Here Comes 2019, Hang On To Your Hats!

2018 was a funny old year. I finally got a bit of a pay rise but my blogging output plummeted to a grand total of 18 posts. Let's take a look at them.

The year in review

2018 was dominated by Brexit, Trump, and the #MeToo movement. I wrote five posts on Brexit but struggled to avoid repeating myself since the country appeared to be treading water, running down the clock despite the toll it was taking on British families whose mothers or fathers were born in EU countries. Trump had one post about him but his supporters inspired several others. #MeToo inspired five posts, including two about abortion. I thought I'd finished writing about free speech but the backlash against right-wingers and the moanage that followed prompted three posts about censorship and moderation. I wrote three posts about thinking about thinking and Basic Income got another going over when the fact that the nature of work is changing got me to reconsider my position. I still think it's a con. My most popular post, by a country mile, was Do You Really Think For Yourself? with 278 views, followed by Ireland's 8th Amendment Referendum: What It Means And Why It Matters at 251 views followed by Freedom of Speech: When Business And Conscience Collide with 228. Censorship In Moderation: The Fine Line Platforms Must Walk brought up the rear with 86 views. This all demonstrates an upward trend in readership of On t'Internet, which can only be a good thing.

Last year's predictions

I said: Trump's knuckle-dragging will continue to drag American down. China will flex its muscles and will dominate the news, filling the power void left by America's neglect. The right will either pretend it's not happening or find a scapegoat to blame.

What happened: Trump Baby Blimp was a thing, China stopped importing American soy beans after Trump started a trade war (the right wing press is posting this as a win, the Financial Times sees it differently).

I said: Surveillance and control will increase, as will austerity, and the EU will be blamed for all of this.
What happened: Arrests for being rude on the internet increased. While it's ostensibly about reducing hate crime, feelings are much too subjective to legislate over. Homelessness killed 440 people and despite the horrors of the sanction regime, the Government continued to dismantle and privatise the social safety net. This is being blamed on the EU as predicted, but they're not to blame for all of it (ask Theresa May about the magic money tree) even though the Left has dropped the ball.

I said: Copyright/IPR rent-seeking will continue to increase in scope and application.

What happened: The European Union Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market... is designed to update existing copyright laws for the internet age... [This] places more responsibility on websites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to make sure that copyrighted materially isn’t being illegally shared on their platforms. Until now, the onus has mostly been on the copyright holders – usually the companies that produce audio, video or written content – to enforce copyright protection but under the new law this responsibility will shift onto the major platforms themselves. What could possibly go wrong? Well, memes being banned, links being licensed... bad, bad, bad idea.

I said: Right-wing-ery will continue to be normalised until it reaches a point where backlash is inevitable. This will come from the most surprising places.

What happened: Remember the Brett Kavanaugh debacle? Nancy, wife of National Review's David French, went against the accepted line that even if the accusations were true, what he's done since erases that. Not at all, says Mrs. French.

I said: Brexit will continue apace, punctuated by doom-saying on one side and Dunkirk can-do spirit on the other. Society will continue to polarise. However, a movement to sweep up the middle-grounders will take in a range of people who usually disagree with each other in an effort to repair the damage.

What happened: The People's Vote is a thing. We're still working to get it on the table but it's very  much a thing. It's actually why Theresa May is running down the clock to Brexit; the idea is to force a choice between No deal, her deal, and No Brexit.

I said: As the tax breaks come in to bite America will fall out of love with Trump, who may well be impeached. I'd been making fun of the Russia thing but now that it's been proven true expect a backlash. The May government will experience a series of setbacks that might even trigger another election.
 
What happened: Following the introduction of the tax breaks, business did indeed seem to boom in the US, but at the expense of tax revenues. Meanwhile, the federal debt and deficit increased. Mr. Mueller is steadily making arrests banqueting-style, working his way in to Trump's inner circle from the outside. It seems that Donald Trump Jr. may be next on the naughty list. Oh, and Our Tess faced a leadership challenge over her flawed Brexit deal. One of the reasons she's dragging her feet over getting the Withdrawal Agreement onto the table at Parliament is the surety that it will be voted down: neither Brexiters nor Remainers like it.

The year to come

I'm applying for a team leader job at work, which I'm excited about. While the company I work for has had a bit of a wobble it's doing better than I'd feared and we're taking on more work. Brexit is, of course, the spanner in the works since if it is implemented the tariffs will drive up our operating costs, thereby reducing profits. With Brexit looming on the horizon, here are my predictions for 2019:

The Government will try to stave off collapse as it tries to keep HMS Brexit afloat but will keep a close eye on the right wing press for cues. When the right wing press finally admits it's a lost cause, Theresa May will put her Withdrawal Agreement up for debate in Parliament, which will kill it with ire. Labour will then table a vote of no confidence in the Government to force a general election which will result in a narrow win for Labour, which will have to go into coalition to form a government. Internal wrangling may sabotage this, resulting in yet another shambolic hung Parliament with another coalition ruled by the Tories.

The EU's Copyright Directive will be seized upon by Brexiteers as an example of Brussels bullying in a last-ditch effort to stave off its inevitable defeat. This will bring together an extraordinary coalition that might well result in the proverbial can being kicked down the road. The EU will either shelve it or kill it in response to the public outcry as word spreads throughout the media. We could well see a re-run of the ACTA defeat. Should that happen, the derailing of Brexit will continue until it is finally put out of our misery.

CETA will come front and centre as its realities include referral to the EU court of justice for deciding on whether it fits the existing legal framework. Its flaws will be held up to scrutiny as much on the right as on the left. The right will work on eroding the red lines as it comes to terms with the fact that the UK is not an empire any more. The UK will continue to nosedive on the world stage.

Robert Mueller will come under increasing pressure to complete the job of bringing the Trump government down. Expect more shuffling of top jobs, pants-wetting from his cronies and inner circle, and more drama till the ramshackle edifice finally collapses, forcing a series of elections and a lot of flim-flammery from the GOP (American Republican Party). Meanwhile, the Democrats, who take the seats won in the mid-terms, will, per Bruce Bartlett, come under increasing pressure to reduce the skyrocketing deficit brought on by the Trump tax cuts and won't bother calling them on it. They will, of course, be blamed for the resulting mess. It will look something like this:

Should the May government continue, the cumulative effects of their austerity policies will begin to be noticed by the right wing press. This is already happening; expect more criticism of the Tories' abusive policies. They may well swing sharp left in order to stave off defeat in the next election.

China will move to centre stage position, eclipsing America as the de facto world leader. Expect more authoritarianism. South Korea will continue to shmooze North Korea until they reach a detente. Trump will be frozen out of this even while he tries to take credit for it.

The siloing of the media will continue until it reaches critical mass. A backlash will force a challenge to the status quo in which a few global entities control the world's media; expect sudden, radical change as new regimes force a breakup of the biggest companies.

2019 is the year the game changes. Hang on to your hats, people!