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| Political predictions: 2016 edition by blackwater 08/26/2016, 2:09pm PDT | ||||
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| Clinton wins the presidency.
Trump continues to tweet about his "stolen" presidency and lead a group of disaffected bitter-enders. However, without any real support from the Republican party machine, the Trump movement fizzles, like we saw with Howard Dean or Ross Perot. Trump's legacy is a more anti-free-trade and anti-immigrant Republican party. If they can find a sneaky way to do it, Republicans will try to change the rules somehow to prevent another Trump. (Creating Democrat-style superdelegates would be too obvious... they need something harder for the public to understand). The rising anti-globalization, anti-free-trade sentiment makes the trans-pacific partnership (TPP) a hot-button issue for Clinton. She will flip to being either neutral or against it. It may not make it through congress. Republicans continue to dominate in the house and senate, blocking most of the things Clinton wants to do. Immigration reform continues to be the third rail of US politics, and no laws get passed... officially. Businesses continue cheating the immigration system for profit. Clinton might try to use executive orders to bend some of the rules even further to let more people in, like Obama did with the DREAM Act. Clinton focuses her presidency on social justice issues such as more women in corporate boardrooms, transsexuals using the bathrooms they want, etc. Expect the culture wars to continue. Police violence will continue to be a hot-button issue. More police forces will start using body cameras. There will be another set of controversial shootings. Police department morale will fall. Crime will increase in urban areas. Bashar Assad gets the upper hand in Syria. The war probably won't end during Clinton's presidency, but it will stop making the front pages. Within a decade it quietly wraps up with the Russian-backed government back in power. Clinton might engage in some posturing, but she knows that Americans don't want US boots on the ground in Syria. She will use concessions in Syria as a bargaining chip to try to keep Russia from annexing more of Central Europe. The western-backed government(s) in Libya continue to slide towards chaos. Quite possibly, a shooting war breaks out there between the various factions. Islamic State gains a foothold and the US begins making drone strikes. Iran and Russia see another chance to dabble. The US economy continues to stall. The white-collar jobs that were destroyed by computers in the 1990s and 2000s don't come back. College prices continue to rise. US manufacturing makes a comeback due to 3d printing, but the number of jobs created is small. China's internet companies start to take on Google and Facebook. They open offices in Silicon Valley and begin to compete more seriously for talent and market share. In technology, the new battleground is artifical intelligencem and the most coveted job description is machine learning researcher. However, connectionist networks (aka "artificial neural networks) will reach a point of diminishing returns with scale. The rate of new IPOs continues to decline. Iran reneges on its deal and gets the bomb. North Korea continues to shoot missiles into the ocean. China becomes more concerned. Clinton is a very unpopular president. She is blamed (somewhat unfairly) for the poor economy and declining influence of the US during her term. 2020 will not be a coronation for her, because she will face a Bernie Sanders-style challenger from the left. Probably not Bernie himself, since he will be (even more) too old at that point. The Republicans unite behind someone in 2020, because they have seen what happens when they don't. |
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Political predictions: 2016 edition by 08/26/2016, 2:09pm PDT  |
