Chazzy New Year!
My predictions for 2021
Well, folks. We’ve made it. We’re done with 2020. Talk about a dumpster fire of a year, am I right? Between COVID-19, the election, nationwide social unrest, wildfires, and the worst economy in a few generations, we could barely follow the action. It sure seems like the 2020 writers room got a little too creative. And they still didn’t wrap up the murder hornet C-plot! Did you have any of this on your 2020 bingo board?
This time of year, news outlets typically do their annual retrospective. But Chazzy’s World is not your typical publication. We don’t provide “insights.” We don’t do “research.” We don’t verify “facts.” Instead of looking back, we’re looking forward. To round out the year, let’s look at how 2020 finished and make some predictions about 2021.
First, we have the impending, hastened collapse of the American empire. This was a dominant theme of Chazzy’s World in 2020. My prediction is that the rot decaying our country will continue to eat away at our quality of life like a termite infestation. I also expect the death rattle of our nation to go from cacophonous to earsplitting.
The COVID-19 pandemic is increasingly dire. Hospitals are overflowing and death rates are rising. Americans communed with loved ones for Christmas, then allowed their family’s viral loads to ferment and ripen like cheese before sharing it with their friends on New Year’s Eve. The vaccination effort is derailed and already producing some uniquely American scenes. In Wisconsin, a hospital employee intentionally removed 500 doses of the Moderna vaccine from the refrigerator, ruining them. Were they a disgruntled employee? Ardent anti-vaxxer? ¿Por qué no los dos? And in Florida, elderly people are lining up at midnight for the vaccine like hypebeast resellers outside the Supreme store. Chazzy’s Prediction: the next few months will be really sad.
Another thing we can count on next year is continued egotism, cruel detachment, and brazen disrespect from politicians on both sides of the aisle. Bernie Sanders and Ed Markey (The Chazzy’s World Official New England Old Guys We Want To Eat A Lobster Roll and Watch Baseball With) are currently fighting to get us $2000 checks. Of course, only six of their Democrat friends joined them, with the rest effectively siding with Mitch McConnell (The Chazzy’s World Official Old Guy We Want To See Choke On A Lobster Roll And Get Struck In The Face By A Foul Ball). Senate Minority Leader Dick Durbin even chastised the effort, saying that stalling the defense bill would delay crucial aid to “Ukraine and Baltic states.” (Chazzy’s Note: Where is that?) And if you’re still wondering why Democrats got trounced in down-ballot races by Republicans in 2020, look only to the Turning Point USA conference, where they fired a literal money cannon into the crowd:
Chazzy’s Prediction: Republicans keep the Senate. Mitch McConnell continues to fuck us in the ass. Democrats ask him to please use lube. He says no because it’s too expensive.
In local news, Governor Andrew Cuomo is promoting his new book American Crisis: Leadership Lessons From The Covid-19 Pandemic, celebrating victory over the virus as New York reaches its highest daily caseload ever. Speaking of New York records, the population of people currently homeless in New York City is the highest ever. At the same time, estimates say one in five Manhattan apartments may be vacant. Mayor de Blasio’s bold proposal: “If you can make the rent, you should be able to get an apartment. Period.” Now this is just a hunch, Mr. Mayor, but tens of thousands of people are homeless and tens of thousands of apartments are empty because people can’t make the rent. Expect more progressive vision and Big Apple grit from both of these guys in 2021.
If you were looking for a sure sign of a kneecapped nation, you have it plain as day in the ongoing Russian cyber-attack that nobody seems to care about. At one point, such a brazen attack would have been met with the full force of American military prowess. We would have mobilized enough aircraft carriers to cause every whale irreparable hearing damage, commissioned a double-length EP of patriotic duets by Toby Keith and Kenny G, and droned Libya just because.
Seemingly, a cyber-attack would be a major concern for our leaders who spend all of their time online. But because this topic is complicated, technical, and caused by a shared enemy, politicians can not own each other with it on Twitter. So it is quickly forgotten. In 2021, even more complicated situations will be squeezed into tiny online attention spans. My predictions: Kamala Harris’s digital team will render her as one of the new Black Girl Wojaks; the Deputy Undersecretary for Azerbaijani Affairs will do a series of epic clapbacks about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict; a Supreme Court Justice will Toobin during a Zoom hearing.
On the international relations front, one thing will definitely not change in 2021: our nation’s staunch support for Israel. You can expect much, much more than the $3.3 billion in security assistance and $500 million for missile defense systems promised in the aforementioned defense bill. Here are some things we can expect for the US-Israeli partnership in 2021: A treaty will be signed mandating thermonuclear warfare if Israel is ever excluded from the Eurovision Song Contest. The CIA will produce a film about an Iranian spy who abandons his mission after discovering Tel Aviv’s gay nightlife scene. AIPAC will set up a commission to root out anti-Semitism, targeting people who eat cinnamon raisin bagels, Reddit posters who ask about foreskin restoration surgery, and girls who like Friends more than Seinfeld. The US will send Israel one hundred Boston Dynamics humanoid death robots. The robots will be traumatized by a Palestinian 8-year-old singing rude songs about them, spend two years popping molly on the beach in Peru, then do a speaking tour of American Hebrew schools.
They say if you put a frog in a pot and slowly boil the water, it won’t feel the heat. 2020 seemed like the year we started to sense it was getting hotter. I don’t think the pot will boil over in 2021, but it will definitely get a little uncomfortable here in the hot tub. I once stayed at a friend’s parents’ ski house for a week, and by the end the jacuzzi turned green and smelled like shrimp. I think it will be like that.
On a personal note, thank you all for hanging out in Chazzy’s World this year. Starting this newsletter earlier in 2020 pulled me out of a spiraling slump of sluggishness and indolence. It also allowed me to join the parade of hacks, cretins, grifters, dorks, profiteers, and nutmeg salesmen who found a platform on Substack this year. Thanks again for coming along on the ride, and see you all in 2021. Happy New Year!