How wars, hurricanes and aliens could disrupt 2024
A collection of futurists, political analysts and other prognosticators on the possible Black Swans of the presidential campaign.
What if a mega-storm levels Washington?!
What if a coup takes out Vladimir Putin?!
What if we find out aliens really do exist?!
A beleaguered U.S. has all but accepted a rematch of President Joe Biden vs. former President Donald Trump in November. But these days, politics — along with pretty much everything else — is anything but predictable. After all, how many of you had KN95s and a secret stash of toilet paper on hand this time four years ago?
So we asked an assortment of futurists, political analysts and prognosticators what Black Swan events — those rare, unexpected occurrences that have an enormous impact — could upend the 2024 election. They prophesied about Mother Nature’s wrath, the threat of (even more) war, deep fakes, cyber attacks and, yes, even aliens — though they’re more concerned about first contact than a tractor beam hitting the White House.
None of these is likely to happen — but they could. And if any of them do, politics will never be the same.
“it is said that at a year old he could laugh on one side of his face and cry on the other, at one and the same time.”
Can you guess who said this about Martin Van Buren, who became the eighth president of the United States? Scroll to the bottom for the answer.**
Everyone Is Wrong About Harvard … Like any modern scandal, the ouster of Harvard President Claudine Gay has mapped onto a neat partisan divide, with the left condemning it as a conservative smear campaign in the ongoing university wars and the right celebrating a triumph over a DEI-promoting plagiarist. Problem is, they’re both wrong, writes Michael Schaffer in this week’s Capital City column. In fact, the real conflict was actually an internecine battle between the center-left and progressives. “Insofar as the Gay drama involved people making decisions or simply displaying passion about the outcome, they were people on the left and the center-left,” he writes. “Unsurprisingly, that’s exactly where an elite campus controversy is going to play.”
Harvard University President Claudine Gay stepped down from her post this week after intense criticism over her response to antisemitism on campus and accusations of plagiarism earlier in her academic career. Haven’t been studying up on the scandal? These lines will carry you through when the topic comes up in conversation this weekend. (From POLITICO’s Bianca Quilantan.)
— Hanging with Republicans this weekend? Take bets on whether Harvard Corporation’s leader Penny Pritzker or Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth will also resign. (University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill already stepped down.) Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, who pressed the presidents on whether students “calling for the genocide of Jews” would be violating their school policies, has vowed to get rid of all three presidents and is calling on Pritzker to resign. And billionaire Bill Ackman, who has fueled criticism of Gay, tweeted this week: “Et tu Sally?”
— If you would have gone to the Rev. Al Sharpton’s protest in front of Ackman’s office, but had to work, mention the external pressure and racial animus that pushed Gay to resign. Gay, Harvard’s first Black woman president, said her inbox was flooded with death threats, harsh insults and that she was “called the N-word more times than I care to count.” Sharpton has slammed critics, including Ackman, who say that Gay was hired in part because of her race. The circumstances around Gay’s resignation “is an attack on every Black woman in this country who’s put a crack in the glass ceiling,” Sharpton said.
— And if you are the Rev. Al Sharpton: Ackman says he would’ve met you at the protest, but was out of the country. He wants you to reach out to him directly.
— What should you tell students waiting on their Harvard acceptance letter? Don’t plagiarize once you get there. Or maybe hope to enroll in Gay’s class, since she’s still on faculty.
L’antisémitisme en Amérique … If Delphine Horvilleur, the third female rabbi ever ordained in France, had a dollar for every time she’s been told that the antisemitism she’s experienced in France would never happen in America, “I would be super rich now,” she says. Which would be a cold consolation prize for her and other liberal Jews on both sides of the Atlantic, who have struggled with a fraught political climate following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. The aftermath of the attack has left many progressive Jews feeling alienated from their compatriots on the left. “I didn’t change,” she tells POLITICO’s Matthew Kaminski. “The world changed. It’s as if the plates moved under my feet.”
Nikki Haley Surges Into Second Place … Nearly a year ago, political scientist Seth Masket identified a group of conservatives with both an inside perspective on the political machine and a close connection to the grassroots: GOP county chairs. Since then, he’s surveyed them about the state of the presidential race — and his latest findings are the most explosive yet. Not explosive enough to topple Donald Trump from his solid lead spot — 37 percent of the chairs still support him — but enough to knock his once-and-no-more rival Ron DeSantis off the silver pedestal. With just weeks until the Iowa caucuses, he’s down to 9 percent, while former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has climbed from just 5 percent in October to 16 percent now.
**Who Dissed answer: It was Representative and folk hero Davy Crockett, who often criticized Van Buren, especially for his connection to former President Andrew Jackson, whose genocidal policies toward Native Americans he worried Van Buren would continue.
