From Will Rahm, at CBS: Trump is deeply unpopular. His critics think he's something of a mad man, and polls indicate that a wide swath of the people who voted for him see him as unfit for presidency.
Given this situation, it would make sense for Trump’s team to make him seem much more moderate than he looked during the presidential campaign. Presidents often try to fashion themselves this way – the word “moderate” in our political discourse is largely synonymous with “reasonable” and “practical,” two things we tend to want our chief executive to be. But usually they try to get other people – surrogates, friendly journalists, etc. – to speak to their moderate bonafides.
My hunch is Trump will just start declaring himself to be moderate with some frequency. On Twitter, he’ll blast his opponents for being unreasonable, “unlike the moderate TRUMP!” In interviews, he’ll begin referring to his moderate inclinations, his moderate beliefs, and so on. He’ll want you to think he’s the reasonable one and, being Trump, he’ll go about that by just telling you repeatedly that he’s the reasonable one.
And Trump, with his lack of ideological mooring, may in fact prove to be much more moderate than his detractors imagine. The man spent much of his life as a Democrat, after all, and has given great sums of money to left-leaning politicians like incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York.
Trump wants you to like him, and so he wants to be thought of as a moderate, practical reasonable guy. Trump also doesn’t have much patience for nuance, so it would make sense if he just starts insisting he’s all of those things, and sees if people believe him.
So, what will happen with Brexit?
From Barnaby Phillips, at Al Jazeera: Brexit, Brexit, Brexit … will continue to consume Britain, and sap the concentration and strength of its government and civil service. I don't think Theresa May will call a general election in 2017 (she doesn't have to hold one until 2020, but an early poll is tempting for her because it would almost certainly strengthen the position of the governing Conservatives in parliament). I do think that she'll trigger Article 50 in the coming months, although we'll soon find out if her preferred timetable is likely to be delayed by a ruling from Britain's Supreme Court. Whatever happens, the Brexit story will drag on way beyond the next year, and into the future. At some point in the coming year the British prime minister is going to have to stop playing her cards so close to her chest, and tell the British people who will be the winners and losers of Brexit.
Don’t look for the market to keep climbing
From Jeff Reeves, at MarketWatch: The U.S. stock market won't budge: With the Dow Jones Industrial Average at almost 20,000, the market has already priced in a business-friendly environment in Washington and the hope of moderately better global growth in 2017. At the same time, valuations are at historic highs and corporations continue to invest in buybacks over sustainable long-term growth to revenue and profits. We may add a few percentage points since there are no good alternatives to U.S. stocks, but not much more than that.
Our computers are going to keep changing
From Tim Bajarin, at TIME: 2-in-1 computers take off — talking with most PC vendors, especially those making Windows portable PCs, it's becoming increasingly difficult to innovate on a traditional clamshell laptop design. Consequently, PC makers are putting most of their attention on innovating around what the industry calls 2-in-1s, which feature a tablet-style design with an attachable keyboard. (Think Microsoft's Surface Pro lineup.)
PC vendors will also work on “convertibles,” which look more like traditional laptops but also have a touchscreen and removable keyboard. (Think Lenovo’s Yoga machines.)
The PC industry’s goal now is to move everyone over to 2-in-1 and convertible designs, as they are a more versatile computing platform. (And convincing users they need to upgrade could help juice flagging sales.)
Facebook and Google will keep getting bigger
From Shafqat Islam, at Mashable: Facebook and Google will continue to dominate. The rest of the marketing industry will shrink — According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the digital advertising industry continues to grow nicely. But if you peel back the onion, you'll see that it's actually Facebook and Google that is commanding the lion's share of the growth. In fact, outside of those two platforms, the rest of the industry is shrinking in Q2. This duopoly is scary, and potentially unhealthy. But I think it will continue next year and don't see how or when this trend will change.
The police will predict crime before it happens
From David Tal, at QuantumRun: More than any other medium in history, social media's ability to build communities is unprecedented. And a part of its magic is the connections made on social media platforms oftentimes extend into the real world, exposing individuals to relationships far outside their traditional network. However, the darker side of this medium is that it also enables individuals with criminal intent to find each other, collaborate, and even incite violence onto others.
For this reason, police departments and intelligence agencies are shifting considerable resources to monitor public social media feeds. Their computers analyze the billions of public posts made each day, looking for patterns and context within the keywords people use, and reporting any suspicious communications. When a person of interest is identified — an agitator of some kind with influence other others — it’s not just their posts that these police agencies zero in on, but also who engages with those posts and who is directly connected to said agitator. Should this group, this community that this agitator belongs to, say or share anything that could lead to criminal activity, then police agencies will secure a warrant to arrest them before their words can turn to actions.
While this sounds good in theory, in practice, social media monitoring is already helping U.S. police agencies monitor and collect evidence against inner city gangs. In the Middle East, it’s helping the Israeli government crackdown on Palestinian incitement that leads to murders of Jewish civilians. And in China, where the state has direct control and access to the data collected from its domestic social media platforms, it’s helping the Communist Party monitor its people and intervene in local disturbances before they can become regional protests and uprisings.
Fake news may be good for real journalism
From Almar LaTour, at Nieman Labs: The intrusion of fake news into the media ecosystem has been met with fear and outrage.
Yet fake news might trigger a good thing, too: A reminder of the extraordinary value of truth and perhaps a realization that, after much agonizing over the viability of the news business, there is a raison d’être beyond the accumulation of digital eyeballs.
Journalism is often at its best during periods of genuine turmoil or uncertainty. In occupied Europe, amid disinformation on the most extreme scale, truth was spread furtively on printed pamphlets, some of which evolved into leading news outlets of the post-war era.
We’re nowhere near there, but fake news still is a serious matter. Scolding social media platforms for distributing it misses the point. Endemic obfuscation requires even stronger reporting mixed with entrepreneurship — an opportunity to live up to the core of the profession.
The coming year will bring many changes. I hope one of them will be positive: the rise of vigorous and entrepreneurial quality journalism.
Phones, drones and an unstable Internet
From the staff of Fortune magazine:
Watch for the Internet to keep shutting down: It is a great irony that a system designed to withstand nuclear war falls so easily victim to a stampede of beeping baby monitors and webcams. We're talking about the Internet, of course. In October a number of top websites — Twitter, Amazon, Spotify, and more — were knocked off-line when a sprawling botnet attacked a New Hampshire firm that serves as an Internet switchboard. An army of hijacked "Internet of things" devices swarmed this choke point with overwhelming traffic. Now, far from being fixed, the problem compounds as more unsecured devices — including surveillance cameras, toasters, and other home appliances — roll off the production line with weak default passwords. Fortune tends to agree with Jeremiah Grossman of security firm SentinelOne, who said after the recent strike that it "could easily be just a canary in the coal mine."
The iPhone will get a radical upgrade: The rumor mill is already cranking with leaks about the iPhone 8, due in 2017. Marking the 10th anniversary of Steve Jobs' original iPhone, the new model is expected to include radical changes like a super-high-resolution OLED screen that stretches from edge to edge of the device, and a home button transformed into a virtual on-screen button. Other rumored features include wireless charging capability. After the mildly disappointing iPhone 7, the next update should be a more radical hit.
Drones will deliver pizza (but not toilet paper): In the past year, we've seen drones deliver pizza, burritos, fried chicken sandwiches, and Slurpees. Expect to see more one-off junk-food flights as companies like Chipotle and Domino's use them as marketing stunts. But anyone thinking drones will usurp delivery drivers or postal workers in 2017 will be disappointed. New FAA rules have made it a bit easier, but companies still can't legally fly drones at night or outside the line of sight of their operators without a special exemption. A NASA national air-traffic management system is in early stages—don't expect regular drone shipments of toilet paper or toothbrushes until it's done.
Trump will focus on ISIS, Iran and Russia
From Thomas Del Baccaro, at Forbes: Trump will push to eliminate ISIS. That will result in greater tension internationally in the short-term. But if he is successful, it is much better in the long-term. The question becomes how does the World deal with a dispersed ISIS. The greatest challenge facing a Trump presidency will be how to build a world-wide coalition on that issue and how to do the same to deal with an emboldened Iran.
It is possible under Trump that our relationship with Russia could be reset – something Obama/Hillary tried to do. However, Russia doesn’t reset things with weak partners. It respects and responds to power not words. It is also very possible that Russia continues its current path given that ISIS and Iran present the greatest acute challenges to us. Keep in mind that Russia acts more rationally based on power and ISIS and Iran operate on more fanatical grounds to say the least.
The Supreme Court? Trump will likely get three picks and steer the Court slightly away from the last three Obama picks.
The world of science is in for crazy stuff
From Sarah Knapton, at The Telegraph: There are hints that 2017 could prove an outstanding year for discovery and innovation. Babies with the DNA from three parents could be born for the first time in Britain as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority begins to license clinics. The technique, pioneered by Newcastle University, uses donor DNA from a second mother to cure babies of diseases such as muscular dystrophy.
Prof Sergio Canavero, an Italian neuroscientist, is also preparing to carry out the first human head transplant within a year. Valery Spiridonov, 31, a Russian who suffers from Werdnig-Hoffmann disease, a muscle-wasting condition, is to be the first patient.
New drugs to combat Alzheimer’s disease are also entering final trials, meaning there could be treatments for dementia. The antibody drug Aducanumab is a contender after early results showed it clears sticky plaques from the brain and improves memory.
Large-scale trials, meanwhile, will begin in the U.S. and China to genetically edit the DNA of cancer patients, which could herald a new era of “cut and paste” humans wherein diseases are eradicated by rewriting genetic code.
Last year, Microsoft announced it was opening its first laboratory designed to find a cure for cancer by cracking the code of diseased cells so they can be reprogrammed. The first results could be ready in 2017.
The researchers are working on a computer made from DNA, which will live inside cells and look for bodily faults, then essentially reboot the system.
Genetically modified wheat could also be grown in Britain. Scientists hope to begin trials which could boost grain yields by up to 40 percent.
In South America, millions of mosquitoes will be infected with bacteria and released into Brazil and Colombia to combat the Zika outbreak. The hope is that the insects will mate with local mosquitoes and spread the Wolbachia bug, lessening the risk of them being able to transmit disease.
And British explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes is aiming to complete “The Big One” by May, attempting to become the first mountaineer to climb the highest mountains on every continent.
He’s 72. There’s hope for us all.
And finally …
From Steve Deace, at Conservative Review: Barack Obama will pardon Hillary Clinton before leaving office. One of our outgoing president's final acts in the White House will be pardoning his former secretary of State for her alleged malfeasance/pay-for-play scheme while she served in his administration.
Either Russia, China, Iran, or North Korea will launch a military action to test President Trump’s leadership in his first year. While Trump talked tough during the election, you don’t get the sense the rest of the world is shaking in its boots at his pending presidency. Probably because he’s such a wildcard known for completely reversing his previous positions on a frequent basis. That’s exactly why I expect one of these four countries to launch a military action at some point next year to test his resolve.
There will be no substantive increase in deportations nor a single move made to “build a wall.” Despite the fact these were two of the talking points that turned Trump from a vanity candidate into a force of nature.
And: The Chicago Cubs will repeat as World Series champions. They return the strongest nucleus of talent in the major leagues, and now that the curse is over, they really have no pressure on them despite being the defending champs. Look for them to make a move mid-season for a stud closer, just as they did last year, to put themselves over the top.
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