Here we are, another prediction time. As I've done (almost) every year since 2008, I will give you what I predict will happen in 2025 so that I can check my answers at the end of the year and post them so everyone sees how completely full of shit I am. As always, these predictions are what I think will happen, not what I necessarily want to happen.
Also, I try to only make predictions that are objectively measurable. In other words, I want to be able to give each one a thumbs up or thumbs down rating at the end of the year without a lot of judgment calling. To the extent I can, they will be clear true/false type predictions or based on some numerical rating that I can check at the end of the year to come up with a clear conclusion whether I got the prediction right or wrong.
Okay, enough stalling. Here is what I got:
1. All of Trump's cabinet appointees who are put to a vote in the Senate (both in committee and in the Senate at large) will pass. Some may drop out before they get to a vote (like Gaetz already has) but everyone who it put up for a vote will be confirmed.
2. Elon Musk will no longer have any role in the Trump Administration (this prediction includes the prediction that either he won't be in charge of DOGE, or that DOGE won't exist by the end of the year)
3. The government will shut down at least once in 2025.
4. Mike Johnson will no longer be Speaker of the House at the end of 2025.
5. Trump will imposed new tariffs on Chinese goods of at least 20%. The tariffs will be broadly on all Chinese goods, with a bunch of exceptions for his friends and contributors.
6. The rate of inflation at the end of 2025 will be higher than 4%.
7. Trump's inauguration celebration in Washington will include at least one Nazi and/or Neo-Nazi incident (meaning a pro-Nazi demonstration or Nazi-violence or property defacement or damage).
8. Either Clarence Thomas or Sam Alito will announce their retirement (probably pending confirmation of a successor) in 2025.
9. The federal debt ceiling will be abolished in 2025.
10. Elon Musk will no longer be the world's richest person by the end of 2025.
11. Donald Trump will either die or have a major health crisis (meaning a hospitalization and at least a temporary incapacitation) in 2025.
12. Trump will issue an executive order to conduct mass deportations which will trigger lawsuits, family separations, and mass incarceration of migrants.
13. Trump will reduce the refugee cap to zero in 2025.
14. Congress will pass a bill that will either extend the Trump tax cuts originally passed in 2017 so that their expiration does not occur until after Trump's current presidential term, or make them permanent.
15. The filibuster for legislation will be abolished in 2025.
16. There will be some negotiated cease fire in Ukraine that effectively freezes the front lines but doesn't really resolve the conflict (meaning Ukraine won't agree to give up any territory permanently and Russia won't agree to alter any of its territorial claims over Ukraine) There will be at least one ceasefire violation after it is negotiated. (Actually, there will probably be several but at this point I'm going with "at least one")
17. The War in Gaza will be "over" in the sense that Israel will claim that something like an end to major military operations in the strip and all the hostages will be released or deemed dead. But Hamas will still exist, Israel will continue to kill people in the Gaza strip, and there will be no serious effort to rebuild the region.
18. The U.S. will institute some kind of sanctions against the International Criminal Court to retaliate against its criminal investigation and charges of Israeli officials because of their actions in Gaza.
19. The civil war in Sudan will still be raging at the end of 2025 even though there will rarely be any stories about it in the U.S. news media.
20. The Syrian provisional government that took over since Assad fled the country will still be in control of Damascus and nominally, at least, the rest of Syria. No major civil war will break out in 2025, although the regime will still be fragile and its future will still be in question.
21. The five former Soviet Stans (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and the Kyrgyz Republic--not really a stan anymore even though most people still call it "Kyrgyzstan") will not have any change in their head of state in 2025.
22. Trump's approval in the 538 favorability average model will be underwater (meaning higher disapproval than approval) throughout 2025.
23. Congress will pass some kind of legislation that requires the federal government to buy cryptocurrency in 2025.
24. While there may be an effort to cut Social Security or Medicare in 2025, no such cuts will pass Congress.
I was thinking about doing a prediction about how the media will be cowed in 2025, but I can't come up with an objective/measurable prediction for that one that can cover all the ways our craven corporate media will cow-tow to the Shitler regime. Luckily(?) I may have a few years of this regime to come up with a measurable prediction. Silver linings, people!
