Is it all going down next Tuesday?
Is it all going down next Tuesday? Chase Burns

What's in store for us? Each week we light some incense, consult our favorite astrology meme accounts on Instagram, and predict the future. This week: predictions on who will win the battleground states, which rapper will turn out for Trump next, and sexy little fiefdoms.

Protests won't rock election week. The military, the governors, and the newspapers are all gearing up for big protests after election day, but I don't think they're going to materialize, or at least not the way they did following the killing of George Floyd. Vote counts will trickle in and at different rates across the country, and Biden will likely win in a landslide anyway. If that happens, some militia types might do something dumb and dangerous somewhere, but the well-off suburbanites who vote for Trump in large numbers don’t give that much of a shit so long as football's still on TV and so won’t hit the streets. If the Supreme Court ends up picking Trump, though, there will be endless riots. R.S.

Before the election, someone will hack Trump's Twitter account. Again. Last week, a Dutch researcher says he hacked into the president's Twitter account. And by hacked, I mean he guessed Trump's password, which he claims was maga2020!. The researcher allegedly only tried four times before he successfully logged into the president's account. By next week, I predict either a team of code-breaking hobbyists on Reddit, the Russian government, or Barron will break into Trump's account. N.G.

Ice Cube, then 50 Cent, then Lil Pump. Rappers are giving Trump some love this time around. Indeed, Kayne West is beginning to look like he was ahead of his time. To quote Lil' Kim, these other cats behind him appear to "be on some following shit." Who is next to call the pussy-grabber the man? My guess was 6ix9ine. It was hard for me to imagine this shock-value rapper, who was recently released from prison due to the COVID-19 fears, voting for someone as normal, as orderly, as sane as Joe Biden. 6ix9ine would want his name associated with the mess, the madness, the monster in the White House. And, I was right: "Tekashi 6ix9ine has said he would vote for Donald Trump in his first interview since being released from prison." Who will be next? If ghosts could vote I would bet on XXXTentacion. C.M.

Swing state victors, according to Rich. Biden will win Arizona because the state lists COVID-19 as its primary concern and because the people of Phoenix listen to Cher. Biden will win Colorado because he’s ahead by like a million in the polls (actually between like 9 and 22, depending on who you ask). Trump will win Florida because a lot of the Villagers are somehow still sympathetic, because America requires a scary narrative to begin election week, and because of selective voter suppression. Trump will win Georgia because of selective voter suppression. Biden will win Iowa because my friends recently moved there and they will cast the deciding votes. (Just kidding, Trump will win Iowa.) Biden will win Maine on the strength of the illustration in this Bangor Daily News endorsement, and because the antipathy for Susan Collins is real. Biden will win Michigan because he and Obama helped bail out the auto industry, and if that's the first thing that comes to my mind when I think "Biden" and "Michigan," then I'm sure it's up there in the minds of Michiganders. Trump will win North Carolina because of selective voter suppression. Despite a last-min money dump from Michael Bloomberg, Trump will win Ohio because my friends say that state keeps getting redder, and because Trump has consistently led in the polls there. Biden will win Pennsylvania because the people of Scranton have never let down a hometown hero once in their lives and they're not going to start with Joseph R. Biden Jr. Trump will win Texas but it will be close as hell. Biden will win Wisconsin because the latest polls show him widening his already wide lead, because Biden has visited a lot, and because Trump's base just isn't big enough there. R.S.

Swing state victors, according to Chase. You know what? I agree with all of Rich's calculations. I'd add that while Democrats have made remarkable gains in Florida, Trump will win the state because he remains the embodiment of Florida Man values. He is our Florida President. I was born in Florida, unlike most of Florida's voting block. It's a state that welcomes Northern scammers with open arms. The entitled, borderline criminal retirees who move to Florida do so because they couldn't loot enough in their home state. They all think the plot of Cocoon is real and that they will find the fountain of alien immortality in Tampa Bay. (Spoiler: It's flesh-eating bacteria.) While Trump's pandemic mismanagement is turning off many of his older voters, we cannot underestimate just how deeply many Floridians feel Trump reflects their cynical beliefs. He will win the state. And if he somehow loses, the good news is he's fucking toast. Even with the win, if we calculate Rich's totals... Biden's still reaching that 270 electoral vote threshold. C.B.

Americans will finally stop smiling so goddamn much. Smiling at strangers is an American thing. The U.S. has historically been a country composed of immigrants from all over. Our propensity for flashing our teeth comes from reliance on nonverbal communication with others who don't speak our same language. But if you travel to most other places on the planet, grinning at randoms on the street will make people think you're a lunatic. Mask culture, however, is obliterating this American phenomenon. I can't tell you how many times I've made eye contact with someone at the store and reflexively smiled only to realize they can't see my acknowledgment of them. I predict the pandemic will extinguish this American-ism. Now, our smiles should count! J.K.

Facebook will bottom for Biden. Just like it bottomed for Trump. Just like it bottomed for Obama. Liberals like to forget that Facebook was in deep with the Obama campaign and that, in many ways, he was our first Facebook President, using the same tools that now allow a person like Loren Culp to rise to the GOP's top spot. Albeit, Obama didn't align himself with QAnon nonsense. In 2008, large-scale bad actors were somewhat rare on the platform. Now it's a cabinet of ghouls and lies. Still, don't underestimate Facebook's ability to switch sides. These turncoats ultimately align with power. We already see the turning. C.B.

The pandemic has deepened the leisure gap. Remember back at the beginning of the pandemic when international travel shut down, but somehow Kylie Jenner was in Paris? While ordinary people can still take time off, they can't escape in a private jet to a private island for a 40th birthday celebration, as Kim Kardashian did with a crowd of her closest friends, so they "could feel normal again." The Kardashians aren't worried about healthcare costs if they catch COVID-19 on that island. They're not sweating over scraping together months-worth of rent after eviction moratoriums lift. COVID-19 will continue to exacerbate the divide between who can and cannot escape the longer it sticks around. N.G.

Seasonal Affective Disorder will be pandemonium this year. You might want to stock up on sun lamps and antidepressants now. As winter deepens and the sun recoils in disgust from the northern hemisphere, seasonal depression will mix with pandemic-stress, politics-stress, and everything-else-stress for the darkest timeline yet. You can handle it, but don't be caught off-guard: Establish weekly emotional support video-calls now, get a hard-to-kill plant so you have someone to be responsible for, and make a list of your emergency comfort-foods. Personally, I recommend a four-person Zoom call every other Friday, a small pot of Italian parsley placed close to a window, and the thickest, creamiest, mushroomiest sausage gravy possible. Start a tube of supermarket biscuits in the oven, then get a tube of sausage meat or cut open some sausage casings and sauté the meat for a couple minutes; then turn the heat to low, throw in the mushrooms and let them brown; sprinkle with sifted flour and stir; splash in some milk and let it thicken; and then pour it all over the browned biscuits with a bunch of parsley you cut from your houseplant. It's bad for your arteries, but who cares? Eat. M.B.

Vladimir Putin, who smelt the coffee (the polls do not look good) and decided to fire Trump this weekend by claiming Hunter Biden is cool with him and Russia, will give Joe Biden that pee tape as a show of his "burying the hatchet." C.M.

Republican states will follow Idaho's lead. Idaho is reimposing some coronavirus restrictions as their cases rise and hospitals show "early signs of buckling." These restrictions are feckless—"indoor gatherings will be limited to 50 people or fewer, and outdoor gatherings will be limited to 25% of capacity"—and there's still no mask mandate in the state. As cases keep rising, Republican-run states will inevitably feel forced, like Idaho, to make certain symbolic gestures as their populations succumb to the Trump Virus. These states should look to El Paso instead. That city just instituted a curfew—with fines. But Republicans won't go like that Clinton-voting city. Instead, they will let their people die on the hill they've conquered, which is a particularly American hill: the freedom to be an idiot. C.B.

There will be a rise in porn communes. What on Earth is a "job"? With 9-to-5 employment giving way to 24/7 gigwork, more and more people have discovered that no matter the economic system, there will always be demand for smut. The freelance sex work and porn-producing workforce will continue to grow in the coming years, and as more of us transition to (or deepen our expertise in) that line of work, we'll see more worker collectives. Porn and sex workers are prone to exploitation, and so a particularly supportive structure will emerge in porn communes, where erotic workers of all different disciplines form households together for collaboration and mutual support. Expect to see roommate-wanted ads like "drug-free BBW household seeing NLE editor, cats welcome, must have Final Cut Pro X license, DPs with experience shooting DP given priority" or "rural twink/jock farmstead with extensive back-catalog of J/O videos looking to expand into military; you must be comfortable with gunge; on-site personal training, childcare, and chicken coop chores managed by household." As the government scales back what little social safety net existed, sexy little fiefdoms will take its place. M.B.

COVID-19 capacity limits will kill some of our best museums. Like Seattle, state and local leaders have limited museums in New York City to 25 percent capacity. And it's killing them. Despite huge institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Guggenheim practically serving as pilgrimage sites for tourists, the reduced amount of people allowed inside is seriously hurting their pockets. This unending wave of COVID, along with capacity limits and reduced ticket sales, will slowly choke the life out of some of the best museums. Staying open might mean keeping a barebones staff or hawking off a chunk of a permanent collection. Either way, the future doesn't look so good. J.K.

We'll have a sustainable colony on the moon before Washington state is 100% carbon free. Water is lurking on the moon, and NASA wants to "establish a sustainable human presence" on the space rock by 2030. I bet the world's leading scientists will erect a 100% sustainable moon colony before Washington becomes 100% carbon-free—which is projected to happen by 2045. We may even have a lunar colony before Washington has a carbon tax. N.G.

The water on the moon conceals a deadly secret. NASA recently announced that they discovered water on the moon —about enough to fit in a 12-ounce bottle—but soon, faint object infrared cameras will pick up even larger bodies of water, with some strange movement detected below the surface. A manned expedition will reveal the shocking truth: SHARKS. No other life, no plants or micro-organisms or smaller fish. Just millions and millions of sharks. And they're hungry. A small shark delegation will eat the astronauts, assume their identities, and return to Earth posing as the crew. No one will be the wiser, but eyebrows will rise when NASA announces a new initiative to identify the most healthy, muscular, succulent people on Earth for a special mission to the underwater banquet hall currently being constructed in the moon's Clavius Crater. M.B.


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