New Year’s Predictions — What to Look for in 2024

.... in politics and entertainment.

Hi everyone. We’ve wrapped up another year, and as is tradition on this website, I’ve made some predictions for the new year — just two this time, since Bernie and I will be discussing our thoughts on 2024 later in the week.

But before I begin, I want to thank BernardGoldberg.com subscribers, and regular readers of my columns. I truly appreciate you all checking out the work here, sharing it, and weighing in with your thoughts.

2023 was a personally challenging year, as I spent a lot of time helping elderly family members through various health-related issues. My writing often took a backseat to those efforts, which I make no apologies for, but I’m hoping 2024 will bring with it a little more life-balance.

I hope you had a good 2023, and I wish you all a Happy New Year!

Now onto those 2024 predictions…

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“Come With Me if You Want to Live”

Much to the dismay a roughly 80% of the country, Joe Biden and Donald Trump will secure their political-parties’ presidential nominations, leading to a national spike in incidents of self-harm among Americans.

After weeks of intense online and cable-news disputes on important issues — like which of the nominees smells worse, which is more mentally compromised, and which of them is actually the current president (made weirder by both men suggesting at times that it’s Barack Obama) — the race will fall into deeper chaos when Trump is convicted of multiple crimes, and Biden is administered CPR one evening after falling asleep in his soup.

Amidst widespread electoral despair, a slew of third-party candidates will join those already announced, and vow to rescue the country from its horrific political predicament. The list of late entrants will include multiple A-list celebrities, but to the shock of many, it will be retired (and mostly forgotten about) action-film actor Michael Biehn, running on a single issue, who will build real momentum.

Reprising his role as Corporal Dwayne Hicks from the 1986 sci-fi film Aliens, a helmeted Biehn will promise in an online ad that, if elected, he’ll “nuke both major political parties from orbit.” He’ll add, “It’s the only way to be sure.”

The video will go viral on YouTube, the monetization of which will fund the Biehn campaign (along with online sales of “It’s the only way to be sure” t-shirts, hats, and beverage containers). Large ad-buys in key swing-states will help grow Biehn’s poll numbers, unexpectedly earning him a podium at all three nationally televised presidential debates. Biehn will surprise viewers further as the sole participant in the first debate, due to a bout with pneumonia for a Biden, and a conflicting court date for Trump.

Throughout the rest of the campaign, Biden will angrily refer to Biehn as a “lying dog-faced pony soldier” while Trump will repeatedly point out that “a woman had to save Biehn’s ass” in Aliens (drawing an awkward comment from Biden that he “once smelled Sigourney Weaver’s hair, and it was exquisite”).

But Biehn will turn the tables, glaring at an ankle-shackled Trump across the third and final debate stage, and saying, “You’ve seen what I can do to aliens, Limpy. You couldn’t even put up a freakin’ wall.”

The square-jawed line will peel away just enough MAGA supporters (who already struggle to distinguish between fictional-entertainment personas and serious political figures), along with Biehn’s running-mate selection of Terminator co-star Linda Hamilton securing a good number of women voters, to put the actor in the lead in multiple national polls.

On election day, however, Biehn’s late entrance into the race, and lack of campaign infrastructure, will force him to be a write-in-only candidate on most state ballots. And because next to no one can spell the actor’s last name correctly (a legal ballot requirement), “Michael Bean” will be elected the 47th President of the United States.

A constitutional crisis will ensue, lasting into 2025, as election officials, state governors, and ultimately the Supreme Court of the United States work to determine which American named “Michael Bean” will be our new president. Biden will address the situation by mostly napping, while Trump will once again declare the election to be stolen (or “stollen” depending on who’s posting through his Truth Social account). Trump will call on Rudy Giuliani and Mike Lindell (who by then will be sharing a cubical in the back-office of a Denny’s restaurant in Albuquerque, NM) to get to the bottom of things.

As the situation is sorted out, national polls will consistently show that most Americans would prefer literally anyone named Michael Bean (or even just “Mr. Bean”) over Biden and Trump.

Keep Throwing to See What Sticks

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson will grow increasingly frustrated in the new year as viewership for his online series on “X” continues to plummet. Having spent much of 2023 peddling a long list of crackpot conspiracy theories, parroting Russian propaganda, sympathizing with international criminals, coddling antisemites, and trying to rehabilitate pedophiles and libelers of murdered children’s parents, Carlson will decide his poor numbers are the result of his guests not being sufficiently controversial or abhorrent.

“It’s time to up the ante,” Carlson will tell his producer, before erupting into one of his weird, high-pitched giggle-fits.

Commemorating the 30th anniversary of the brutal murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, Carlson will invite O.J. Simpson onto his program for an in-depth discussion on who really killed the victims, and why O.J. was the perfect “fall guy” for racist, America-hating police-investigators and prosecuting attorneys who, decades later, reunited to help Joe Biden waterboard Christians at Guantánamo Bay, and conspire with Ray Epps, Liz Cheney, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Big Foot to carry out the false-flag operation known as “January 6.”

Carlson will be sure to say throughout the Simpson interview that “We’re not allowed to ask these questions,” despite being totally allowed to ask such questions.

Several times during the conversation, Carlson will try to get Simpson to say something negative about Carlson’s current right-wing political-media rival, Ben Shapiro. But Simpson, confusing the name for his former defense-attorney, Robert Shapiro, won’t take the bait. At some point, however, Simpson will accidentally admit to murdering his ex-wife and her friend 30 years earlier. Despite the confession being colossally newsworthy, it will end up on the cutting-room floor after Carlson orders his producer to give it the “Kanye treatment” for interfering with his preferred narrative of Simpson being a sympathetic, unfairly ostracized figure whose only real crime was rejecting societal group-think.

The interview will fail to meet Carlson’s anticipated numbers, finishing slightly above the host’s lowest-rated U.F.O. episode, and just below his conversation last September with that dude who claims to have slept with Barack Obama.

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Well, if you made it all the way to the end of this piece, congratulations, and thanks for humoring me. Again, I hope you all have a happy and healthy new year.

Take care!