Zandar's 2019 Predictions

As promised, another year, another set of ten predictions, and it shouldn't surprise any of you that I'm going to reuse my first two from last year.  Here we go:

1) Robert Muller recommends impeachable offenses for Donald Trump.  I know, this is a huge bet: that Trump won't fire Mueller, that Mueller will complete his investigation this year, and that he will find something that warrants an official recommendation to Congress that articles of impeachment be voted on.  But I see it happening.  There's just too much self-reinforcing evidence at this point to ignore, unless you're a Republican in Congress, in which case...

2) Trump will wait until after Mueller's report is delivered in order to issue pardons.  More indictments in 2019 by Mueller are as close to a guarantee as you can get at this point.  There are so many targets, too.  But Trump will wait until the investigation ends in order to start dishing out pardons. That leads me to...

3) Trump will not be impeached in 2019.  I understand people want this to happen, but the Senate was never going to have the 67 votes needed to remove him from office.  There won't be a Senate trial without impeachment by Pelosi and the Democratic House, but I don't see Pelosi allowing impeachment to happen without an assured Senate conviction and removal, and that won't occur.

4) The Roberts Court will get a major decision on executive power related to the Mueller probe.  I think this is a given, but in a 5-4 world I don't know which side will prevail.  The state cases against Trump will continue regardless I would think, but I think it will be "Can a sitting President be indicted" and it will be answered.

5) The Roberts Court will effectively side with Trump in Gamble vs. United States.  The Gamble case is whether or not a person being tried for a state crime can also be tried for the same federal crime, and vice versa.  In a Trump world, this could mean a decision removing that sovereignty exception to double jeopardy means that Trump could pardon federal crimes for Cohen and Manafort and even himself and then not be tried for identical state ones, depending on the ruling.  I desperately want to be wrong about this one.

6) Hillary Clinton won't enter the 2020 race in 2019.  This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, but she's not going to be a factor, and I don't think she'll endorse anyone.  She'll say she's not running, Republicans will say she's running, some people on the left will say she's running, op-ed pieces will be written saying she needs to run or that she needs to make it clear she won't, irrelevant because nobody will believe her either way, but she's not running.

7) Bernie Sanders will enter the 2020 race in 2019.  This is as much of a no-brainer as Clinton not running.  Sanders will run, and he will lose badly, but this time Clinton won't be around for him to use as a lightning rod.  The primaries will effectively be decided in March 2020 with California moving up to Super Tuesday, and the Bernie camp got many of the reforms they wanted in the process in 2018, so when Bernie gets crushed, there won't be a damn thing he can do about it.

8) Dow Jones Average will be under 20,000 on December 31, 2019.  Trump's tariff war and a global slowdown thanks to Brexit, European Union issues, and the TPP passing the US by means we're heading full steam into recessionary waters.

9) Marvel movies will continue to rule the box office.  I do love seeing my Marvel predictions come true year after year, so this year, let's stretch it out.  Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home will all top $500 million domestically, each will top $1 billion worldwide, and Avengers will top $2 billion worldwide.

10) And of course, ZVTS will make it through year 11.  It'll be thanks to all of you who have stuck with me since the 2008 primary race.

We'll see what the future brings!

A Hat Lands In The Ring

As widely expected, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren announced she's entering the 2020 presidential contest.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren jumped into the 2020 presidential campaign Monday, offering a message of economic populism as she became the best-known Democratic candidate yet to enter what is expected to be a crowded race.

Warren’s announcement that she was establishing an exploratory committee — the legal precursor to a run — came as other candidates, including several of her fellow senators, made final preparations for their own announcements, some of which are expected in days.

“America’s middle class is under attack,” the Massachusetts Democrat said in a four-minute, 30-second video emailed to supporters Monday. “How did we get here? Billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie. And they enlisted politicians to cut them a bigger slice.”

The video is part biographical, showing her hardscrabble Oklahoma upbringing; part economics lesson, replete with charts illustrating how the middle class is losing economic ground; and part red meat for the Democratic base, with images of President Trump and others disliked by liberals: presidential aides Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Miller and former adviser Stephen K. Bannon.

It made no mention of a recent Warren stumble: her October decision to release results of a DNA test that said she probably had a distant Native American ancestor. The move had been meant to stifle Trump’s criticism of her but only engendered more mockery from him while also angering Democrats, particularly minorities who objected to her defining ethnicity via a test.

While the race for the Democratic nomination is only starting, even Warren’s supporters acknowledge that she has lost ground in the last few months, both by her own hand and because the November midterm elections redefined Democratic success with candidates who were in many cases a generation younger.

Still, the 69-year-old former law professor enters the race as a formidable candidate — a prodigious small-dollar fundraiser with a knack for creating the kind of viral moments that attract attention in a crowded field. In one such episode, she turned an insult from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — “nevertheless, she persisted” — into a liberal rallying cry. 

It's a marathon, not a sprint, as they say.  Would I vote for Liz Warren over Trump? In a heartbeat and without hesitation.  Would I vote for her in the primaries?

That's a much tougher question. Do I think she's the best Democrat for the job?

I don't honestly know, it depends on who is running.

I'm hoping that 2019 manages to decrease the number of Democratic candidates, not increase them.  It's good I think that the Democratic candidate will be decided by Super Tuesday in March 2020, with California moving its primary up into supreme relevance, and Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina all in February.

But I don't see Liz Warren as a favorite in this scenario.  Far from it.

Zandar's 2018 Scorecard

It's New Year's Eve, which means it's time to see how my ten predictions for the year went.

1) Robert Muller recommends impeachable offenses for Donald Trump.  I know, this is a huge bet: that Trump won't fire Mueller, that Mueller will complete his investigation this year, and that he will find something that warrants an official recommendation to Congress that articles of impeachment be voted on.  But I see it happening.  There's just too much self-reinforcing evidence at this point to ignore, unless you're a Republican in Congress, in which case...

2) Trump will wait until after Mueller's report is delivered in order to issue pardons.  More indictments in 2018 by Mueller are as close to a guarantee as you can get at this point.  There are so many targets, too.  But Trump will wait until the investigation ends in order to start dishing out pardons.  Furthermore...

3) The GOP-led Congress will take no action on Mueller's recommendations.  Not in 2018, at least.  They will wait for midterm elections, hoping that either Mueller spares them by continuing the investigation into 2019, or that Trump ends it for them.  But Paul Ryan, as Speaker of the House, will never let impeachment articles come to a floor vote, which leads me to...

On the first three predictions, the jury is still out.  Mueller has not delivered his final report yet, so these are stuck in limbo for now.

4) Democrats will take control of the House in 2018 midterms.  Yes, I know all this is dependent on a media that is already attacking Democrats for their sure-to-be failures on getting anything signed into law by Trump and the Senate remains a tough road...but I think it will happen. I'll even go one step further, because I need a serious goal to help shoot for...

Thankfully I was right here.

5)  Dems will take the Senate back in 2018 too.  They would have to hold their Trump state incumbents and win Nevada and Arizona, but it's not impossible.  And if it's truly a 2018 blue wave year, I think there are a lot fewer safe red states than the GOP is willing to even think about.

Sadly, the Dems came up well short here, even losing a few seats.

6) A Trump miscalculation leads to a military incident with North Korea.  I don't mean war, but I do mean a US ship or airplane is destroyed, or US soldiers captured, something along those lines.  I don't believe it will lead to a larger exchange yet, otherwise all bets are off for everyone.  Trump needs something he can rally his base around ahead of midterm elections, especially as Mueller closes in.

Blessedly, I was wrong about this one.  North Korea even freed a few American detainees.  It wasn't war that Trump rallied around in 2018, but immigration and racism.

7) America will fall victim to a significant cyber-attack.  I don't want to be right about this one either, because I don't know how Trump would react to it.  But I'm betting that something along the lines of a major computer virus or infrastructure blackout will affect a major portion of the US for some time.  Frankly, we're long overdue for this one.

An entire American city was held for ransom when Atlanta's city system was scrambled for two weeks, the Port of Long Beach was knocked out for a while, and just in the last few days Tribune Publishing was hit, knocking out distribution of print editions across the country.  These will only get worse.

8)  Trump's complete failure in Puerto Rico helps turn Florida blue.  I think Rick Scott will be succeeded by a Democrat in November 2018 at the minimum.  I don't know how feasible it is for the state's heave GOP majority in Tallahassee to flip, but the Dems will at least make major gains. In lighter news...

Nope.  Racism won the day in Florida. The one good thing: Florida voters restored voting rights to felons, but Gov. DeSantis will never allow them to vote, and it'll be tied up in the courts for years.  The Supreme Court will almost assuredly punt anything arising from this back to the appellate courts as they traditionally have over questions of individual states and voting rights, and Trump certainly won't sign any expansion of the Voting Rights Act, so I don't expect this to have an impact in 2020 at all.

9)  Marvel's 2018 films will make $250 million at the US box office.  Black Panther, Avengers 3, Ant-Man and The Wasp and Deadpool 2 are easily going to hit that, and there's a good chance that Venom will too, but I'll put a marker down on the first four, no contest.

Technically Ant-Man and the Wasp made a bit less than $250 million domestically, but all five films broke the $500 million mark worldwide, with Black Panther making $1.3 billion and Avengers 3 making over $2 billion.  I'll take the 95% here.

and finally 10) ZVTS will make it through its tenth year and into 2019.  Here's hoping.  I've basically spent my entire 30's blogging, so we'll see how it works out now that I'm older and wiser.

Yep, still here thanks to you guys!

Final tally, 4 right, 3 wrong, 3 the jury is still out.  Not my best year, but 2018 was very unpredictable.

I'll have my 2019 predictions up shortly.