Paraphrasing Nancy Pelosi’s proctological-like comment about Obamacare, “We need to pass this thing to find out what’s in it”, we had to elect Donald Trump to find out what he’ll do.
Given my insanely successful track record of predicting the past, I thought I’d try the future. We’re in for an interesting ride with Trump at the wheel, and here’s some musings on what we might expect. These predictions will be fascinating to re-address in a year or so, and we can see how close I got:
First of all, the easy ones: the ones based on his promises. Since Trump by definition never loses he will declare victory on all of them, but when the dust settles:
– There won’t be a wall. (Caveat: Trump could hire all the Basket Of Undesirables (BODs) who have lost their jobs to globalization and put them to work building the wall.) There will surely be extensions to the wall (fence) that Obama was already building, but Mexico won’t pay for any of it. Like Garrison Keillor remarks, “There will probably be more traffic cones than fences”.
– Hillary won’t be locked up. Neither will Obama.
– Trump won’t release his taxes. Too risky.
– Muslims won’t be denied entry based on their religious beliefs.
– Trump will indeed get rid of Obamacare, and will immediately replace it with another national healthcare system with a new name. It look a lot like Obamacare, and will end up being just as unpopular. The Republican party will now be in the healthcare business with nobody to blame for its inevitable flaws.
– Other liberal policies, such as affordable college, tax credits for working women, and paid time off after childbirth will also irritate the BODs.
– Jobs won’t be brought back from overseas. If it’s cheaper to get goods from overseas, businesses such as Empire Trump will continue to do so. Trump will not jeopardize his wallet.
– Roe v Wade won’t be overturned.
– Women won’t be punished for having abortions.
– The US won’t renege on foreign alliances.
– America won’t become any greater than it already is.
– Trump won’t undermine free trade. Empire Trump will suffer if tariffs are placed on imports.
– Taxes aren’t going to decrease for the middle class. Not only won’t they get their jobs back, their taxes will probably increase (see prediction on healthcare above and liberal policies below: somebody’s got to pay).
– ISIS won’t be defeated and illegal criminals deported any faster than they would have been under Obama.
– Trump won’t override his generals any more than Obama did.
– The crisis in the Mideast will continue for many years. None of his policies will have any effect.
– Trump won’t appoint ‘the best’ to cabinet posts. His definition of ‘best’ is ‘loyal’.
Next, the harder ones:
– Expect a steady drumbeat of accusations of corruption to rise as his foreign and trade policy actions are seen to favor Empire Trump, which of course will be managed by his family. Adding slime to the swamp won’t drain it.
– His love affair with Putin will briefly intensify, but it won’t be long until Russia is back in the business of Western destabilization, support of dictatorships and US email hacking. He’ll use the honeymoon with Trump to extend his reach.
– The inability (unwillingness?) to bring back jobs from overseas and de-oxidize the rust belt will eventually get recognized by the BODs. To keep them in his pocket, he’ll have to create some sort of WPA program (like building the wall). Like all such programs, it will be prone to corruption, adding yet another layer to the swamp.
– Since Trump isn’t really a Republican, his liberal social policies will continue to divide the Republican party. The gridlock between Republicans and Democrats will morph into a gridlock between GOP Republicans and Alt-Right Republicans.
– Spending will continue to increase, with the inevitable growing of the National Debt and rise in taxes. Defense will continue to receive the lion’s share of the money, as it did under Obama.
– Indignation and outrage will continue to be a profitable commodity. It’s a mistake to think that the venom projected by the ‘Alt-Right’ press purely reflects the rise of righteousness of conservatives. It is more likely that, as these purveyors of such half-truths begin to run out of leftist targets, the powerful emotions that have so consistently fed the Alt-Right machine will abate. Unfortunately, two other things will also happen. First, the financial motivation for feeding the need for outrage to which Americans have become so addicted will not go away. Second, as Trump begins to disappoint his BODs, their emotions will turn against him. Such publications as Breitbart and Freedom Daily will find new targets for stories about Satanists in the White House, Donald and Melania’s secret love babies and shady conspiracies in Trump’s shady empire.
Trump will, of course, have an excuse for all these consequences: “It’s all rigged”.