Burke: My forecast for 2023: Count on lots of Trump headlines

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, January 4, 2023

By Tom Burke / Herald columnist

Last January my 2022 advice to readers was:

“If anyone starts telling you what’s going to happen next, about any of the issues facing us …change the channel, turn the page, or steer the conversation to who’s the best craft-beer brewer in Everett.

“‘Cause nobody knows what’s gonna happen next and you shouldn’t waste your time chasing clickbait.”

And at the start of 2022 the common “wisdom” I was warning about was: “The Dems are doomed!” for the midterms; unmask and forget the boosters, covid was done; and Russia would overrun Ukraine in three days.

Turns out, it wasn’t very wise wisdom.

Now reading tea leaves was my Irish-born mother-in-law’s forte. And while I wasn’t using her insights to guide my investment portfolio, I always listened to her prognostications. She (or the Lipton’s tea she drank) was often right.

So in memory of Peg, here’s my 2023 tea leaf reading (using Lapsang Souchong tea, not Lipton’s) for 2023:

There’s only one story making national headlines this year; how karma (multiple criminal and civil indictments in multiple jurisdictions) finally caught up to Donald Trump. Everything else will be drowned out:

• Hunter Biden’s laptop will be an embarrassing bust for Republicans.

• Republican “investigations” into the Jan. 6 committee, Afghanistan, inflation, the border, Anthony Fauci, and drag queens will go nowhere. (They will, of course, be headlined on Fox News, Truth Social, and other MAGA media bubbles, but no one except the deluded will care).

• The Republicans attempt to support Putin and Russia and undermine U.S. support to Ukraine will go nowhere.

• And Kevin McCarthy’s bid for House speakership will make a small ripple then sink slowly into the Potomac.

Ya see, indictments against Trump will consume the headlines week after week after week sucking every bit of oxygen out of the Republican mediasphere and they’ll be the only thing seen or heard in newspapers, on TV, radio, or on-line. The headlines, sidebars, interviews, podcasts, columns, and MAGA-world reactions will encompass:

• Trump being charged by the feds for inciting or assisting an insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and conspiracy to make a false statement for his actions leading the Jan.6, 2021, insurrection.

• Trump being charged by the feds for keeping classified documents, lying about presidential records and withholding presidential documents at Mar-a-Largo.

• Trump being charged by New York Attorney General Leticia James in a state civil lawsuit for lying about asset valuation leading to tax and insurance fraud.

• Trump being criminally charged by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for tax fraud.

• Trump being charged by District Attorney Fani Willis in Georgia for election tampering including conspiring to commit election fraud, criminal solicitation to commit election fraud, and intentional election interference.

• Trump going to trial in a defamation suit brought by E. Jean Carroll as well as a separate suit, alleging he raped her.

• Trump and the IRS being investigated for his cheating and lying about his tax returns.

Of course, all this news won’t break at once. It will happen over the course of months; first because it takes time to actually bring indictments from all the various jurisdictions; but also because each jurisdiction will want its own time in the spotlight, thus stretching out the indictments over the year.

Now there will be some other news filling in the pauses between Trump’s rendezvous with jurisprudence, including the war in Ukraine, the ’24 presidential race, natural disasters, the economy, drugs, the do-nothing Republican House meltdown, Reps. Lauren Boebert vs. Majorie Taylor Greene (which won’t be reported on a “news” page, it’ll be back in the comics section where Dagwood, Hagar the Horrible, and Zits run), immigration, inflation and the Seahawks miraculous rise to a Super Bowl win in the 2023-24 NFL season.

Note: And for our MAGA/Christian-nationalist readers, their God’s self-proclaimed prophet, Julie Green and her predictions, will continue to make the news they read. Green is the woman Eric Trump says is channeling His word [God’s, not Eric’s or Donald’s] and who’s prophecies he called “beautiful” and said he “believe[s] it 100 percent.”

Well, she says God is sending a huge storm to wipe out his enemies, specifically Fauci, Biden, Obama, Mitch, Hillary, Nancy, Chuck, Facebook, Wall Street, China and Adam Schiff. But she’s also predicting that Fauci, Biden, Nancy, Mitch, Chuck, Hillary, Zelensky, Trudeau, Macron and Gates are plotting to take over the world, depopulate most of it, then enslave the rest. (Not sure which comes first.)

And God also told her that former-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “will be visited by the Angel of Death for her crimes against my nation. … She loves to drink the little children’s blood. … Yes, a true witch she really is;” former Rep. Liz Cheney too, will have her life “taken from you by the Angel of Death;” and President Biden, Green proclaims, “has already been judged and is no longer alive.” Of course it’s not the absurdity of her claim of being God’s “voice” or predictions that are scary. It’s that so many, like Eric Trump, believe her. (FYI: My mother-in-law’s cuppa Lipton had a better batting average, prediction-wise, than Julie Green.)

So there ya go. 2023 in a nutshell. Trump will make headlines. MAGA-world will still support him. And everyone else in America will rejoice.

Justice is coming, albeit slowly, to the cheat, liar and incompetent who was the worst president America ever had.

And it’s about time.

Slava Ukraini.

Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.