BELOW ARE THE PREDICTIONS MADE IN MY JANUARY 2, 2017 BLOG.
I’ll promise to give myself a passing grade if 80% or more proved to be correct.
I also indicated that… none of you will like all my predictions and some of you will dislike many of them. Even I don’t like some of them. The appropriate metric isn’t like or dis-like but accuracy. This is something much of the media seems to have forgotten.
- President Trump will nominate and have confirmed a Supreme Court justice to replace Antonin Scalia. Correct
- He will have nominated and had confirmed scores of federal judges at the district and appeals court level. Correct
- More illegal immigrants [from Mexico] will leave the US in 2017 than enter, but legal immigration will stay at about 1,000,000. Correct
- Most those who leave will do so voluntarily or be forced to leave because of criminal acts they committed in addition to being an illegal resident in the US. Correct
- No Brownsville TX to San Diego CA physical border wall will be built as it is physically almost impossible but the US borders will be more tightly controlled than at any time in generations. Correct
- The number of new federal regulations and executive orders issued will plummet and many hundreds will be eliminated, cancelled, or reversed by the administration, Congress, or the courts. Correct
- Major tax reform and tax cuts [personal and corporate] will be passed and signed. Correct
- Obamacare will meet one of two fates. It will be partially repealed and partially replaced. Or, it will be left to complete its self-destruction as it is non-viable fiscally for insurance providers, the federal government, and the state governments. Correct
- All the following groups will be DISPLEASED with SOME of Trump’s major policies:
a. Fiscal conservatives, because he adds to the deficit
b. Social conservatives, because he isn’t socially conservative enough
c. National defense conservatives, because he isn’t, in their eyes, aggressive enough with US enemies, and
d. Democrats and the mainstream media for almost everything he does.
Correct - Trump will continue or establish several new methods of communicating directly with voters, effectively bypassing conventional, national media channels. Correct
- The percentage of Americans saying the country is headed in the right direction will exceed 40% by Thanksgiving 2017, up from an average of less than 30% in 2016. Wrong [It is moving up but still below 40%.]
- Major federal policy changes will be initiated and be designed to increase US energy independence from all but Canada. Correct
- US air and water will get cleaner in 2017 as it has for decades. Correct
- US CO2 emissions will fall in 2017 as they have since 1992. Correct
- President Trump’s approval rating will average over 50% in November 2017. Wrong [With today’s extreme partisanship Trump and future presidents will only get above 50% for brief periods.]
- Outgoing President Obama and Secretary Clinton will come under harsh political attack from Democrats and the media for the hollowing-out of the Democratic party in the southern, plains, mountain, and mid-western states. Correct
- The broadest measure of unemployment [U-6] will fall one percent or more by November 2017, from a little over 9% now. Correct
- Any major threat to a NATO country by Russia will be met with a surprisingly aggressive US response from the Trump administration. Correct
- The rules-of engagement for US troops will be loosened markedly in almost all theaters of operation. That is, they will be permitted to take more aggressive action against the enemy. Correct
- ISIS will lose all or almost all its geographic territory [Caliphate} in 2017 but will remain a terrorist threat for years to come. Correct
- There will be increasing “push-back” against China’s territorial offensive in the East and South China Seas by the US, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, and others. Correct
- There will be no large-scale trade war with China in 2017 as Trump’s economic and foreign policy advisors will convince him China’s economy is near a breaking point due to unstainable levels of debt and major policy errors. [No need to push an adversary when they are already self-destructing.] Correct
- Congress will NOT enact authority to place tariffs on US companies moving plants from the US and shipping goods back to the US from those plants. But Trump and Pence will use the bully- pulpit, tax cuts, regulation cuts and local resources to short-circuit the departure of many plants and jobs. However, few net new manufacturing jobs will be created because productivity increases have been the most important destroyer of manufacturing jobs. Those will continue. Correct
- Economic and political instability in the EU will continue throughout 2017. Both left-wing and right-wing political groups and voters will turn further toward populism and against internationalist, globalist parties. Correct
- Chinese foreign exchange reserves will continue to fall in 2017 as will the yuan/renminbi relative to the dollar. Wrong [These Chinese metrics improved only slightly because the US dollar slipped slightly in value. No substantive change here.]
Scoring on 2017 Annual Predictions as of January 1, 2018:
22-Correct
3—Wrong
Evaluation
My minimum target was 80% accurate which I hit. But, my real target was 90%, but such is life…
New predictions next week for 2018…
Happy New Year
Until next week…
Al Tuchfarber PhD
Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Cincinnati