable to Lincoln in any fashion, his own demented imagination aside, except for the level of hatred they both engender, and interestingly from the same classes. It was probably nearly inevitable that somebody would take a shot at Lincoln, and it likely is the same in regard to Trump.
And frankly, like Booth going after Lincoln, the general trends fit the pattern, as do the sorts of personalities involved.
Leon Czolgosz killed William McKinley, whom Trump suddenly discovered, as Czolgosz was an angry unemployed anarchist and a member of a despised minority.
We're about to see a dip in the economy, which I'd guess will be a massive recession, and there are going to be a lot of angry unemployed around. For that matter, there are about to be a bunch of angry unemployed former Federal (and State) employees and we seemingly have a problem with angry semi employed veterans around right now.
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An angry radicalized veteran is what Lee Harvey Oswald was. Charles Whitman was also a veteran. Indeed, they'd both been Marines. The country has spent the last several decades absolutely idolizing veterans to the point where we've seen at least three mass killing performed by them and barely took notice of that fact. With the war in Afghanistan causing thousands of head injuries and a devotion to servicemen that's so profound that we excused their refusal to get vaccinated and have ignored service member presence at the January 6 insurrection, we're really setting ourselves up, something that's been amplified by the AR15 Effect.
And we're also in the process of making entire foreign and ethnic populations angry. Palestinians who naively hoped for a less pro Israel administration now have a kook who proposes to take over Gaza and make it into a sort of Club Med. Canadians openly boo the Star Spangled Banner at sporting events now every time they're held. A hockey game in Montreal this past week showed at least one American hockey player nearly in tears. The United States is experiencing a level of contempt not leveled at it since the height of the Cold War, when Communists nations and their fellow travelers displayed it. And Trump has made vague threats against Iran, which has never had a problem with murdering people.
Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was a Palestinian who had formerly adored Bobby Kennedy, we might wish to remember. The current goofball Secretary of Health and Human Services' father was running for the Presidency at the time he was murdered for his support of Israel. That was at a time when the Muslim population of the United States, and the immigrant Middle Eastern population, was quite small in comparison to what it is today. And Kennedy hadn't betrayed the misbegotten trust of an Islamic population the way Trump has. Nor did Kennedy accuse anyone of eating cats and dogs, or create an environment in which Native Americans now carry their IDs out of fear of being expelled from their own country for looking too brown.
Truman's would be killers were members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, and we don't even usually think of the Puerto Ricans being all that angry.
Funny, by the way, with all the talk of adding a state, Trump doesn't mention Puerto Rico. . . I wonder why that is?
And added to that, Trump's targeted Mexican drug cartels. For years some have been convinced that John F. Kennedy was "Paddy Wacked" by the Mafia or by Irish American mobsters working for the Mafia. It seems to lack any real credibility, but if the mob had reasons to go after Kennedy, whose father had connections with bootleggers, who was going after them, surely the Mexican mobs have just as great of incentive, and frankly are much more violent.
Finally, and one that is admittedly unlikely, there are growing rumblings about a military strike on Trump.
Just the other day I saw an officer post an item which, while veiled, clearly argued that his fellow officers needed to be prepared to disobey illegal orders, basically like the members of the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York just did. Okay, that's one thing. But then this past week I saw outright cries, from civilians, that the military oath to protect the country from foreign and domestic enemies applies to Trump, as he's a domestic, and maybe, a foreign enemy.
He may in fact be a foreign enemy, I'd note. We've raised it here before, but now Time's raising it.
It is perfectly possible that Trump is a knowing Russian agent, in which case there's some sort of duty for somebody to do something, if not actually what's being urged. On this we might note that the Army kept the Venona Files for decades before anyone knew it, and didn't really trust Franklin Roosevelt to know the truth about what was in it. The Venona Files revealed that the U.S. Army was aware that people like Alger Hiss were Soviet spies, they just didn't feel they could get any traction on it, and for that matter Whitaker Chamber's efforts to enlighted FDR outright failed. The point is that the service, if Trump is a paid or compromised Russian agent, may very well know it, but be afraid at this point to act on it. I wouldn't blame them for being afraid.
But, if that's the case, and of course we don't know that it is, it's worth noting that officers will act independently if they feel they have no choice or are obligated to. That's what nearly caused the US and the USSR to nearly go to war over Berlin. The officer in charge lacked clear instructions and was headed to war with the Soviets on one occasion when JFK was President before the clear instructions came in. If the Service is stilling around with information that Trump is simply a Russian tool, and to an outside observer there's plenty of circumstantial evidence that he may very well be, it's not impossible that the service, or the CIA, might actually act.
Of course, the fact that Trump is still living is pretty good evidence that neither the military or the CIA actually have anything of this type on him or he'd already be dead. If they had something, they probably would have done something by now.
On this topic, however, we might recall France.
France's politics became enormously polarized before World War Two, much like are own are, right now. World War Two made the French far right ascendant. Petain would have recognized the Project 2025 crowd pretty easily. The Second World War put the French far right sort of in the trash can, from which its never emerged, but French politics didn't return to normal for decades. One of the thing that occured in that context is that France fought two bitter colonial wars, one in Indochina and another in Algeria, in the decade following the Second World War.
The OAS was bitter about leaving Algeria, and not really happy about what happened in Indochina. Of course, Algeria was an overseas department of France, so giving it up is sort of loosely analogous to leaving American Samoa or perhaps Puerto Rico, so the analay is strained.
Having said that, it was Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, who surrendered to the Taliban, something that Trump's deluded followers were easily distracted from, including those followers who served in Afghanistan. But the fact remains we shed blood and then left, and now have a large population of veterans who served there.
And Trump is imperiling our relationship with Taiwan. "Losing" China in the 1940s, is what caused the Republican Party of that era to be shaken out of its foreign policy slumber and lead directly to the McCarthy Era, which saw the first expressions of something resembling what we're now seeing, point being, if we "lose" Taiwan, it's going to shake something up.
And Trump's course seems likely to lead us from withdrawing to an 85 year commitment to the security of Europe.
None of this means a military coup or an internal strike on the Presidency is going to happen, but all of it does put the overall violent situation that Trump has fostered into a very strange position. Men who have spent 30 years dedicated to defending the West might not really take it that well if they're told to cozy up to a side they know to be the enemy.
What would happen if the military actually acted in this fashion? I think we'd see far right riots for about a week, and that's about it. Most of the far right is a pack of paper tigers. Faced with a military action, or an action by a limited number of servicemen, they'll just accept it as the right thing to do and claim they were for it all along.
Back to civilian actors.
If all this seems far fetched, I've already seen two barely veiled calls for assassination on Blue Sky or Twitter. People outright hoping somebody will kill Trump. During the Super Bowl I heard several people either outright note what an assassination opportunity it was, or in the words of one person "what a John Wilkes Booth moment."
So where does this lead, if it happens?
If Trump survives the next attempt, he'll slap down an executive order banning wide classes of long arms and handguns, as well as orders massively curtailing civil liberties. My guess is that most semi automatic long arms will be outright banned. If Trump asks Congress to do it, the Democrats are already all in, and the dog like GOP will do exactly what Trump wants. He'll probably simply ban handguns as well.
And, as noted, he'll curtail civil liberties. In that sense, such a thing would be a gift to him.
And there's a good chance he'll do that when the next big mass shooting occurs. It's probably already being worked out.
And what's the risk to him? It's not like the NRA is going to suddenly turn its back on somebody they fanatically worshipped. Hitler, to a degree, turned on the SA, but they didn't turn on him. The NRA will roll over like a dog and come out for whatever he asks for.
If Trump doesn't survive, mass violence will break out in the Populist Storm Trooper camp who will blame the murder on the fantastical "deep state". They already believe they're freedom's vanguard in this fashion. J. D. Vance will use the event to declare an emergency and then he'll do the same thing. That will last for about a week, as noted, until Vance declares all is well.
Indeed, William McKinley, whom Trump so adores, provides an example. McKinley's Vice President was Theodore Roosevelt, who many in the GOP feared as a dangerous radical. Roosevelt wasted no time making the government his own. The Trumpite lackeys and Elon Musk will be shown the door, and we'll have National Conservatism, like it or not, and whether or not anyone voted for it.
The upcoming marginalization of Evangelical Christianity.
It's overdue anyhow.
The theological underpinnings of Evangelical Christianity are too thin to withstand any sort of examination by anyone who cares to do it and a Christian religion that basically holds that anything you can do is okay, as long as you do it with a member of the opposite sex, is not very Christian. But the linking of the anti democratic populist far right with Evangelical Christianity will be something that it can't endure when things blow up in this Administration's face, and that is going to happen.
Mike Johnson with his smarmy smile, and Trump closed eyed as if he is in deep thought will be what people remember when they lose their jobs and have no place to go. Health and Wealth Christianity, which is contrary to the Gospel, won't have a long shelf life when you are poor and sick and somebody on television is yelling at you. People who voted for Trump as he was "Godly" won't remember that when they're lining up for assistance that isn't there, and Musk has gone on to have five more children with three more concubines.
When the bloom is off the rose of populism, Evangelical Christianity is going to tank.
The bad thing, I suppose, is that a lot of people leaving it will just leave religion altogether.
We'll have troops coming home in body bags within a year.
I don't know from where, or when, but we will. This administration is too reckless not to get troops killed, and when inflation creeps up over 7%, which is only months away, it'll need a distraction. Nothing distracts like war.
Trump has found plenty of countries to pick on. My overall guess, however, is that he'll pick on one that seems like it can't do much, or he'll pick a fight with Iran, which really can. A war against Iran is one that we frankly can't win, as wars end when the people you attack decide they're over. The Iranians are never going to agree that we beat them.
If I'm right, the irony will be that there will be dead Americans coming home for decades, and frankly they'll be blood right here on our shores. Iran has no problem with waging a terror campaign right here, and that will itself spark a bunch of civil repression here in the US.
The United States will return to democracy, but we'll be irreparably harmed.
The populists had and continue to have a real point about rule by unelected officials. There's been complaints about that for decades. The complainers didn't understand what they were complaining about, which was the rise of a large Federal government from 1932 on, and ironically a lot of the complainers will be the fist to suffer as agencies shrink. When people in the Trump camp can't get Medicaid, and a lot of them are receiving it, or drive on pothole filled highways, they'll be getting exactly what they deserve.
But only 50% of the country was in the Trump camp during the election and only a fraction of them are hardcore. The country will come back.
But it won't be the same. Much of the damage will be permanent and those who voted for it should be reminded of it every year for the rest of their lives.
People believed that Trump was going to take on government waste, and some still believe it. Mostly he's just cutting. Trump and Musk are very wealthy men born into wealth. For them, people suffering economic deprivation is an abstraction.
The US will be eclipsed as a major power
The US really entered the world stage with World War One. Under Trump, we're stepping off.
That is in fact what a lot of people want, they just don't want comes next. The world now will be a bipolar one, with the European Community standing for what the US did, and China being its main opponent (but read below). We'll dance to their tune. People who thought that Trump was going to make America great again will find that it has become just a second rate power with none, and I mean none, of the claimed things that were going to be achieved, achieved.
There's always been an element of this in American thought. There were those who were opposed to even getting ready for the Second World War. The US entered World War One when German ambitions began to hurt us to the extent we could ignore them. After World War Two the GOP went isolationist again rapidly until it began to hurt us pretty quickly.
Going isolationist again will hurt us, and quickly. I think, as noted, it'll get us in a major war with China, Russia and South Korea. The difference this time is that we're hated worldwide. We'll fight a lot of that on our own, and badly.
If there's an upside to this, and I don't really think that there is, it appears to be that Europe is going to resume its traditional role as the dominant Western force. Americans, for the first time in decades, are going to have to get used to being also rans. In fact, in this context, it might be for the first time in US history where we basically have a seat at the children's table and nobody pays that much attention to us as we're not adults. In a way, that's a lesson that we failed to learn somewhere and its time to learn it. Time to grow up.
If that's correct, and it seems likely that the National Conservatives are panicking it is, as they're sending Musk and Vance to try to lecture Europeans, it'll mean that much of the the external things National Conservatives are working on won't matter. The US view on climate change, won't matter. US tax policies, won't matter.
We'll basically be like what Brazil current is, in regard to the rest of the world.
On a related item, within a few years of Trump's death, which will be soon anyway you look at it, he'll be such a despised figure in American history that his grave will be a frequent target of vandalism. The government won't really bother, after a time, to guard it. He'll be held in contempt, including by those who now fanatically worship him. Americans will regard those who voted for him as contemptible fools, including the majority of people who voted for him, who won't admit that they did so.
50% Chance
Let all their evil come before you
and deal with them
As you have so ruthlessly dealt with me
for all my rebellions.
My groans are many,
my heart is sick.
Lamentations.
Some more remote possibilities, but not all that remote
We'll be in a type of world war.
And I don't mean figuratively, I mean actually.
Somewhere around here is a post that predicted, at the time it was posted, that we would be at war with China within, I thought, about five years. We aren't at that mark yet.
China wants Taiwan and have been openly planning to invade it for years. The Biden Administration was fairly openly planning on the defense of Taiwan. Japan and the Philippines expect it to occur as well.
Trump is now punishing Taiwan economically, and China is going to move to get it. The Chinese are not dumb, and my guess is that they don't figure that Trump will be around long either.
Trump's a demented doofus who is destroying the American government. This would be the ideal time for China to act. And if they do, and I think they will, North Korea will attack South Korea shortly thereafter. Whatever has gone on or is occuring in Eastern Europe, Russia will launch a massive fully mobilized campaign against Ukraine, and maybe the Balkans and Poland. You can easily see a scenario where China attacks Taiwan and North Korea attacks South Korea later that same week, and Russia has a major offensive occuring within a month.
Indeed, if I led China, and the morals of the Chinese leadership, I'd do it. The balance of risks is on their sides, and will even be more on their sides after Elon Musk takes the meat cleaver to the military.
What will Trump do? Probably babble and vacillate. He'll yap for about a week on the basis that world leaders listen to him. After a week, the situation will be grave for Taiwan and we'll be in an all out war in South Korea. We'll act then, but we'll have lost a week which means when we do, we're going to take a naval pounding.
Trump, it might be noted, didn't answer his country's call when it came in Vietnam. Musk managed not to be conscripted into the South African Army by migrating to Canada.
I think our chances of winning such a war are very slim.
A war like that isn't avoidable and we'll get in it. Probably with Vance as head of state as Trump's escorted out the door babbling.
Trump's going to defy the courts
This is pretty obvious and will happen soon.
The thing is, this won't go well, and will prove to be one of those things he'll move away from quickly. Courts have a lot more power than they did in times past and they really aren't afraid of Trump. Once Federal Marshall start slapping people in prison or impounding assets, things will change.
40% Chance
Trump's revealed to be an active Russian asset.
There's no doubt that Trump is a Russian asset. Indeed, there's no doubt that he's working out great for Russia, the question still remains why.
There has always been something really odd here that people just haven't been able to pin down. He could just love Russia because he does, but he could be dancing to their tune as they have something on him.
If the Russians do have something on him, things can only be kept secret so long. Trump has a lot of enemies including people he now thinks are his friends. What does Musk know that hte rest of us don't?
What does the CIA and the military, or MI6?
And what does Putin?
When Putin dies, and he's an old man himself, things could suddenly change in Russia and the information open up. Or somebody else could reveal it. If it breaks open, MAGA will deny it. Indeed, there are still Democrats who pretend Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, and the Rosenbergs weren't working for the Soviets. But with enough evidence, famously fickle American public opinion can turn, and suddenly.
What Trump holds on politicos opens up.
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There are somethings in the political world that are frankly just too weird right now not to have a backstory.
It can't possibly be the case that every Republican in Congress does what Trump wants as they love him. Not hardly. And it can't be that they all do it as they feel its for their long time gain with the voters.
Politics have always been dirty and people carry secrets around with them. William G. Harding was screwing his assistant in the White House and had a prior mistress who was probably a World War One German spy. Franklin Roosevelt carried on a very long lasting affair. John F. Kennedy had the morals of an alley cat and bedded Mimi Alford in the White House when she was still a teen, or barely out of her teens.
Some of the people in Congress are compromised somehow. Some probably have received money illegally, some from illegal sources, and Trump knows about it. Some probably have turgid affairs with minors, non spouses, and members of the same sex that would kill their careers if it was revealed and Trump or his minions know about that. My guess is that in the next couple of years we should brace ourselves for lots of these stories, with lots of recognizable names.
A new conservative party will emerge
It is, quite frankly, a perfect time for one.
There's been attempts at this for years, but now the time is ripe, as there isn't one. The Republican Party isn't a conservative party at all, it's a populist party. The National Conservative element of it isn't either, it's a Francoist contingent.
This has happened in the US before. The GOP itself came about when the Whigs collapsed. And the Progressives made a good run at the GOP for several years in a row. Had Taft bailed out of the his race with Roosevelt, there's be no Republican Party today, and frankly the Democrats would be the conservative party.
The elements of it are already there. Quite a few Republicans who had been figures lately in the GOP and backed out remain there and are active. Some Republican members of Congress, such as Lisa Murkowski, consistently talk out of both sides of their mouths about Trump. Some more cowardly Republicans in high office will privately voice the opinion that he's bat shit crazy, and then go on to support him in public.
All it really takes is enough people with conservative views to actually unite, which is easier said than done. Having said that, intelligent conservatives are disgusted by much of which is branded as conservatism today, and yet can take advantage of Elon Musk and his band of meat cleaver juveniles to do much of their dirty work for them.
None of these are pleasant
Winston Churchill noted that in the 1930s he felt like a "voice crying in the wilderness" about the dangers of Hitler. He didn't want World War Two to come, he was trying to do what he could to get ready for it or prevent it.
I feel the same way here. None of these are things I wish to happen. I'm pretty certain that some of them shall.
Ironically, all of them are avoidable, but only with great difficulty at this point. The people surrounding Trump are, by and large, small minded and unhinged. He doesn't like to hear from people who don't agree with him, which makes him a weak person. Intelligent people, which I do not feel Trump is, can listen to different views and weigh them. He can't.
Given that, really avoiding these outcomes would require somebody to act now. If there's somebody close to Trump who can give him the dope slap, which appears unlikely, that might be a means. More likely, however, it will require something external.
The most obvious external thing would be invoking the 25th Amendment. That would require, as a practical matter, a vote of 2/3s of both houses, which is almost impossible to imagine right now. If things go very badly over the next two years, however, it's a possibility. A much bigger possibility, I'd note, is that Vance boots Trump out in a little under 18 months, but if I'm right about much of this, it'll be too late to avert disaster by then.
That's a possibility, however, which if I were the Chinese I'd weigh. Which is why, if I led China, I'd attack Taiwan within the year.
There's a small chance that disaster can be averted if the Democrats, which move at the speed of the Baby Boomers, can get their act together and launch an all out assault on the GOP. So far, they're not doing it. Some of that will have to be at the state level. California and New York basically have the ability to cripple the Federal government if they wish to, and both are really Democratic states.
Remember, LORD, what has happened to us,
pay attention, and see our disgrace:
Our heritage is turned over to strangers,
our homes, to foreigners.a
We have become orphans, without fathers;
our mothers are like widows.
We pay money to drink our own water,
our own wood comes at a price.
With a yoke on our necks, we are driven;
we are worn out, but allowed no rest.
We extended a hand to Egypt and Assyria,
to satisfy our need of bread.
Our ancestors, who sinned, are no more;
but now we bear their guilt.
Servants rule over us,
with no one to tear us from their hands.
We risk our lives just to get bread,
exposed to the desert heat;
Our skin heats up like an oven,
from the searing blasts of famine.c
Women are raped in Zion,
young women in the cities of Judah;
Princes have been hanged by them,
elders shown no respect.
Young men carry millstones,
boys stagger under loads of wood;
The elders have abandoned the gate,
the young men their music.
The joy of our hearts has ceased,
dancing has turned into mourning;
The crown has fallen from our head:
woe to us that we sinned!
Because of this our hearts grow sick,
at this our eyes grow dim:
Because of Mount Zion, lying desolate,
and the jackals roaming there!
But you, LORD, are enthroned forever;
your throne stands from age to age.
*Why have you utterly forgotten us,
forsaken us for so long?
Bring us back to you, LORD, that we may return:
renew our days as of old.
For now you have indeed rejected us
and utterly turned your wrath against us.
Lamentations
I hope I'm wrong about all of this.
Footnotes
*LaPierre is yet another hawkish boomer who managed not to serve in Vietnam, first due to a student, and then due to a medical, deferment. He's also another Catholic raised person who divorced and remarried, a betrayal of what Catholics believe.
Why do I note this?
I'm finding more and more that people who can set aside serious religious vows can set aside anything.
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