Sleepwalking toward Cataclysm

Analysis and prediction

So, surprisingly quickly the 2024 US presidential election has been decided, and Trump evidently won not only the electoral vote, but also the popular vote.

I attribute this to a combination of

• High dissatisfaction with the status quo among the general population.
• The continued inability of the Democrats to present a compelling vision for a promising future
• The inherent disadvantages of having a minority woman as presidential candidate
• High spread of disinformation in the general population through conservative media, amplified by social media/algorithms, with its attendant effects of detachment from reality and character rot.

But that is now past, and we will have to look to the future, and the future is bleak indeed, at least as I perceive it.

Today feels to me like January 30th 1933, insofar as I see a large mass of people who seem completely oblivious to the likely coming nightmare in store not just for America, but for the entire world. Today’s outcome will have grave consequences for generations to come, if they come. But from the way things are when you look around you, you might not guess.

Although I was deeply shocked when Trump won in 2016, I did not see that event as an existential threat to humanity. Today’s outcome I do.

At that time, Trump surrounded himself with corrupt and power-hungry people, but most of them were at least still sane and served as a guardrail against his worst impulses. That guardrail will likely not be there in the coming term.

His utter lack of moral character, his reckless impulsivity as well as overpowering vengefulness, coupled with the new immunity from punishment for practically any crime as long as it is in the “course of official duties” and his willingness to sell out humanity as whole for his personal gain will make the coming years unlike any other period of history.

I am certain that there will be much less stability, prosperity, satisfaction, peace, freedom, trust, happiness and, on the other hand, much, much, much more suffering under Trump in the coming years. But what does that mean, exactly?

As a reality check for myself, I will now make a set of definite predictions of events I expect to happen by November 5th, 2028, which will concretize what I just said. I am willing to stick my neck out because I genuinely want to check the validity of my views. My close consideration of two historical events in which vast numbers of people did not realize the horrors they were signing up for makes me think that this is now another one, but maybe I am wrong.

It goes without saying that each prediction that does not come true would make me immensely happy. I would much rather be wrong in a better world than right in a worse one. So if you think I am wrong, I sincerely hope that you are right.

The basis for my predictions is the following set of observations:

• Trump is a demonstrated Narcissist with sociopathic tendencies and a declining mental capacity. He cares only about himself, but he seems often unable to discern what benefits him the most in the long term, and so he often makes destabilizing or dumb choices which drag him, those around him and many others into a path of peril from which he himself has surprisingly often escaped unscathed (but not always: he is an impeached president and convicted criminal, after all)
• Unlike in his first term, there is a concrete plan to install an apparatus that will let him exercise whatever whim strikes him, buttressed by the “Get out of Jail, Free” card, courtesy of the Roberts Court and a group of reality-challenged grifters, some of whom likely suffer from similar mental illnesses as Trump and will use Trump’s cover to bring about their own evils.
• The GOP fully satisfies what I consider to be a good set of criteria for determining whether a group is fascist. My criteria are:

1. Slavish obedience to a leader figure at the top of an authoritarian, hierarchical power structure.
2. Self-justification in terms of nationalism, tradition and religion.
3. Self-definition in terms of supposed superiority over antagonist groups, usually ethnic minorities, LGBTQ, immigrants, leftists and liberals.
4. Endorsement of government control over media, academia, corporations and labor, particularly for the purpose of suppressing dissent.
5. Endorsement of illegitimate methods of acquiring and maintaining political power, such as restricting the voting ability of people who are likely to be opposed, rigging elections and refusing concessions when losing fair elections.

• The Roberts Court has proven itself unfit to defend the constitution, and future courts with new Trump-appointed judges will continue to be unfit to defend the constitution. At this point, the US constitution is just a piece of paper that has lost its sway on the Government.
• The Democratic party has proven itself impotent against the rise of the coming existential threat because its power is still concentrated in an old guard of self-interested politicians who have neither grasped their own (albeit at times unwitting) complicity in its rise, nor what they need to do to effectively stem it.
• There are enough fanatic Trump supporters who will not only be blind to whatever evil Trump and his cronies carry out, but actively cheer it on, that the critical mass necessary for bringing about currently unimaginable evil has been reached.

Any of these six conditions, if not fulfilled, could have at least offered a prospect of blocking my predictions from becoming real. The fact that all conditions necessary to make my predictions come true have been met is what makes the current situation so scary.

My predictions assume Trump will be president until at least November 5th, 2028. If he is out sooner for whatever reason, all bets are off.

These predictions can be grouped into two categories: predictions of the continuation of long-standing adverse societal trends, and predictions of unprecedented new adverse societal developments in the US.

Continuation of long-standing adverse societal trends:

1. Disinformation spread by social and conservative media will increase significantly
2. A tax bill similar to the 2017 Trump tax bill will be passed which will once again give a trillion dollar windfall to the ultrarich while handing out crumbs to the rest, all added to the National Debt.
3. If Trump’s Tariff plan is implemented, it will lead to an economic recession.
4. Employees will have fewer rights than today, and more people will be either in low-paying jobs, in the gig economy (i.e. independent contractors, rather than employees) or unemployed.
5. Large corporations will be more protected against lawsuits and be able to get away with more tax avoidance and violations (e.g. of consumer safety, workplace safety, environmental protection, etc.)
6. A large proportion of land and homes which are currently not in the possession of the ultrarich will come under their possession, as well as other natural resources, including water.
7. For-profit prisons will increase, and the prison population, already the highest in the world, will significantly enlarge, especially with racial and other kinds of minorities.
8. A greater proportion of white collar crimes will go unpunished while blue collar crimes will on average receive harsher punishments.
9. Public health statistics will plummet as the Affordable Care Act is finally terminated without replacement, and many people cannot afford insurance.
10. Personal Bankruptcies will reach record highs, as people suffer from a greater number of adverse medical or natural events without having insurance coverage or while having insurance which declines coverage. Also contributing will be a greater dependence of the fates of people on the decisions by powerful oligarchs who will increasingly own more of everything there is to own.
11. Economic inequality will hit a record high, with more poor people as well as more billionaires than ever before, as the US completes its transition to an oligarchy.
12. A national abortion ban will be instituted, and attempts to seek abortion in other countries will be criminalized.
13. Trump will pull the US out of NATO, which in turn will lead to instability and new military conflicts around the world.
14. The Trump administration will give Netanyahu free rein to relocate the population of Gaza out of Gaza, most likely to the Sinai Peninsula into vast refugee camps.
15. The Trump administration will not only stop supporting Ukraine but actively cooperate with Russia to help it win the war as well as a chunk of Ukraine’s territory.
16. Laws favorable to fossil fuel conglomerates will increase its production and use, pushing humanity beyond the point of no return with respect to the long-term devastation of global climate change. National Climate disasters will increase in frequency and magnitude, and help will be apportioned based on political agreement with Trump. The climate change debate will transform from what to do to prevent it to how to best cope with it as a fait accompli. Many more people will be displaced from their homes, some permanently. The adverse economic effects of climate change will serve as a convenient excuse for disastrous effects of Trump’s economic policies (2. and 3.).

Unprecedented New Adverse Developments:

1. Thousands of federal employees will be dismissed and replaced by Trump loyalists. This will lead to a dramatic concentration of government power at the top
2. Trump will use this newly acquired concentrated power to take revenge on most people he feels wronged him. He will use the apparatus of the government to persecute rivals, critics and those who have tried to hold him accountable.
3. Critical news coverage of the government will be either suppressed or the media compelled to adopt a pro-government stance. Book censorship will go national.
4. The Posse Comitatus act of 1878 will be invoked to violently crush organized dissent with the military OR a paramilitary fascist organization will be founded (or an existing one like the Proud Boys expanded) with the purpose of doing the same (or both military and paramilitary powers will be used for that purpose).
5. Concentration camps will be opened for “illegal immigrants”, but after a while they will also collect political dissidents.
6. Assuming he still has the capacity, Trump will suspend elections in 4 (maybe even in 2) years and find a means to install himself permanently, even if it means that he has to suspend the Constitution. If there are elections in 2 years with an outcome adverse to the Republicans, it will be declared void due to allegations of vote rigging.
7. The US will enter a major military conflict with either Iran, North Korea or China. The risk of this leading to a World War will be realistic (I dare not imagine this, otherwise I would have put “almost certain” instead of “realistic”).

I know from the vantage point of today most of these predictions must seem unrealistic. But just because these things are hard to imagine today that does not mean that within the next few years they won’t happen. History is replete with instances in which people did not realize in time what awaited them. As I mentioned above, all six conditions necessary for these things to happen have just been met, unfortunately. Today is probably day 1 of our descent into the modern Dark Ages.

This time we get to experience Trump’s MAGA insanity without dilution. May we still be lucky, and may I be wrong.