The Continuing Crisis: Predictions for 2025

Last year, I made several predictions about 2024, many of which came true. Time to do 2025.

I’ve never been a fan of New Year’s resolutions or predictions. One year ago, I said, “Many are based on people’s fears and hopes, often devoid of information, knowledge, and analysis that goes into scenario planning. They are often confused with assumptions and conspiracy theories and are about as valuable and rememberable as New Year’s resolutions.”

Australia will be among the first to celebrate the New Year because it is on the other side of the International Date Line.

I then proceeded to make downright fearful predictions. I’m grateful that many of them did not come to pass. For example, I predicted a major terror attack, a “black swan” event in 2024, and a major nuclear missile test failure by North Korea. Whew, we dodged those.

I predicted that a GOP presidential ticket of Donald Trump (correct) and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee-Sanders (oops) would win. I also predicted Democrats would be stuck with Joe Biden until the end (oops again). And I could not have been more wrong about Trump’s first Cabinet picks.

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, with two supporters

I was a little off on my prediction that Justin Trudeau would not be Prime Minister of Canada by the end of 2024. He is, but barely, and he is likely to either lose a vote of “no confidence” next month or to “prorogue” parliament to buy him more time to destroy what’s left of his political party, the Liberals.

I was right about a few things, including the nationwide decline of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” DEI programs and the continuing deterioration of credibility by climate alarmists. With two notable exceptions, hurricane season again came without the predicted record-breaking number of more intense hurricanes. I also predicted that Hunter Biden would be convicted of tax fraud and would later predict that he would be pardoned. Bingo.

I was half-right but may be proven right early in the New Year regarding which parties would control which branch of Congress. I nailed the Senate, predicting a 52—or 53-seat GOP majority. But I was wrong about the dysfunctional House, which I thought would go Democratic narrowly. It remains Republican, but we are a heart attack, a resignation, a party change, a plane crash, or a life in a nursing home away from the GOP losing its 1-2 seat majority. I wrongly predicted Mitch McConnell would conclude his service in the Senate as Majority Leader for the 119th Congress. He voluntarily stepped aside for the eventual election of US Sen. John Thune (R-SD).

I said the 2024 election would be about a “return to normalcy.” I’ll let you decide if I was correct (some might suggest a Trump win is hardly a return to anything normal), but they rejected much of the woke lunacy from Democrats. The most effective advertisement was the tagline, “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”

With those now behind us, here are a few predictions for 2025. My crystal ball predominantly focuses on campaigns and politics, but we will sneak in a few other things.

RFK Jr.’s nomination as HHS Secretary will be withdrawn

While most of Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominations will sail through, one sacrificial lamb will withdraw before a confirmation vote. With low confidence, I predict Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be that lamb. Since the Senate Majority - Democrat or Republican - traditionally grants considerable deference to their party’s presidential nominees, I wouldn’t be surprised to be proven wrong here. As incoming Senate Conference Chair Tom Cotton (R-AR) has noted only two of 72 presidential Cabinet nominees since Bill Clinton have received “no” votes from Senators from the new President’s political party. Cotton doesn’t note the number of nominees who withdrew before votes were cast, including Clinton’s first nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary, former US Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD), and most recently, the execrable Matt Gaetz, the disgraced former US Rep. who was Trump’s first nominee for Attorney General.

He faces opposition from most consumer health advocates, such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest and Public Citizen, and the food and medical industries, a remarkable coalition often at odds with each other. Rumors in conservative media suggest that South Carolina US Sen. Lindsay Graham (R), who made a big deal about deference to Joe Biden’s judicial nominees, may oppose Kennedy’s nomination. He enjoys support from only one Democrat, Bernie Sanders (D-VT), while several Republicans are targeted by a public campaign to defeat the nomination. Others might step aside, including former US Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence and Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, but that seems unlikely.

Knowing that he won’t be able to command significant changes to the food supply or vaccine approvals without substantial changes to existing laws, Kennedy may decide - or have it chosen for him - that the fight is unwinnable. A good fallback position would be to name Kennedy as Counselor to the President with Cabinet rank and the nation’s “health czar.” That position won’t require Senate confirmation.

Biden will pardon more family members and himself.

We know that Biden has lied repeatedly about pardoning his son, Hunter, from his gun and tax crimes. Then, Biden made odious history by commuting the sentences of all but three cretins on federal death row. He’ll cement his legacy of corruption and failure by making several more pardons, including historically pardoning himself and others in his family for their grifting and extortion from using Biden’s vice presidency and the presidency for profit.

Speaker Mike Johnson will keep his job - barely, and not without drama.

Speaker Johnson (R-LA) did not acquit himself well with his handling of the dismal 118th Congress’s final days, especially on the “continuing resolution” (CR) to keep the government funded into March. He made everyone mad, starting with conservatives for a bloated and wasteful first version of the CR that provided a massive and undeserved pay hike for Members of Congress. Then, he made Trump mad by failing to include a debt limit suspension in the second version. Some of the usual recalcitrants have made their intentions known that they will vote against a Johnson speakership on January 3rd.

It’s likely to take more than a couple of votes. Still, Trump will extract a few promises from Johnson in exchange for help getting the troops in line before the Electoral College results are ratified on January 6th. Johnson's lack of a prominent or obvious challenger helps.

Pierre Poilievere will be Canada’s prime minister with a bullet-proof majority by Summer, and the Liberals won’t be the “Official Opposition.”

This is an easy prediction. The question is, who will be the “official opposition?” I’ll predict further that it won’t be the Liberal Party’s leader, whoever that is. I’ll predict that it will fall to the Bloc Quebecois, the separatist party of Quebec, Canada’s second most populous province, who I expect to have around 48 seats in the new Parliament, compared to the Conservative’s 250 or more in the 343-seat chamber. I expect Trump and Poilievere to get along famously and enhance the US-Canada relationship. It won’t mean, however, that Canada is on the verge of splitting apart. It won’t be the first time the BQ has been the Official Opposition, which it was from 1993 to 1997.

Poilievere will impress Trump with his “Canada First” rhetoric and negotiating skills as he unifies Canada against what our northern neighbors perceive as his attacks on it. Their first area of cooperation won’t be the border but the Arctic Circle and Russia’s and China’s aggressive moves there.

Trump’s most significant and earliest success will come from the border

The nation’s immigration laws give great deference to presidential authority. That was proven by none other than open-borders Joe Biden himself as he opened the southern border to more than 10 million (some say 20 million) illegal immigrants. Trump has the attention of Mexico and will reinstate all the 50 or so executive orders that Biden rescinded.

I’ll make a bolder prediction. Look for Trump to launch some surprise US military action in the Mexican state of Sinaloa to destroy at least one of the three primary drug and human trafficking cartels that have enormous control of the Mexican side of the US border. This will be a major international incident that may result in the border closing and travel bans as negotiations ensue and a temporary trade disruption. Mexico, however, knows that the US has the upper hand as their largest market. Avocado and lettuce prices may spike, but growers in Florida, California, and south Texas will be whistling while they cash in. Mexico’s president, Claudia Scheinbaum, may be embarrassed but can benefit from such a move as her nation’s sovereignty is partially restored as the cartels are diminished.

Trump’s tax cuts will be extended, but they won’t be easy and will worsen the deficit.

Many, if not most, of the Trump tax cuts for individuals and businesses expire after 2025. Extending them and other changes (‘no taxes on tips’) will be a top priority. The good news for the GOP is that they can do it via budget and reconciliation rules that allow them to escape the Senate’s filibuster and with limits on debate. The bad news is that the dysfunctional House GOP will make the process very painful and ugly. And if the House somehow switches to the Democrats, all bets are off. And as previously mentioned, that is a real possibility, even after the elections.

The federal debt will be $40 trillion by the 2026 elections.

Okay, we’re going beyond 2025 here. But as we learned earlier this month, Congress loves to spend money, as much as it loathes cutting it. As I wrote, they exacerbated Social Security’s rush into insolvency by giving a massive windfall to retired public employees. Trump’s rush to extend his 2017 tax cuts will temporarily worsen the deficit, coupled with a need to expand defense spending, especially on the US Navy. Trump and congressional Republicans will be forced to defend the growing deficit as a “down payment” on economic growth and increased revenues, which happened when the Trump tax cuts were approved - at least after the first year or two.

Since Democrats are in no position to complain about deficit spending after $6-7 trillion in new and mostly wasteful expenditures from the Biden years, it may be a minor issue.

DOGE will mostly fail

I hate saying this because I want the newly proposed presidential advisory effort, the Department of Government Efficiency, to be successful. But as I wrote recently, that’s impossible without giving them the same powers granted by Congress when hundreds of military bases were closed or realigned from the early 1990s until 2005. It took a federal law with an expedited Congressional consideration process. It worked. But unless Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and their legion of intellectual geniuses get BRAC-like status, their work will gather dust on shelves next to the Grace Commission reports from the early Reagan years.

I predict they won’t seek it, so their recommendations will mostly be ignored, with a few high-profile exceptions. The DOGE process will overreach and try to end programs popular with congressional Republicans, dooming the process.

This will strain the relationship between Trump and Musk and create an interesting sideshow. But nothing more.

Iran will revolt and collapse.

With the practical elimination of Iran’s proxies in Gaza (Hamas), Lebanon, and Syria (Hezbollah), all eyes will turn to Iran with a Trump administration empowered to destroy the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism. Trump will also see enormous leverage over China by helping Israel destroy its capacity to export oil. Israel, with its considerable successes over the past year, stands poised to help foment a rebellion that has been simmering beneath the surface for decades. No, it won’t mean a return of the Shah (his son, Reza Pahlavi), but a more secular government is entirely possible.

Trump’s success with the Abraham Accords will regain momentum as Iran is marginalized and weakened.

Trump will eventually negotiate a truce, but not an end, to the Russia-Ukraine war.

Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine before he took office, but he’s already finding it challenging. He will find a way to stop the hostilities as negotiators slog through various issues, including rebuilding much of Ukraine. However, issues involving NATO membership, Ukraine’s borders, sovereignty, and neutrality will prevent a final solution before the end of 2025.

Trump’s most significant success internationally may come from helping the new Syrian government while ensuring protections for their small Christian population. A growing war between Turkey and Kurds in northern Iraq and Syria will test the Trump Administration’s commitment to keeping Turkey in NATO or free of Soviet Russian influence.

Republicans will win a major governorship in 2025. Probably New Jersey.

There are two major state elections in 2025 - Virginia and New Jersey. Both gubernatorial elections will be “open seats,” with the incumbents, Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) and Phil Murphy (D-NJ), ineligible to run for another term.

There are competitive primaries in New Jersey for Democratic and Republican nominations, with no clear favorites. However, given the gains made by the GOP in 2024, Trump only lost about five percentage points in New Jersey, which is the same as Virginia; something is afoot in the Garden State. Jack Ciatarelli, a former St. Rep. who narrowly lost to Murphy four years ago, is running again. Bill Spadea, another former St. Rep. and popular conservative talk show host on the state’s leading radio station, is running. Either would be formidable against any of the Democrats.

The GOP ticket of St. Rep. Jack Ciaterelli and St. Sen. Diane Allen in New Jersey’s gubernatorial election of 2021. They lost by 3 points in a very close election.

In Virginia, Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears is a black Republican likely to run against retiring US Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), a very aggressive and successful candidate who is the primary House sponsor of the aforementioned Social Security “Fairness” Act that promises to send the program into insolvency sooner than later. Spanberger will run as a Terry McAuliffe-style pro-business “moderate,” while Sears will run on Youngkin’s considerable popularity and legacy. The race started as a tie in the most recent public opinion surveys, which is way better than Youngkin four years ago.

The Trump presidency will likely hamper both GOP candidates. The party out of power does better in these off-year gubernatorial elections. Youngkin won during Biden’s first year; Ciaterelli exceeded expectations. The tables might be turned this year, but if Trump’s early popularity continues with several legislative, border, and economic victories - especially giving New Jersey taxpayers the “gift” of an (undeserved) increase in the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction, it might turn the tables.

Conversely, Sears will face the challenge of DOGE's promises to eviscerate government spending, especially in vote-rich, deep-blue northern Virginia. She must devise a plan to mitigate that without appearing to challenge DOGE or Trump. A strong “southside” and suburban strategy might be the key, but it won’t be easy against Spanberger.

I predict the GOP will win the governor’s race in New Jersey. Virginia remains a toss-up, even as I’ll be working hard to elect Winsome Sears as our next governor as she strives to cement GOP demographic gains among blacks and Hispanics. Spanberger will be a terrible and failed governor who will bloat the government, raise taxes, and protect our hated car tax. Sears can win if she resurrects former Gov. Jim Gilmore’s successful campaign to eliminate the car tax (it got him elected, but the legislature and his awful successor, now-US Sen. Tim Kaine [D-VA], had other ideas).

How bad is Virginia’s car tax? If you own a 2019 Chevrolet Colorado pickup truck, you paid over $1,000 in the “car tax” in 2023, and not much less in 2024. A five year old pickup truck, no matter the mileage. No neighboring state has such a stupid policy. Youngkin favors its elimination but has failed to make it an issue, and is pushing a wimpy solution that marginally helps only a lower-income taxpayers. The Democrats who narrowly control Virginia’s legislature love and protect the car tax.

There you have it. I may add a few more predictions in the coming days. But buckle in; we’re in for a wild roller coaster ride, especially in 2025.