June 12, 2012

My Crystal Ball for Politics in 2024

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The journal Democracy has put together a package of short essays for its latest issue about the likely face of American politics in 2024. Most of the contributors focused on one or two big trends and how they’re likely to play out over the next dozen years, but I took a different tack. Instead I identified six big trends: 

  1. America will keep getting older.
  2. If Obamacare survives the Supreme Court, the social welfare state of FDR and LBJ will be more or less complete.
  3. Economic growth is going to be slow.
  4. The fact of climate change will become undeniable.
  5. The Republican Party will continue getting whiter and the Democratic Party will continue getting browner.
  6. Computational horsepower will continue growing.

What does all this mean? Probably nothing good, but a bleak outcome isn’t inevitable. Click the link to read my guesses.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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