My Indisputable Predictions for 2024
The arc of the moral universe is long, so crack a Brawndo and enjoy the Idiocracy.
When is it too late to bid you a happy new year? Well the Christmas tree is still up at Chez Lazar and I’m far from settled into the new year. So WTF. Happy New Year to one and all! May 2024 bring you and yours peace and wellness. May it be a year of hope.
I wrote 53 consecutive Friday newsletters in 2023 and now I’m not sure what I hope for this newsletter. While still uncertain how to navigate this platform or when I’ll write, I will tell ya this: I’m no longer committed to rising early on Friday mornings to fight for the right words. But I reckon I still have a few ideas to share. So here goes…
While I often wish I had an aptitude for financial growth like my dear brother Brad, or a penchant for piano like my man Eric Pan, or a proclivity for poetry like my pal J-Dubs, or even a propensity for parlance like Patrick, my only legit talent is asking questions to young people.
I can’t really prove this to you. All my best work goes undocumented. My most successful days as a teacher consist of methodically planned dialogues, mindfully brought to life. My most compelling classes are carefully constructed mandalas
…that are wiped away, dismissed with the bell that concludes the class period.
Lest I position myself as the monk I’m not–and face your cries of cultural appropriation–I more often try to situate myself as Socrates, asking the right questions in the right order, corrupting the youth of my adopted city-state, urging them to defy the gods that the city acknowledges, and introducing new deities for them to contend with.
On my best days I feel like a modern-day Socrates; most days I feel like a struggling public servant. Hardly a monk or a maestro, I am a mere working stiff. But once in a while my work gets recorded, the sand sculpture set in stone.
One such stone was set last week when I released a pair of podcasts exploring academic anxiety among adolescents. These represent the empathic dialogues I strive to build with students when I’m not busy trying to shove history and politics down their throats. It’s a challenging, punchy conversation which I would particularly urge upon readers with kids. Tune in wherever you get podcasts if you want to hear me explore school stress with a handful of clever and compassionate kids.
I know it sounds all serious, but I had a lot of fun talking school stress with da kids. And while I haven’t made New Year’s resolutions, perhaps I’ll just make one now. I wanna have more fun. Why not? Sing while the world turns, dance while the world burns?
Eh, maybe, maybe not.
But in the spirit of fun in the new year, here are my kinda sorta fun predictions for 2024:
Soon after Super Tuesday, the Tangerine Palpatine will effectively secure the Republican nomination–again revealing not just the rot at the core of the Republican party, but the rot in the soul of middle America–Dems will hatch their master plan to pave a smooth off-ramp for Biden. Plagued, in order from most to least problematic, by: declining faculties, poll numbers, immigration policy failures, and family scandal, Amtrak Joe will ride the rails into retirement. In an unprecedentedly rushed but surprisingly orderly primary, Dems will nominate Gretchen Whitmer or Amy Klobuchar, either of whom will select Polis or Buttegieg as VP. My prediction: Whitmer-Polis by 8% in November. You heard it here first.
Why not Bernie 2024? Senator Sanders will announce his retirement from politics in the spring, until which time he will continue to spew the same rhetoric he’s been spewing since the Coolidge administration.
Politics as usual will be stirred, not shaken by protests in Germany. Tax hikes and subsidy cuts. Farmers. Environmental justice. Gaza. Ukraine. AfD rising. It’s gonna be a bumpy year. A new Wagenknecht-led Left party will help hedge against AfD, but will further fracture the political landscape. The traffic light coalition will competently direct traffic as protests persist and the right rises in the polls.
Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost and Michael Che will finally cross the arbitrary line (how have they not already?!) that the internet moves about willy-nilly. They’ll face manufactured outrage for their tongue-in-cheek racist and sexist jokes on Weekend Update. Both will apologize; neither will be fired. The line will not have moved.
In another dispatch from manufactured outrage, Taylor Swift will not fall from grace, but will have some 'splainin' to do when it’s leaked that the stresses of being a touring megastar can make her dismissive and downright aggressive. Turns out America’s sweetheart can be a bona fide asshole. Morning shows will remark that she’s a role model for little ones and should act accordingly; others will complain that men are praised and promoted for such behavior all the time. All this hubbub will simply boost the stock value of Taylor Swift, Inc.
Inspired by the YouTube juggernaut Hot Ones (it’s the show with hot questions and even hotter wings) a restaurant will launch in the Midwest that serves food so blisteringly spicy that guests must sign a legal disclaimer before ordering. Throughout the summer and fall, as wars ravage the Middle East, Insta and Tik Tok will teem with clips of numskulls burning their orifices with reckless abandon. Steve-O will somehow be involved. A second location will open in Austin in early 2025.
As wars in the Middle East widen, your social media feed will be chock-full of smart, caring, well-intentioned folks who will regularly repost war propaganda. Much of the propaganda will have been advanced by bots and trolls of nefarious origin. With few exceptions, these fine folks will have no discernible understanding of Middle Eastern history or politics. Now, I’m no expert. Far from it. But 98% of them would earn less than 38% on the exams I used to give to tenth-graders in my Modern Near East Studies class. Their outrage will be shallow and fleeting. But their virtues will be duly signaled. Their next social media post will be a video of an old lady sweating out the Colon Cleaner XXX wings at The Assblaster Inn. Crack open a Brawndo and enjoy the Idiocracy.
Lest the first issue of 2024 end with a hopeless, snarky poop joke…
The Good Reverend, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have been 95 today. So today I urge you to take a moment to reflect on his life. If only for a moment, steep yourself in his zealous commitment to Hope. If only for today, walk confidently with his promise that, "we shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
With help of some of my young friends, I produced this meditation on the legacy of Dr. King. It’s pretty cool. Please enjoy.
Happy New Year & Happy King Day!
Yours,
DL