A dozen 'what if’s for the political year ahead | SONDERMANN
The human mind is conditioned for steadiness and predictability. It is our nature to assume that the future will proceed in a manner to which we are largely accustomed. We tend to approach life in a linear way of putting one foot in front of the other.
However, in looking to the political year ahead, such a straight-line analysis is likely to be widely and wildly off the mark.
What looks in the fall of 2023 to be a dreary rematch between two past-prime candidates in Joe Biden and Donald Trump is far from assured. Both are staring at mortality tables and one has the ignoble burden of facing as many as four all-too-real criminal trials in the intervening months.
Even if Biden and Trump end up as the two major contestants, the road from here to there will be winding with plenty of sharp, unmarked turns.
These volatile times, an insatiable media ecosystem and two leading characters hardly up to the moment all but guarantee that the coming year will be the antithesis of stasis and equilibrium. With that in mind, here are a dozen “what if’ contretemps that could well come into play.