Everybody was wrong.....

The Worst Political Predictions of 2017

Spoiler alert: Everybody was wrong.

By ZACK STANTON and DEREK ROBERTSON

A year ago at this time, the world was falling apart. That, or on the verge of being saved. Or maybe something in between; it depended on whom you asked.

The uncertainty of that moment was the natural heir of all the surprises of 2016: the Brexit vote in favor of leaving the European Union, the election of Donald Trump, the defeat of Hillary Clinton, the World Series victory of the Chicago Cubs, and so on.

From that vantage point, predictions about the year we’re now finishing—a time that would mark the end of the Obama era, the first year of the Trump presidency, and a rolling elite identity crisis that has reached every corner of the globe—seemed even more uncertain than usual.

Of course, predictions are ever thus—guess at the outcome of something, and you’re bound to be wrong a decent amount of the time. And boy, did people get all sorts of things wrong this year.

So as 2017 gets put to bed and dreams for the new year dance in our heads, it’s worth pausing to reflect on the gulf between where we are now and where some people thought we’d be.

Here, a review of some of the worst prognosticators and predictions about 2017:

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Prediction: ‘Trump will resign by year end’
Made by: Tony Schwartz

Barring a brain-scrambling development over the next few days (which, this being 2017, is both extremely unlikely but not impossible), President Trump’s onetime ghostwriter will have gotten this wrong. It was, Schwartz tweeted, not just a prediction, but a prayer; lucky for Trump, it remains unanswered.

Prediction: ‘Will North Korea successfully test a nuclear-capable missile [in 2017]? No.’
Made by: Bryan Harris

When the Financial Times forecast the world in 2017, their Seoul bureau chief made a bold prediction: North Korea would not test a nuclear-capable missile in 2017. “At a time of increasing volatility in the US,” he wrote, “Pyongyang does not know how far retaliation might extend.”

It was a reasonable stance, but one the Kim regime has thoroughly rejected.

As the U.S. military described in a July assessment of the regime’s nuclear capabilities, North Korea has already developed a warhead compact enough to fit onto an ICBM. Since February, North Korea has launched at least 16 tests and fired 23 missiles, including its first test of an (unarmed) intercontinental ballistic missile. Of course, Trump himself made the same prediction as the Financial Times, tweeting on Jan. 2: “North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won’t happen!”

It happened.

Prediction: Jared Kushner will be a moderating influence on President Trump
Made by: Rick Reed (among many, many others)

Early on, the Beltway read on Jared Kushner was that he would temper the president’s more incendiary tendencies; Kushner—hailing from a family of Democratic donors, and endowed with the unusual dual status of presidential aide and son-in-law—would be a much-needed voice of reason countervailing Steve Bannon within the White House.

“Certainly a president needs someone to say, ‘Look, this isn’t helpful to you, this isn’t helpful to the country,’” Trump ad man Rick Reed told New York magazine in January, sharing a view widely held among the chattering class. “I think Jared will play that role.”

In reality, Kushner has repeatedly steered Trump’s administration into perilous waters—including advocating the firing of FBI Director James Comey and reportedly urging Michael Flynn to contact Russia during the transition.

Prediction: ‘Trump will make infrastructure a high priority because it will give him a speedy bipartisan win’
Made by: Tory Newmyer and Geoff Colvin

In the annual “Crystal Ball” collection from Fortune magazine, Newmyer and Colvin surveyed what they imagined to be the highlights of then-President-elect Trump’s first year in office. While some of their predictions were prescient, if obvious (e.g. climate regulations were rolled back), their top prediction for Trump’s first year—“The U.S. Gets a Giant New Infrastructure Bill”—did not happen. Instead, White House “Infrastructure Week” became a running joke among reporters as they watched the president jettison the idea and hew to a decidedly partisan legislative agenda of repealing Obamacare and cutting taxes. Trump is vowing to take up his infrastructure plan in the new year, however.

Prediction: Ed Gillespie will beat Ralph Northam, thanks to Corey Stewart’s voters
Made by: Steve Bannon

The Saturday before Election Day 2017, Breitbart impresario and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon spoke at a conservative conference in Washington, D.C., and made a bold prediction about the looming Virginia gubernatorial race: Republican nominee Ed Gillespie would win, buoyed by the enthusiasm generated by the neo-Confederate politics of Corey Stewart, whom he defeated in the GOP primary.

“I do believe that Gillespie’s going to pull this thing out,” Bannon said, and “it will be because of the underlying message of Corey Stewart and what he believes in, and the Trump voters in Virginia, who are gonna turn out!”

Three days later, Democratic nominee Ralph Northam won by nine points, a substantial margin that some observers attributed to the ads Gillespie ran in the closing months—which had a Bannon-esque focus on crime by undocumented immigrants and a Stewart-ian defense of Confederate monuments.

Prediction: ‘Trump is headed for a do-nothing presidency’
Made by: Josh Barro

In April, Business Insider senior editor Josh Barro unveiled a litany of predictions about the Trump presidency, a majority of which turned out to be incorrect.

“The implosion of the American Health Care Act has left Trump with Barack Obama’s healthcare policy,“ Barro wrote. “Trump healthcare policy change: nothing.” It’s true that Republicans have been unable to pass a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act. But since then, Trump and the GOP-led Congress have worked together to eliminate the individual mandate, ripping out one of the central components of Obamacare.

“My bet on a Trump tax legacy: nothing,” Barro wrote. In December, the Republican Congress passed—and President Trump signed—a sweeping overhaul of the tax system, slashing corporate rates to 20 percent and lowering income taxes for most Americans. It wasn’t quite the “you’re your taxes on a postcard” reform Republicans promised—and Democrats have railed against the bill’s tilt toward the wealthy—but it wasn’t nothing.

“A Trumpist remaking of American trade policy is looking less and less likely,” said Barro. NAFTA negotiation talks are ongoing—characterized by “acrimony, inflexibility and finger-pointing,” in the words of the Toronto Star—and government officials in both Mexico and Canada are bracing for major changes to their trade with the U.S. Meanwhile, the administration has torpedoed the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal with a dozen Asian countries and signaled looming trade actions against China in 2018.

Barro’s suggestion highlights a messaging problem for those opposed to Trump: You can argue that he’s dangerous and wrong for the country, and you can argue that he’s ineffective; but if you argue both, the latter effectively neuters the former.

Prediction: ‘In six months, Trump will be holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy’
Made by: John Aravosis

In February, following news that Trump aides communicated with Russian operatives before the election, liberal commentator John Aravosis imagined that Trump would face a dire outcome in the near future. “He’ll be lucky if all we do is impeach him,” Aravosis tweeted. “I predict in 6 months Trump will be holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy.”

In fact, exactly six months after Aravosis made that prediction, Trump woke up at his manse in Bedminster, New Jersey, and went to the White House for a few meetings before departing to spend the evening holed up at his beloved Trump Tower in Manhattan.

Prediction: With Scaramucci reporting to Trump, chief of staff John Kelly will be gone by January 1
Made by: John Podhoretz

For one brief, shining moment, “The Mooch” burned brightly in the constellation of Trump advisers. When, on July 21, Anthony Scaramucci, a brash New York financier without any work experience in either politics or communications, was named White House communications director, it went against the reported advice of Trump’s top advisers. Scaramucci did not let his time go to waste.

A few days into his tenure, he made a run at chief of staff Reince Priebus, blaming him for leaks to the press. On July 27, Priebus resigned as chief of staff. The next day, Trump announced that John Kelly, the retired general and sitting secretary of Homeland Security, would be his successor—but the White House noted that senior aides like Scaramucci would report directly to the president rather than to Kelly.

The news prompted John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary and a conservative columnist for the New York Post, to suggest that the arrangement would work to The Mooch’s advantage. “Kelly gone by Jan 1,” Podhoretz tweeted on July 28.

It was not to be. Kelly, in one of his first major acts as chief of staff, ousted Scaramucci after just 10 days after his appointment was announced, following his potty-mouthed rant to New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza. Kelly, meanwhile, remains firmly in place at the White House; somehow, The Mooch is writing a memoir about his fleeting White House tenure.

Prediction: Mitch McConnell will make it into 2018 without passing a tax bill
Made by: Laura Ingraham

Fresh off the stinging embarrassment of the failed GOP effort to repeal Obamacare, Laura Ingraham suggested that the Senate majority leader wasn’t up to the job when it came time to marshal support for a tax cut: “Prediction: The ‘sage of the Senate’ Mitch McConnell will get to 2018 and still not be able to pass a tax bill.”

Shortly before 1 a.m. on Wednesday, December 20, McConnell did exactly that, and the Republican tax plan passed the Senate, 51-48.

Prediction: The House will pass AHCA (in March), ‘and pundits will fawn over Trump’
Made by: Peter Daou

On March 22, as the Republican repeal of Obamacare ambled its way through the halls of Congress, the Clinton-aligned Democratic strategist Peter Daou took to Twitter: “PREDICTION: #AHCA will pass the House and pundits will fawn over Trump for his big ‘win.’”

Two days later, the House’s vote on the measure fell apart after Republicans realized they didn’t have the votes to pass it and pulled the bill from the floor. In the ensuing chaos, blame was heaped on Trump for his lack of legislative savvy. For his part, Daou later tweeted that he was “happy to be wrong about this prediction, at least for today.” The House did, however, make another run at repealing Obamacare and passed a bill on May 4. It died in the Senate.

Prediction: ‘Trump will throw Roy Moore under the bus’ following sexual assault allegations
Made by: Bill Kristol

The political world was rocked on November 9, when the Washington Post published a blockbuster report alleging that in 1979, Roy Moore, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Alabama’s special election, initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl when he was 32. The Post’s story eased the way for several other women to come forward with their own allegations about Moore’s inappropriate sexual behavior toward them as teens.

To Bill Kristol, the conservative #NeverTrump bulwark, this seemed like a bridge too far for President Donald Trump. “Prediction: In the next 24 hours, Trump will throw Roy Moore under the bus,” Kristol tweeted on November 15. To Kristol’s dismay, no such distancing occurred—in fact, as the allegations mounted, Trump cast doubt on the accusations and moved closer to Moore’s campaign, offering him his official endorsement, marshalling the Republican National Committee’s resources, and recording a robo-call on Moore’s behalf. It didn’t work: Moore narrowly lost the race to Democrat Doug Jones.

Prediction: Trump’s inauguration will have a ‘record-setting’ attendance with ‘plenty’ of movie stars
Made by: Donald J. Trump

The morning after Meryl Streep gave an impassioned political speech at the Golden Globes last January, an incensed President-elect Trump told the New York Times that he expected that his inauguration 11 days later would have strong support from celebrities.

“We are going to have an unbelievable, perhaps record-setting turnout for the inauguration, and there will be plenty of movie and entertainment stars,” Trump said. “All the dress shops are sold out in Washington. It’s hard to find a great dress for this inauguration.”

In reality, Washington’s dress shops were not sold out (“There’s never been less demand for inaugural ballgowns in my 38 years,” one boutique owner told People magazine), the turnout for his inauguration was estimated to be the lowest in 20 years, and there were notably fewer celebrities in town for the festivities than for past administrations. Sean Spicer, Trump’s first White House press secretary, was lampooned for claiming it was “the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.” It wasn’t.

Prediction: Mueller’s probe will be ‘narrow’ and will likely be done by the end of 2017
Predicted by: Ty Cobb

In mid-August, roughly three weeks into his job managing all legal matters related to special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation of ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, mustachioed super-lawyer Ty Cobb told Reuters that the the entire ordeal would soon come to a close.

“I’d be embarrassed if this is still haunting the White House by Thanksgiving and worse if it’s still haunting him by year end,” Cobb said. “I think the relevant areas of inquiry by the special counsel are narrow.”

At the end of October, a grand jury indicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates, and former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty for lying to the FBI. Thanksgiving came and went. December began with Mueller obtaining a guilty plea from former national security adviser Michael Flynn. And recent days carried reports that Mueller’s team has obtained the Trump team’s emails from the transition, and that the special counsel’s staff expects to be working well into 2018—all of which is to say that Cobb was badly wrong about both the timeline of the investigation and also its heaving scale.

Prediction: Ivanka Trump will pull Trump to the left on climate change, LGBT rights and immigration
Made by: Gayle King (among others)

Much like her husband, Ivanka Trump was the object of breathless speculation early on that she would be something of a human cooling saucer in her father’s administration—someone whose personal politics are reportedly left-of-center, and whose status as a prominent woman in Manhattan’s social scene translated into an ability to advocate strongly for those groups who often found themselves on the receiving end of her father’s bombast.

In promoting an April interview with the first daughter, Gayle King, co-host of CBS’ “This Morning,” said that Ms. Trump would be able to “walk into the Oval Office” and tone down her father’s policies on issues including climate change, LGBT rights and immigration.

That moderation has yet to manifest itself any meaningful way—let alone on the issues King cited. The Trump administration has withdrawn the U.S. from the Paris climate deal; Trump’s Justice Department recently argued in front of the Supreme Court in favor of a cakeshop that refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple; and the president himself has slashed refugee visas, continued to rail against “chain migration,” pushed for a reduction in green cards and voiced his intent to scrap the diversity visa program.

Prediction: By September, ‘it’s going to be super-awkward to be anti-Trump’
Made by: Scott Adams

On Feb. 20, Scott Adams, the Trump-loving Dilbert creator who really wants you to know he’s a “trained hypnotist,” suggested that he expected Trump’s fortunes to change by summer’s end—and for the American people’s opinion of Trump to change along with it.

“It’s going to be super-awkward to be anti-Trump in six months,” he tweeted. At the time, Trump’s approval rating was roughly 44 percent, with 50 percent of Americans disapproving.

Six months after Adams’ tweet, the percentage of Americans disapproving of Trump had grown and his support had shrunk: On August 20, Trump’s approval rating hovered around 37 percent, with 56 percent of Americans disapproving. Now, fully 10 months after Scott’s tweet, those numbers are more or less the same.

Prediction: Trump will end 2017 with an approval rating above 60 percent
Made by: SE Cupp

As of this writing, the Gallup poll pegs Trump’s approval rating at a mere 36 percent, with 59 percent of respondents disapproving of his performance as president. That’s a far cry from the approval rating of “60%+” that CNN political commentator SE Cupp predicted Trump would end the year with.

Technically, there’s still time for Trump to win over one-fourth of the public and bring up his approval rating, but baring some Lazarus-scale resurrection in the next few days, it isn’t going to happen.

Prediction: White House aides will keep Trump from tweeting
Made by: Ari Fleischer

The mid-summer communications shake-up that led to Anthony Scaramucci’s meteoric rise and fall had some Trump boosters, like former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer, hoping that a more pugnacious figure behind the podium would cool the president’s itchy Twitter fingers.

“If the president thinks he’s surrounded by good people fighting for him, defending him and doing a really good job at it, then the president won’t feel the need to push boundaries himself and make the mistakes that he’s made on Twitter,” Fleischer said to the New York Times.

Just eight days later, Scaramucci was out and Trump was as prolific as ever, calling Republican senators “total quitters” and sarcastically deriding the “geniuses” taking credit for his election win – and despite a simpatico mouthpiece in Scaramucci’s successor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the president hasn’t signaled he’ll hold his fire anytime soon. The White House chief of staff, John Kelly, has told others that policing the president’s Twitter habits isn’t his job, either.

Prediction: Al Franken could be a formidable 2020 candidate
Made by: Chris Cillizza (among others)

In the months of agonized soul-searching that followed Hillary Clinton’s presidential loss, the Democratic Party was desperate for a savior – and just as intensely split on where to look for them. While the so-called Clinton and Sanders wings of the party squabbled over who would be their most effective proxy, the success of the unconventional and impolitic new president had some pundits turning their eye to a similarly sui generis figure in Minnesota Sen. (and SNL alum) Al Franken.

“Nominate just another politician in 2020 and, I've believed, Democrats are playing into Trump's hands,” wrote Chris Cillizza in a February Washington Post editorial. “Who better to run against someone like [Trump] than a stand-up comedian who made a living needling people?”

Ten months and eight sexual harassment allegations later, Franken is a pariah in the party, caught up in this fall’s wave of revelations that have forced dozens of predatory men out of public life. Franken will resign from the Senate on January 2nd, to be replaced by Minnesota Lt. Gov. Tina Smith—someone whom the next Democratic presidential candidate might resemble far more than they will Franken.

Prediction: Donald Trump Will Stop Tweeting
Made by: Donald J. Trump

"I'm going to be very restrained, if I use it at all, I'm going to be very restrained."

“It,” of course, being Twitter – the social media platform of choice for the president’s blustering, frequently all-caps, “MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL” communications with the public. Trump gave 60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl the above reassurance just six days after the election, and just three days before lashing out again at the “fools” at the “failing @nytimes” for their perceived shortcomings. Next came his attack on an Indiana union leader, and over the course of the year his graphic insult toward Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinski, and his hectoring of the “short and fat” Kim Jong Un, and on down the line – just over 2100 tweets in all, as of this writing (and not counting retweets).

The president appears on this list twice with examples of a particular genre of wrong prediction – the failed attempt to call one’s own shot. To survey the landscape, make a forecast, and be proven wrong is easily slugged off, just another occupational hazard pundits face in an increasingly unpredictable world. “We’re not in the predictions business anymore” was a common refrain in 2017, and while it bears a whiff of retreat it’s easy to understand the reluctance to play a game that even in the relatively placid, end-of-history 1990s never had a high success rate.

The inability to self-predict is deeper and more personal than failed punditry. It can call into doubt our most basic assumptions about ourselves. Trump’s fate is intertwined with that of the country; a prediction about him is a prediction about us all. So if you turn on the news this year and feel slightly disoriented by the accelerating pace at which conventional wisdom is being upended, take heart – there’s a good chance it’s less frightening than the view from the White House.