Crystal ball predictions, 2019

Each year, I like to go on the record with my top 10 predictions for what some of the big stories will be in the new year. You can click here to go back and read what predictions I made twelve months ago for 2018. 

1. “Avengers: Endgame” out-duels “Star Wars: Episode IX” as the top grossing movie at the box office.

Only once has a “Star Wars” saga episode not finished as the highest-grossing film of the year (“Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones” in 2002). But I think a combination of three factors is why it will happen again: 1) A segment of the Star Wars fan base grows increasingly disillusioned with Disney’s handling of the franchise; 2) Next year’s holiday release schedule is packed with powerhouses; 3) The uniqueness of Avengers: Endgame, culminating the much-celebrated Marvel Cinematic Universe.

2. John Kasich will announce a primary challenge to President Trump.

This will be the best political news Trump gets all year. While it’s been true since the advent of the two-party system that sitting presidents who are primaried always lose re-election, this is the first time one will be primaried from the opposite direction of his base. In all the other cases, Republican or Democrat, the sitting president was primaried for abandoning his base. In this case, Kasich is primarying Trump because he represents the GOP base. Kasich’s challenge will force Trump to stay loyal to that base.

3. In a rematch of the regular season’s most epic game, the Kansas City Chiefs will beat the Los Angeles Rams in the Super Bowl.

Last November’s Monday night game between these two was perhaps the greatest regular-season spectacle in recent memory. The sequel in the Super Bowl will be memorable, too, except this time the Chiefs win and come away with their first title in 48 years.

4. The only major piece of bipartisan legislation passed will be regulation of social media platforms.

Both political parties have different aims here, obviously, but coinciding motivations: mainly, the desire to rein in what is and isn’t permitted/banned on social media platforms prior to what promises to be a contentious and divisive 2020 election. Democrats will want to set the precedent that government can control content on the internet for future use. Republicans will seek to stop the increasing progressive censorship of the social media giants.

5. Relations with China will grow frostier; the nation will forge an unprecedented pact with North Korea and Russia, as well as announce that it intends to beat us to a manned mission to Mars.

The prediction itself pretty much says it all. This will be part of an overall attempt by China to further assert itself geopolitically, at a time when there will be high domestic turmoil tearing us further apart here.

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6. Joe Biden will emerge as the 2020 Democratic front-runner.

This is shaping up like a lot of past Republican presidential primaries. So many candidates representing the activists will cancel each other out, leaving one “establishment” candidate to pretty much own all that space himself. All the expected candidates but Biden have their origins and messages tied to the New Left within the Democrat base. This will provide Biden the opportunity to consolidate the Old Left, and as Obama’s vice president he’ll have enough New Left street cred to avoid backlash from that camp. He’s also the only expected Democrat candidate with the stage presence to avoid melting under the spotlight of Trump’s incessant trolling.

7. President Trump will meet face to face with the Iranian government.

Before scoffing at this, consider that at this time 12 months ago, it seemed more likely that we’d have a military exchange with North Korea than the bromance on the peninsula between Trump and Kim Jong-Un we ended up getting.

8. At least one member of the Trump family will be criminally indicted as a result of the Mueller probe.

This is the year the Mueller probe comes to a head. After its strategy of squeezing the president from the outside in reached his inner circle with his former attorney Michael Cohen in 2018, it will reach the Trump family in 2019.

9. The Democrat-controlled House will vote to impeach President Trump.

This became all but a foregone conclusion once the Democrats won so many House seats in November. They can protect those incumbents who may represent districts that wouldn’t respond well to voting to impeach. Not to mention that a president on a lifelong ego trip who loves being the center of attention thrives in showdown situations like this. I’m not sure who wants the impeachment drama more – Democrat activists or Trump.

10. President Trump will fill a Supreme Court vacancy in the Senate while he’s facing impeachment hearings in the House.

While we’re in the process of violating pretty much every norm that both restrained and frustrated us in the past, let’s just erase all the lines and be legends! It could either be Ginsburg (health and age) or Thomas (retirement) who steps aside. Either way, the Republican-controlled Senate routinely filling a contentious spot on the Supreme Court while House Democrats work feverishly to impeach the very president making the appointment would be the perfect symbolic representation of the two Americas that currently exist — and probably can’t co-exist much longer.