2024 In the Rear-View Mirror
Well, (he wrote, belaboring the obvious) here we are at last – New Year’s Eve, 2024. In a few hours, my wife and I will set aside work, hop in the truck, and head up to our favorite place in the Valley for a fine meal, a few adult beverages, and to ring in the New Year with a few of our favorite people and a great local band.
In the meantime, it’s appropriate to take a moment and look back at 2024, because, boy, this year was a doozy, capped by a presidential election that was a real sockdolager. There were a few things we expected – and a few we didn’t.
Expected:
Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race. Bleatings of administration officials aside that befuddled old Joe was “sharp as a tack,” this wasn’t a big shock, especially after his one disastrous debate performance. We had a visitor from the lower 48 on the day of that debate, and he informed me that his liberal daughters and sister were texting out messages that were, as he put it, “increasingly desperate and despondent.” Joe was never fit for the job; he got worse while he was in office, and that debate made it too obvious for him to continue. So, the Warner-Brothers-style big hook came out and yanked old Joe off to stage right, following which he endorsed his VP for the role – and we all know how that turned out.
Donald Trump won a historic, Grover Cleveland-style non-consecutive second term. I won’t speak for everyone, but I had a sneaking suspicion Trump would squeak out a win – but I admit I didn’t see how decisive that win would be, with not only a sweep of the swing states giving him a comfortable electoral win but also a near-five million lead in the total vote count. The 2024 election was, to put it bluntly, a slam dunk.
Democrats come unglued. Trump’s win has sent the left into a tizzy, and it’s glorious. I was a bit concerned that a Trump victory would result in unrest, even violence, but that hasn’t happened – yet. More on that in a moment.
Unexpected:
Not one but two assassination attempts on Donald Trump. The first one, in Butler, PA, gave us the most powerful political image since Reagan at the Brandenberg Gate:
Trump may well have won the election in that moment.
Serial issues from Boeing. The last airplane my father ever flew in was a Boeing product, a B-17, and he always swore that that great old warbird’s crews loved it. But Boeing in recent years has had a lot of problems, which started in 2024 with the door blowing off an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737. Boeing used to be the go-to company for large aircraft. Now? Not so much.
Iran’s President dying in a helicopter crash. My mother always used to say that when someone dies, you should say something nice about them. In this case, I’d say, “He’s dead. Good.”
Hurricane Helene, and the Biden administration’s disastrously bad response to it. Plenty of money for Ukraine, or to pass out bennies to illegal immigrants. People in North Carolina? Not so much.
The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s rule in Syria. Not totally unexpected, but the conclusion reminds one of Ernest Hemingway’s description of bankruptcy: “Gradually, then suddenly.”
See Related: The Evolution of New Year’s Eve – A Look Back at How We Celebrated Then vs. Now
Michelle Obama Ripped for New Year’s Message Saying Americans Are ‘Anxious’ as Trump’s Return Nears
Now, what can we look forward to? These are, mind you, all guesses – predictions are hard to make, especially about the future. But I’ll take a few guesses.
2025
Inauguration Day unrest. We can expect, at minimum, more genitalia-hat-wearing lunatics and dullards in Handmaid’s Tale outfits to march around in city streets across the land. But there’s a note of hope; we didn’t see any outright violence following the election, so maybe Trump’s overwhelming win will reduce the enthusiasm for violence on the part of the left. We will see, in three weeks.
A flood of executive orders from Donald Trump on Day One. Most of them will be undoing Joe Biden’s EOs. And watch, because a lot of them will involve border policy, which brings us to:
Illegal immigration will spike in January and maybe into February. Tom “The Hammer” Homan is just the right guy to take on this difficult task, to finally get the oozing sore that is our southern border under control. But it won’t happen overnight, and we can expect a surge – including people from countries who are not friendly (Venezuela, Iran, China.) The mass deportations will start, as well, probably in the spring.
Democrats scrambling for position. The Dems have no bench. They have no promising young up-and-comers. They are going to be looking ahead to 2026 and 2028, so watch for the national Dem apparatus to start going through the younger bunch and looking for candidates. If they’re smart, they won’t be looking for the “progressive” wingnuts. But we can’t rely on them being smart. Let’s hope they aren’t.
What else might happen? Things we don’t know. Things we don’t know we don’t know. And, like 2024, things that we couldn’t have foreseen if we had noodled on it for weeks.
What did I miss? What do you think? The comments, as always, are yours.
