Totally Serious Predictions for 2024

Photo by I saw 127 movies in theaters in the year 2023, so my top ten films, one dishonorable mention, music, video games & more

As we celebrate the dawning of 2024, I offer a few predictions for the coming year. I do not take this undertaking lightly so please bear with me as I channel my inner Nostradamus.

1. Congressional Republicans will pre-emptively exonerate Donald Trump for anything he might do if and when he is elected to a second term. “It will just save everyone time,” Speaker Mike Johnson (whose name I can never remember) will say.
2. Vladimir Putin will order the creation of a clone army as the huge number of Russian casualties in Ukraine threatens to kill or maim an almost entire generation of Russian men. The move will tacitly acknowledge that Russian losses are deepening the country’s demographic hole.
3. In an attempt to seem relevant to young people, President Joe Biden will appear on MTV’s video music awards, but it will backfire when he calls it all a “bunch of malarkey.”
4. Taylor Swift will declare independence and form her own country, a Vatican-sized enclave in southeastern Pennsylvania called “Swiftistan.”
5. Republicans will attack President Biden for not acting aggressively to counter Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and then switch seamlessly to calling him a warmonger after he orders retaliatory air strikes.
6. New Defense Department videos will reveal that an alien life form that calls itself “Ed” has contacted military aircraft from a spacecraft that resembles an intimate appliance, but no one will care because this revelation will come the day after the news about Swiftistan.
7. Hungarian military satellites will attempt to hack into election computer systems to change votes from Biden to Trump, but this plot will be foiled by “Ed.”
8. After 2023’s megahit “Barbie,” movie producers will rush to pair with toy companies to release movie homages to classic toys, but the pet rock movie franchise will fail miserably.
9. Kamala Harris will resign from the vice presidency and return home to California, but no one will notice until several months later.
10. Bipartisan detente will be created as anti-Semites across the political spectrum unite to denounce Israel.
11. At the party’s convention, the Democratic platform will attack Republicans for rejecting science. The next plank in the platform will embrace an infinite number of genders and will be read by a trans man dressed as Pinocchio who will exclaim, “I’m a real boy!”
12. The Republican platform will admonish Democrats for erasing history. The Republican convention will also approve a resolution stating that the Civil War was started by a cultural battle over the supremacy of grits versus oatmeal rather than slavery. The Civil Rights era will be referred to as “that unpleasantness in the 60s.”
13. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Lauren Boebert will meet to settle their differences on the dance floor. The no-holds-barred dance off will end inconclusively when the building is evacuated after Marjorie Taylor Greene warns that it is being targeted by a space-mounted laser deployed by the Rothschilds.
14. The expanded NCAA football playoffs become embroiled in controversy when Alabama is granted two different spots in the quarterfinal brackets.

And my final prediction for 2024 (cue cheers)…

15. The Supreme Court will rule that Donald Trump does not have presidential immunity since he is not in fact president. The Former Guy will be convicted and sentenced to prison. His sentence, long enough to be a virtual life sentence given his age, will spark an Orange Lives Matter movement among the MAGA faithful.

All kidding aside, I wish each and every one of you a happy and blessed New Year.

May God grant you always a sunbeam to warm you,  a moonbeam to charm you,  a sheltering angel so nothing can harm you.  Laughter to cheer you, faithful friends near you. And whenever you pray, Heaven to hear you. -Traditional Irish blessing