My 2005 predictions, since you INSISTED....
I prefer to think of myself as a realist. It is for this reason that most other people think I'm a pessimist. But nothing could be further from the truth. If I tend to see the worst happening far more often than the best, it is only because that is usually reality.
In that spirit, and since a week is in the books already, let me make a few loose prognostications for the upcoming 358 days.
In the culture war, the grassroots political influence of conservatives will continue to increase as we work to build and strengthen our base nationwide. The fact is, we have better ideas - well, actually, in many, if not most cases, we have the ONLY ideas, in the sense of actual practical policy proposals - and as we articulate and expound those common sense ideas in the public square, more and more Americans are going to respond and join our ranks.
As a result, we are going to see left-wing judges intervene to protect and advance the lib status quo right over the top of conservatives and the democratic (small "d") process even more brazenly than they have already. By such means will sodomarriage, religious persecution, and neo-Jim Crow, among other things, continue to be systematically grafted onto our founding documents via judicial diktat in direct defiance of the democratically (small "d") expressed will of the people - and the "blue"-staters will gleefully revel in it.
We can expect the obstructionists in the Senate who in the past have blocked President Bush’s conservative judicial appointments to continue to do just that, across the board, perhaps even extending their blockade to the district court level as well. Dems are not going to see the handwriting on the wall and get out of the way precisely because they, too, realize the reality of (1) above. If they lose the judiciary, after losing the other two branches of government, most governorships, and rising number of state legislatures, they are finished as a competitive national entity. The Imperial Judiciary is their last redoubt, and they will do anything, risk anything, to keep George W. Bush from reshaping the nation's courts in the slightest degree.
Really, despite the Senate losses they've taken in '02 and '04, I doubt that they think they'll be taking much of a risk. First, because that's just not the way Donks think (They always think they're going to win, remember? It's Republicans that are the worrywarts...), and second, because they think they can just plain outlast Bush, even through his second term. Sure, they may lose a few more seats in '06, but by that time most two-terms presidents are playing out the string anyway. And with the timing of possible SCOTUS appointments being sooner rather than later, if the Democrats can stuff Bush's nominees in this Congress, for them the "threat" will have largely, if not entirely, passed.
And don't forget the minority's aces-in-the-hole: RINOs. We can probably bank on Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Lincoln Chafee defecting at a minimum. And don't forget who the 'Pubbies foolishly allowed to take the Judiciary Gavel.
In a similar vein, we can dispense with the pipedream of Congress passing a Federal Marriage Amendment - which, even if it was passed and ratified, would immediately be re-written by the courts to endorse sodomarriage anyway.
Much, if not all, of the Bush second term agenda will go by the boards in more or less the same way, sent there not by Democrats, but by Republicans who still fear them, and apparently always will, no matter how big their majorities get.
Almost ignoring the nitwittery going on in the Beltway, the economy will continue to zoom right along, right up until the next chapter in the Fourth World War begins.
Despite Big Media rooting to the contrary, a stable government will be established in Iraq, but that will seem dramatically less important in the wake of some combination of a WMD terrorist attack on American soil and/or a huge Middle East crisis triggered by the Iranian regime making it to the nuclear finish line and announcing their intention to conduct above-ground tests in Tel Aviv, and/or Israeli or American attempts to pre-empt that harrowing possibility.
This area is, in my judgment, the one that overrides all others. Just as foreign policy completely overshadowed domestic policy during the first Bush term, so I believe it will in his second. Whether that proves to be a good thing politically for the President, as it has heretofore been, is an open question, but I suspect that given all the things that can go wrong for which the President will get blamed regardless of where blame will actually belong (and you can bet your bottom dollar that the Democrats in government and the press will be doing precisely that), he'll be getting up mornings and asking himself why he bothered seeking "four more years."
In less certain prognostications, the New York Yankees have successfully purchased another World Series trophy. Might as well give it to them now and save the bother of playing the season. Also, all Seattle professional sports franchises will continue to flounder in hapless mediocrity.
And, maybe, just maybe, by Christmas - or perhaps for Christmas - the people of the state of Washington will finally receive a legitimate governor.
But I wouldn't count on it.
In that spirit, and since a week is in the books already, let me make a few loose prognostications for the upcoming 358 days.
In the culture war, the grassroots political influence of conservatives will continue to increase as we work to build and strengthen our base nationwide. The fact is, we have better ideas - well, actually, in many, if not most cases, we have the ONLY ideas, in the sense of actual practical policy proposals - and as we articulate and expound those common sense ideas in the public square, more and more Americans are going to respond and join our ranks.
As a result, we are going to see left-wing judges intervene to protect and advance the lib status quo right over the top of conservatives and the democratic (small "d") process even more brazenly than they have already. By such means will sodomarriage, religious persecution, and neo-Jim Crow, among other things, continue to be systematically grafted onto our founding documents via judicial diktat in direct defiance of the democratically (small "d") expressed will of the people - and the "blue"-staters will gleefully revel in it.
We can expect the obstructionists in the Senate who in the past have blocked President Bush’s conservative judicial appointments to continue to do just that, across the board, perhaps even extending their blockade to the district court level as well. Dems are not going to see the handwriting on the wall and get out of the way precisely because they, too, realize the reality of (1) above. If they lose the judiciary, after losing the other two branches of government, most governorships, and rising number of state legislatures, they are finished as a competitive national entity. The Imperial Judiciary is their last redoubt, and they will do anything, risk anything, to keep George W. Bush from reshaping the nation's courts in the slightest degree.
Really, despite the Senate losses they've taken in '02 and '04, I doubt that they think they'll be taking much of a risk. First, because that's just not the way Donks think (They always think they're going to win, remember? It's Republicans that are the worrywarts...), and second, because they think they can just plain outlast Bush, even through his second term. Sure, they may lose a few more seats in '06, but by that time most two-terms presidents are playing out the string anyway. And with the timing of possible SCOTUS appointments being sooner rather than later, if the Democrats can stuff Bush's nominees in this Congress, for them the "threat" will have largely, if not entirely, passed.
And don't forget the minority's aces-in-the-hole: RINOs. We can probably bank on Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Lincoln Chafee defecting at a minimum. And don't forget who the 'Pubbies foolishly allowed to take the Judiciary Gavel.
In a similar vein, we can dispense with the pipedream of Congress passing a Federal Marriage Amendment - which, even if it was passed and ratified, would immediately be re-written by the courts to endorse sodomarriage anyway.
Much, if not all, of the Bush second term agenda will go by the boards in more or less the same way, sent there not by Democrats, but by Republicans who still fear them, and apparently always will, no matter how big their majorities get.
Almost ignoring the nitwittery going on in the Beltway, the economy will continue to zoom right along, right up until the next chapter in the Fourth World War begins.
Despite Big Media rooting to the contrary, a stable government will be established in Iraq, but that will seem dramatically less important in the wake of some combination of a WMD terrorist attack on American soil and/or a huge Middle East crisis triggered by the Iranian regime making it to the nuclear finish line and announcing their intention to conduct above-ground tests in Tel Aviv, and/or Israeli or American attempts to pre-empt that harrowing possibility.
This area is, in my judgment, the one that overrides all others. Just as foreign policy completely overshadowed domestic policy during the first Bush term, so I believe it will in his second. Whether that proves to be a good thing politically for the President, as it has heretofore been, is an open question, but I suspect that given all the things that can go wrong for which the President will get blamed regardless of where blame will actually belong (and you can bet your bottom dollar that the Democrats in government and the press will be doing precisely that), he'll be getting up mornings and asking himself why he bothered seeking "four more years."
In less certain prognostications, the New York Yankees have successfully purchased another World Series trophy. Might as well give it to them now and save the bother of playing the season. Also, all Seattle professional sports franchises will continue to flounder in hapless mediocrity.
And, maybe, just maybe, by Christmas - or perhaps for Christmas - the people of the state of Washington will finally receive a legitimate governor.
But I wouldn't count on it.
posted by JASmius at 6:58 PM
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