This year is at an end and all the newspapers, magazines, and social media feeds are filled with best-of lists. This will not be one of those. This will not be the top albums of 2013, or the biggest tweetgrets of the year, or the worst fashion faux pas. If you want to know about how many come back attempts Paris Hilton made in the last 12 months you will not find it here. While others dwell on the past I will look to the future. We know what happened last year, we lived it, but what will happen next year? Here are some of my predictions for 2014.
Politics:
The midterm elections will be held this year with the balance of our government at stake. Our focus should be on the House of Representatives. The Democrats have only six more seats than the Republicans giving them a slight majority, but there are twenty-one seats up for grab this election. Remember Al Franken’s novelty run in Minnesota? Yeah, he won by less than one-half percent and he’s up for reelection. In all there are eight seats considered a toss up and as of the 26th of December a CNN poll has the Republicans with a inside track to win back the House.
Imagine the Republicans with a majority in the House of Representative and the Senate while President Obama finishes out the last two years of his final term. You want to know the definition of a lame duck president? You think nothing’s getting done now?
Let’s look at some of the “leaders” up for reelection. Nancy Pelosi will be running for reelection, all but unopposed, in California even though she’s been caught with her hand I the cookie jar a few times. Pelosi actively blocked a credit card reform bill while making millions by buying Visa stock during their Initial Public Offering. She is a democrat, but she still needs to go.
Mitch McConnel’s re-election campaign is in full affect and he’s on several “most corrupt politicians” list. Even conservative websites list him as “Washington’s #1 Corrupt Bastard.” One website calling for the end of McConnel is so conservative they’re running ads to reinstate Duck Dynasty’s resident bigot. McConnel is so unethical he held the entire nation’s economy hostage for money, a lot of money. The bill to balance the budget was finally passed through congress with the addition of one earmark: an extra 2 BILLION DOLLARS for one of McConnel’s pet projects in Kentucky, his home state.
The list of politicians that should be voted out (and probably arrested) can go on and on. Congress’s approval rating is the lowest in recorded history at 9%. This is a fact: the congress we have right now is the most unpopular group of politicians that our government has ever had. This upcoming election is our nations opportunity to change that. Will we?
Prediction #1: Only about 40% of eligible voters in the US will cast ballots and things will stay as they are. Pelosi, McConnel, and all the others will retain their seats.
In the 2010 midterm election only 7 out of fifty states had over 50% voter participation with the highest being Minnesota with 55.4%, the lowest being Tennessee with 34.7% Only 35.5% of the residents of New York state voted. With an approval rating so low, people are disillusioned and think they’re vote doesn’t matter. Many people simply refuse to be apart of such a messed up political system and crooks we have in office have amassed enough money and leverage to keep their seats.
Science
Prediction:
Proof of extraterrestrial life will be discovered by a team of NASA scientists on a meteorite and no one will care. Oh, wait, that happened two years ago. I meant to say actual extraterrestrial microbes will be found orbiting Earth and no one will care. Oh, shit, that happened this year. Dr. Milton Wainwright of the University of Sheffield in England found microbes on a specially designed balloon sent 16 miles into the stratosphere during the recent Perseid meteor shower. My revised prediction is that unless giant technologically advanced aliens destroy New York or our nation’s capitol in the latest Hollywood blockbuster no one will give a shit about something as important as the building blocks of life showering down on us from the stars.
Pop Culture:
Last year John Hamm said, “Whether it’s Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian or whoever, stupidity is certainly celebrated. Being a fucking idiot is a valuable commodity in this culture because you’re rewarded significantly.”
There is no end in sight with the trend of making stupid people famous. The problem with this for publicists is that they self-destruct after a bad relationship, a poorly timed photograph, or simply being themselves during an interview with some media outlet and most of the time this self-destruction causes them a loss in revenue. This year these publicists will solve this problem. My prediction: 2014 will be the year of constant “celebrity” scandals complete with scandal merchandise.
This coming summer Kim Kardashian will be on Oprah’s couch crying through her tear-proof mascara about how many times Kanye cheated on her while subtly promoting her new independent-woman fragrance, or her who-needs-a-man K-Mart clothing line, and her product-placed tear-proof mascara. Marketing campaigns designed around the inevitable implosions of our famous idiots will be all the rage. You think the people at Chia Pet are going to take a loss on millions of little Phil Robertson beards? Hell no, all they have to do is stick a little voice box saying things like, “It seems like, to me, a vagina—as a man—would be more desirable than a man’s anus.” They’ll have a huge market in the South, with the Tea Party, and at Sarah Palin’s house. Products like 5 Hour Energy Drink and Monster Soda will line up around the block for the chance to slap Lindsay Lohan’s face on a carbonated miracle cherry/pomegranate hangover cure in a can after her latest rehab stint.
Those are the big three. Here are a few honorable mentions:
Mini-Prediction #1: Freshman Republican Senator Ted Cruz will return to his birth name: Rafael Edwardo Cruz after the GOP realizes he’s a double immigrant being of Hispanic heritage and born in Canada. After he hits the brown ceiling in the Tea Party he will become a champion for immigration reform for the Right, which really doesn’t mean anything.
Mini-Prediction #2: Paul Ryan will be a founding member of the new Church of ‘Merica. While the annulment of King Henry VIII marriage to Catherine of Aragon was the catalyst for England to split from the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis’s comments on how US Capitalism isn’t a catholic value will spark the creation of a new religion that caters to America’s uber-rich. Rush Limbough will be canonized by 2015.
Mini-Prediciton #3: There will be at least 12 mass shootings next year, which is triple the national average of just a decade ago, temperatures around the world will be hotter and colder than they ever have been in recorded history just like they’ve been increasing for the past 345 consecutive months, the frequency of natural disasters will increase just like they have since 1990, all the work we’ve done in Iraq will continue to unravel one car bomb at time, and our continual war machine will focus on Northern Africa. I know, this last group isn’t as funny as the others, but they are the most likely to happen based off current data and statistical patterns. Truth hurts.
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/pelosi-stock-insider-60minutes/2011/11/13/id/417848
http://www.conservativehq.com/article/15207-mitch-mcconnell-washington’s-1-corrupt-bastard
http://elections.gmu.edu/Turnout_2010G.html
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/us-mass-shootings-tripled-98617.html
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/climatechange/steady-increase-in-climate-rel/19974069
Sean Davis 