2025 Predictions

[El Guapo]

With the second Trump administration looming, the thought of what's actually likely to happen has of course been on my mind a lot. Here's what I'm thinking / expecting:

- Deportations double in 2025 vs. 2024. Family separation returns, amidst far less public scandal than in 2017.
- Trump's first week of executive orders include one purporting to end birthright citizenship. This results in a Supreme Court decision, but not in 2025. Regardless of how the order fares in lower court (likely poorly) thousands of children born in 2025 will not be issued social security numbers, resulting in a long-term cloud over their citizenship status
- Clarence Thomas retires. Trump flirts with appointing Aileen Cannon to his seat, but is eventually persuaded to nominate Reed O'Connor instead.
- There is at least one indictment of someone involved in the January 6th response - either a law enforcement officer protecting the Capitol, or a staffer working on the J6 committee, or even Liz Cheney.
- No more than one of Trump's current cabinet nominees is rejected by the Senate

And to include at least one positive one, the ACA remains largely untouched.

[Jaymann]

I predict the Repugnicans will be utterly incapable of governing the country and it will foreshadow disastrous midterm elections.

[Max Peck]

Assuming fair elections. Going forward, that probably shouldn't be implicitly assumed.

[Smoove_B]

I was writing a bunch but then I thought better of it; best they not get whispered into the universe.

That said, I feel like it's pretty likely that they're going to hold hearings and try to jail Dr. Fauci along with any number of other Covid-19 government folks that have been deemed evil. I know there's still talk about Biden issuing Fauci (and Liz Cheney) pardons, but I'm not entirely convinced that will help. The number of people I *still* see online calling for Fauci to be jailed is absolutely insane. It feels like anything short of a made-for-TV circus is going to be a missed opportunity to fire up the base.

[YellowKing]

This is probably based on an inordinate amount of optimism, but I want to believe.

I echo Jaymann's sentiment that the Republicans will be completely incapable of good leadership, which will lead to Dems taking back one or both houses in the midterms leading to total gridlock for 2027 and 2028.

I think most of Trump's crazier ideas will fail to materialize, through a combination of Republican in-fighting, Democratic resistance, public resistance, and the fact that Trump is terrible at actually getting anything done (nor does he care). Most Americans were counting on this when they voted him in, so let's hope they were right.

That doesn't mean all of Trump's ideas will fail to materialize. I'm guessing he will make good on his promises to up deportations (though not at the ludicrous levels he promised), there will be some half-assed revenge attempts against political opponents, etc. I think his worst impacts are going to be culturally, and are already being felt - corporations removing DEI teams, schools removing black and LGBTQ curriculums, media platforms succumbing to "anti-wokeness." There will be more racial tension than ever before as his supporters are emboldened. Gun violence will continue to rise, school shootings will continue to happen, and those in power will continue to do nothing.

On the world stage, I think the Ukraine conflict and the Palestinian conflict will be settled on Trump's watch. Not because of anything he does, but just from a timing perspective as I think both are reaching a point of unsustainability. Of course he'll take credit for anything that occurs, but I think any solutions will come from agreements generated from the combatants themselves. I don't foresee Trump getting us deep into any other conflicts - he's too isolationist for that.

And of course we'll be subjected to nearly daily media coverage of some stupid shit that comes out of his mouth or a new emerging scandal. I think his mental capacity is going to continue to deteriorate at an alarming rate to the point even members of his own party are going to be questioning his ability to lead by Year 3 of his term.

Overall I look at 2025-2028 as four years of "muddling through." It's not going to be as disastrous as we may have thought on election night (I don't see the end of American democracy), but it's not going to be good either. It's pretty much going to be four years of suck with occasional bright spots of mediocrity.

We will look back on this decade as having been completely squandered.

[El Guapo]

If you want to be really optimistic, the Republican majority in the House is so thin, and Trump is depleting it further with some of his nominations, that with a strong showing in special elections (which Democrats have managed as of late) and some luck it's not out of the question for the Democrats to regain the House majority before 2026.

[Kraken]

Trump is a showman who knows what his fans like, so he will of course continue to spout ridiculous and contradictory outrages that will dominate every news cycle. However, as he grows increasingly unhinged and feeble those around him will try to limit his public appearances. We will nonetheless doom-scroll our way through the year with much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments.

He'll appear to make good on his main campaign threats. The Jan. 6 insurrectionists will be pardoned. A lot of good hardworking immigrants will be deported and he'll use tariffs to punish our allies, but not to the extremes that many fear. The oligarchs won't let him tank the economy. Whenever the MAGA agenda clashes with the oligarchy, his billionaire buddies will prevail. In line with that, his 2016 tax cuts will be expanded and made permanent. He will try to roll back most of Biden's achievements, but those that are powering our excellent economy will remain mostly untouched. For the most part MAGAts don't care about economic policy and the oligarchs don't care about social warfare, so they won't clash often.

I think he will test posse comitatus, and the military is going to be tasked with some jobs that make the brass uncomfortable.

Subsidies for EVs and clean energy will go away. We will again withdraw from the Paris agreement. States like MA that have built strong clean energy economies will do their best to keep them going, but we'll lose ground to foreign competitors.

Blue states will suffer the brunt of federal budget cuts.

Elon Musk will redefine NASA's space policy. Artemis II and III will still take place as planned, but the SLS is unlikely to ever fly again after that. The Artemis project will be reconfigured with Starship as the star player, and Mars will loom larger than Luna in the intermediate future. This is getting way beyond 2025, but these seeds will be sown this year.

Musk and trump will have an ugly divorce.

Under the auspices of ending the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, trump, Putin, and Xi will privately formalize their spheres of influence. Trump will give the other two free rein in Europe and Asia in exchange for unchallenged American hegemony over the western hemisphere. The Middle East won't fit into that horse trading.

Whew, that's enough for 2025.

[Kraken]

Oh, I forgot to mention the pandemic. The bird flu is busily arranging a rampage for next fall/winter.

[Skinypupy]

Adding (because it impacts me pretty directly) that he and Musk will succeed in decimating (at worst) or simply crippling (at best) most federal civilian agencies. Anything that can be farmed out to his billionaire buddies for profit will be, and the rest will be underfunded to unsustainable levels so the GOP can howl about how “see, government doesn’t work”.

Any sort of regulatory agency that curtails unrestrained business corruption or provides environmental or labor regulation will feel the brunt first and hardest.

[LawBeefaroni]

BTC hits $175K+
M&A activity explodes under a neutered FTC.
DEI pendulum swings even further and protections are put into place for oppressed white men.
Major schism in Trump camp leads to Night of Long Knives-esque purge, with imprisonment rather than mass executions.

[LawBeefaroni]

DEI pendulum swings even further and protections are put into place for oppressed white men.

Moving quickly, I see.

[Kraken]

[Unagi]

65% think there will be peace in the middle east.

[Blackhawk]

65% think there will be peace in the middle east.

19%. You're looking at the 'unlikely' column.

It's still an absurd belief (unless they're under the impression that it only refers to Israel.)

[Unagi]

65% think there will be peace in the middle east.

19%. You're looking at the 'unlikely' column.

It's still an absurd belief (unless they're under the impression that it only refers to Israel.)

Ahh yeah - you are right, I kept flipping them (unlikely the conflict will end) in a double-negative way.

[Holman]

I predict the Repugnicans will be utterly incapable of governing the country and it will foreshadow disastrous midterm elections.

I predict that the Dems will spend the next two years rolling over for Trump and chasing credit for bipartisanship, blowing any chance they have to take advantage of GOP unpopularity and incompetence in midterm elections.

[Max Peck]

Does that really matter unless you're assuming there will be fair and transparent midterm elections 2026? Because my prediction for 2025 is that there will be a lot of work done to undermine fair and transparent elections in 2026 and beyond.

[Alefroth]

Trump buys TikTok.

[Smoove_B]

Trump buys TikTok.

I see someone is following him on Truth Social.

[IceBear]

Trillions? I am a grumpy old man with little knowledge of these social media apps but is that just normal Trump hyperbole?

[Max Peck]

It's probably hyperbole, given that TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, is valued at about $300 billion, but anything is possible I suppose.

[Jaymann]

It's probably hyperbole, given that TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, is valued at about $300 billion, but anything is possible I suppose.

See, this kind of shit baffles me. Where does all this revenue come from, more than the the GNP of many nations. Ad revenue from people watching influencers on their phone? Data miners? I mean WTF?

[Max Peck]

It's probably hyperbole, given that TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, is valued at about $300 billion, but anything is possible I suppose.

See, this kind of shit baffles me. Where does all this revenue come from, more than the the GNP of many nations. Ad revenue from people watching influencers on their phone? Data miners? I mean WTF?

What does revenue have to do with share price, even for a normal tech company?

I'm expecting that the "50% American ownership" will end up being a Trump-controlled company, and the share value will balloon as those parties that wish to curry favor will pump up the share price to make Trump happy and compliant.

[Jaymann]

It's probably hyperbole, given that TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, is valued at about $300 billion, but anything is possible I suppose.

See, this kind of shit baffles me. Where does all this revenue come from, more than the the GNP of many nations. Ad revenue from people watching influencers on their phone? Data miners? I mean WTF?

What does revenue have to do with share price, even for a normal tech company?

I'm expecting that the "50% American ownership" will end up being a Trump-controlled company, and the share value will balloon as those parties that wish to curry favor will pump up the share price to make Trump happy and compliant.

Understood. But do those inflated values have zero basis in profitability?

[Max Peck]

At the best of times stock prices can be disconnected from real-world company performance for a variety of reasons. In the scenario I envision, investors won't pump money into TrumpTok because they feel that the company is going to turn a fantastic profit, they'll pump money into TrumpTok because bribing Trump will pay worthwhile dividends in other areas. TrumpTok is just how they launder the bribes.

[Jaymann]

That makes sense. What's crazy is how much of that money was probably made from equally over valued stocks.