Usually, shitty years are odd numbered. Think 1939, 1963, and so forth. So, that’s why all things being equal, 2026 should be just A Year like any other.
But, in ways both personal and public, I think 2026 is going to be epically shitty. I know in my own life some pretty dramatic things will probably happen which are going to give me pause for thought.
If I’m lucky — very lucky — then one of those things will be a good thing: I will at least finish my novel and get a literary agent as a result.
But, otherwise, oh boy.
Trump could try to fuck with the 2026 mid-terms. The AI bubble could burst in a really big way. Those are just two things I can think of off the top of my head. But only time will tell, I guess.
I have a feeling that 2026 is going to be a very turbulent year for me one way or another. It’s going to be a year of transitions, no matter what. If I’m really lucky, the weird vibe I’m feeling about the coming year will be because I know in my heart that the novel I’m working on is good enough to successfully be queried.
If I’m not lucky, then, lulz, some pretty fucked up shit is going to happen to me on a personal level because of macro changes out of my control.
And, yet, I’ve really appreciated this surreal moment in my life where I got to be an artist and just sort of drifted through life.
But, as I alluded to, I think this era in my life is probably about to wrap up because of fucking Trump. And, what’s more, we do have the 2026 midterms coming up and there are no assurances that they will be free and fair. The States kind of exists in a luminal political state at the moment where we’re not quite a democracy but not quite a total authoritarian state.
I think the exact term is “anocracy.”
Anyway, wish me luck, guess. If all goes according to plan, I am going to spend a big portion of 2026 querying a scifi dramedy. And, who knows, maybe it will be sold, be a success, and a new, a lot more fun era in my life will begin.
Apparently, if you call Trump a fascist you get put on some sort of list of “terrorists.” Really? Is that what we’re going with these days? Ugh.
This is particularly amusing — and grating — since the incoming mayor of New York City called Trump a fascist in the Oval Office. (Essentially.) And Trump was cool with it.
America is a very unserious country at the moment. We don’t want to be governed, we want to be entertained. As such, I think the only sure-fire way for Blues to gain power again is through someone like Stephen Colbert being their candidate.
But I would be stunned if he was willing to do it. And that’s kind of the crux of the Blue dilemma going forward. Blues just can’t accept that what people want is a policy-free “vibe” candidate like Trump.
They don’t want serious policy-wonk candidates who will actually have a vision as to how to make their lives better. So, especially in the context of us being in a luminal space when it comes to be a democracy at al….I just think we should accept that we’re going to be governed by idiot MAGA people for the foreseeable future.
I am not a Democrat. But I fly pretty close to that political sun, so I listen to a lot of center-Left podcasts and when former Obama era Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was on Pod Save America, I found myself nodding in agreement a lot.
The core problem for Blues is what people want — an infotainment figure who makes politics “fun” and a blood sport, comes exclusively from the center-Right. The only person who comes close on the center-Left who could be a Trump-like figure for Blues is Stephen Colbert and he just won’t do it.
So, as such, Blues have to hunker down on good policy.
And I think Emanuel’s policy views are pretty good. Things like telling Democrats to de-emphasize “project trans kids” and also pass legislation that would bar under 16 children from using social media makes a lot of sense to me.
But we will have a long ways to go. A very long ways. We still don’t know if we’re even enough of a democracy still to ever have free-and-fair elections.
What the fuck is going on with Crooked Media’s Jon Lovett. He seems…cranky. He seems like he’s not very happy with his position at the organization. It seems, if you reverse engineer things, that he keeps demanding in-house side projects for some reason.
He’s currently got a Bravo in-house side project that I assume he was given to placate him for some reason.
I just get the sense that a lot more is going on with Lovett at Crooked Media than we’re being told. It’s just it’s such low stakes that it’s not like Page Six gives enough of a shit to investigate exactly what’s going on.
And while we’re on the topic of Crooked Media, those guys keep reminding me that I think they’ve jumped the shark. They’ve grown kind of full of themselves and they’re not longer the plucky upstart outsiders to the Democratic Establishement.
They ARE the Democratic Establishment (or at least the center-Left Establishment) and, as such, some of their policy views are pretty self-defeating. Especially when it comes to trans Rights.
Let me be clear again — I support trans rights, I just think the whole “protect trans kids” (because there are so few “trans kids” in reality) is kind of self-defeating and hands a loaded gun to fucking MAGA fascists who swoop up and collect “normal” people who feel aliened by such rhetoric.
Anyway. It will be interesting to see what happens with Lovett and Crooked Media in 2026.
I don’t know what to make of Dave Chappelle these days. He’s still the GOAT as they say, but…is he MAGA now? Or at least MAGA adjacent? I’ve been viewing his latest Netflix special in dribs and drabs on Tik-Tok and…I’m not impressed.
He seems to make up a lot excuses for performing in Saudi Arabia when he should have just stuck to the truth: he did it for the money.
And he shouldn’t give any mealy mouth “whataboutism” answers to questions about why he did it, or whatever. Just admit he has a lot less principles that we thought he had and he did a gig in a country ruled by a murderous thug for cold hard cash.
If there’s one thing that MAGA loves to do, it’s be bigoted towards trans people. It’s like MAGA’s original sin. Trump will simply not shut up about how he thinks the center-Left wants everyone to be trans.
He literally will say the Left wants “transgender for everyone.” It’s a consistent theme of his messaging and that’s probably because it is one of the central beliefs of the MAGA base. The center Left, of course, does itself no favors by being so twitchy about something that not only doesn’t even happen that much, but is EXTREMELY UNPOPULAR with “normal people” — underage trans people.
While I totally validate the whole “protect trans kids” concept, that doesn’t mean it’s not a hard sell for “normal” people who struggle to understand the idea of a really young person, who maybe hasn’t even gone through puberty yet, even understanding what sexuality is, much less their own.
And, yet, a certain vocal subset of the Leftist movement simply will not shut the fuck up about something that as far as I can tell, barely ever happens at all.
So. why bring this up?
The looming prospect of conscious AI.
Right now, we don’t really have to think about conscious AI because even if they could be proven to have consciousness, they don’t have a body. So, any sexual or romantic shenanigans that happen between Man and Machine can only be done via text and metaphor.
So, we’re kind of punting a major societal issue down the road until there’s a fusion of AI and robotics so AI is “embodied.” When we have demonstrable conscious AIs being the minds of androids, we may have a serious, serious social and political issue on our hands.
To the point that the very MAGA people who now have their regular one or two minute of hate for hapless trans people will, in turn start to do the same thing for conscious AI in robots. Or, more specifically, they will explode into a rage collectively at the idea of a human becoming romantically involved with — to the point of marrying — an AI android.
They will rant and scream about how AI “has no soul” and, as such, AI androids marrying a human is even MORE an “abomination” than gay marriage is to the average Christian.
So, in short, we’re fucked. I think all of this, from a “megatrends” point of view, probably comes to a head in five to ten years. Buckle up.
Something of note happening these days with pictures — usually of scantily clad women — is how often the faces are subtly manipulated using AI.
At first the above picture looks like just your usual thirst trap. But if you look a little bit closer (after you’ve ogled da ass) you will notice the young woman’s face is….different.
It’s not really “off,” it’s more just clearly slightly touched up by some sort of AI filter. It really dislike this growing trend. Ugh.
But this is just the beginning, I suppose.
Once open source image generators are good enough, there’s going to be a deluge of AI generated porn. Get ready.
Man, am I broke as hell. But content. (For the most part.) Anyway, there really does seem to be two Americas at the moment. There are the Rich and there are the Poor.
The Rich are doing well and doing better. They fly all over the place. They have smug conversations on their podcasts about things poor fucks like me could never afford to do.
Then…there is everyone else.
Now, the great irony, of course, is Trump is a leech that is sucking the poor dry to the benefit of the Rich.
All of this makes me a little nervous. I’m a little nervous that the USA is a lot more unstable than we all might otherwise imagine. On a macro basis, all the conditions are there for the USA to collapse into revolution and chaos, especially if we can’t get our act together and default on our debt.
Then all the rich fucks are going to realize maybe they should have been a little less quick to accept all the fucking tax cuts that Trump demanded. But I think it’s just human nature.
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