What We Can Know About This Winter

Trump, snow, and shutdowns -- but, no, that's not cumulatively a reference to anything.

Origin I_Am_Puma… but Important Reminder to all you magnificent pumas out there: Get some nice warm pajamas for this winter.

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 show you how a futurist is thinking about what’s ahead over the course of this winter.

A few quick hits:

(1) We’ve dodged a federal government shutdown (for the moment) because Johnson and Jeffries forged a temporary Coalition of the Willing and sidelined the GOP hardliners (for the moment). Which means (1) we’ll have another shutdown showdown in eight weeks and another in ten weeks and (2) GOP hardliners now effectively function as a separate party within the House even though the GOP maintains a slight majority. This means that no legislation will pass in the House without the support of Democrats. What this means for getting aid passed for Israel, Ukraine — or even getting a lunch order passed, I just don’t know but we may be in for a few weeks of dumb scrum. And either everyone will be good and mad by the new shutdown thresholds arrive or GOP hardliners may think twice once we’re in an election year and/or Trump’s numbers start to change.

(2) Trump’s political outlook may be very different by the time spring arrives. His New York civil fraud case is already in the penalty phase and we’ll know how much he’ll have to pay by maybe December or January. (Just Security maintains a master calendar of Trump’s court proceedings here.) We’ll also know whether he’ll be charged for lying under oath, which he’s been plainly doing. (His rants in court while under oath conflict with what he said in his deposition under oath. That is what lawyers call a “bad fact.” Worse, Trump’s been bad-fact-ing literally right in front of the judge and the judge knows it. That behavior is what lawyers call “really bad.”)

• Side note: No Trump supporter I’ve talked to seems to understand that being found liable in a civil case is a guilty verdict; they seem to think he’s still being tried for fraud rather than he’s already been convicted of fraud and now the debate is over how large his punishment should be.

• How large might his punishment be? $250 million, canceling of his business licenses in New York state and taking his businesses and assets and placing them into receivership where they could be chopped up and sold to pay his fines. These would include his New York properties like Trump Tower but may also include Mar-A-Lago. By the end of this case his business empire could be gone.

• What would this do to his political chances? I’m not sure. Recent polls of Trump supporters indicate he could lose 6% or more of his base if he were convicted of a serious crime but no one’s asked whether they’d still vote for him if he were no longer a successful businessman — which is a large part of his public image and credibility. We should start finding that out before winter is over.

(3) Mo’ snow, mo’ problems. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center released their winter forecast outlook a few days ago. Short form? Conditions overall are ripe for a much snowier winter than those of recent years. But only east of the Rockies. Which according to the map is a lot. (I used math.) Their forecast of course isn’t specific enough to tell, for example, DC area residents whether we’ll have big snowstorms like Snowmageddon in 2010 or like Clusterflake that happened not long after. (Yes, those storms were so bad that DC area residents named them.)

• So, you know, hooray — I’ll finally get to take my kids sledding now that they’re old enough to sled by themselves and not be bundled up like the last big snow when they would just roll out of the sled like potatoes wrapped in Nerf.

• Note to Futurist Self: If Nerf’s R&D department ever moves away from weapon development and into clothing, invest immediately. That way — later — if I’m ever hit by a car and go sailing into the air I want to be able to say WHEEEEEEE.

But I like electricity; it’s pretty important to what I do. The problem is that the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) — yes, yet another regulatory entity that works for, you know, us — just warned that all of the power grid east of the Rockies (square mileage: a lot) is at risk of collapse in the event of a weather wallop, especially a prolonged one. (Exceptions: the Southeast, Land of No Snow, and upstate New York, Land of, I don’t know, Robust Power Infrastructure?)

• Last year 18% of the United States’ electricity generation failed during winter storm Elliott, leaving hundreds of thousands without power in the cold, according to a study released last month by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. (Another government entity working for us? How long, O Lord? Will these tyrannical benefits to the public never cease??) And no Texan will ever forget the ice storm/power outage of January 2021. (Why does this happen? This might be an accurate rudimentary explanation but I’m not qualified to gauge it.)

So this winter, if you live in a place that gets snow, might get snow, or might be snow-adjacent, maybe this year make yourself a plan.

This has been (almost literally) a Public Service Announcement.

Programming note: Next week’s newsletter will come out on Wednesday morning rather than Thursday because next Thursday is Thanksgiving and ain’t nobody going to read a newsletter on Thanksgiving. So next week’s will be on some light, fun stuff to help you and your family not kill or argue each other into oblivion during the Thanksgiving holiday so you’ll be alive and functional tomorrow to actually make a better tomorrow. That newsletter might involve mayonnaise, World War 2, some instructional videos for living in the South, and Roy Wood, Jr. — but not mixed together because that would be crazy.