Looking back on 2022 and ahead to 2023
This will probably be the last thing I write this year. I hope everyone reading this enjoys the holidays and has a happy new year. Thank you all for subscribing and I hope you are enjoying it. I set an informal goal of averaging one piece a week and am happy to say that I achieved it. I hope to continue writing that often or more next year.
2022 is almost over and a big year it most definitely was. Both here and abroad, plenty of major events happened. As far as it affects most everyone here’s lives, the pandemic is over. Almost everyone is living their life again. As far as I know, there are no more government-imposed pandemic restrictions still in place. A few private places may still have them, but other than that everyone is free to go about their lives as they please. Many of the lingering effects of the pandemic are still with us and will be for some time, but dealing with that is going to be a longer term project and not one that is going to be solved by wearing masks or socially distancing.
I wrote at the end of last year about what to expect for 2022. As is my MO, I made almost no predictions because I have no clue. The only confident prediction I made was that the pandemic would be over. I am happy to say that was right. My main reason for thinking it would end was not that there would no longer be any problems from it. It was that it would end because it would have to. With virtually everyone getting the virus, myself included, it was not tenable to continue to mandate masks and restrict gatherings. People were not going to tolerate that any longer. Life was going to go back to normal because there was no other way.
The question was when that would happen, not if. I thought at first that getting rid of mask mandates would be controversial. In a few places it was, but overall not so much. When the mask mandate for flying was struck down by a judge in April, the Biden Administration barely raised a fuss and there was no backlash from passengers or airlines. Schools and other government buildings got rid of mask mandates with little to no backlash. Even the most cautious places got on board and, as far as I can tell, there is no clamoring for a return to mask mandates and social distancing.
I would say that the pandemic really began its quick end when the biggest geopolitical event of the year happened in February. That was when Russia invaded Ukraine. That event kicked coverage of the pandemic off the front pages. From March 2020 until February this year, the pandemic got front page news coverage every day. After the invasion, it stopped being on the front pages and has seldom returned since. Yes, that is a non-scientific metric, but psychologically I think it meant a lot as it focused people’s minds on other things.
I wrote about Russia invading Ukraine right after it happened. At the time, Putin thought Russia would easily take over the entire country and would do so in a matter of days. He was hardly alone in thinking that. We are now past day 300 and Russia has not only not taken over Ukraine, it has lost territory that it took earlier this year and has gotten nowhere near Kyiv. Things are going so poorly for Russia that Putin has acknowledged that the situation is “complicated.”
The setbacks faced by Russia and the strong support for Ukraine from the west has been the single most encouraging international development this year. Putin clearly thought Europe would care more about staying warm than Ukraine and would not put up any resistance to him. He could not have been more wrong. Europe is more unified than it has been in decades and NATO is stronger than ever with Finland and Sweden now joining its ranks. Just as encouraging has been the large, bipartisan support for Ukraine in the US. A vocal minority notwithstanding, support for Ukraine is very strong here and will continue to be even with Republicans taking over the House next year.
In general, 2022 has been a good year for democracy. Beginning with Ukraine, people in one country after another showed that they care about being able to choose their own government and were willing to fight for it, literally and figuratively. In Brazil, Jair Bolsanaro was defeated in October. Surprisingly, he has been cooperative with the transition and has basically conceded defeat as have allies of his. In Peru, the now former president, Pedro Castillo, has been arrested after trying to abolish the legislature and declare himself a dictator. In the US, election deniers and candidates most associated with Trump did poorly in swing states. Republicans should have had a great year, but in part because so many of their candidates were lunatics they did not.
The single biggest event of the year in the US was the reversal of Roe v Wade in June. That decision ended nearly 50 years of federal protections for abortion rights. Some states have banned abortion altogether, but the pro-choice side has fought back and won some important victories. Kansas and Kentucky, both reliably red states, defeated anti-abortion amendments to their constitutions this year. Michigan, a perennial swing state, enshrined the right to abortion in its constitution. Abortion was part of what enabled Democrats to defy political gravity last month. I mentioned in my piece last year that reversing Roe had the potential to scramble the usual midterm calculus. While there is debate over how big of a role it played, there was clearly a significant impact, which will certainly continue into 2023 and beyond.
The flip side of 2022 being a good year for democracy is that it has been a bad year for authoritarians. Putin has suffered huge setbacks from invading Ukraine. His aura of being a competent strongman who has everything figured out is long gone. Russia’s days as an energy powerhouse are over. While Europe will go through some hardships weaning itself off of Russian gas, it will get through it and will be much stronger afterwards. Russia will have lost its biggest customer and no amount of selling oil and gas to China and India will be likely to make up for it. Russia will remain isolated even if the war in Ukraine ended right now. I doubt anyone in the west will ever trust Putin again and unless serious reforms are made to the Russian government, very few will be willing to engage with anyone there, i.e., the businesses that fled will not come back.
In China, the CCP backed off “Zero COVID” after widespread protests. Now, the virus is ripping through the country. Time will tell how bad it gets, but the only vaccine they have is not very good and the CCP seems to be winging it with no real plan at all. Like Putin, it is clear that Xi is not some kind of wizard. The CCP model is a warning, not a guide. Xi’s exerting greater control over their economy is likely to not end well and his desire to control everything everyone does for every second of their lives will mean taking away freedoms people may not be willing to give up. If he goes through with his plans, it may spark more protests.
For lack of a better phrase, the social contract people in China have entered into is being ripped apart by Xi. The deal was essentially that people there would tolerate a dictator as long as they enjoyed economic prosperity and some personal freedoms. That arrangement is dependent on a dictator keeping their word and accepting some limits on their power. Xi is certainly enthusiastic about the dictator part, but not the rest. China has enjoyed substantial economic growth for some time and people there have gained some personal freedoms, which Xi is intent on reversing. How that unfolds will be something to watch.
Like China and Russia, the ruling government in Iran has seen large protests against it. Protests began in September after an activist died in police custody after being arrested for refusing to wear a hijab. The protests are the largest against the government in more than 10 years. I have no idea where things will wind up, but it is great to see people protesting against a regime that is despicable in every way. One victory the protests have already achieved is that the government has abolished its “morality police.” It was that unit of the police that arrested the activist whose death sparked the protests in the first place.
It would be great to think that Putin, Xi and the Iranian regime will all be toppled and replaced by democracies that respect basic freedoms and human rights. But that would probably be wishful thinking. I don’t know what the odds are of any of those places doing that, but, for now, they are probably not great. I would love to be wrong on that and maybe 2023 will surprise us.
What to expect in 2023
You guessed it, I have no clue. I cannot confidently say I have any idea what things will look like in a year. Plenty of events will happen, as they always do, but I have no idea what they will be or what kind of effects they will have. I could make all kinds of guesses, but they would be just that.
What will the stock market look like? What will the federal funds rate be? Where will inflation and unemployment go? Your guess is as good as mine. For that matter, your guess is probably as good as anyone’s. Plenty of people are always making predictions about those things. Inevitably, some of them will be right and will get plenty of accolades because of it. The question will be whether they were right because they figured things out or if they were just lucky. I would bet on the latter, but who knows?
What will happen with Russia and Ukraine? I have no idea and nobody does either. Ideally, Russia would surrender, give back every ounce of territory it took, Putin would be deposed and tried for war crimes and Russia would rid itself of authoritarianism and become a democracy, but that is probably not the most likely outcome. We should all hope the war ends soon for so many reasons, but that it ends for good reasons, i.e., Russia surrendered. There is only one person on planet earth who could end it right now if he wanted to and that is Putin. He alone is at fault for starting the war. Do not let any apologist or excuse maker of his tell you otherwise.
How will China deal with the virus raging through its populace? I have no idea either. Unless they have been independently verified, I assume the numbers from the CCP are not reliable and vastly understate how bad things are. It will probably take a big toll in terms of health and economics, but how much is unknown as of today.
What about China invading Taiwan? Same answer. Hopefully, after seeing the backlash Russia has faced from invading Ukraine, China will be more hesitant to invade Taiwan. To say the least, if the invasion happens it would be a game changing event. Not only would it mean China is militarily asserting itself in the Pacific region, but Taiwan is home to the manufacturing of a large majority of advanced computer chips. If China took that, there is probably no place in the world that could make up for it. For so many reasons, we should all hope there is no invasion of Taiwan and that efforts to avoid it are successful.
As for Europe, hopefully they will have a milder than usual winter and spring and in a year will have shed their dependence on Russian gas. I have no doubt efforts will continue to be made to buy more gas from the US and the Middle East to move away from Russia. I have no idea how quickly that will happen, but hopefully it goes smoothly. The US is building more LNG terminals to export gas to Europe and that will continue. The good news is that Russia no longer has any economic leverage over Europe. Russia could cut off gas entirely, but that is a weapon that can only be used once and it depends on Europe blinking. I doubt Europe would blink and Russia would then be out of ammo and significantly diminished.
Looking to the US, I am more confident of what might happen next year if for no other reason than having much greater familiarity with it. The next Congress will probably be uneventful legislatively, which divided government usually is absent a crisis. Anything that does pass will probably be comparatively small and bipartisan because it will have to be. I think the potential for bipartisan work is greater than it would have been had there been a red wave. Republicans have a very narrow majority with only 222 seats. In light of some scandals involving one of their newly elected members, that number might wind up being 221.
There are several Republicans in House seats that Biden won in 2020 and they will probably not want to be associated with obstructionism. They will probably want to have some accomplishments that they can brag about in 2024. Exactly where bipartisan legislation could be passed is unclear although China seems like a prime area. Permitting reform is another area where bipartisan cooperation is possible. It is badly needed and I really hope the Biden Administration makes a push for it. Without it, their signature accomplishment, the Inflation Reduction Act, might accomplish only a fraction of its potential.
With respect to the upcoming presidential race, the Republican field will begin to take shape although that will probably not be until the second half of the year. Trump has already declared he is running again, but so far nobody seems to care. He may be on his way towards irrelevance or he may just be hitting a low point that he will bounce back from or something in between. Other Republicans will probably jump in some time next year. Ron DeSantis has been getting almost all of the attention so far. He may wind up being a juggernaut, an epic flop or just mediocre.* Anyone who is confident of how the Republican primary will turn out, let alone how 2024 will go, has no idea what they are talking about and should not be listened to.
As for Democrats, Biden will almost certainly run again. Yes, he is much older than any other president who ran for reelection was, but he is an incumbent president and, as long as he does not have health issues, he should run again. He just enjoyed the best midterm a Democratic president has had since 1962 and by some metrics since 1934. On top of that, he has been very successful at governing despite having the narrowest majorities in Congress. One of his campaign promises in 2020 was that he would lower the temperature and bring back bipartisanship. Plenty dismissed that as naïve and delusional, but Biden has in fact done both of those things, usually with very little press coverage or drama.
What if Biden does not run again? If that happens, I will write about it then. Until he says he is not running again, I am assuming that he will do so.
*There has been a long history of presidential candidates turning out very differently than they looked on paper. Examples of candidates who looked good on paper, but turned out not to be include Rick Perry, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton, Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani. Examples of the opposite include Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.