“Dad, if a clairvoyant’s dreams reveal the future, what happens if he dreams he doesn’t have any powers?”
“I… don’t know, son. But you’re still gonna have to clean your room.”
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Just for the record, I don’t “technically” have the power of prophecy. (Half the time, I even botch the point spread.) ESP would be nice, but in absolutely every single industry, profession, sport, or vocation, nobody ever gets his or her predictions consistently correct. Pick whatever activity you want — football, medicine, politics, entertainment — and the only thing the so-called “experts” consistently have in common is that they’re all consistently wrong.
But there are exceptions.
Take Ray Kurzweil in tech:
In his book, “The Age of Intelligent Machines” (1990), [Kurzweil] forecast the dissolution of the Soviet Union via the pressures of new tech, namely cell phones and wireless communication. He also predicted that computers would top the best human chess players “by the year 2000.” And, of course, in May of 1997, Deep Blue by IBM utterly humiliated Chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov.
That was the very last time the top chess player on earth was a human.
Kurzweil’s predictions were reevaluated in 2010: Of the 147 predictions he made in “The Age of Intelligent Machines,” “The Age of Spiritual Machines,” and “The Singularity Is Near,” 115 were deemed “entirely correct”; 12 were “essentially correct”; 17 were “partially correct”; and three were “wrong.” That’s a hit-rate of 86%.
Kurzweil isn’t guided by tarot cards or zodiac signs. Instead, he assumes that that tech and innovation will continue to advance at a specific rate; he’s smart enough to predict the cause and effect; and so on and so forth (rinse and repeat). That’s all you really need. As Cassius explained, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
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My own success rate isn’t quite as good as Kurzweil’s 86%. Alas, during the 2024 presidential campaign, I was only right 85.7% of the time. (Curse that .3%!) Because I’m trained in PR, I was able to identify Democratic media tactics and reverse-engineer their intended strategy. These PR predictions (PRedictions?) worked far better with the Democrats than with Trump, because Trump doesn’t use traditional PR; Trump does whatever the hell he wants.
If anything, he’s predictably unpredictable.
But everyone around him still works through the media — including all the Johnny-Come-Latelies to the MAGA movement.
Trump is pushing 80. He’s not going to suddenly change; he is what he is. Even though we can’t predict what he’ll do, we know how he’ll do it: Trump will shake up the status quo, create chaos, churn through personnel, blast his enemies, and tap-dance on the graves of the vanquished.
It’s a good strategy for smashing s**t up and getting things done. (Hey, when the status quo sucks, change the status quo!) But it’s also a strategy that sows discord, distrust, and paranoia within your own ranks.
And don’t forget, even though conservatives are still on a post-election sugar high, the Democrats haven’t gone away. I absolutely guarantee you, they’ll be putting all kinds of pressure — fame, fortune, praise, pop-culture love — on weak-kneed Republicans in 2025.
Beginning on Jan. 20, there’s going to be an open casting call for a MAGA traitor. Call him (or her) a Judas, a Brutus, or a Benedict Arnold; the fact remains that the first person to plunge a dagger into the back of Trump will be showered with candy, flowers, and wild, passionate love from the left.
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And someone in MAGAville will take the bait.
The first two obvious candidates are RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard. Both are former Dems who were welcomed into the MAGAverse with open arms — even though they still hold numerous far-left positions. Is it possible that their feathers will be ruffled when Trump rebuffs ‘em on a policy decision and tweaks their noses on social media?
Right now, Gabbard and Kennedy are persona non grata in the Democratic Party, but make no mistake: if it hurts Trump, the media will welcome ‘em back with open arms.
Marco Rubio is another candidate. On immigration and other issues, he’s been more of a Bushie than a MAGA-ite. Right now, the Republican Party and the MAGA movement are intertwined; they’re one and the same. But it might not be this way forever. Rubio is still a young, ambitious politician; if he senses the MAGA ship is going down, he’ll almost certainly wag his thumb and hitch a ride elsewhere.
But still, they’re long shots. I’d put the odds of RFK Jr. or Gabbard being the Judas at about 33%, and Rubio at 15%.
And this leaves us with Elon Musk (and his tag-team partner, Vivek Ramaswamy).
Musk has an ego. He’s touchy. Weird dude. Very immature.
Sure, he’s a genius. He’s done more to defend free speech than anyone else in America. Rockets, electric cars, artificial intelligence, digital payments, social media, and now politics — Elon Mush has achieved more success in more industries than anyone else alive.
And guys like that don’t take criticism very well.
Maybe it’ll be an offshoot of the H-1B visa controversy. Or, perhaps, something else involving foreign workers.
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Or maybe it’ll be something involving the environment. Remember, in 2017, Elon Musk quit two of President Trump’s advisory councils to protest his decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement:
“Am departing presidential councils,” Musk tweeted. “Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.”
Y’know… if I sold electric cars for a living, splitting from MAGA in an ugly, public dispute over its environmental policy would be a pretty clever way to remind your (left-leaning) EV-buying patrons of your Earth Day bona fides.
Of all the people in the MAGAverse, Elon Musk is most likely to be the Judas.
So enjoy Musk while we’ve got him in the fold, because it’s unlikely he’ll remain in our orbit very long. It’s probably a 50-50 shot he’ll be gone from MAGA by the end of 2025 — and then, if he’s willing to bankroll the Democrats in the 2026 midterms, the liberals will welcome him (and his Teslas) back with open arms.
And they’ll offer him a lot more than 30 pieces of silver.
