After Donald Trump was elected president, I spent some time gazing into my crystal ball, looking into the future of our political scene over the next few years. It didn’t display any agenda, only showing what might happen. It is up to the viewer to distinguish between a stronger or weaker possibility of any outcome. That’s the weakness of crystal balls. It must take into account a myriad of factors that may change the outcome, and give each a value based on likelihood. You must patiently sort through various scenarios, and pick the most promising as it’s likely prediction.
What I saw was Donald Trump creating unprecedented conflict and turmoil amongst the political hierarchy, and the public at large, because he is truly apolitical. Yes, he won the election as a Republican candidate, but he is anything but a true believer. He’s proven he marches to the sound of his own personal drum. He would have run as a Democrat if he’d thought it would have been the easiest road to the White House. He’s shown no lasting loyalty to anyone but himself. In light of that, I validated that first vision. When I studied the ball, I saw no factors that would lead his presidency to political harmony.
Another prediction viewed in my crystal ball was that the public would become more vocally engaged in the political system. I saw social media inflamed with rhetoric from every point of view, and much of it was vicious. It showed the president leading the way, with daily tweets to feed the beast conflict and turmoil.
The ball, unfortunately, did not predict a huge rise in voter turnout in the coming midterm elections. I personally would have thought that it would increase dramatically in support or protest, but my crystal ball said “No”. It showed that most of the rhetoric was just an act of venting, and predicted only a small increase in voter turnout. I guess we will see the result during the elections.
A final prediction I can relate is that the Democratic party might be energized beyond what is normal, in a backlash against Donald Trump’s election as president and his subsequent actions. The ball did predict that the backlash will not be as effective in electing Democrats. Almost equal scenarios for the mid term elections were shown in the ball. One view showed the Democrats either gaining a majority in the House of Representatives, or missing the mark by a slim margin.
As far as Donald Trump being elected to a second term, there were so many variables, the ball couldn’t give an answer. It just went cloudy and refused to clear.
As a famous writer once wrote, “The wrong thing to do is nothing”. I believe he had it wrong. Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing. For our government, this is has true many times. Overall, we’ve gotten ourselves into unnecessary trouble when our leaders have done the wrong thing rather than standing back and doing nothing. It would have been better to not stick our noses in where we should have done nothing. Many people have a sense of despair, seeing our government gridlocked in some situation, and hope the it will not get worse. Our history has proven it can become worse when we act hastily. Power used rashly with a free hand will bury us. We must have a balance of power to control any ill-considered impulses of our elected representatives.
Sometimes I wish my crystal ball would predict only good things. Unfortunately, it has to deal with a fallible group, known as the human race.