FEBRUARY 1, 2025 – (Cont.) That is, if we think we know what’s happening in the world today (under current circumstances, this means right down to the hour), what’s likely to happen in future weeks, months, even years?
Since November 5, and especially since January 20, the commentators I follow and the people with whom I regularly discuss current events, have provided a steady stream of reactions to Trump 2.0. These reactions vacillate between (a) “Germany, January, 1933” (the month (1/30, actually) in which President Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Reich Chancellor), and (b) “The ship’s goin’ down.”
My not-so-original response to these reactions is, “The one certainty in the affairs of humankind—besides death and taxes—is . . . uncertainty.” Any number of unanticipated events—many emanating from the “accidents” and “natural disasters” categories—often derail what are otherwise perfectly sound, fact- and reason-based prognostications. Nevertheless, we necessarily try to gauge what portents fill the present that might allow us to make reasonable judgments about how matters will unfold.
Enter the futurists—people who read, listen, research, and investigate high, low, far and wide to divine the future. A good college friend of mine went to work as a futurist at a large bank right out of graduate school. Ironically in retrospect, he entered the futurist field in the distant past, long before the internet was anything more than a Defense Department communication tool. Unfortunately, I lost track of him, but I hope he’s retained his sanity.
Another good friend (with whom I’m in regular contact!) recently introduced me to an intriguingly organized “superforecasting” organization called The Good Judgment Project, which is designed to “harness the wisdom of the crowd to forecast world events.” It deploys a form of crowd wisdom (a long-standing approach of collecting opinions from a diverse group of informed people) by recruiting forecasters and melding the predictions of those prognosticators with the most accurate track records. Predictions are scored using the Brier score, which incorporates a scoring rule for evaluating probabilities. Purportedly, the project’s forecasters are 30% more accurate than government intelligence officers with access to classified information.
Without a subscription, I don’t know what The Good Judgment Project forecasters foresee in the wake of the dramatic roll-out of Trump’s New Rules. I suspect, however, that all futurists have tossed straight into the wind, their usual relationship with the mathematics of probability. All of us—futurists, forecasters, experts, active laypersons, armchair observers—are now stranded in the same boat at sea, rudderless and without a radio, wi-fi, compass or sextant. All we know is that there’s a 100% probability of Trump saying something staggeringly stupid the next time he opens his mouth and a 0.0% chance that he’ll ever accept responsibility for it.
Coupled with Trump’s style of governance—EOs (executive orders) or “rule by executive fiat”—this state of affairs guarantees chaos within the broad reach of government influence and involvement in our lives. A separate and robust debate can be had over the nature of government’s role, how it evolved, what’s good about it, and what’s bad. Fine. The debate itself would be good for the country, irrespective of whether you’re in favor of an expanded role for government or a more limited one.[1] But to give people like Stephen Miller, Russell Vought and Elon Musk carte blanche to summarily terminate federal employees and upend the funding of government programs is the equivalent of speeding down the Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago in heavy traffic and suddenly turning your engine off to protest high state and federal gasoline taxes. There would be no need to ask The Good Judgment Project to predict the consequences of such a foolish action amidst drivers pretending to be on a NASCAR track and a 53-foot-long semi hauling hazardous cargo at top speed, tailgating behind you.
Add to the chainsaw/wrecking ball approach to downsizing government, Trump’s overt retributive attack on his perceived political enemies, and the chaos and structural damage to our society becomes even more predictable.
Based on the central lesson theme of our history—resilience—and my faith in the quality and quantity of very good people in this country who are wholly opposed to the Chaos Master in Chief, I predict that America will survive the self-inflicted torment that it will suffer over the next several years. By that same historical gauge, however, I predict that the chaos will continue, resulting in irreparable and frankly, unnecessary, harm to many people and institutions. How deep and broad the damage will be is beyond reliable measurement. Only his physical incapacity will interrupt the course that we’re on. Because of the zero percent chance that Trump will accept responsibility, he will never alter his insatiable need for attention and thus never deviate from his destructive path. If anything, his descent (and ours?) into chaos will accelerate, fueled by his demand for unqualified (and unrequited) loyalty, his need for retribution, his lack of judgment of character, and his baffling control over the minds, fears and lusts of Republican office holders and aspirants.
What then, are we to do as we find ourselves on a toboggan with a mad man in the lead position but facing backwards and yelling “Down with DIE [sic]!” . . . racing down a mountain below the tree-line? (Cont.)
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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
[1] I do take issue, however, with the common conservative approach to government. Conservatives tend to present a binary choice: government regulation or vastly reduced government regulation (or in the Libertarian extreme, none at all). In a modern society as complex and populous as ours, the better choice is better and more sensible regulation, not necessarily more or less of it. Similarly, conservatives love to denigrate government services, when in reality, the problem isn’t slothful or uncaring personnel but inadequate resources. The classic case of this is the IRS, which is chronically understaffed and running on IT in desperate need of upgrades, but which Republicans refuse to fund adequately. You can’t complain that you’ve been put on hold for an hour because a limited staff is handling an unlimited number of calls, then refuse to appropriate funds for the hiring of additional staff.
