Well, things are still a little chaotic in Washington, although some shapes of the new Biden presidency can be seen through the confusion. So can some of the shapes of the final mischief the Trump administration can do.
Thanksgiving came and went. The runoffs to the Super Bowl haven't yet started, and New Year’s Eve is still about a month away.
Which means it’s time for me to make a couple of predictions for 2021.
Why? Well, a lot of them are easy, and if I make them now I can be ahead of the crowd. Besides, I can make more predictions next month.
Some things look easy.
The Georgia election - the run-off for two Senate seats that could change the political fate of the nation - is on January 5. I predict chaos.
Why? Well, the polls close at 7 p.m., and absentee ballots have to be dropped off at county election offices by Election Day. Now it could be a landslide, but I think the races will be close. Which means no announcement of the result.
Why, again? Military and overseas voters can mail in ballots on Election Day, and they have to arrive within three days after that. And, remember, this is a run-off because no candidate got the needed votes in the last election.
Recount, anyone?
Now, another simple one. There is a Coronavirus vaccine coming down the pike, and it should be ready for use in a few months. Some Trump surrogates are already saying that the incoming Biden administration is interfering with the President’s plans to distribute it.
And, surprisingly, no one seems to be asking exactly what their plan is, or how the Biden people are creating problems. That’s just the boring technical stuff - things like who will be on the priority list to get it, where exactly it will be available, who will be keeping track of vaccinations and setting up appointments for a second shot if it is needed? Operation Warp Speed is supposed to teleport the vaccine out of someplace to someplace else, but who will be there to give it? And, what about the people who won’t take the vaccine?
Nothing like a nice government delay to create problems and the opportunity for finger-pointing. So, again, I predict chaos, although a more orderly form of it.
Doctors and nurses, ambulance crews and other front-line medical workers should clearly be first in line, then at-risk people with serious underlying conditions.
Maybe I missed the part of the Trump plan explaining how to reach those at-risk people who are scattered across 50 states and get them to where vaccines are available.
Oh, wait, that was a footnote at the end of the last page of the Trump plan - the one no one has actually seen. I think it says: it’s up to the governors. And, we’re not giving them money to pay for a lot of cab fares and Uber rides.
I figure the Biden people will have four or five months to sort through the mess and come up with some ways of dealing with the problems as enough vaccine becomes available for wider distribution. As I said, a more orderly form of chaos.
Here’s another prediction - and it will not be a less orderly form of chaos. Instead, I see a real knock-down, drag out fight, starting early next year. Probably sometime after January 20. That’s the day President Biden will be sworn in.
I’ll hedge my bet a little, and say that if the Democrats pick up one or both Senate seats in Georgia it will start very quickly. If the GOP remains a Senate majority, it will take a couple of months longer.
But, by Spring - we could make it by St. Patrick’s Day if you need a definite date - I see a really big split developing for the Republicans. Actually it’s already there. I just see more of them talking about it in public.
Trump wants to run for President again. More important, he wants to blame someone else for his loss at the polls. It couldn’t be his fault. The Democrats were weak and sleepy and uncoordinated, and didn’t hold any big rallies. So, who to blame? Those rotten, lazy, traitorous Republicans who didn’t support him. Or didn’t support him enough.
Fair weather friends who took credit for his tax cuts. Losers who couldn’t get out the vote after he gave them those judges. Mitch McConnell, who sure wasn’t in the vanguard of his supporters.
He told McConnell to drain the swamp, and all he did was let the swamp get bigger. Four years gone, and he couldn’t find the deep state. Maybe he was part of it. Time for new leadership.
Rudy told him that while everyone thinks you have to be a Senator in order to be majority leader, it’s not actually in the Constitution. And, did Mitch help write a bill so that Jared could get the job? Absolutely not.
So, I predict that Donald Trump will start a real battle to gain full control of the Republican Party. After all, the President is the head of the party, even when he is out of office, right?
Well, there is some stuff about a party chairman and delegates and things like that, but a good lawsuit can fix it. Besides, when the Republican Party delegates voted to do away with a party platform, they opened the door for the party to do anything President Trump wanted.
Which brings us to the real fight next year. While Trump tries to purge the party, there are a whole bunch of people who think they should be doing something more than being well-paid servants of the Trump family.
Sooner or later, their ambition will reach the point where they have to challenge the Trump status quo. And, it could come over anything, anything at all.
I can hear it now.
“Hey, Senator, I know there’s a deficit, but my wife wants to expand the Rose Garden. We need a couple of million dollars to buy some more land to do it. Maybe you could get that Democrat president to issue an executive order to pay for it. I did that all the time, until the courts stopped me.”
“Oh, wait. I know I sorta changed the balance of power on the Supreme Court, but a lot of court decisions haven’t gone my way lately. Maybe you could do something about that too. I know - put the Attorney General on it. Maybe he could find their decisions have been unconstitutional.”
I’ll do the hard predictions in time for New Year’s Eve.
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