The Unpredictable But Entirely Possible Events That Could Throw 2024 Into Turmoil - PART 1

Thank 'MF':

https://x.com/Travis_4_Trump/status/1804977581407834373?t=PNU3acsVyfh-JBNw7lBFag&s=19

Get ready.

The 2024 election will probably be cancelled

https://x.com/GuntherEagleman/status/1804979301390938423?t=JLZkcl0vTRyYUGomP9aagw&s=19

I can see that happening.

https://x.com/Sassafrass_84/status/1805004092193804755?t=VszisMBrYCOsZJ0OosQt5Q&s=19

Not surprising. He wants to pull a zelensky. Cancel elections. Insert martial law. Ww3.

Thank a Democrat. A dumb ass biden voter.

Stealing elections has consequences.

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POLITICO:

The Unpredictable But Entirely Possible Events That Could Throw 2024 Into Turmoil

A collection of futurists, political analysts and other prognosticators on the possible Black Swans of the presidential campaign.

By POLITICO MAGAZINE

01/05/2024 05:00 AM EST



A disrupted U.S. election

BY IAN BREMMER

Ian Bremmer is the president and founder of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media.


We all know the 2024 U.S. presidential election is going to be enormously divisive and dysfunctional, perceived by many if not most (on the losing side) to be illegitimate. But what if it isn’t just perception? What if the world’s most powerful country can’t hold a free and fair election?

Biden supporters are worried about the end of democracy. Trump supporters are worried Democrats want to throw the former president in jail. And there are plenty of adversaries (I’m looking at you, Russia, Iran and North Korea) that would love nothing more than to see more chaos from the Americans.

That means that efforts to subvert the election could be successful and could come from a variety of actors — from cyberattacks, deep fakes and disinformation, physical attacks on the election process and oversight, and/or mass unrest, violent intervention and even terrorism to disrupt voting on Nov. 5. There’s no more geopolitically significant target than the upcoming U.S. elections, which are vulnerable due to limited experience and resources focused on election security.

I wasn’t worried about a coup back on Jan. 6, and I don’t see any way to overturn this coming year’s election either. But disrupting the 2024 U.S. election strikes me as plausible and deeply concerning.

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A China surprise

BY MATTHEW BURROWS


Mathew Burrows is the program lead of the Stimson Center’s Strategic Foresight Hub. 
He was formerly the director of Foresight at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Strategy Initiative and the co-director of the New American Engagement Initiative.

War with China breaks out several months after Democratic Progressive Party candidate Lai Ching-te has been elected in the Taiwan presidential election on Jan. 13 with a bigger margin than expected. This encourages him to declare Taiwan’s independence from China against the advice of the Biden administration but with the backing of a number of congressional Republicans. China mounts a quarantine cutting off trade to the island. This only increases Taiwan’s determination to be independent, and just as the U.S. presidential campaign heats up in October, China starts a military operation. The Biden administration feels it has no option but to mount a military defense of the island. Biden’s strong presidential leadership shifts the momentum away from Trump among independent voters. The reigning assumption is that such a war would be so ruinous economically for China that President Xi Jinping would avoid it. However, in this scenario, he fears that China will lose Taiwan forever and is counting on the Biden administration to be wary of intervening for fear of the possible negative electoral consequences.





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An alternative scenario: Under the weight of enormous debt, slow growth and a depressed property market, China suffers a financial crash similar to the 2008 economic crisis in the United States. As happened then, China’s woes aren’t confined to itself or Asia but spread, triggering a global recession. In the U.S., inflation goes away, but with a growing lack of confidence, unemployment starts to creep up just as the electoral campaign gets underway. Biden isn’t responsible, but like other U.S. presidents facing reelection, a poor economy further drags down his popularity.




THEN-PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP SPEAKS DURING A RALLY ON OCT. 29, 2020 IN TAMPA, FLA. | OCTAVIO JONES/GETTY IMAGES


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Death at a Trump rally

BY JULIA AZARI


Julia Azari is a professor of political science at Marquette University.

Political violence can be very disruptive, and it’s usually not planned. Here’s one scenario.

On Oct. 19, a fight breaks out at a Trump rally in Tampa, Florida. A group of five white men in their early 50s looked like standard rally-goers. But as they catch the attention of one of the many TV cameras in the arena, the group pulls out protest signs reading: TRUMP LIES and SAVE DEMOCRACY NOW. They had done similar protest actions together for years — anti-war protests, national political conventions and a few Trump events. Part politics, part reunion for longtime friends who had met in college protesting the first Gulf War.

What happens next is disputed. A couple attending their seventh Trump rally say that the protesters started pushing when people around them chanted insults. Other accounts say the Trump supporters initiated the fighting. However it happened, one of the five protesters suffered a heart attack. He is rushed to a local hospital but dies a few hours later.

News media scramble to cover the event, and the public can’t look away. A clear narrative proves elusive. Was the protester’s demise simply a random tragedy? Or a sign of the dangers of an increasingly violent time in American politics?

Pundits’ debates over these questions, interspersed with interviews with the deceased man’s friends, grieving widow and eloquent, angry teenaged children dominate the remaining weeks of the campaign. These stories drown out much of Biden’s messages about declining unemployment and legislative victories and distract from Trump’s slogans about immigrants and making America great again. The poignancy of the story draws in some Americans who paid little attention to politics, but for close watchers of politics, it was irresistible. Some question why the matter gets so much press when violence against people of color draws a fraction of the coverage. Others call for the suspension of Trump’s campaign, which leads to a whole new set of arguments about whether this was just a pretext to push him out of politics once again. One cable network devotes an hourlong program to a panel discussion about whether the Biden administration has done enough to curb political violence.