Last year’s crystal ball predicted that President Trump would read the Mueller Report as soon as he finished Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past.” So far as I know, neither that nor any of my other 18 predictions came true. But here I go again, with twenty for 2020, which may or may not be the start of a new decade.
1. After a private morning phone call with Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump announces that the 2020 election will be postponed “indefinitely.”
2. An “Obama Judge” enters an injunction reinstating the 2020 election, and Trump sends out a dozen tweets calling the judge “stupid,” “lazy,” and a “traitor.”
3. New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner announces, “We’re going ahead. It’s the law.”
4. Tulsi Gabbard wins New Hampshire, with Andrew Yang a close second.
5. Elizabeth Warren withdraws in favor of Michael Bloomberg. “He’s got a plan,” she says.
6. When told that the Constitution limits a president to two terms, non-senatorial candidate Corey Lewandowski says, “That’s fake news.”
7. Trump signs bill banning presidential tweets and announces. “From now on, I will address my subjects on the radio, just like FDR, and he got elected four times.”
8. The Clintons move back to Little Rock amid reports that Bill plans to follow Paul Hodes’s “good example” and run for the Arkansas State Senate.
9. Mark Zuckerberg joins the Trump campaign as a “special adviser” on antisocial media.
10. Alan Dershowitz declines to join Trump’s impeachment defense team because “I’ve got my hands full defending myself on Martha’s Vineyard.”
11. Senators McConnell and Graham change their minds, the Senate convicts Trump, and President Pence pardons Rudy Giuliani.
12. After 103 ballots the Democratic Convention remains deadlocked, party brokers meet in a smoke-filled room, and Nancy Pelosi is nominated by acclamation.
13. The Republican Party adopts a platform plank vowing to get rid of Article III of the Constitution.
14. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announces that he will run as an Independent, promising “a pumpkin spice latte in every car cup holder.”
15. Justice Brett Kavanaugh writes the Supreme Court opinion upholding Roe v. Wade. “I’m keeping my promise to Susan Collins,” he tells Fox News.
16. Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, tells Prince Harry, “I’d like a favor though; ask your grandmother to make my cousin, Mookie Betts, a knight.”
17. Melania Trump becomes the United States Ambassador to Slovenia.
18. After no one responds to her posting on the Bumble dating site, Sharon Stone enters a nunnery.
19. Chris Sununu promises that following his re-election he will rebuild a “smaller version” of the Old Man of the Mountain on Mount Monadnock.
20. Sir Mookie Betts hits a walk-off homerun in the seventh game and leads the Los Angeles Dodgers to a World Series victory over the Red Sox.
And a Happy New Year to all. I think the new decade actually begins in 2021.