The two things that have given me hope for the new year over the last week is GOP congresspeople rushing out the door and something I have never personally witnessed; people using their holiday time off to raise signs on street corners (generally “Fuck ICE”, but specifically 1-800 hotline numbers to report ICE abuses.)
On a darker note, I’m fairly confident things need to get worse before they get better. That’s the silver lining of every Trump overreach, but it always involves innocent people getting hurt physically, economically, and emotionally.
This may be more wishful thinking than prediction, but I think in 2026, trump’s mental and / or physical deterioration will become so rapid and apparent, like ‘Dick Clark in his final years’ obvious, that no amount of Fox News sanewashing, or Karoline Leavitt bloviating, will be able to continue to hide it. They’ll have no choice but to ‘25th Amendment’ him.
I know, many Dopers believe a ‘President Vance’ would be as bad as trump, or possibly even worse, since he’s at least marginally smarter and more articulate. But, I think he’s more an opportunistic follower than a true acolyte. He’d probably be just as beholden to typical Repub machinations like making the top 1% richer, but I think he might put a stop to the worst policies of the trump admin, like the crazy ever-changing tariffs, the National Guard deployments to American cities, the brutal treatment of anybody even looking like illegal immigrants, and the multiple war crimes. Or at least get rid of the admin members who are actively pushing those things, like the Millers and the Hegseths. Also, his complete lack of whatever dark charisma trump possesses means that he won’t be able to foster and promote ‘trumpism’ even if he was inclined to. Again though, very possibly wishful thinking on my part.
I don’t think Vance would be as bad. Vance is only 41 and smart enough to know that he will inevitably be in the political minority some time in the future. Every imaginary presidential prerogative he acts on is a weapon he will be handing to a Democratic successor. Trump is old enough and dumb enough not to worry about that.
Due to the continued pressures of fighting the Upside Down, all the characters’ relationships will have broken up by the 90s: Eleven breaks up with Mike, Joyce with Jim, Max with Lucas, Robin with Vickie, and Nancy with Jonathon and Steve. It’ll be called…
Everything will get worse in every way. The economy will likely have a major crash, we’ll slide farther into fascism, political & religious violence will increase, and we’ll likely have a war. And more and more things will be ruined or destroyed by the Trumpists out of pure spite.
I’ll go way out on a limb and predict that the Dems take back the house in a big way. It’s the only hope of stopping what Trump is up to. They can conduct impeachment proceedings against both him and his cabinet members who have taken illegal actions. Of course, it then has to get past the senate, which is unlikely.
I suspect something big and messy is going to take place. Either there will be a huge upset in the US Govt causing in-fighting and a collapse, or the AI bubble will burst and the world economy will implode, or some other major earth-shattering insanity.
I predict there will be another assassination attempt on Trump. The last one showed how easy it is to get within range without tipping off the Secret Service. Whether the next attempt will be successful or not, I can’t predict. All I can say is that when you think about how much damage Oswald did with a Carcano rifle from 265 feet away, I’m surprised Trump is still alive.