Source: Politics<\/p>\n
What did you get totally wrong about 2021? Here\u2019s my answer: I was sure \u2014 sure \u2014 that as soon as the Covid vaccines were widely available, all but an infinitesimally small percentage of American adults would line up to take the shot, crush the pandemic and get back to life as normal-ish.<\/p>\n
That didn\u2019t happen. And sometimes, that\u2019s the nature of a bad prediction: At the time it\u2019s made, it can seem not only totally rational, but obvious. It may have an element of wishcasting (in my case, it certainly did).<\/p>\n
Speaking of wishcasting, 12 months ago, on Dec. 31, Trump skipped out on a party at Mar-a-Lago to return early to the White House, where he quietly met<\/a> with Justice Department officials and pressed them to try to overturn the results of the November election. Meanwhile, from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Biden remotely joined \u201cDick Clark\u2019s New Year\u2019s Rockin\u2019 Eve with Ryan Seacrest,\u201d urged Americans to get the vaccine and said he was \u201cmore optimistic about America\u2019s chances than I\u2019ve ever been.\u201d<\/p>\n As predictions go, you could do worse in forecasting the issues that defined this year than what those two men were focused on: Attempting to overthrow American democracy and struggling to contain the pandemic. 2021 in a nutshell, before it even began.<\/p>\n With the year (blessedly) behind us, it\u2019s time again for a treasured POLITICO Magazine tradition: a rundown of some of the worst predictions of 2021. Some are cocksure and smug; others have a tragic air of obsessiveness (cough, Mike Lindell, cough); still others were totally fair and reasonable predictions at the time, but the world spun in a different direction than it once seemed. Here, more than two dozen predictions about 2021 that were, well, bad.<\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>Everything\u2019s going to be fine\u201d<\/span> in the last few weeks of the Trump administration<\/span><\/p>\n Predicted by: Hugh Hewitt, Jan. 6<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n On the morning of Jan. 6, conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt appeared on Megyn Kelly\u2019s podcast and was asked a question on the minds of seemingly every political observer in America: \u201cJoe Biden\u2019s going to get certified [as president-elect] today. What does Trump do over the next two weeks before the inauguration? \u2026 I mean, he\u2019s still going to be saying what he\u2019s saying about the electoral process, and there\u2019s a big rally in D.C. today, but what do you think we can expect?\u201d<\/p>\n Hewitt responded by predicting a raft of new pardons before turning to the broader concern about the peaceful transfer of power: \u201cI would just say to everybody: It will be fine. Everything\u2019s going to be fine,\u201d he said as Kelly voiced her agreement.<\/p>\n A few hours later, a violent pro-Trump putsch at the U.S. Capitol disrupted the peaceful transfer of power and dragged the nation to the brink of a constitutional crisis. Everything was not fine.<\/p>\n Predicted by: Scott Adams, July 1, 2020<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n There are a few reasons you might recognize the name Scott Adams. Perhaps you know him from his repeat appearances<\/a> on these annual \u201cworst predictions\u201d lists (e.g. that Trump, Biden and Bernie Sanders would all contract Covid by election day 2020 and one would die). If you\u2019re of a certain age, maybe you remember \u201cDilbert,\u201d the \u201990s cartoon icon he created that satirized corporate office culture in the years before \u201cOffice Space.\u201d Or, if you\u2019re part of the political cognoscenti in the broader Trump era, you might know him as a self-described expert in the rhetorical dark arts who has spun that ability into a second act as a MAGA-adjacent political commentator with a large online following. <\/p>\n But unlike many prominent voices of that persuasion, he exudes a calm clarity in his thinking \u2014 as if what he says is the natural outgrowth of a deliberative process \u2014 which gives his predictions a certain dispassionate confidence, as if they are closer to scientific fact than wishcasting or doomsaying. <\/p>\n For instance, on July 1, 2020, Adams made this prediction<\/a> about American life in 2021 with Joe Biden in the White House: \u201cIf Biden is elected, there\u2019s a good chance you will be dead within the year.\u201d Lest you think he was talking about, say, the potential mismanagement of the pandemic or some natural disaster, Adams clarified what he meant in two further tweets: \u201cRepublicans will be hunted. Police will stand down.\u201d<\/p>\n We are nearly a full year into Biden\u2019s presidency. Police have not stood down. In fact, many cities have increased funding for police. Republicans, far from being hunted, have made major electoral gains and stand poised to retake at least one house of Congress next year. There are no killing fields. There has been no purge.<\/p>\n Predicted by: St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board, Aug. 3<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n When Bush staged a sleep-in on the steps of the Capitol to protest the lapse of the pandemic-era eviction ban, her hometown St. Louis Post-Dispatch published an editorial that reads like a pat on the head of the freshman Missouri congresswoman and liberal Squad member.<\/p>\n Bush \u201cclearly misunderstands the complicated process required to restore the moratorium,\u201d they wrote. \u201cAs with many progressive ideals, righteous-sounding aspirations never seem to take into account political reality. \u2026 Bush tweeted a demand that President Joe Biden \u2018extend the eviction moratorium\u2019 and that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer force legislative action. It\u2019s as if she believes those three can wave their wands and magically make things better.\u201d<\/p>\n Later that same day, Biden announced a new 60-day eviction moratorium \u2014 prompted by pressure and coverage generated by Bush\u2019s TV-ready protest. With her \u201cantics,\u201d she had changed political reality. Even as the ban ended weeks later after being struck down by the Supreme Court, it came about not through magic, but real-world politics.<\/p>\n Predicted by: President Joe Biden, July 8<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Last summer, as U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan and the Taliban steadily regained territory throughout the country, Biden held a press conference where he was asked about the historical \u201cechoes\u201d some veterans of the Vietnam War saw between the fall of Saigon and the Afghanistan pullout. Asked if he saw \u201cparallels\u201d between the two events, Biden \u2014 who, by the way, was a U.S. senator when Saigon fell in spring 1975 \u2014 was insistent.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Taliban is not the South \u2014 the North Vietnamese army. They\u2019re not \u2014 they\u2019re not remotely comparable in terms of capability,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy \u2026 of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable. \u2026 The likelihood there\u2019s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.\u201d<\/p>\n Just over one month later, in mid-August, Chinook helicopters airlifted Americans from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul as it evacuated. The Taliban surrounded and retook Kabul; it is now fully in control of the government of Afghanistan.<\/p>\n Predicted by: Chuck Schumer, March 10<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Nope. The Covid bill passed, checks went into pockets, shots went into arms \u2014 and the political benefit for Democrats has been minimal. Politics hasn\u2019t changed drastically, and it certainly doesn\u2019t seem like the pro-autocracy movement has been put to bed in any way.<\/p>\n Predicted by: Kevin McCarthy, April 28<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Ahh, the early days of the Biden administration \u2014 pre-Afghanistan pullout, pre-Delta wave, pre-vaccine mandate \u2014 when the president\u2019s poll numbers were strong and Republicans flailed about for an issue, any issue, that could provide a political foothold. Banning Dr. Seuss. No? Going to war against Major League Baseball? No? What about meat? Yes, that\u2019s the ticket.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what happened: in late April, after Biden vowed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by half, Fox News and its sister channels went to work promoting the falsehood that Biden was going to effectively ban meat, as PolitiFact extensively documented<\/a>. Their promotion of that deception led House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy to reflect their outrage back at them: On April 28, he appeared on \u201cHannity\u201d and confidently predicted that the Biden administration \u201cis gonna control how much meat you can eat.\u201d That is, of course, not the case: Biden did not ban meat, nor is he controlling how much animal protein you consume, nor is any plan in motion to do that.<\/p>\n Here, a quick clarification may be useful: There\u2019s a difference between a falsehood and a bad prediction. A falsehood is something presented as fact when it is not. A bad prediction is a forward-looking, if ultimately incorrect, assertion about how the future will play out. What McCarthy said is both.<\/p>\n Predicted by: Mike Lindell, many times<\/span><\/p>\n March 26<\/a>: \u201cAll the evidence I have \u2014 everything \u2014 is going to go before the Supreme Court, and the election of 2020 is going bye-bye. \u2026 Donald Trump will be back in office in August.\u201d<\/p>\n March 30<\/a>: \u201cI said Donald Trump will be in [the White House] in August. And I fully believe that myself: he\u2019ll be back in.\u201d<\/p>\n May 25<\/a>: \u201cDonald Trump \u2026 will be back in by the end of August.\u201d<\/p>\n June 2<\/a>: \u201cThese are facts: We have a clear path to pull this election down. \u2026 [On the Supreme Court,] it\u2019ll be 9-0 \u2014 down comes the election, and in August, here comes Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n June 5<\/a>: [On the August prediction] \u201cI could be off by a month or so, I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n July 4<\/a>: \u201cBy the morning of August 13, it\u2019ll be the talk of the world, going \u2018Hurry up! Let\u2019s get this election pulled down. Let\u2019s \u2026 get these communists out, you know, [who] have taken over.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Aug. 21<\/a>: \u201cIt\u2019s Trump 2021, 100 percent: Trump 2021. This election, when it does get pulled down, there were so many down-ticket [races] affected, maybe the Supreme Court, they\u2019ll just do a whole new election.\u201d<\/p>\n Sept. 21<\/a>: \u201cI made a promise to this country that \u2014 with all the evidence I have \u2014 that we would get it to the Supreme Court. And I predicted they would vote 9-0 to look at the evidence. \u2026 Originally, I had hoped for August and September. \u2026 We will have this before the Supreme Court before Thanksgiving. That\u2019s my promise to the people of this country.\u201d<\/p>\n Sept. 24<\/a>: \u201cWe\u2019re giving everything \u2014 all the evidence I have \u2014 [to] the Supreme Court. That will be done before Thanksgiving. That\u2019s in stone.\u201d<\/p>\n Nov. 7<\/a>: \u201c[The Supreme Court is] going to accept it 9-0. It will require a new election across the board. \u2026 [They\u2019ll] declare the 2020 vote void and order new elections across the board.\u201d<\/p>\n Nov. 17<\/a>: \u201cOne week from today, on Nov. 23, the states are suing the U.S. government at the Supreme Court. It\u2019s over!\u201d<\/p>\n Dec. 17<\/a>: [On the timeline for his long-promised 9-0 Supreme Court case] \u201cIt was gonna be today; it switched out til Monday.\u201d<\/p>\n Let\u2019s be clear: Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. He lost by every possible measure. He lost the national popular vote (which doesn\u2019t decide who wins). He lost the Electoral College (which does). He lost the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. He lost each of them by margins far too large to even possibly be changed by voter fraud<\/a>. He and his allies lost 61 state and federal lawsuits<\/a> related to the election results. His claims of widespread fraud or a stolen election are baseless and themselves fraudulent. He has no rightful claim to the presidency.<\/p>\n And yet, Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO-turned conspiracy theorist<\/a>, continues to predict, despite reality, that the election results will be deemed illegitimate, thrown out, and that somehow, this will make Trump the White House\u2019s rightful occupant. How would this work? Unclear. Even if the election were somehow dismissed, why would Trump be given the office? Also unclear. When will this occur? Perpetually, someday soon.<\/p>\n What Lindell has done \u2014 repeatedly and confidently predicting Trump\u2019s return to office time after time, missed deadline after missed deadline \u2014 isn\u2019t just moving the goalposts; it\u2019s \u2026 well, metaphors fail. It\u2019s moving the whole damn field. It\u2019s changing the sport entirely. It\u2019s inventing a new game that only he can win, and then managing to lose said game, repeatedly.<\/p>\n Predicted by: Robert McCartney (among many, many, many others), Jan. 1<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n On Jan. 1, when Washington Post columnist Robert McCartney published his 11th annual \u201cpredictions quiz\u201d about the year ahead, he gave readers six options from which to correctly select the next governor of Virginia. Who would it be? Could Virginia make history by electing a Black woman, like Democratic state Sen. Jennifer McClellan or former Delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy? Would scandal-plagued Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax improbably resurrect his career after sexual assault allegations? Perhaps a Republican lawmaker, like former state House Speaker Kirk Cox, or the Trumpy state Sen. Amanda Chase?<\/p>\n No. The next governor, McCartney wrote, would be Terry McAuliffe, as Biden\u2019s 2020 victory showed \u201cthere\u2019s still plenty of appetite for an old White guy.\u201d In November, of course, McAuliffe lost to someone who wasn\u2019t even on the list: Republican Glenn Youngkin<\/a>.<\/p>\n Predicted by: Karl Rove, Feb. 11<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Predicted by: John Kerry, April 27<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Predicted by: Anthony Scaramucci, May 15<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Apparently, fomenting a violent uprising against the government isn\u2019t a deal-breaker. With his grip on the GOP still tight, the party\u2019s nomination is certainly Trump\u2019s if he wants it. And this month, polls on a potential presidential election between Trump and Biden show a tight race: Biden up by 1 (Wall Street Journal, Dec. 7<\/a>); Biden up by 3 (Echelon Insights, Dec. 14<\/a>); Trump up by 3 (Harris, Dec. 6<\/a>). By all appearances, Trump is certainly capable of running in 2024 and winning.<\/p>\n Predicted by: Sean Duffy, Jan. 2<\/a> When, on Jan. 2, \u201cWatters World\u201d guest host Dan Bongino asked Duffy, a former \u201cReal World\u201d castmate-turned-Wisconsin GOP congressman-turned-Fox News personality, for his predictions for the year ahead, there was not a moment\u2019s hesitation: \u201cListen, my crystal ball tells me \u2026 that you\u2019re going to have a continued cognitive decline for Joe Biden. By the end of 2021, Kamala Harris will be the president.\u201d<\/p>\n Right now, it is Dec. 24, and while I\u2019ll concede that it is possible that the next six days bring some truly Earth-shattering news, Biden is still the president. Has his fastball lost some of its zip as he\u2019s aged? Sure. Whose doesn\u2019t? But there is nothing to suggest anything in the realm of debilitating cognitive decline. And as 2021 ends, Harris is not only not the president, she\u2019s been the subject of much critical coverage that has fanned doubts about whether she could ever really be the president.<\/p>\n Predicted by: Donald Trump, Oct. 22, 2020<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n You can doubt the strength of the Biden economy, debate whether or not the inflation we\u2019ve experienced is transitory and question all the various statistics trotted out to prove this or that. But it\u2019s a simple fact that the economy is not in a depression. It\u2019s not even in a recession.<\/p>\n Since Biden took office, the unemployment rate has dropped from 6.3 percent to 4.2 percent; the Dow Jones Industrial Average has grown by roughly 14 percent; the S&P 500<\/a> is up roughly 21 percent; America\u2019s gross domestic product grew by 7.8 percent over the first three quarters of 2021, even when adjusted for inflation. If that\u2019s a depression, then what would be the appropriate term for the economy at the end of the Trump presidency?<\/p>\n Predicted by: Tom Ricks, June 24<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n In his tweet, Ricks conceded that it was a \u201creckless\u201d prediction, but at the time, maybe it didn\u2019t seem too crazy. The economy was improving, the pandemic seemed to be receding.<\/p>\n Two months later, the botched Afghanistan withdrawal began to slash away at Biden\u2019s ratings. The political fallout from the debacle \u2014 punctuated by horrific violence, humanitarian disaster and scores of deaths \u2014 continues to be an albatross on the Biden administration.<\/p>\n By Labor Day, in FiveThirtyEight\u2019s average<\/a>, Biden\u2019s approval sat at 46.1 percent; his disapproval was 48.3 percent. It was the end of the first full week of the Biden presidency where his approval was underwater. It\u2019s been there ever since.<\/p>\n Predicted by: Nate Silver, Aug. 23<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n There was a time this summer when it appeared that the recall election against California Gov. Gavin Newsom might actually win \u2014 polls tightened substantially<\/a> in early August, sparking the typical apocalyptics from the blue-check Twitterati. \u201cPretty decent chance Newsom gets recalled,\u201d FiveThirtyEight\u2019s Nate Silver tweeted before jumping to explain how this reality revealed the foolishness of Dems\u2019 strategy of not putting forward a potential Newsom successor on \u201cquestion two\u201d on the recall ballot: \u201cDemocrats could potentially keep the seat if they urged their voters to consolidate behind an alternative Democrat but instead they\u2019re telling them not to vote on the replacement!\u201d<\/p>\n Come September, Newsom defeated the recall with 62 percent of the vote. And Dems\u2019 strategy of not consolidating behind an alternative candidate helped Newsom make the vote an up-or-down choice between him and Republican frontrunner Larry Elder rather than giving Democratic voters a viable option on question two (which might\u2019ve sweetened the prospect of voting yes on question one).<\/p>\n Silver might take issue with our call that his odds-making counts as a wrong prediction, but the fact is, Newsom ultimately won handily. And his strategy paid off.<\/p>\n Predicted by: Brett Arends, Jan. 22<\/a> Predicted by: Myles Udland, Dec. 16, 2020<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Turns out there was a reason to worry about inflation. By October, the year-over-year inflation rate was the highest since 1990<\/a>. By November, it was the highest since 1982<\/a>. Between January and this writing, the chatter among economists has evolved: It was something you probably didn\u2019t need to be worried about. Then it was transitory. Now, it is \u2026 maybe not so temporary. Hard to tell.<\/p>\n The issue has badly disrupted the first year of the Biden administration, and has a quality not unlike a beach ball in a swimming pool: Try as you might to wrestle it down, it pops back up to the surface over and over again, stubborn to your every effort.<\/p>\n Predicted by: Jamelle Bouie (among many, many others), July 7<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n In July, my colleague Maya King reported on a trend in suburban Virginia<\/a>: Tense school board meetings populated by growing numbers of parents angry about the supposed teaching of \u201ccritical race theory\u201d \u2014 often used by ideological conservatives as a shorthand for how race and social issues are taught \u2014 in K-12 public schools, even as Loudoun County school officials insisted that the theory was not actually being taught. \u201cCould a School-Board Fight Over Critical Race Theory Help Turn Virginia Red?,\u201d the headline read.<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d responded Jamelle Bouie, a New York Times columnist who lives in Virginia. The idea, he continued, was \u201can extremely credulous take on Republican wishcasting.\u201d (Worth noting: That wasn\u2019t an entirely unreasonable assumption, coming four years after stories asked aloud whether fears about the MS-13 gang would spur Republicans to retake the governor\u2019s mansion.)<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t. Come November, Republicans won the elections for Virginia governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, and regained control of the state House. Was the critical race theory backlash the sole reason why? No. But it appears<\/a> to have played<\/a> a substantial role in winning Youngkin the election.<\/p>\n \u201cBy promising at nearly every campaign stop to ban critical race theory \u2026 Youngkin resurrected Republican race-baiting tactics in a state that once served as the capital of the Confederacy,\u201d wrote the Times\u2019 Lisa Lerer<\/a>. It was, wrote the Times\u2019 Trip Gabriel<\/a>, his \u201cbest known pledge \u2026 embodying the anger that drove the grass roots.\u201d And, in a tidy answer to the question posed in the headline of Maya\u2019s piece, USA Today\u2019s Ledyard King and Mabinty Quarshie reported<\/a> that the issue \u201csparked a movement that help[ed] turn Virginia from blue to red last month.\u201d<\/p>\n Predicted by: Dana Perino, Jan. 4<\/a>; Matt Grossmann, Nov. 9, 2020<\/a>; et al<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s an understandable assumption: Georgia has been going hard for Republicans for decades, and a reasonable observer might imagine that the GOP would have the edge in the Jan. 5 run-offs. Down-ticket, Republicans in the state performed strongly in the November elections: While Trump lost to Biden by about 0.3 points in the state<\/a>, David Perdue led Jon Ossoff by 1.8 points on the same ballot. The state\u2019s other Senate seat had just undergone an inconclusive jungle primary in which nobody received more than one-third of the vote; but in her bid to defeat Democratic candidate Raphael Warnock, incumbent Republican Kelly Loeffler was buoyed by a vast fortune and the reality that the Deep South had elected only one Black man to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction (Tim Scott in neighboring South Carolina). Plus, without Trump on the ballot, Democratic voters might be less inclined to turn out to vote against him.<\/p>\n Nope. With Black voters coming out in huge numbers for Democrats and Republican turnout depressed after Trump\u2019s incessant, and false, claims of election fraud, something surprising happened. Warnock and Ossoff won, and delivered Democrats the narrowest possible majority in the U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n Predicted by: Jason Chaffetz, Jan. 2<\/a> This one was a bit of Republican wishcasting. Chaffetz, the former GOP congressman from Utah, predicted on the night of Jan. 2 that Nancy Pelosi \u2014 whose mastery at vote-counting has kept her atop House Democratic leadership for 20 years now \u2014 would somehow lack the votes to be elected speaker the following day, despite a Democratic majority.<\/p>\n The result was entirely predictable: Pelosi had the votes. Of the 427 members of the House at the time, 216 supported her \u2014 a margin comfortable enough that a handful of House Democrats from swing seats were free to vote for someone other than her.<\/p>\n Predicted by: G. Elliott Morris, April 25<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n In fairness, this was not a bad prediction when it was made: Polls throughout the spring showed overwhelming support for Biden\u2019s plan to withdraw from Afghanistan.<\/p>\n But by Biden\u2019s Sept. 11 deadline, the chaotic U.S. pullout had destabilized his presidency, calling into question the core claims of competence that had long been Biden\u2019s ballast.<\/p>\n It\u2019s possible that over the long arc of history, Morris\u2019 prediction will turn out to be correct. But at this point, the pullout was extraordinarily politically damaging for Biden\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n Predicted by: Ben Weingarten, Dec. 30, 2020<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n A week out from the Georgia Senate run-offs, Benjamin Weingarten, a contributor to the Federalist, appeared on Fox News\u2019 \u201cThe Ingraham Angle\u201d and laid bare what would happen if Ossoff and Warnock defeated Perdue and Loeffler, delivering Democrats a 50-50 Senate majority. \u201cIf the Democrats take these two seats, it\u2019s a guarantee of socialism in this country because you\u2019ll have D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood. You\u2019ll have mass amnesty. You\u2019ll have socialized medicine. You\u2019ll have the evisceration of the vote integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n Two things:<\/p>\n One: A 50-50 Senate could never be read as a mandate for any policy at the ideological extremes of American politics, including \u201csocialism.\u201d The very nature of the Senate, where members of the minority party have enormous power to block legislation, makes it exceptionally difficult to enact any major policy change.<\/p>\n Two: Clearly, the man has never met Joe Manchin. D.C. statehood? Opposed to it<\/a>. Puerto Rican statehood? Non-committal. Socialized medicine? Hardly: The man opposed expanding Medicare to cover dental care. Forget socialism; they can\u2019t even pass Build Back Better.<\/p>\n P<\/span>redicted by: Amy Siskind, Jan. 2<\/a><\/span> Amid the run-up to Jan. 6 \u2014 as Republican senators like Missouri\u2019s Josh Hawley announced that they\u2019d object to the count of electoral votes from certain swing states that Biden carried, as pro-Trump die-hards planned a massive rally with the goal of pressuring Congress to essentially discard the results of a democratic election, and as the Big Lie about the 2020 vote metastasized within the Republican electorate \u2014 a certain amount of (understandable) anxiety percolated among liberals and moderates on Twitter.<\/p>\n Amy Siskind, who rose to online prominence in the early days of the Trump administration by recording and listing out<\/a> the norms being broken on a weekly basis, was one of the relatively few major voices on #Resistance Twitter urging calm.<\/p>\n \u201cAnyone worried about Jan 6 impacting the election \u2014 don\u2019t be,\u201d she tweeted on the night of Jan. 2<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s nothing more than a seditious stunt that will go nowhere.\u201d Then, a follow-up<\/a>: \u201cIf you live in DC, stay off the streets on Jan 6. Let the DC police take care of the white supremacists like they did in Oregon yesterday. I actually think it will be fun to watch lol.\u201d<\/p>\n What ultimately happened on Jan. 6, of course, was a brazen attack on both democratic institutions and the democratic process itself: a mob of pro-Trump extremists assaulted police officers, broke into the U.S. Capitol building, called for the hanging of Vice President Mike Pence (and, broadly, \u201cheads on pikes<\/a>\u201d), defiled the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (among others), sent staffers and members into hiding for hours, took over the floor of the U.S. Senate, caused law enforcement to draw their weapons and barricade the entrance to the House chamber, led to the use of lethal force against a pro-Trump rioter who attempted to enter the Speaker\u2019s lobby as members fled, and halted the counting of electoral votes for several hours until armed forces could secure the Capitol complex. \u201cFun to watch lol\u201d? Not so much.<\/p>\n P<\/span>redicted by: David Fegan (among others), Jan. 8<\/a><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n After a half-decade during which @realDonaldTrump\u2019s every missive was mainlined into the bloodstream of American politics, it was hard to imagine Twitter without him. Then, two days after the Jan. 6 attack, Twitter permanently blocked him. Suddenly, @realDonaldTrump was no more. And after a couple days, it was not at all hard to imagine Twitter without him. Nearly a year later, Twitter\u2019s still going strong.<\/p>\n Predicted by: Duncan Ross (among others), Jan. 3<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Spoiler alert: Trump remained in office until Biden took the oath on Jan. 20.<\/p>\n Predicted by: Paul Strand, Feb. 17<\/a> Many progressives wish he would. But Biden has made no move to expand the court, and his blue-ribbon commission to study the issue did not endorse the idea.<\/p>\n Pr<\/span>ed<\/span>icted b<\/span>y<\/span>: Fortu<\/span>ne Magazine, Dec. 2020<\/a><\/span> There\u2019s a consensus that after 20 years at the helm of the Democratic Party in Congress, Pelosi is nearing the end of her career. That much seems obvious. But there are two big x-factors about her remaining time leading Democrats: when she\u2019ll step aside, and who her successor will be.<\/p>\n In its list of predictions about 2021, Fortune Magazine wrote that this would be the year she \u201chand[s] over the rudder,\u201d and called its shot about her successor: \u201cit will be California Rep. Linda S\u00e1nchez \u2014 just elected to her 10th term \u2014 who takes the gavel.\u201d But as 2021 draws to a close, Pelosi has repeatedly made clear that she\u2019s not a lame duck and, in recent weeks, that she intends to remain in power through the 2022 midterms \u2014 and maybe even afterwards<\/a>.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the conversation about her successor has centered mostly on Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, rather than S\u00e1nchez \u2014 and though it certainly remains possible that S\u00e1nchez ends up eventually leading the Dems, it definitely didn\u2019t happen in 2021.<\/p>\n Predicted by: Stephen L. Carter, Jan. 1<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n The period between Election Day and Inauguration Day often offers a moment of bipartisan comity in the nation\u2019s capital. A battle having been fought for the last several months, there\u2019s a brief reprieve before the next one begins. It\u2019s easy to get caught up in the pageantry of it all: the star-spangled decorations festooning downtown Washington, the spectacle of the National Mall filled with flag-waving Americans, the possibility of being present for a moment of actual, honest-to-God capital-h History, when speechwriters for incoming presidents awkwardly grope for the hem of Ted Sorensen\u2019s garment while trying to write something that normal people will actually remember. Also, there\u2019s that whole \u201cpeaceful transfer of power\u201d thing that is, well, important.<\/p>\n All of which is presumably what figured into Stephen L. Carter\u2019s thinking when he took to Bloomberg to predict that \u201cin January, President Donald Trump will finally invite President-elect Joe Biden to the White House. Trump will even attend the inaugural, albeit with poor grace.\u201d<\/p>\n In fairness to Carter, when he published his prediction on Jan. 1, there had not yet been a deadly pro-Trump insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and so the prospects that Trump might show up seemed a bit higher. But there was ultimately no White House meeting between Biden and Trump, and the former president flew away via helicopter hours before the inauguration was to begin. \u201cPoor grace\u201d? You bet. But that\u2019s about the only part of Carter\u2019s prediction that turned out to be correct.<\/p>\n Predicted by: hundreds of adherents to the QAnon conspiracy theory, ongoing<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Honestly, I debated including this one. I want to be clear: there is no equivalency between this and the other bad predictions (save, perhaps, for Mike Lindell\u2019s). This is in a category all its own, and is detached from reality in ways that are genuinely destabilizing for the nation. So, why include it? As the line between nonsense conspiracy theory and mainstream political discourse has blurred to the point of occasional incomprehension, it\u2019s worth noting that believers in the dangerous QAnon conspiracy theory got everything wrong this year.<\/p>\n Jan. 20 came and went, and there was no \u201cGreat Awakening\u201d in which Trump seized power and arrested scores of pedophiles. March 4 came and went<\/a>, and Trump was not magically reinaugurated as president. Ditto March 20<\/a>. And so on. On Nov. 2, hundreds of QAnon adherents \u2014 or, more precisely, adherents of a particular offshoot of QAnonism \u2014 amassed in Dealey Plaza in Dallas under the belief that John F. Kennedy Jr. \u201cwho died in a plane crash in 1999, [would] reappear in Dallas and commence a new Trump administration,\u201d in the words of the Dallas Morning-News<\/a>. JFK Jr. \u2014 who, again, has been dead for 22 years \u2014 did not show up at the site of his father\u2019s assassination. Still, dozens QAnonists remained in Dallas for weeks, expecting him to show up<\/a>. (Some, I\u2019m sure, are still there.) But if you already believe that a Satanic, cannibalistic cabal of pedophiles secretly governs the country, what exactly is a bridge too far?<\/p>\n\u201cIf Biden is elected, there\u2019s a good chance you will be dead within the year. Republicans will be hunted. Police will stand down.\u201d<\/h5>\n
In protesting the end of the eviction ban, \u201cCori Bush\u2019s antics generate publicity, but they won\u2019t change political reality\u201d<\/h5>\n
The Afghanistan pullout won\u2019t be like the fall of Saigon, and the Taliban isn\u2019t likely to take over<\/h5>\n
The $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill will be a \u201cturning point\u201d in American politics that restores faith in democracy and stops the rise of would-be \u201cautocrats\u201d<\/h5>\n
Biden is \u201cgonna control how much meat you can eat\u201d<\/h5>\n
Trump will be reinstated as president after the Supreme Court somehow overturns the 2020 election<\/h5>\n
Terry McAuliffe will be (re)elected governor of Virginia<\/h5>\n
Post-Jan. 6, Trump is \u201ceffectively tarnished for all time and incapable of running in 2024\u201d<\/h5>\n
&<\/h6>\n
It won\u2019t \u201cbe possible for Trump to come back\u201d<\/h5>\n
&<\/h6>\n
\u201cTrump is never coming back\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cBy the end of 2021, Kamala Harris will be the President.\u201d<\/h5>\n
<\/span><\/p>\nOnce Biden takes office, there\u2019ll be a \u201cdepression the likes of which you\u2019ve never seen\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cBy Labor Day, Biden\u2019s approval ratings will average [in the] low 60s.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cPretty decent chance\u201d Gavin Newsom loses the recall election<\/h5>\n
\u201cNo, you don\u2019t have to worry about inflation\u201d<\/h5>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n&<\/h6>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no reason to worry about inflation in 2021\u201d<\/h5>\n
Protests against critical race theory at Loudoun County\u2019s school board meetings weren\u2019t an indication that the GOP might win the Virginia gubernatorial race<\/h5>\n
Republicans will win both Senate seats in Georgia<\/h5>\n
Nancy Pelosi won\u2019t have the votes to become Speaker in 2021<\/h5>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cWithdrawing troops from Afghanistan will turn out to be the most popular action of Biden\u2019s presidency\u201d<\/h5>\n
If Dems win in Georgia, \u201cit\u2019s a guarantee of socialism,\u201d amnesty for undocumented immigrants, statehood for Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., and so on<\/h5>\n
You shouldn\u2019t be worried about what might happen Jan. 6 \u2014 it \u201cwill go nowhere\u201d and \u201cwill be fun to watch\u201d<\/h5>\n
<\/span><\/p>\nWith Trump banned from the platform, \u201cTwitter will disappear in one year\u201d<\/h5>\n
Trump will resign, and President Mike Pence will pardon him<\/h5>\n
Joe Biden will \u201cmove to alter the U.S. Supreme Court\u201d<\/h5>\n
<\/span><\/p>\nNancy Pelosi will take a \u201cfarewell tour,\u201d and her successor will be Linda S\u00e1nchez<\/h5>\n
<\/span><\/p>\nTrump will attend Biden\u2019s inauguration<\/h5>\n
JFK Jr. will return in Dallas (among other bullshit)<\/h5>\n