Let us be optimistic for a moment.
Let us be optimistic for a moment. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

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 Georgia's runoff, Trump's Space Force, and Parler's porn problem.

FIRST, SOME NATIONAL PREDICTIONS:

Democrats will win in Georgia's runoff, thanks in part to Trump. I'm going to be optimistic for a second. I know, it's weird to do this in 2020, so forgive me, but President-elect Joe Biden will have his Democratic Senate a.k.a. Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock will win their runoff races against the two incumbent Republican Senators in Georgia. While the victory will undoubtedly come mainly from the actions of Black organizers like Stacey Abrams, I think the death knell for the Georgia GOP will be Trump. The lame-duck president has repeatedly undermined the Peach State's electoral system, harshly criticizing both the Republican Secretary of State and governor for not overturning Biden's win in the state. Though he's still urged Georgians to go out and vote, many MAGA-heads have stated they will skip the January 5 runoff because they think the Dems have rigged it. The votes will be close, but I believe the GOP's contradictory advertising will be enough to flip both Senate seats blue. J.K.

The Queen will die during the Great Conjunction. Next Monday, for the first time in 20 years, Jupiter and Saturn will line up and create the Great Conjunction. This time, the cosmic event is also happening on the Winter Solstice. Astrologists are buzzing. Witches are prepping for a day of heightened magical ability. Clearly, something will need to happen. Here's my bet. The Queen is an Aries. This article says Aries will see their relationships shift for the better after the Great Conjunction. I am choosing to ignore this interpretation for my own: The Queen will die when the planets align. N.G.

The Space Force is nothing more than Christmas decor.
The Space Force is nothing more than Christmas decor. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Joe Biden will quietly close the U.S Space Force. Nothing to do here. What are you guarding? Space. Just space.

Those who are familiar with Mike Leigh's greatest film Naked will get the scene I'm getting at:


Johnny: And what is it what goes on in this post-modern gas chamber?
Brian: Nothing. It's empty.
Johnny: So what is it you guard, then?
Brian: Space.
Johnny: You're guarding space? That's stupid, isn't it? Because someone could break in there and steal all the fuckin' space and you wouldn't know it's gone, would you?
Brian: Good point.

Also the name "Space Force" is just too horrible. The future will not miss the absence of this Trump-era nonsense. From the vacuum it came, to the vacuum it will return. C.M.

COVID patients will be trapped in their homes by winter storms. I hate writing gloomy predictions, but there’s a big snowstorm heading for the east coast that will spell disaster for people whose COVID symptoms are worsening. Roads will become icy and impassable at the worst possible time for people who picked up the virus at their ill-conceived Thanksgiving gatherings or during crowded mall shopping. Vulnerable patients who find it hard to breathe will have to weigh an awful decision: Whether to stay at home and hope they improve, or whether they should risk a trip to the hospital in the middle of a blizzard. M.B.

Parler will become a new social media site for unverified porn. Yesterday, Pornhub announced a major decision to delete all unverified videos from its website after the New York Times dropped an article about the amount of child sexual abuse videos on the site. While the move could protect victims, I predict that Parler—the pro-Trump, "pro-free speech" social network—will become the new dump for amateur and unverified porn content on the internet. Adult content is already reportedly overrunning Parler due to its lax moderation policy. While its founder and CEO has pointed to similarities between its company and Twitter, its base users are decidedly more conservative, which I believe will make it fertile ground for blue check-less pornos. J.K.

Expect suicides in the rural areas to spike because the idea of living through another four years with yet another black president, which is what Biden basically is, will be too much to bear. Biden was second-in-command to a black man, and now his second-in-command is a black woman. What the fuck are all of these black people doing at the top, doing in the house for white men, the White House? For many, the idea of going from the absolute high of Trump to the low of these miscegenating Obama Muslim Indian Kenyan West Indian people will be intolerable. Why not just end it all now. Lots of guns in the farmhouse. The night is too long. The coyotes are howling again. The dawn arrives with another rural corpse on the living room floor. C.M.

Dubbing will be normal among U.S. streaming services. I've always loved dubbing, especially bad dubbing, and while it's popular in animes, it's never been prevalent in U.S. TV. That might be changing with HBO Max's popular (and dubbed) Spanish series Veneno. As streaming services try to make the most out of their international catalogs, they'll start pulling Spanish-language TV and adding more dubbing. I'm into it. C.B.

Bleak.
Bleak. Photo by Hannah McKay - Pool/Getty Images

Apple will capitalize on people saying goodbye to their dying loved ones via FaceTime in a new iPad commercial. ICUs around the country are keeping iPads on deck for patients dying of COVID-19 to communicate with their families, sometimes for the last time. I know Apple executives are drooling over this as potential ad content. They're sitting on a glossy, monochrome commercial. Don't want to die alone? Buy an iPad. Maybe it'll play during the Super Bowl. N.G.

NOW, LET'S GET LOCAL, SEATTLE:

KOMO’s "Seattle is Dying" and "Fight for the Soul of Seattle" will be effective propaganda during the 2021 election. This past weekend KOMO News came out with another ~*~* exposé *~*~ on the alleged degradation of Seattle called "Fight for the Soul of Seattle." I think it was supposed to be a sequel to 2019's "Seattle Is Dying." Honestly, I didn't watch it. I didn't need to because "The Fight for the Soul of Seattle" is the same fear-mongering about homelessness, drug use, and police response times KOMO has churned out before. It's propaganda. And while most people who are well-read on local issues can dismiss these features as bullshit, I'm worried about how these programs will impact the rest of Seattle voters. The themes in these segments will be the themes the non-progressive candidates in the 2021 mayoral and council elections will run on—safety, sweeping parks, no new taxes, etc.— and progressives will need to counter them with facts. These candidates will capitalize on the unease Seattleites are feeling during a year of pain and anxiety. Hopefully, Seattle voters can separate fact from fiction. N.G.

The digital Space Needle New Year's Eve show won't keep people out of the streets. After high winds forced the cancellation of fireworks last year and pandemic restrictions prevent partying this year, the 2021 New Year's Eve at the Space Needle will be a virtual light show. The Needle will be lit up magenta in color, but the Terry Morgan-designed show will only be viewable at home on screen. While it looks cool, I'm fucking exhausted of looking at my computer screen—and I imagine many other Seattleites will be too. Despite this attempt to keep people home, I predict that rogue groups of drunk city dwellers will roam the streets around the fireworks-less Space Needle on December 31, eager to welcome the new year in-person. J.K.

Moving on up... a few floors.
Moving on up... a few floors. Getty Images

Lots of renters are moving on up... to a nicer apartment in their building. As Seattle apartment building's ritziest tenants rush out of the city to buy homes, the renters in lower-priced units will start snagging deals from landlords who are desperate to retain their tenants. That room with no view in 207 might get upgraded to a seventh-floor corner unit for half the usual price. I'm thinking of this paragraph from the Seattle Times, below. C.B.

With apartment vacancies rising downtown and some other neighborhoods, some renters are taking advantage of move-in incentives to upgrade to nicer apartments—sometimes in the same buildings, says [Alex] White, [owner of Seattle-based A-Ray’s Moving Solutions,] who adds that in more than a decade in the business, he has never seen landlords working so hard to keep or retain tenants.

Seattle's waterfront will be a hot hangout this summer. After a miserable cooped-up winter, Seattle’s going to burst out of the house at the first hint of warm sunny weather, and the waterfront will be our unlikely destination. For as long as anyone can remember, it’s maintained a “best avoided” status thanks to that double-decker freeway and the conglomeration of tourist traps. But constructions crews will have spent the long dark winter months toiling away to make it sparkle, and while the full waterfront revitalization won’t be complete for another few years, this summer will see a number of attractions open for business and 500 new trees planted along pedestrian paths from the piers up to Belltown. Our hibernation period will make it seem as though the area’s improved overnight — and that’s before the full promenade is complete, currently slated for 2023. M.B.

Outgoing Seattle Public Schools superintendent Denise Juneau will make more money when she leaves the position if former Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best is any example. As Best told KING5's Chris Daniels, she's now working for an unnamed "private security company" doing some "corporate security work handling their Middle East, Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America accounts." Life isn't the worst for a scorned former government official. C.B.

ONE MORE...

You will find a portal to an enchanted ice palace in the trunk of your car. Ugh, a flat tire in this weather? What a headache. You will pop open the trunk of your car, scrabbling under the pile of bungee cords and old folded grocery bags that you’d been meaning to tidy up for months, and your hand will find the loop that lifts up the patch of flooring where you know — or hope — the jack resides. Why is it so cold, though? Lifting the mat, you will be blinded for a moment by a freezing wind and a bright blue light. There in the trunk of your car, beneath the flap stained brown three years ago from a burst bottle of soda, you will see a window into a crystalline hallway, suits of armor made of glistening ice lining the walls. You will glance backwards at the traffic rushing past where you’d parked on Madison Ave — is anyone else seeing this? And then a frozen hand will clutch at yours, ice crystals prickling against your palm, and a voice will call out: “Quickly — come with me! Before they catch you!” M.B.