I’ve read a lot predictions on this message board - some plausible, some wildly unlikely (IMHO), some vague and some specific.
So I thought it would be nice to collect VERIFIABLE predictions in one thread and we can see how we do. The predictions should be related to the political/economic landscape and they must be factual enough to be clearly right or wrong. For example, nothing like “Biden will get off to a shaky start” or “Trump’s base will gradually quiet down.” While the evidence might be strong one way or the other, at the end of the day propositions like those can always be debated.
Okay, here are my predictions. Feel free to weigh in with your agreement or disagreement and add your own:
At least one citizen will die as a direct result of violence at a rally supporting Trump on or before January 20, 2021.
Trump will pardon a variety of people on his way out but will not attempt to pardon himself.
Melania Trump will not divorce Donald in the next four years.
Trump will not attend the inauguration (duh - I bet no one here will predict otherwise).
Formal charges will be brought by New York against Trump for tax evasion, fraud, and/or other crimes.
Trump will appear at least once in court.
Trump will then become “too ill” to attend court proceedings.
Trump will be convicted of something or other, but will never serve time in prison.
Trump will not run for president in 2024.
Pence will run for president in 2024 but won’t be the GOP nominee.
Joe Biden will die in office.
Kamala Harris will run for president in 2024.
I probably have other predictions but that’s plenty for now from me.
Biden’s inauguration crowd will be bigger than Trump’s, despite Covid-19.
Trump will declare bankruptcy in 2021 claiming it is a genius move.
None of Trump’s children will be nominated as candidates 2024.
The Republicans will try to impeach Biden but will not succeed.
Some deranged 2nd amendment fool will try to assasinate Biden. I hope he does not succeed.
Trump will steal something he thinks is valuable from the White House when moving out. Probably something gold plated. It will be junk but very embarrasing when he has to return it. He will blame Barron.
Trump will disguise himself as a turkey (see him here disguised a chicken to get an idea of how he’ll look) and will solemnly pardon himself for Thanksgiving.
I’m going to pull a Nate Silver and eliminate the possibility of being “wrong” by assigning my guesses probabilities.
Just as an editorial note, in my estimation you are in some cases falling into the trap of equating an event being much more likely to occur than it normally would/should to overall likely to occur overall.
At least one citizen will die as a direct result of violence at a rally supporting Trump on or before January 20, 2021.
0(15%) The violence from the right tends to occur only when there is a clash between protestors and counter protestors. Now that Biden’s won I don’t think that there will be much need to further protest Trump. I feel that danger from the right is more in terms of planned small unit activities, like that Whitmer kidnapping plot. Also there is only a couple of more months and actual deaths at protests are pretty rare.
Trump will pardon a variety of people on his way out but will not attempt to pardon himself.
(90%) I think you are right about this. Pardoning himself would involve admitting that he’s in danger of losing in court. Trump would never admit that even to himself
Melania Trump will not divorce Donald in the next four years.
(70%) Insiders seem to think she’s going to stick it out and the only arguments that she isn’t is largely based on confirmation bias
Trump will not attend the inauguration (duh - I bet no one here will predict otherwise).
(75%) There is a chance he will want to appear presidential at the end, but probably not.
Formal charges will be brought by New York against Trump for tax evasion, fraud, and/or other crimes.
(50%) New York does seem to be gunning for Trump, but I think the Biden administration would prefer to not give the impression that they are prosecuting their political enemies. No idea which way it will go.
Trump will appear at least once in court.
(90%) The guy is lawsuit happy and mired in debt at some point he is going to sue or be sued by someone, even if its not a criminal case.
Trump will then become “too ill” to attend court proceedings.
(20%) Could happen but probably not
Trump will be convicted of something or other, but will never serve time in prison.
(15% on the first half, 99% on the second half) I’m still not sure that there is much stomach to actually try a former president, and he’s as slippery as they come so I doubt he will be criminally convicted of anything. If he is convicted there is no way they send him to prison. The secret service logistics is just to onerous. House arrest at Mara Largo is the worst he’ll possibly see.
Trump will not run for president in 2024.
(40%) Unless his health or criminal history gets in his way, he is definitely running. Campaigning is the only part of being president that he was good at and enjoyed. He won’t turn down the chance to start up the rallies and divert election funds.
Pence will run for president in 2024 but won’t be the GOP nominee.
(70%) This seems a pretty safe bet. The 30% disagreement mostly reflects his not running, not his running and winning.
Joe Biden will die in office.
(20%) He’s probably healthier than most but the presidency is more stressful than most so I’m just going with the actuarial tables which say he’s pretty unlikely to die in the next 4 years.
Kamala Harris will run for president in 2024.
(60%) Even if he doesn’t die he may not be up for another term. If he doesn’t run than Kamala is the obvious next choice.
I dunno what you mean by that exactly, but I will say that I predict (heh) that many of my predictions will not come to pass. I’m willing to speculate and propose what are to me plausible scenarios - after all, there is no downside to being wrong. I mean sure, I’ll be humiliated before SDMB posters, but I can survive the shame.
As an example of what I was trying to say would be your prediction that Biden would die in office. Biden is old, and may be more likely subject to assassination attempts, so he is more likely to die in office than any of our other recent presidents, but that doesn’t mean that there is a probability greater than 50% that he will die.
True, but if it is an established fact that the odds are greater than 50%, it’s not much of a prediction, is it? The fun comes from giving our best guess when we are peering into the unknown.
The predictions I made that I find most personally interesting are the ones related to what Trump does when brought to reckoning before a court of law. I base my prediction that he will be ill (real or feigned - probably a bit of both) on having lived in Indonesia through Suharto’s downfall, as well as having seen a variety of other famed defendants become sick during their trials.
– Biden will appoint, or try to appoint, at least one sitting Republican senator to a Cabinet post. Sitting Democrats, other than Harris herself, are out of luck.
– Trump himself will not be convicted of any crimes, but there will be a steady drumbeat of revelations about other Trump administration officials’ actions that will lead to some of them being prosecuted and convicted.
– Trump will sulk and fume on TV a whole lot.
– There will be a whole lot of handwringing and doomsaying over the next two years about the midterm elections, but unlike 1994 and 2010, 2022 will not be a “red wave.” It’s possible that the Democrats could still lose the House, since their margin is so tiny, but relatively few seats overall will flip.
– Biden will decide not to run for a second term, but won’t announce this until fairly late in his first term.
– Harris will run in 2024, but will face a tough, competitive primary fight. Either Trump himself or one of his children will run, but will not end up being the nominee.
Trump will not concede prior to the counting of Electoral College votes in Congress on 1/6/2021.I’m not predicting he will afterwards, just definitely not before.
Trump will not attend Biden’s inauguration
By 1:00 pm EST 1/20/2021, Trump will have tweeted his inaugural crowd was bigger.
Between 12:01 pm 1/20/2021 and 11:59 pm 7/4/2021 (EST), Trump will file official paperwork for his 2024 Presidential run. No prediction as to party - Could be GOP, could try starting a 3rd party.
Trump will not spend a single night of the rest of his life in a US prison. House arrest, maybe - prison, 0.000% probability. I wouldn’t object to being wrong on this one.
The Republican response to Biden’s first State of the Union address will contain the phrases “Hunter Biden”, “Burisma” and “fraud”.
Joe Biden will kick off his climate change initiative by unveiling the electric Corvette and doing donuts on the White House lawn. This one may be under 90% probability.
Ok fair enough, I think I’m just too traumatized by the thought of Bricker reopening the thread 4 years later specifically to gloat to make speculative long shot predictions.
But getting into the spirit of things,
I predict that the government will shut down on December 11th and not re-open until Trump gets some personal concession.
I predict that there will be a right wing domestic terrorist attack by July of 2020.
I predict that there will be a huge amount raised to build the Trump library, but that only a fraction of it will actually be spent building and maintaining it, with the rest just mysteriously vanishing (similar to what happened with his first inauguration.)
(probably not actually going to happen but I’m putting it out there) I predict that Trump will host his own inauguration/swearing in on January 20th to compete with Biden’s.
Biden will keep the inauguration crowd small and social-distanced.
Trump will not attend the inauguration. Pence will, though.
Clarence Thomas will be forced to step down during Biden’s term and conservatives will revile him for being their version of Ginsburg and not quitting when Trump was still there.
There will be a major military crisis involving China in Biden’s term.
Republicans will make modest gains in the 2022 midterms.
Biden will not run for reelection, making Kamala the candidate in 2024.
The Republican nominee for 2024 will be either Josh Hawley or Tom Cotton.
Court-packing will not happen.
A watered-down version of student loan debt forgiveness will pass.
Biden will be reviled by the progressive wing as being too centrist.
Trump will face charges and prosecution, and will be convicted. There will be no pardon.
Trump will not run in 2024 owing to the Republicans wanting to move on from him, and his own worsening health issues.
Trump will release a presidential memoir and it will still be a runaway bestseller, although widely mocked and reviled.
Of course trump will make pardons, pretty much this is a tradition for outgoing presidents. I will add that he will make at least one, perhaps several pardons that will not make people happy.
If Joe wins a second term, then I give this a maybe. But he is pretty damn healthy now. Harris will not run if Biden wants a second term.
If trump gets out of 2023 without any actual convictions, then yes, he will run. My prediction is that if convicted, it will be for some white collar crime in New York.
Pence will lose, I concur.
The GOP will not nominate a woman for President in 2024.
The actual GOP nominee (if not trump) will be a surprise to us here in 2020.
Sorry I forgot to add, that I predict that simultaneity of both the Trump and Biden inaguration will cause ripples in the psychic fabric that will propagate backwards in time.
I agree with you, but that one isn’t binary enough to definitely state as true or false.* Also, a time frame is important - it’s true at the moment, but at what point in time do you want the prediction to be assessed? Halfway through a Biden Administration? 100 days?
*See my OP:
For example, nothing like “Biden will get off to a shaky start” or “Trump’s base will gradually quiet down.” While the evidence might be strong one way or the other, at the end of the day propositions like those can always be debated.
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