[Q&A] Political Predictions Repository

Want to make your mark and be GWJ famous?

This is a place to deposit political predictions you'd like to make in public, so that they can be easily found and referenced in the future. Thus, it is not a discussion thread; discussions of predictions should take place in other threads as conversations proceed. Explicit clarification questions and answers are fine, but "Why do you think that?" expositions should occur elsewhere so as not to clutter the repository. Predictions should be narrowly defined; testable with publicly available information at all times; have an explicit date range; and refer to events, people and places explicitly so as to leave no doubt of resolution; and they should be numbered sequentially so that they are easier to find at later dates. Edits must be clearly marked and original text preserved through the use of strike-throughs if the prediction is modified. Please avoid the use of generalities - "The President will change his mind on this topic" is less useful than "The President will change his policy from yes to no on this topic", because the latter prevents a tiny change from being claimed as success. Failed predictions should be marked in bold at the top of the post via an edit, leaving the rest intact.

Trump will end up recorded as the best president ever because simply because reporting otherwise will become increasingly difficult and unsafe.

krev82 wrote:

Trump will end up recorded as the best president ever because simply because reporting otherwise will become increasingly difficult and unsafe.

Predicted.

Prediction 1: Motivated by the large turnout from the 1/21/17 protest/march, many more will be organized.

Prediction 2: The turn out for these protests/marches will slowly die down during the course of Trump's 1st term.

Prediction 3: The protests will will not affect the midterm elections which the Republicans will win, nor will they be able to stop any major legislative pushes from Trump.

Less likely Predictions:

Prediction 4: After 4 years of reorganizing the Democratic Party Bernie Sanders runs for President.
Prediction 4.1: Liz Warren will be his VP pick.
Prediction 4.2: He wins
Prediction 4.3: He dies of natural causes sometime during his Term, and Warner becomes the first Female President.

Edited: 3/8/18 removed the Republicans winning the midterms as I expanded and modified this prediction on the next page.

I suspect that within the next year the White House Press Conference will look quite a bit different. At the most extreme the tradition will be abolished, but more likely I think that some long-time members will be disinvited (even big players like CNN are possible) and some ridiculous alt-right replacements will be made.

I also expect that the ratio of questions taken from different organizations will be more skewed, but I don't know if we have the data on previous questions that have been answered/ignored from different news organizations to verify that.

WizKid, I assume you mean Liz Warren?

I predict that we will have a coal power subsidy by 2019.

Can I predict that we won't because the Natural Gas industry would fight tooth and nail against it?

Tanglebones wrote:

Prediction: Within the first month of his presidency, Trump will have the National Guard attack the DAPL protesters

https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status...

BREAKING: The White House just confirmed that they fully intend to move forward with the Dakota Access Pipeline in Standing Rock.

Along with his stymied desire for military toys to play with in his military fetish parade, I'm pretty sure this means go-time is just around the corner.

Random grab bag of predictions for the next two years (#7):

7.1: A separate security/intelligence apparatus will be established, as the president feuds with the FBI and CIA. (Anyone else would have found them obsequious at this point, but he holds grudges.) Possibly a private one, employed directly by the president.

7.2 Mainstream Republicans become more comfortable with outright attacks against news they disagree with. It's no longer confined to citizens, but politicians and pundits start outright dismissing all non-approved news and siding with obvious lies put forth by the administration. We've always been at war with Eastasia, or no one stood in front of a tank levels of misinformation.

7.3 The internet will be monitored and blocked. The ostensible reason will be either because of terrorism or public decency (i.e. pornography), but the other reason will quickly come along for the ride. Net neutrality is dead, corporations will exact tolls for their walled gardens. Facebook will still work.

Preeetty sure 7.2 is already done. Congratulations Gremlin!

hell at this rate I'm gonna predict Trump will releases a Trump brand beverage that is better than water because water is in toilets and his drink is the best, he knows smart people who say so, amazing, really. Media will rejoice and report with 100% pre-approved accuracy that this beverage is the best.

I'll give it a few weeks before claiming victory.

Meanwhile, here's some short-range predictions (#8):

8.1: Spicer, after his suit being criticised by Trump, having a public meltdown on Twitter, and enduring disapproval from the press even after he only takes questions from Skype, gets blamed for Trump's PR problems and is replaced.

8.2: Six months from now, Trump will still be bringing up his inauguration attendance. (And will keep claiming that he won the popular vote.)

8.3: Also within six months, the Republicans will gut the regulatory process, the Federal Register, and the ability for the public to comment on regulations. (Industry lobbyists will still be able to schmooze behind closed doors.)

wordsmythe wrote:

WizKid, I assume you mean Liz Warren?

Thanks for catching that, yes.

Sometime in the next four years, at least one sitting Republican leaves the party while keeping their seat in Congress.

Jolly Bill wrote:

Sometime in the next four years, at least one sitting Republican leaves the party while keeping their seat in Congress.

I'm curious to see how long Susan Collins pretends to be a reasonable moderate before supporting every single awful law that comes down the line.

Mixolyde wrote:

Prediction 1.1: Trump administration creates "legal" justification for authorizing intentional extrajudicial targeting and killing of US Citizens deemed to be "terrorists" by 2020.

Prediction 1.2: Extrajudicial killing of a US Citizen occurs on American soil by 2024.

I hate myself for even thinking of this and putting a date on it. Also, I'll put $5 on the "under" for the second prediction.

Carrying my old predictions forward, so that I have them all in one place.

Prediction 2: Trump declares himself to be his own Press Secretary by 2019, and gives press briefings no more than twice per week.

Sometime within the next two years Trump's constant saber-rattling towards China will brings us to the brink of war, but before it escalates to an actual declaration of war Trump dies of "natural causes" in his sleep (heavy on the quotation marks), most likely an aneurysm or heart attack. Pence is sworn in within hours and both China and America back down from what would probably have been WW3.

9.1 Before the end of 2017, in the wake of the current news media (even Fox) being declared disruptive and "fake news", a national news organization will be set up to broadcast "the true news". Even odds that it is called the "Trump News Network". And yes, "alternative facts" and "fake news" will be used to smear the New York Times.

9.2 The White House will continue to have staffing problems for at least the next six months, even though the hiring freeze mysteriously doesn't seem to apply to them. Many undersecretary positions and the like throughout the Executive branch will still be unfilled.

9.3 China will eat our lunch in the coming trade war. Partially because our administration will be actively discarding all the leverage we have and claiming it makes for "Great Deals" and because China actually knows how financial markets work. Taiwan will either submit or find an alternative protector.

9.4 If a war with China starts, we'll win in the short term and lose in the long term. It will not be "over by Christmas". Unless someone uses a nuke, in which case it will be always winter and never Christmas.

9.5 There will be no database or registry built...because Facebook is already a registry. That Silicon Valley pledge not to build one is pointless.

9.5 There will be no database or registry built...because Facebook is already a registry. That Silicon Valley pledge not to build one is pointless.

Actually a Watch Dogs 2 mission.

Trump makes English the national language.

Before the end of 2018:

10.1: The weekly crime list (already mandated by executive order) will gradually expand from "aliens" to "dissidents" to "anyone that Trump is mad at".

10.1.a:
The FBI will still drastically undercount police shootings.

10.2: CNN will get barred from Press Briefings. Infowars will be let in.

10.3: Speaking of journalists, those arrested in D.C. are going to vanish for a couple of months.

10.4: The administration will continue to leak (his campaign never stopped leaking) and many of the leaks will lead to public outcry and secret backpedaling as the official stance is generally "we weren't going to do that and that was a secret meeting".

How did I do?

Spoiler:

10.2: (2017-02-01): They're not totally barred yet, but...

10.3: (2017-01-30): I'm happy to report I was way wrong on this one: four of the journalists had the charges dropped by 1/30.

NathanialG wrote:

Trump makes English the national language.

Most Americans learn that it wasn't as a result.

oilypenguin wrote:
NathanialG wrote:

Trump makes English the national language.

Most Americans learn that it wasn't as a result.

I almost went with "Makes American the national language"

I'm giving pizzaaddict an honorary gold star for this prediction.

pizzaddict wrote:
farley3k wrote:

They will pay for it because he will cut aid, funding, etc. we give to Mexico. He will call not giving them money they same as them giving us money and many people will believe it.

This, or he will impose a 35% tariff on imports from Mexico and say the money is going towards the wall, thus Mexico is paying for the wall.

Yep. Pizzaddict gets one.

Looks like Michael Bay is getting in on the fun.

Robear wrote:

Yep. Pizzaddict gets one. :-)

For extra posterity, can any correct predictions be added to the OP? I feel like there should be more recognition for this.

Sure!

California and New York will secede...

Yep only Jan and 2017 is making me miss 2016 already.

When and why, Ognitinoc? (Is that "Incognito" spelled sideways?)