2024 Predictions: Politics & Culture
A Post in Three Parts
This week, Hugo and I recorded the first of two podcasts on our predictions for 2024.
We covered non-tech topics, mainly politics and culture (with a little sports thrown in because hosting a sports radio show is probably my true dream job). Here’s the list, followed by some thoughts around why voters are so unhappy and what type of candidate would be best to meet the moment, and then a quick analysis of the challenges facing Biden, the potential mitigants, and then counter arguments to those mitigants.
Part I
Let’s start with the predictions:
2024 is one of the most miserable, divisive election seasons in history (no shit). It ends with neither Trump nor Biden elected as president. I don’t mean that we don’t know the winner on election night. I mean that one of them is not the nominee and the new person wins in November.
To that end, we have at least one active convention that chooses the nominee for the first time in decades. It feels more likely to me that it’s the Democrats who do this, but in a world of Trump, ruling anything out is impossible.
Trump is convicted in the Jan. 6 case and in the Georgia election interference case. It changes the underlying dynamic of the race but not necessarily in his or Biden’s favor. Biden has a hard time benefiting from this because voters are already well aware of exactly who and what Trump is and they’ve already made the tradeoff in their minds and more of them are picking Trump over Biden. But that equation might change with a different option.
Republicans win back the Senate but a new leader emerges. Could be Thune or Cornyn or someone else entirely but not McConnell. Democrats take back the House and Jeffries becomes Speaker. There’s momentary hope that the new leadership can lead to actual results but that delusion dissipates quickly.
The Supreme Court upholds the FDA’s authority on mifepristone. That leads to a surge of blue states passing shield laws next year that protect doctors who prescribe abortion medication to women in red states via telemedicine, a surge of red states firing back by issuing indictments of doctors in absentia, and the issue ends up helping the Democrats in November. Even if this is wrong, the Court will hear the case in the spring and a decision is expected late summer/ early fall, so just in time to disrupt the election either way.
The wave of identity politics ruling everything starts to subside. Not every heralded novel and movie is about identity politics. People start to get a break and they appreciate and enjoy it. American Fiction, which does a great job mocking the culture of ceaseless identity politics, wins Best Picture.
The failure of Harvard, Penn and MIT to handle the fallout of the disastrous congressional hearing starts to open the question of how much the Ivy Leagues and elite schools really matter. The elite schools rely on everyone believing in their superiority and those schools look anything but superior at the moment.
The 2024 Paris Olympics do not go well. At worst, an incident happens. At best, everyone is tense and feels shitty. There are just too many geo-political problems from Israel to Ukraine to Taiwan to the migrant crisis for everyone to join together happily (the games will happen, but they’ll be saddled with an aura of anger and despair).
The Fed takes its time on lowering interest rates. Rates do come down but not fast enough to meaningfully change consumer/ voter perception before the election. However, we’re way below the current rate of 8.5% a year from now and hopefully that spurs M&A activity and IPOs.
A ceasefire in Gaza is reached within the next 6 weeks but governing Gaza proves impossible. Hamas and Iran find creative new ways to commit new acts of terrorism and the war resumes. The UN eventually takes over Gaza.
The world cannot maintain support for Ukraine and Russia makes steady gains leading to an occupation and guerilla warfare. It goes about as well as Iraq, Afghanistan and every other example in modern history when a foreign power occupies another nation.
Eric Adams, indicted or not, will still be mayor of New York City in a year. If Adams is indicted, he will follow the example of Trump and Bob Menendez and refuse to step down. That would mean him governing while under indictment and then being on trial during the campaign.
The Niners win the Super Bowl, the Celtics win the NBA Title and the Rangers win the World Series. To be clear, the last pick is the result of process of elimination since the Dodgers feel too trendy to pick and I just hate the Braves, Phillies and Yankees too much to choose them.
Part II
Americans are more unhappy than ever as a whole for three reasons.
(1). Social media is the biggest day to day culprit: the combination of constantly feeling like your life is inadequate compared to what you see everyone else posting; and seeing every bad thing that happens anywhere in the world at all times, then compounded by the views of a million idiots. So your life feels worse than ever and the world does too.
(2). Existential risk has quadrupled from just nukes when I was a kid to nukes (with far wider proliferation and therefore risk), pandemics (it seems very likely a bioweapon that is as transmissible as covid but vastly more lethal already exists in a lab somewhere so we’re just relying on it not being stolen or getting out in some way), climate (this will occur over time and not all at once but what was a goal of no more than 1.5 degree Celsius increase is now more like 2-3 degrees) and AI (not sure I see this last one as a true existential risk but many do).
(3). This likely is the first generation of Americans that will almost definitely do worse than their parents. This is due to partly globalization, partly the opioid crisis, partly guns and mass incarceration, partly terrible schools, partly a weird health care system, partly gerrymandering, low turnout and a dysfunctional political system, and a bunch of other factors, all of which are bad.
People are unhappy and scared. Trump is a candidate who provokes emotion: angry and bad in those who don’t like him and angry and good in those who do. But either way, the emotion is anger. Biden provokes virtually no emotion: competent but old and uninspiring.
Of the potential candidates who could run if Biden chose not to run, which of them have the ability to make people feel hopeful and good about themselves? A Reagan, Obama, even Bill Clinton type. We’re too polarized and screwed up for that person to actually change the underlying paradigm, bring the parties together and get meaningful things done (Obama proved that), but even if the President just didn’t either make us feel either anger or just nothing, that would be an improvement.
Between Newsom, Harris, Whitmer, Shapiro, Pritzker and anyone else who’d jump in, do any of them meet that description? None of them jump off the page. On the GOP side, DeSantis certainly does not (and his campaign is pretty much over anyway). Not sure if Haley does or it’s just the contrast with Trump.
Maybe being a candidate of inspiration is no longer possible. Maybe everyone’s closeup is now way too visible for it to work. Maybe without social media, without the internet, without cable news, we don’t see the flaws and limits of a candidate as much and someone likable but flawed succeeds. But in today’s world, maybe you either have to be the voice of anger (Trump) or the alternative to restore some normalcy after a term of chaos and anger (Biden). So perhaps an inspiring, Reagan/ Obama like candidate couldn’t succeed even if they did exist.
Part III
What Biden has going against him:
Deep unpopularity (numbers are now historically low)
Biggest vulnerability – his age – can only grow worse, possibly exponentially so if there’s video of something like falling down the stairs on Air Force One
No real base and low voter enthusiasm
Younger voters disenfranchised, will look at Trump or third party candidates, Trump actually winning in latest NYT poll among younger voters
Less hold on voters of color, Trump making major gains there too
Unpopular VP (although now they’re equally unpopular according to the numbers)
Inflation, interest rates and the perception thereof
Third party challengers (RFK, Cornel West even)
The world is a really unhappy place (see above)
Mitigants:
Rate of inflation is declining, interest rates will probably be cut, could produce a better feeling economy by Nov 2024
Trump criminal trials could result in convictions and maybe that changes voter opinion
Abortion is a winning issue for the Dems and the FDA mifepristone case will likely be decided by the Court in the fall
Notion that RFK takes more from Trump than Biden, which some say is true
Are the mitigants effective?:
Unlikely that economic improvements are felt and believed widely in time for the election and Powell will likely proceed at his own timeline, not Biden’s
Unclear if Trump convictions have any impact and god forbid he isn’t convicted…
Abortion is a helpful issue for Biden but AZ is the only true swing state that may have it on the ballot, so the electoral value is low
Third party challengers rarely help the incumbent/ status quo despite what some experts and pundits are saying