“SpaceX is the railroad that will enable millions of opportunities for others on Mars, just like the Union Pacific Railroad did for California.”
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) December 17, 2024
Elon Musk
pic.twitter.com/0jUBxUkdtk
Tesla shares closed up ANOTHER 3.6% today. Up 42% in the past month. Some of the tech and media CEOs visiting Mar-a-Lago must be awfully jealous of Elon Musk right now pic.twitter.com/ORNNe5Wfxk
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 17, 2024
What will happen in 2025?
1. Clarence Thomas Retires From The Supreme Court
Clarence Thomas will retire from the Supreme Court.
With Donald Trump back in the White House and Republicans having a solid 53 seat majority in the Senate, it is safe to assume that Clarence Thomas will retire from the Supreme Court and Trump will nominate his successor, especially after the deaths of Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsberg in recent years. The death of Scalia nearly ended the Republican majority on the Supreme Court in 2016 and the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg in office in 2020 created the current supermajority. There is too much at stake for a 76-year-old Thomas to gamble on his health. Thomas will step down before the 2026 midterms.
2. Democrats Fall In Love With The Filibuster
We all know how this goes.
When Republicans were using the Senate filibuster to block Joe Biden’s agenda, it was an archaic tool of “white supremacy” and a threat to American democracy. Now that the Democrats are back in the minority and they are struggling in Senate races (Manchin, Tester and Brown were the last Senate Democrats that represented safe Red States), they won’t hesitate to use the filibuster to obstruct Trump’s agenda. The Senate has been a graveyard for legislation for over a decade and that is unlikely to change in Trump’s second term. Trump will have to use budget reconciliation bills to pass his agenda.
3. Trump’s Cabinet Nominees Are Approved
The first order of business for the incoming Trump administration will be Senate confirmations for Cabinet picks. I don’t expect Hegseth, Gabbard or RFK, Jr. to be blocked. I think Trump will get his Cabinet. There won’t be a repeat of the Matt Gaetz nomination and withdrawal.
4. Tax Cuts Extended
The Republican Party exists to cut taxes and budget reconciliation will be used to extend the Trump tax cuts and pass some kind of big fiscal package in late 2025. It will happen later in the year because various congressmen like Rep. Michael Waltz are leaving the House to join the Trump administration and it will take time to replace them in their districts in special elections.
5. Congressional Bottlenecks
In light of the even narrower House majority and the 53 seat Senate majority, we can expect a lot of grandstanding in the Republican Congress from the likes of Collins, Murkowski and McConnell and various congressmen from swing districts like Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska. This is how we got stuck with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-AIPAC) after the ouster of Kevin McCarthy. Expect the Republican circus to continue in 2025, but with Trump in power as a much stronger ringmaster. Overall, 2025 will prove to be the most productive year of Trump’s second term with the border security bill and the tax cuts getting done and before the kickoff of the 2026 midterm election season.
6. Border Security Bill / Build The Wall
Unlike in Trump’s first term, immigration will be on the front burner this time around and Trump will spend his political capital on using budget reconciliation to push a major border security funding bill through the Senate. Whatever emerges from this will have to be approved by the Senate parliamentarian. Trump shouldn’t have much trouble “building the wall” after all the litigation in his first term over the issue ended with approval by the Supreme Court to use military funds.
7. “Trans Rights” Takes a L at the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court, which Trump reshaped in his first term and shifted decisively to the Right, will continue its streak of landmark decisions in the vein of Dobbs (abortion) and Students for Fair Admissions (affirmative action). The Supreme Court will rule on the Tennessee case on “gender affirming care” for kids and the result will be a devastating blow for “trans rights” that upholds state bans. As with abortion, this will continue the trend toward state level and regional settlement of polarizing cultural issues.
8. No War With Iran
Nothing ever happens.
In spite of the overheated imaginations of excitable activists, there isn’t going to be a “war with Iran.” Israel has had multiple opportunities to go to war with Iran after two Iranian missile strikes. Neither Israel or Iran want an all out war. The Saudis don’t want an all out war. The Trump administration has no interest in going to war with Iran. Instead, the focus will be on normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and expanding the Abraham Accords. There could be a color revolution in Iran, but there definitely won’t be an American invasion of Iran with the objective of regime change like the Iraq War.
9. Ukraine War
Russia and Ukraine are both exhausted from the war. This is Joe Biden’s war and Trump will try to wash his hands of it. Restoring normal trade relations with Russia will help reduce inflation. Both Russia and Ukraine are dug in though after so much bloodshed and death. Unlike Joe Biden, Trump has no ideological commitment to “Defending Democracy.” He will try to end the war, but it is ultimately up to the two combatants to deescalate. NATO membership for Ukraine is a non-starter. Hopefully, the Ukraine War can be transformed into a frozen conflict like it was for years before the escalation in 2022. I’m not going to definitively predict that Ukraine will lose or Trump will definitely end the war.
10. Blizzard of Executive Orders
The incoming Trump administration will hit the ground running with a blizzard of executive orders on the first day and in the first month like the Biden administration in 2021. There will be a lot of executive orders on things like birthright citizenship and energy issues like the Keystone Pipeline which has become a political football. This will be the start of a long slog of litigation in federal courts.
11. Mass Deporations
Actually, there will be mass deportations in 2025. Criminals will be prioritized to get the public accustomed to mass deportations and in lieu of the predictable hysterical media coverage. There will be lots of workplace raids though on the average illegal alien to encourage self deportation. There is a backlog of millions of people who have already been ordered deported and that is where Trump will start with the low hanging fruit. The media will scream Hitler and “fascism” as Trump deports criminals and lawbreakers. This will make it easier to deport non-violent illegal aliens later in his term.
12. Alt-Right Remnants Continue Clowning Themselves
Nothing will change on this front.
Consider how activists spent 2024: breathlessly predicting a “war with Iran” that never happened, forming an “alliance” with Muslims at AFPAC, praising Yahya Sinwar as a strategic genius and going all in on becoming a cheerleading squad for the “Axis of Resistance,” gaslighting their followers into believing that Israel was losing the war to Hezbollah, flailing against Trump as he ascended to the White House and became more popular than ever before, raging against the Wifejak meme, and so on.
How do we cultivate a toxic public image? What is the best strategy to burn our political bridges and alienate our remaining supporters? What can we do to help empower the Left? How do we become more disliked and marginalized on the Right? How do we lead our supporters down an endless maze of blind alleys? These are some of the questions which activists considered and acted on in 2024.
The clown show will continue in 2025 as the remnants of the Alt-Right fade and become ever more fringe, fragmented and irrelevant, with activists lashing out at Trump, and generally wasting away as they make endless rhetorical appeals to the Left which fall on deaf ears.
13. Israel and Saudi Arabia Normalize Relations
With Iran in retreat, Hezbollah shattered, Assad deposed in Syria, Hamas obliterated and the Palestinian cause finished thanks to Yahya Sinwar, Saudi Arabia under pressure from Trump will normalize relations with Israel, which will emerge as a regional superpower in the Levant.
14. Democrats In The Wilderness
Democrats are currently stunned and listless in the wake of the crushing defeat of Kamala Harris. “The Resistance” has collapsed. Libtards are checked out. Will they get their mojo back?
In 2025, the present moment will pass and there will definitely be some kind reaction to the Trump administration, but I don’t see a clear path forward for the party. Instead, I think the negative trends of the Trump era will continue, namely falling margins with non-White voters and further erosion of the working class base. The party will be hamstrung by the unpopular cultural views of White college educated voters who are becoming the Democratic base. The Democrats are now perceived as the party of the American elites. In the long run, they are evolving into the Rockefeller Republicans, a minority regional party.
15. Trump’s Revenge Tour Begins
The Trump administration will spend much of the next year purging the federal bureaucracy and government agencies and using power to punish people who have crossed Trump.
16. America’s “Golden Age” Begins
Forget about “Civil War 2.”
We are entering Gilded Age 2.
Elon Musk is on track to become the world’s first Gentile trillionaire.
Trump has repeatedly promised that his second term will unleash what he calls a “Golden Age of America.” Trump and the victorious tech barons around him are nostalgic for the Gilded Age. Elon Musk spent an incredible $250 million dollars, not including buying Twitter for $44 billion, to get Trump elected. The tech bros won. These people were not a factor in Trump’s victory in 2016 or in his first term. Those who are looking backwards at Trump’s first term miss this.
2024 was a regime change election. DOGE is a mandate to destroy the New Deal order. I think we are at a point now like we were after the Civil War when one side and vision triumphed. The federal government is falling under the sway of people like Elon whose wealth is based on disruptive new technologies. Trump is going to defer to these people to create the economic growth he wants to encourage.
17. The Jewish Question Continues To Go Mainstream
As I said on X, the Jewish Question will continue to go mainstream and activists will continue to be obsessed with Jews, but this is a symptom of how Jewish power is in decline.
In the 1850s, Americans became obsessed with the “Slave Power” conspiracy. Americans were growing militant about slavery. And yet, plantation slavery was by this time a relic of a bygone age. Slaveowners were still extremely powerful in America, but the wealth of the future was in industrialization.
This is what is going on with Jews. More people than ever before are awakening to the fact that Jews are wealthy and powerful, but the wealth of Jews is built on things like Hollywood studios or the Adelsons who made their fortunes in casino gambling. It is comparing apples to oranges. George Soros has a net worth of $7 billion compared to Elon Musk who has a net worth of $440 billion and is on track to $1 trillion.
The Jewish-controlled legacy media of the 20th century is shrinking in size and influence. Americans are figuring out the Jews because wealth, power and influence is shifting away from Jews and toward 21st century tech barons like Elon Musk. Activists will continue talking about the “mass media” though like William Pierce in 1985 assuming lemmings are bamboozled by three broadcast networks. Jews are a declining elite presiding over declining institutions. Bernie Marcus, for example, who was one of Trump’s top Jewish donors who founded Home Depot recently died. Sheldon Adelson died in early 2021. Lots of big Jewish donors are like 82-year-old Nelson Peltz. They are yesterday’s elite.
Behind the noise of Trump’s second term, this trend of the government, culture and economy being captured by disruptive tech barons with enormous fortunes and grand designs – Elon wants to go Mars, destroy the woke virus, others want to harness the power of AI and robots – will be the signal. Jews are on the way down. These people are on the way up. We will look back on the ADL’s failed effort to choke X of advertiser revenue as a milestone in this power shift.
I’d put 10-12 on your list as possibilities. We’ll see. My own position is unchanged since the day after Trump’s election. I remain cautiously optimistic.
Best case scenario:
Trump listens to Don Jr., Tucker Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard and Massad Boulos. He decisively changes course from the disastrous foreign policy of the past 34 years, and instead starts to intelligently pursue America’s real national interests.
The benefits will include:
Increased exports will drive increased GDP.
Lower overseas spending will enable tax cuts, infrastructure spending, and lower deficits.
Peace will enable refugees to return home.
ISIS and Al-Qaeda will decline.
Middle Eastern Christianity will survive.
Republicans will make gains in the 2026 congressional elections.
Most likely scenario:
Trump doesn’t start any shooting wars, but he gives bombastic rhetorical support to Israel and wages a “maximum pressure” economic war against Iran, because he mistakenly thinks that Iranian money is the root of all evil in the Middle East, and because he ignores the destabilizing role of Israeli expansionism. The economic war against Iran will have serious, but not disastrous, consequences for the American economy. The bombastic Zionist rhetoric will damage the reputation of America in the world, and it will also damage the reputation of the right wing within America, especially among people under 30 years old. Republicans will lose the next two elections, but they will have one last chance to change course and become a true nationalist party before the presidential election of 2032.
Worst case scenario:
The regime change operation in Syria captures Trump’s imagination, and he decides to conduct a similar proxy war against Iran, and maybe even against Russia and China. Because proxies are doing all the actual fighting, there are no US military casualties and the American people will not pay much attention at first – but this won’t change the fact that the long term consequences will be disastrous. Economic opportunities will be lost, money will be wasted, millions of refugees will be created, ancient Christian communities will be destroyed, and Al-Qaeda terrorists will establish new bases in the resulting power vacuums. If Iran or Russia collapses, during the resulting chaos terrorists will gain possession of nuclear materials, setting the stage for something far worse than 9/11. The American right will never recover.