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Assume you are the Venezuelan Minister of the Interior. You are a patriot, and the thought of Trump, Rubio, and Hegseth running your country doesn’t exactly appeal to you. You are planning to resist. What do you do?

Three things. First, you prepare for a guerrilla war, to be fought mostly in the jungle. You can anticipate some assistance from the ELN, from drug gangs, and from lots of international volunteers. Second, you take American hostages. Third, you plant explosives with timers on as many oil producing facilities as possible, and you make sure Trump hears about it. It is now clear, if there was ever any doubt, that the principal American objective is control over Venezuelan oil; Trump might be more willing to negotiate if he has reason to believe he will be inheriting nothing but wreckage.

My prediction has officially been blown up. Trump says we are going to “run” Venezuela. Exactly how that is going to happen, he didn’t really say, probably because he has no idea.

We will have to send a large force to occupy the country. Assuming, for purposes of argument, that the remainder of the regime simply surrenders and doesn’t start a guerrilla war, it will take years to fix Venezuela’s oil facilities. If and when that occurs, the benefits will flow to multinational oil companies, not to average Americans. And that’s the best case scenario; the worst case is Iraq.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Our military attacked bases in Venezuela and apparently captured Maduro and his wife early this morning. Does that completely blow up my Venezuela prediction three days into the new year? Yes and no. Yes, in that we obviously won’t be making a deal with Maduro. No, in that most of the regime’s security apparatus will remain intact, and there has been no invasion. The use of a large number of American ground troops will be the red line for both the MAGA base and my prediction.

What happens now? If Machado can saunter back into her country and receive the peaceful surrender of the remainder of the regime, great. That seems implausible. It is far more likely that we are now in an undeclared and unprovoked war with Venezuela that has little support from the American public, and that an invasion will be necessary to bring about real regime change. Will Trump take the risk of creating his own version of Iraq, or will be make the deal I suggested in my prediction with the new head thug in Venezuela? TBD.

It was always going to be difficult to persuade the electorate to do anything meaningful about climate change when the impacts were exclusively in the future even though science could easily predict them. After all, how many people would choose pain now over slightly less pain later?

But the effects of climate change are here and now. Furthermore, they are not limited to a handful of states. Insurance rates are soaring all over the country. And yet, the public is mostly unmoved, and the Democrats have been forced to retreat to a posture of “realism” that promotes renewable energy along with the slightly less dirty kind.

Any progress we make at this point will be dependent on the market and the rest of the world. It is stupid and shameful, and hardly an advertisement for our political system, which values the interests of a handful of miners over hundreds of thousands of solar panel installers.

Trump apparently threatened to use force against the Iranian regime if it shoots protesters in a post on Lying Psycho this morning. No one in Iran is going to take this threat seriously, but it will help the regime make the case that the protesters are just tools of the Great Satan.

My question is, will Ayatollah Khamenei make the same promise to protect the First Amendment rights of American protesters when Trump decides to shoot them?

We won’t know if the conservative majority on the Supreme Court intends to use its bogus “major questions” doctrine against the far right until later this year. We already know, however, that the combination of “major questions” and the filibuster will make it impossible for the Democrats to govern effectively if they win the 2028 election. How can they deal with this problem?

They have two choices: abolish the filibuster and engage in the constant process of legislating that SCOTUS appears to have in mind; or either ignore unfavorable Court decisions or limit them to the actual parties to the case. Trump may well set the precedent for the latter option if he loses the tariff case and is ordered to provide refunds.

This will be one of the biggest issues in the 2028 primaries. After Trump and “major questions,” there can be no going back to the McConnell version of the Constitution, regardless of the risks.

With apologies to Julia Ward Howe.

BATTLE HYMN OF THE TRUMPSTERS

Our eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Don.

The wokesters really hate him ’cause he says their right is wrong.

He dominates the country, and the immigrants are gone.

Our cause is marching on!

______________

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Our cause is marching on!

It’s customary to enter the new year with lots of optimism. Unfortunately, I can’t; things will either stay more or less the same or get significantly worse. Trump isn’t going to stop being an authoritarian or give up his reactionary policies. The GOP optimists could be right about the economy, but the balance of probabilities is against them. That means stagnation is the best case scenario.

Much depends on the outcome of the election. If the GOP outperforms current expectations, the following two years may be reasonably peaceful. If the Democrats win a clear victory, we are undoubtedly looking at two years of constitutional crises; the question then is whether Trump will retaliate by declaring an emergency, sending the military to run the blue states, and clamping down on dissent in the MSM and on the internet. I’ll address those issues if and when they arise.

The unknowns are pretty well known for this year. Here are my predictions:

1. VENEZUELA: We know for certain that Trump will continue to ratchet up the pressure on Maduro. The uncertainties are whether it will work, and if it doesn’t, whether Trump will launch an invasion over the objections of a majority of Americans. My best guesses are no and no; Trump makes a face-saving deal with Maduro over oil, drugs, and immigration and backs down.
2. CHINA: Trump clearly wants to make a sphere of influence deal with Xi which includes trade concessions on the part of the Chinese. Will it happen in 2026? I don’t think the Chinese are ready for it yet. I suspect it will happen in 2027.
3. MIDDLE EAST: Will there be another war with Iran, and will Trump join in this time? Yes, Bibi will launch more airstrikes, and no, Trump won’t join in. In the meantime, Phase 2 in Gaza goes nowhere fast, and while there is plenty of anger within Iran, there is no revolution–yet.
4. UKRAINE: The slog will continue until Trump either forces the Ukrainians to give in by siding openly and permanently with Russia or makes Putin moderate his demands by supplying more and better weapons. I predict that he will do neither and that the current trajectory of the war will consequently remain unchanged in 2026.
5. EUROPE: It is safe to assume that Trump will keep insulting the EU, which will do nothing meaningful in response.

The price of eggs got Trump elected in 2024, so why does he talk about “affordability” so disdainfully now? Because he doesn’t care about it, and he never did. The only thing that truly engages him is using his power to punish his opponents and show the world who’s the boss.

Even MTG has figured this out by now. So have the American people, minus the base, which is on board with the power trip. That will present a problem for the GOP in the midterms, because notwithstanding what Trump and Vance think, our elections are still decided more by swing voters than base mobilization.

1. ELECTION RESULTS: Trump doesn’t feel sufficiently threatened by the midterms to send troops to cities in blue states. As a result, the election is reasonably–but not completely–free and fair. The outcome is something between a blue ripple and a wave; the Democrats flip ten to fifteen seats in the House and two in the Senate. Constitutional crises loom for the next two years.
2. ECONOMIC STAGNATION: Uncertainty continues to prevail. Growth slows even further as a result of the tariff and deportation regime. If there is some sort of major shock–say, a big AI or crypto crash–it could be even worse. Trump, of course, insists that life has never been better, which doesn’t win him many fans among swing voters.
3. A MIXED RECORD IN THE COURTS: SCOTUS lets Trump fire anyone who is even debatably part of the executive branch except Lisa Cook, but rules against him on birthright citizenship and tariffs. Trump interprets the latter ruling as narrowly as possible to avoid giving refunds, which adds to the uncertainty referenced above.
4. LEGISLATIVE INACTION: Congress keeps the lights on but does little else.

Trump spent 2025 attacking and wrecking everything he despised. It was a very long list. He brought elite universities, museums, cultural institutions, and law firms to heel. He changed positions and openly advocated for Putin’s positions with regard to Ukraine. He stopped wind farms and threw lifelines to coal mine owners. He sent troops into blue cities on flimsy pretexts. He denied asylum seekers due process, evaded court orders, and sent immigrants to dangerous overseas prisons. He threatened war with Venezuela and bombed Iran. He cut Medicaid benefits and food stamps. He openly gave orders to prosecute his political and legal enemies; his DOJ complied. He intervened in administrative issues that should have been apolitical. He fired experts of all kinds when they didn’t support his agenda. He supported RFK’s madcap efforts to send public health back to the 19th century. He made it clear he had no interest in defending liberal democracy at home or abroad.

It’s an impressive list, if watching car crashes is your thing. Some of his supporters insist that the wrecking will now be replaced by more constructive, bipartisan efforts to build a new and fairer America. If you live in the real world, however, you know that the wrecking will continue into 2026, because that’s all the man knows how to do.

Some of the wounds he inflicted on the body politic may never heal. Thanks in part to the Supreme Court, the presidency now has more arbitrary power than ever before. For those “accomplishments,” Donald Trump is the man of the year for 2025.

A lengthy article in today’s NYT makes the point very clearly that DOGE caused plenty of disruption but saved very little public money. Does that prove the exercise was a complete waste?

Not in Trump’s eyes. DOGE was never about saving money; it was an effort to show the bureaucracy that any resistance to the reactionary presidential agenda on either policy or legal grounds would be met with swift punishment. In those terms, DOGE was a success.

The revolution in Syria was manna from heaven; Israeli policy had nothing to do with it. The continuing conflict in Gaza was a tactical victory, but a strategic defeat that cost Israel public support even on the right in the United States. The war in Lebanon, however, was a major victory, both tactically and strategically. It had the effect of removing the last obstacle to an attack on Iran itself.

The Israelis destroyed Iran’s defenses and damaged its nuclear program, suffering only minimal loss of life and property damage in return. Even better, from their perspective, they finally convinced Trump to join the party. The Americans used their bunker buster bombs and declared that the Iranian nuclear program had been “obliterated.”

Even now, no one knows for sure, but that assessment appears to be overly optimistic. Iran is humiliated and vulnerable, but it is not defeated, and it has not changed course. Israel’s attempts to inspire regime change have been a complete failure. Netanyahu is coming to Washington today to try to talk Trump into a joint effort to cut the grass, an entreaty Trump is likely to reject, given the opposition to the war from portions of the base and his assurances that the conflict is over and already won.

The war in the Middle East, for what it accomplished and what it didn’t, is the biggest story of 2025.

Trump insists he wants to end the Ukraine war. In this instance, there is no reason to doubt his sincerity. And yet, he is effectively prolonging the war. How is that possible?

If Trump would only take a firm, consistent position on the war, both sides would know where they stand and negotiate accordingly. Since he hasn’t, he gives hope to both the Russians and Ukrainians that he might, if manipulated carefully, come down completely on their side. It is that hope of ultimate victory that prolongs the war.