Chunking Ahead to the End of This Decade

And maybe something I should attempt.

by Simon Handle

Cassidy Steele Dale writes to equip you with the forecasts, foresight skills and perspectives, and tools you may need to create a better, kinder world.

And one of those ways is to see what I need to write.

Longtime readers of Think Future know that every so often I do what some professional futurists do — which I call “chunking ahead.” It means taking a look out at the near future in chunks or windows of time. What’s due to happen or what we’ll be due to face during the next three months, then the three months after, then the three months after that. That sort of thing.

Sometimes I “chunk ahead” a year or two or five or ten ahead.

• Side note/reminder: On Election Night I said that the American people had fairly and freely chosen to try another form of government for four years and at the end of that time we would decide whether or not to continue with that new form of government or return to American democracy. The jury on that, of course, is still out.

Since the beginning of Think Future I’ve slowly been writing scenarios for different chunks of time ahead. Now, I haven’t told you that’s what I was doing, I didn’t publish them in chronological order, I haven’t written scenarios for every chunk of time yet, and I absolutely have not tied them together into any coherent through-line.

But here’s what I’ve written so far — and what I haven’t — and I may need to integrate all these disparate pieces together soon.

Chunk 1: What May Happen During the First Two Years of Trump 2.0? (2025-2026)

Back in January I put together mini-scenarios for the first two years of Trump 2.0 — up until the midterms. It’s too early to know which of these futures will emerge but there are strong cases to be made for Full Fascism or for Fizzled Firecracker. If (a) the Supreme Court rules in his favor in ways that further enact the unitary executive theory and if (b) the parts of the One Big Beautiful Bill that eliminate or undermine checks and balances get passed, then Full Fascism becomes more likely; if not and he drives us into recession or worse, then we’ll probably get Fizzled Firecracker.

• Critical to understand what I’m saying and not saying in all of these scenario sets — along with necessary context and trend information and reasoning — please see the original links for each.

Chunk 2: What May Happen During the Back Half of Trump 2.0? (2027-2028)

I haven’t written these yet. Oddly, it’s a window of time I haven’t been able to imagine yet.

Chunk 3: What Happens Right After If Trump Leaves Office Prematurely? (Whenever)

Last month or whenever, in What If Trump Dies? I covered what may happen in the wake of Trump’s premature departure depending on how and why his premature departure occurs. These mini-scenarios include whether he (a) suffers a natural death, (b) suffers a natural debilitating event that requires his Cabinet remove him, (c) suffers a mental collapse or degree of dementia that requires his Cabinet remove him, (d) is assassinated by a liberal, (e) is assassinated by a Republican, and (f) is assassinated by anyone but dies in a cowardly manner.

Chunk 4: What Happens to the GOP Post-Trump? (Whenever)

Last August, in Potential Futures for the GOP I covered the set of pickles the GOP will be in following Trump’s political departure from the scene either in 2028 or whenever he’s gone or no longer viable. Again, there’s a lot more at the original link.

Chunk 5: What Form of Government Does the United States Have by the 2028 Election?

I haven’t written this yet but currently it appears to be a question of whether Trump, his Cabinet, the GOP-controlled Congress, Project 2025, and the Supreme Court can successfully structurally change American governance from a democratic republic to a mild form of dictatorship that experts-in-authoritarian-regimes Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way refer to as competitive authoritarianism. Competitive authoritarian regimes are still democracies in that elections are still held — and might be free and fair (but often not) — but whoever wins will hold authoritarian powers that he or she can use to act vindictively (legally and unstoppably) against one’s political opponents, including ordinary dissenters. I’m still weeding through the debates over whether a U.S. slide into competitive authoritarianism would be reversible. I see lots of reasons and signs of hope already and other countries like Poland appear to have looked right down of the barrel of this sort of thing and turned it around.

Chunk 6: What Does the Democratic Party Become Next?

I haven’t written this yet but I’m probably going to use Jonathan Chait’s conceptual map (published earlier this week in The Atlantic) of the upcoming ‘civil war’ within the Democratic Party for half of what I’m considering doing. (I may also drag Stewart Brand’s The Whole Earth Discipline — his relatively recent sequel to his longago original The Whole Earth Catalog — into my mix.)

Chunk 7: Futures for American Democracy by 2040.

In my very first Think Future newsletter (from July 2023), Possible Futures for American Democracy, I wrote a long diagnosis of our current circumstance and I identified trends, variables, victory conditions for democracy’s survival, and much more. My scenario matrix for that remains largely sound.

Here’s the thing: now that I look at everything together, Chunks 1-4 are relevant to the vertical axis above and Chunk 6 is relevant to the horizontal. Chunks 5 and 7 are — or would be — so closely related to each other that they should become the same thing somehow. Chunk 7 still works but specifics of each of the four scenarios are becoming clearer now.

Sorry to go off the rails a bit here. This may just be a futurist talking to himself.

Maybe I need to merge and revise all of these into one master set of scenarios for Futures of American Governance.

• Something that integrates and simplifies my thinking — but mostly-moreso the thinking of a lot of folks who are smarter than me.

• And I’m not sure whether it would be a set of forecasts or instead a conceptual map of the conflicts of the now.

• Or maybe it would be both. Could be both.

I wonder if I can do this.

Probably can’t.

Eh. Well. Maybe I can.

Or maybe I can try and at least show the failed attempt. And — for teaching purposes — show how a professional futurist reasons through all this in order to think future.

Hmm…

This may take a few weeks to figure out.

Maybe this is a bad idea. Or a bad good idea.

Either way, it would take some time, some crazy, and a metric ton of caffeine. And I’ve got almost one of the three.