The media is peddling fear again.
This time it’s the prospect of 2024 bringing a black swan event to rock our world. Economists have adopted the term to describe unexpected, and catastrophic events. A black swan is rare outside of captivity so the black swan event — the term was popularized by a finance professor named Nassim Nicholas Taleb in a 2007 book that forecast the 2008 financial meltdown — is disastrous. On cue, economist Harry Dent is predicting a crash that will slow our economy for over a decade. “If I'm right, it is going to be the biggest crash of our lifetime, most of it happening in 2024.”
CBS reporter Catherine Herridge is also predicting a political “black swan event” next year, where internal rifts between Blue states and Red could provoke a civil war, creating “fertile ground for adversaries” in North Korea, China and Iran to attack the US. She didn’t say this but I will — Biden’s singularly weak US leadership, along with his overt corruption deals with China and Iran, do seem to make us vulnerable.
Notably, this fear-mongering is coming from both the liberal Dinosaur Media and the parallel Red State Media. Why? It brings viewers, readers, clickbait. A recent fundraising appeal by the conservative Western Journal offers an example:
The evil forces of Marxism have captured the Democratic Party and the elites of Washington are doing their best to deny President Trump even the opportunity to get on the ballot. With world war threatening, terrorists crossing our southern border by the droves, a weak and a stagnant economy, we just don’t know what to expect in the weeks ahead. …Despite whatever happens, The Western Journal will be there to describe, report and analyze the coming battles for America’s very existence. The Western Journal since 2008 has continually published 7 days a week, helping you understand the madness.
Predictions about the election abound. Former Gen. Michael Flynn warns the 2024 election might not even take place. Others say that Trump and Biden will not be the nominees of their parties, that — pick your description of the nefarious culprit — the Deep State, or Uni-Party Establishment, or Money Interests — will choose POTUS 47.
“If you really think ‘they’ are going to let either Trump or Biden get anywhere near the finish line, open your eyes folks. There’s something deeper going on. It’s staring us right in the face,” Vivek Ramaswamy posted on X last week. Ramaswamy believes money interests like Blackrock — not the US electorate — will select the next president. More, he thinks they want an all-war-all-the-time candidate like Nikki Haley who can keep their pockets lined with military defense contract profits.
Rumors swirl that Michelle Obama or Gavin Newsom will sweep in during the 2024 Convention to replace Joe Biden on the ticket. Maybe Dems will succeed in impeaching Clarence Thomas, so stalwart in his views and his ethics, or in packing the court. Then, Vice President Kamala Harris, with her incomprehensible word salads and clear inability to meet minimal goals — remember when she was named Border Czar? — can be taken off the ticket and put on the highest court in the land.
With the Democrats running a preemptive campaign to keep Donald Trump off the ballot or convict him of crimes they have committed (see Biden’s stolen VP documents), with House Republicans launching their impeachment probe of Biden’s influence peddling, and with conservative darling Tucker Carlson openly speculating about the prospect that Trump could be assassinated, the year ahead does feel fraught.
And yet, I emerge from my own difficult year with hope, more hope than I have had in a long time, more hope than even seems reasonable. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus once observed, “Character is destiny.” This is another way of saying that how we react to events is a marker of who we are.
After my beloved Jeffrey’s death in June, someone gave me a little book called Holy Moments: A Handbook for the Rest of Your Life. The author, Matthew Kelly, advised creating little acts of kindness. If you have been at odds with someone, he said, give them a genuine smile. You will see the radiance break out all over their face. It is a metaphor, it seems to me. If we extend a smile to our neighbors, to our leaders, to our political adversaries, maybe we can lessen the chasms that divide us.
I do not minimize the dangers. The threats are real.
The International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran has tripled its production of near weapons-grade uranium. Wars are breaking out all over — from Ukraine to Israel — and the invasion of our southern border with an army of mostly single males suggests the prospect of crime and upheaval in America’s once great cities. The Biden administration denies any crisis at the border — despite estimates of 15 million new residents. This is the same White House that tried to conceal from us the fact that China sent spy balloons to fly over US military installations to gather military intel.
But hysteria ignores that maxim of old: Man Plans, God Laughs. The black swan event may happen, the political upheaval might jolt our worlds, the invasion at our southern border may continue, the sanctity of women’s sports may still be invaded by biological males, but it’s how we react that will mark our destiny. Will we reassert the American values of work ethic and a tradition of patriotism? Will we work together to restore our once-thriving cities, the innocence of children and our freedom of speech?
As I wrote last week, in a piece called Is God Making a Comeback?, many are returning to faith to bolster them amid the political chaos. Conservative commentator Glenn Beck said his previous calling was to warn people of what’s coming. Now, he says, he feels a calling to give people hope, “honoring an America that’s worth saving.”
I read recently about a 35-year-old man who had graduated high school without being able to read. A rough childhood, a prison term, low end jobs — all followed his inability to read street signs or menus or contracts. Oliver James kept his illiteracy secret. In 2020, after realizing he did not want to have a child until he could read, he confessed to his partner, Anne Halkias, that he was illiterate. She helped him. His first book was 365 Quotes to Live Your Life By. “I would read the same quote for a week,” he said. “It was really hard.” By then he had a TikTok following tracking his progress.
Now he is a motivational speaker with a one-year old son. Think of it — as the rest of the country was plunging into a fear-filled pandemic, he was learning to read. As the rest of us weathered the storms of political division and spewed hatred at one another, Oliver James read Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl, E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, and Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements.
He gives me hope that we can right the flaws, while also noticing how much in life there is to smile at. We can acknowledge the dangers ahead, while declaring our allegiance to this country. In this still-young century, we have already lived through so much — a financial meltdown, a worldwide pandemic, populist political upheaval, on the right and the left. What’s a little black swan to those fighting for democracy?
A toast to 2024, which may well bring choppy waters. Or maybe, just maybe, it will mark the beginning of our nation’s recovery. That’s the funny thing about predictions. You can never tell what’s going to happen until trends encounter human agency.
G.K. Chesterton, a British literary figure, once said, “The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul.”
In that spirit, I hope your New Year is soulful.
A note to readers: This year I’ve decided to provide all my content to all readers, free subscribers as well as paid. What a comfort to know so many of you were willing, and able, to support me. Going forward, I welcome your financial support, and appreciate it. But if you can’t afford it, if you are overwhelmed with credit debt, know that a free subscription will bring you the same content — a weekly essay that offers perspective from my career as a journalist, a historian and blogger, a chance to comment or chat on line and any additional features — like excerpts from my new novel, The Concert. As we navigate this pivotal year together, message matters to me more than money. 🙏🏻
I hope to follow inspiration through your writing for a very long time. We, as Americans, may need to dig down to follow the values that made our country great, so that we can persevere. All pretty unsettling.