Not only was this the first time I voted for a Democrat for president, it’s the first time I voted for a presidential nominee who actually won. A lot of people have been ecstatic about the Obama victory, filled with hope and happiness for the change to come.
So I would like to be the first to burst those bubbles and smack some cynical back into America.
Here are 22 predictions for what will happen in the next 4 to 8 years:
1.) The president will successfully tax the rich. That would just about balance the budget deficit, except-
2.) -we will never really get out of Iraq. Expect major reductions of troops in Iraq, but they will stay on at some level, probably as a "stability force" or somesuch euphemism for occupiers. The troops that do leave will just trounce over to Afghanistan.
3.) Prediction 1 leads to the conservatives hating Obama like nobody’s business. The invective increases steadily in hatred, until the language from the ministers of conservative churches borders on the treasonous. Bolstered by the hate speech, the extreme right wing mounts-
4.) -several serious assassination attempts. But luckily the right wingers with the guns are every bit the screwups as the ones in the Whitehouse these last eight years. Feeling increasingly disempowered, the conservatives turn to-
5.) – Sarah Palin as a role model and ideological figurehead. Becoming as divisive and polarizing as Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney before her (but without the common sense to shut up and stay out of sight after the country gets sick of her), Palin skirts the accusation that she caused the downfall of the McCain campaign (see my previous post about the trap of identity politics for the right), and instead becomes a righteous martyr. Offensive comments from Palin will make the news every six months. At least once she will be caught saying something truly racist, but America won’t really notice because-
6.) -investment in the tech sector will skyrocket. Even though investors are politically conservative, they only feel comfortable putting their money in the future when there’s a forward-thinking Democrat in power. Because of Obama, the most stodgy moneybags will think that we can remake the shape of industry, and that people will buy books online if given the chance. With the previous administration, all the investors could think about was oil. Now’s the time to invest in the most goof-ball technologies you can find, but be sure to sell before the conservative backlash government.
7.) America will completely fail to get over its race problem. The cops in Austin will still use force on black people at a rate seven times that of whites. School funding will still be tied to the property values of the community, giving poor communities the shaft. The president will just be another celebrity, no more tied to the liberation of black people than the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, except that now when the middle class sees someone from the working class, they won’t think, "Let’s fix the disparity in the access to education," they’ll think, "That loser could have been president." And it won’t help that Obama thinks those Mexicans need to learn English (luckily, he will find a way to phrase that so it sounds perfectly reasonable).
8.) The energy crisis will continue to be a crisis and too little will be done too late. Luckily the economy won’t hit the post-petroleum brick wall until the first term of the conservative backlash president of 2016, so no one will think to blame Obama.
9.) There will be no significant health care reform. Nobody in power wants that to happen. There’s too much money in the health racket. All that time that Obama and Hillary spent debating nuanced differences in their health-care packages? Total waste of freaking time.
10.) At some point I will find myself protesting a "limited bombing campaign" against a nation’s sovereign territory. There will be five other people there. They will all be incredibly ugly. At least one of the signs will be misspelled and that will be the only thing to make it to the nightly news.
11.) There will be no Great Society-style initiative. Do you remember Obama mentioning poor people? Wrack your brain all you want, he hasn’t brought it up and he never will.
12.) Obama will continue to look great on television, and people will continue to feel all warm inside when he sounds reassuring and presidential.
13.) Exciting revelations about the horrible things done by the Bush administration will pop up continually throughout the Obama administration, even if Obama gets two terms.
14.) The environment will continue to degrade, and people will continue to make token and ineffectual gestures to ameliorate the problem.
15.) The liberalization of international trade will continue in the form of the WTO, World Bank, IMF, NAFTA, etc., without slowing down.
16.) The world will suddenly think America is awesome. Except for Venezuela, which will still hate us.
17.) Conservatives in Congress will do everything possible to dig their feet into the ground. There will be no unity and no consensus building. If Obama asks Congress to breath air, they will hold their breath until they die. There will be lawsuits, special investigators, filibustered appointees, and the minute they get a majority (which will happen mid-term elections second term), they will attempt an impeachment. Lieberman will continue to be a putz.
18.) Something as weird and improbable as a black guy with a funny name becoming president will happen, but none of us will get close to predicting what that will be.
19.) Nobody from the Bush administration will be held accountable for their crimes.
20.) George Bush will write his memoirs. In crayon.
21.) President Obama will repeatedly remind us that the Democratic party is also the party of big business.
22.) The next version of Firefox will have a spellchecker that includes both "Obama" and "Barack" in its dictionary.
In short, Obama is going to be what he’s always appeared to be: a moderate Democrat who seems like a wonderful improvement over the last 8 years just because he’s a competent adult. He will be every bit as mediocre and disappointing as Clinton.
That being said, I’ll probably end up voting for the man again in four years, just because he’s the best we can hope for. And I’m getting too old to think that Nader’s a good idea.
