This will be my first annual, and highly anticipated, column on the future of the country in 2020.  Keep this to find out how highly accurate such predictions will be.

            First up are sports.  Several of these are daring guesses about the successes or failures of the sporting life.  To be more succinct, these will be numbered, in no special order, of their happening or not happening.

            1.  My St. Louis Cardinals will make the playoffs, and advance to the National League Championship Series or the World Series, but will not it all.  Sad to say, there are holes in the pitching and hitting lineups.

            2.  For my Cub friends, I predict that they will, for the second year in a row, not make the playoffs.  This is not made because of my antipathy toward the South Siders, but when a manager takes a team to win the World Series after a 108 year drought, they immediately fire him.  All for not making the playoffs?  In addition, there are definite signs of weaknesses in their team.

            3.  The Patriots will not win the Super Bowl this year.  Why, you ask?  Since the Super Bowl is in February, New England lost their wild card game Sunday.  Safe pick!

            4.  My Kansas City Chiefs will lose the Super Bowl.  Baltimore stands in our way.  But I also see in my crystal ball the San Francisco 49ers will take the Lombardi Trophy.  Their quarterback, a fellow alum with me of Eastern Illinois University, Jimmy Garapollo, will make short work of the Ravens.

            5.  One team made a free agent deal to shore up their starting pitching.  The New York Yankees signed Gerrit Cole to a mega deal, worth 36 million dollars per year, believing that their long drought of World Series wins would come to an end.  But poetic justice prevailed and they did not even get into the Series.

            Next up are Illinois politics.  In 2018’s general election, Democrats swept the board.  All elected state officials are Dems, as are both houses of the Legislature.  What will happen in the Land of Lincoln in 2020?

            6.  Illinois continues to be one of the states that bleeds residents.  With taxes and regulations stifling businesses and individual successes, more Illinoisans will flee to the more friendly climes of Indiana, Missouri and other states south.

            7.  Edgar County, my home for 54 years, will join the pot parade.  Of course, the rationale will be taxes.  Those potheads need to stay home to light up.  Our coffers need the added revenue!  In addition, country road accidents will rise because of the increase of impaired drivers on the road.

            8.   The movement of cities and counties declaring themselves sanctuaries for the 2nd Amendment will grow and encompass at least 80% of Illinois.  

            9.  Pritzker’s approval rating will go into the tank when Illinoisans realize what his policies have done to the pocketbooks.   To pay $118 (up from  $18) per year for your small trailer will hit a lot of low-income Democrat voters, as will the jump from $101 to $151 for your can license .  Look for the good Governor to pay the price in popularity.

            Now we turn to the national scene and make some radical predictions.  By the time we got here, the crystal ball had heated up, so some of these may seem unlikely.  But I don’t think so!

            10.  Donald Trump will win a second term as President.   He will still lose the popular vote, but by a much smaller margin than in 2016.  His Electoral College victory will be larger than in 2016.   Leftists’ heads will explode and the rhetoric will be up from 11 to 12 (on a scale of 10).

            11.  The House of Representatives will remain in Democratic hands, although with a very small margin.  Likewise, the Senate will lose one seat, but will still have “Cocaine Mitch” McConnell still running the show.

            12.  Despite McConnell’s low favorability rating in his home state of Kentucky, I fearlessly predict he will win reelection by a landslide margin.

            13.  Another safe pick:   Democratic Senator Doug Jones of Alabama, in spite of a “no” vote to remove President Trump from office will lose in a very red state by a wide “no” vote on him.

            14.  The impeachment trial in the Senate will end in Trump’s acquittal, with the Democrats losing four of their caucus.  Such an outcome will damage the Democrats, for they have been counting on some Republicans breaking ranks.

            15.  Those anti-Trump celebrities who threaten to leave the United States when Trump won won’t.  Canada, Belize and Europe have been mentioned as possible locales, but just like 2016, these who so vociferously and profanely attack Trump will find out that the grass is not any “greener” on the other side of the national border.

            16.  Illegal immigration will continue to slow down, and become less of a problem as 2020 progresses.

            17.  This projection is also one that won’t go wrong.  Democratic attacks on  Trump will get crazier, and will go off the wall when Trump wins.

            18.   One of the accusations after the election will be that Trump had foreign help to sway to electorate.  Why?  Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, has many of the same ideas as Trump and wants him to win the election.  A very advantageous trade deal is already hinted at on both sides of the pond.

            19.  Joe Biden will win the Democratic nomination for President.  Along the way, he will fall back into his regular pattern of being “feely, touchy”, forget which state he is in, misremember his role in Obama’s administration and commit other gaffes which show how out of touch he has become.  But he will not finish the race, for he will suffer a physical breakdown, be forced to withdraw and the Dems would name a substitute.  However, there is no crystal ball that could predict who that would be; it might even be Mayor Pete!  With so many candidates to select from, your guess is as good as mine.

            20.  I will begin writing the next Great American Novel.  Bank on it!

            Your job in this exercise is to keep track of how they play out.  Numbers 3, 6, 9, 15, 17 and 20 are a lock!  If you wish to counter predict, send them to me.  I would enjoy seeing how wrong you will be.

            Already, the BW has challenged some of these.  Of course she is wrong, but I can predict if she is right, I will hear of it during 2010!