President Biden announces an “infrastructure reform” plan, mistakenly calls Kamala Harris “President of the United States,” and Donald Trump wishes on Easter “everyone, including the INSANE left-wing radicals who stole the election.” But how will we see these events in three years? Is this the beginning of a new heyday or, on the contrary, a sharp fall in America? Short revenge of the “Washington swamp ” before an avalanche of populism or a final break with radical ideas? The Eastern Herald presents its forecast for the next four years – what to expect for America and the whole world from the 46th president of this country.
Let’s start with what is already visible. Infrastructure reform is Biden’s first major accomplishment. And the first is indicative. Initially, it was about the allocation of $ 4 trillion for this project. However, a little later, the project itself featured an amount of 3 trillion, which after criticism was reduced to 2 trillion. At the moment, the hearings have not yet taken place, and the amount may decrease even further – many legislators are not happy with such large-scale spending. And this is just the first sign.
Biden found himself in a very delicate situation: on the one hand, his party controls the entire vertical of power, on the other, the advantage is negligible, and several dissidents are capable of cutting down any project or at least emasculating it.
In addition to the internal opposition in the Democratic Party, Biden in the coming years will have to reckon with the filibuster – a practice according to which the opposition can almost endlessly block the adoption of fundamentally significant laws. For a long time, there has been a talk that they will try to cancel the filibuster, but our bold forecast will not be cancelled. Some moderate Democrats, such as Kirsten Cinema and Joe Manchin, will be a strong shield against this practice.
If the filibuster continues to exist, then Joe Biden’s hands will be tied. He, of course, will carry out several local reforms (which he presents as grandiose accomplishments), but he will not be able to seriously change the election law or arrange a carpet distribution of citizenship to immigrants. The mountain will give birth to a mouse over and over again.
Winter solstice month
But reforms are still okay. They can be predicted now by looking at how hard Joe Biden is trying to push through infrastructure changes. But the month of changes is much more interesting. Forecast “The Eastern Herald” – Joseph Biden will not sit out until the end of the presidential term. He will hand over power to his Vice President, Kamala Harris, at a very specific time: in late January – early February 2023.
Why this particular period of time? For two reasons at once. First, from January 2023, Democrats are likely to be outnumbered in Congress and/or Senate. Mid-term elections are traditionally a difficult test for the ruling party, and here, a change in the boundaries of electoral districts (very beneficial for the Republican Party) will arrive in time. So, most likely, the “golden” period of Biden’s rule will be completed precisely in January 2023.
The second and even more important reason is the elections of 2024 and 2028 (!). It is already clear how hard it is for Joe Biden. He often makes annoying reservations, asks out loud: “What am I doing here?” – and is very afraid of public speaking. It’s pretty clear that despite recent bravado in interviews, Biden will not go for re-election.
Accordingly, the Democrats need another candidate to come to the polls, it is desirable that he already had experience in running the country. Kamala Harris is ideally suited for this role, to whom all power will automatically pass in the event of Biden’s resignation. But if Kamala becomes president before January 20, 2023, she will be able to run again only once, but if the tired Joe Biden gives her the country after the second anniversary in power, then she will be able to be elected in 2024 and 2028. …
In the camp of women
But will Kamala Harris become the Democratic nominee? At first glance, the question seems meaningless: if she really turns out to be president a year and a half before the elections, then, in theory, she should defeat all the candidates in her party most easily. But it’s not that simple.
Nobody likes Kamala Harris. Progressives do not like her – after all, she comes from the prosecutor’s office and ruthlessly persecuted people even in ambiguous situations (for example, she hid evidence of innocence to achieve convictions). The centrists don’t like her – during the primaries, she tried desperately to grab any radical ideas that promised her at least some increase in support. Trump has aptly branded her “fake Kamala”, and at the moment there is no prerequisite for Harris to become extremely popular.
At the same time, the Democrats have one more “party star”, although now no one thinks of her as a candidate. This is Michelle Obama. The wife of the 44th President of the United States has long become an independent politician, and her husband owes much of his re-election to her.
Michelle Obama has a great reputation, and she is also a black woman, so Harris will not be able to play the racial card. So far, Obama’s wife is “sitting in ambush”, but she may suddenly burst into the game if it becomes clear that Kamala Harris is not pulling out the role of the president.
In addition to Michelle Obama, another celebrity wants to participate in the 2024 elections – the Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle. At the moment, it is too early to take her statements seriously, but she can really break into the race. However, I absolutely do not believe in the final success of the wife of the British prince. Most likely, her campaign, if it does take place, will not be very successful and not very long.
Political TrumpBack
With the Democrats, everything is clear – a black woman will lead this party to the elections in 2024 (according to our forecast). And what about the Republicans in general and in particular – with Donald Trump? Has he finally retired or should new achievements be expected from the scandalous billionaire?
This question is very difficult. On the one hand, the ex-president’s bravado may remain beautiful statements for the media, but his behaviour makes it clear that he is serious.
Donald Trump has two big challenges on which his political survival and his role in the Republican Party of the future depend. First of all, the billionaire must create the many times promised social network “uncensored”. In the current environment, Trump and his supporters are de facto deprived of speech on the largest social networks, which greatly undermines their opportunities.
A similar situation is with the media – the largest conservative publication Fox News has quarrelled with the right-wing of the Republican Party. In fact, this means that Trump and his closest supporters were left without their platforms for communicating with voters.
The former president is still very popular in his party and has enough resources to finance the creation of an alternative social network and alternative media. If he does this, then the Trumpists will already dictate their will to the Republican Party with the help of their own open resources, which are not in a position to influence opponents. Whether Trump will succeed in creating a decent product is impossible to say for sure right now, but let’s believe that he will – and this will definitely add pepper to American politics.
Right turn
Trump’s success or failure in creating independent resources for his supporters will determine his scope for the future of the GOP. But in any case, he will remain one of the key figures in the conservative flank of American politics. And, of course, he will use this to take revenge on his enemies and help his allies.
Right now, we will make a prediction: the 2022 primaries in the Republican Party will be “unprecedented”. The right-wing has long accumulated strength to throw a real challenge to moderate Republicans, and now they have a trump card – in every sense of the word (this is how the word trump is translated into Russian). For the previous 4 years, Donald Trump was forced to defend the interests of the party as a whole, but now he will be able to unleash his anger on many opponents from the moderate camp. The Eastern Herald predicts that the ex-president will spend the entire 2022 on the road and at rallies – in his favourite element.
The right turn in the Republican Party has a good chance of continuing into the presidential primaries. The main intrigue at the moment is whether Donald Trump will go to his second term. We will predict no. There are many reasons for this – from age to the fact that he is the ideal irritant for all Democrats.
Most likely, a significantly younger politician who enjoys Trump’s support and great popularity will go to the final elections. He will be the legitimate “successor” of the billionaire. At the moment, there are two most likely candidates for this role – Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Some of them will have to fight with a black democrat for the presidency of the United States.
At war
The next forecast has nothing to do with the near future, but it will become very relevant sometime in 2023, or even in 2024. There is a high likelihood of another massive outbreak of political violence in the United States of America by the next election.
The Black Lives Matter movement has very interesting specifics. Fighters for social justice become active every 4 years, and every time it is an election year – whether it is 2016 or 2020. But by 2024, their importance will grow, and the leaders of the left-wing radical movement will no longer want to simply receive the benefits of life and act as a weapon to advance the interests of the Democratic Party. Already this year, there were conflicts between the radicals from BLM and moderate politicians from the “party of donkeys”, and by 2024 they may reach their maximum.
Republicans are traditionally less prone to illegal methods of political struggle, but there are enough hotheads among the young conservative outgrowth. The most active of them have already shown themselves during the storming of the Capitol, and in 4 years a new generation of young and hot guys will appear who will be ready to take any heavy object and “go to save America” from left-wing radicals.
Moderate Republicans and Democrats have always been able to negotiate with each other and fight exclusively by political methods, but outside the corridors of Washington, the situation will be completely different. Each party has an ideological, radical and militant wing, which the party structure itself does not control de facto. And in 2024, the full power of these armed groups could spill out onto the streets, surpassing the events of 2020.
How can it be
So, to summarize all of the above, let’s go to the American future as we imagine it.
After two years of Biden’s rule, the presidency passed to his supporter Kamala Harris. Despite all efforts, both presidents were unable to carry out serious reforms, although they still have some accomplishments on their account – for example, they completely defeated the coronavirus and were able to restore the economy to some extent. However, they gave a lot of reasons for anger – conservatives still cannot forgive them for raising taxes and several indulgences to migrants, adopted “over the head” of the Congress, by direct decrees of Biden.
The Republican Party has been reborn and appears in a new light. The moderate wing still has great influence there, but now ideologically right-wing politicians are imposing their will. They increased their representation from 60 congressmen in 2021 to more than 100 in 2024. Several prominent Republicans of the past have left: someone like Mitch McConnell on an honourable retirement, and someone like Lisa Cheney sensationally lost in the primaries to a young and ambitious candidate on the right.
New elections are coming soon. The campaigns take place in a very nervous atmosphere, there is not even a day without messages that radical supporters of one or another party do not arrange a provocation with the use of force, but the police manage to keep everything and prevent a showdown on a national scale.
Both candidates travel tirelessly to campaign events. It can be officially said that the era of gerontocracy in American politics is over. The Democrats are represented by Michelle Obama, who promises to return the country to the “bright times” of her husband’s rule, she is opposed by Ted Cruz, who promises to “restore America’s dignity lost under Biden and Harris.”
The elections in 2024 are called decisive by each side. Some believe that if not their candidate wins, the country will begin to build fascism, others are in awe of the coming of communism. And here, the main thing is not to remember that in the distant 2020 they said the same thing. And before 2028 they will be scared by the same. It’s really better not to think about this because American politics is a high-quality and very tasty show. And the show, as you know, must go on.
