Expect More Lawmakers to Go 'Independent' in the Coming Year

Hello, I hope your holidays are going well. I wrote an op-ed in Newsweek to ring in the new year, with some bold predictions for 2025. I hope you enjoy it!

Expect More Lawmakers to Go 'Independent' in the Coming Year

Happy New Year! 2024 is now in the rearview mirror, and we have a big new year to look forward to. What can we expect in '25? Here are my top predictions for what we're likely to see:

For starters, the Republicans will struggle to pass legislation due to their historically narrow margin in the House. We saw this in December, as Elon Musk went against the budget plan that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson had painstakingly hammered out before Trump even took office. Extending Trump's tax cuts will become a major intra-party food fight with a few deficit hawks balking at anything that raises the deficit, which will be just about everything. Pity Mike Johnson; unifying the different factions of the GOP will be next to impossible given his lack of leverage. He might not last the year as Speaker, even as the Republicans have no one better situated to lead the caucus.

You can also expect at least one member of Congress or the Senate to declare him or herself an Independent, mirroring a trend. In this last Congress, two Senators—Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema—left the Democratic Party and became Independents. Expect the same to happen on the Republican side this time. It's not just a trend among lawmakers: 50 percent of voters now identify as Independents, according to Gallup, and Jim Duggan, the mayor of Detroit, has already declared that he's going to run for governor of Michigan as an Independent. Being an Independent will become more of a common attribute in 2025, as officials look to brand themselves as not beholden to one party or another.

Expect at least one Democrat to declare their presidential candidacy for 2028 in 2025, three years before the primary. Nature abhors a vacuum, and the Democratic Party is in the wilderness looking for an identity, and electing a DNC Chair that most Americans have never heard of isn't going to change that. Multiple heavyweights are going to declare in Fall of 2026, so why not get a jump on them and have the Left-leaning media all to yourself? They'll have you on cable news shows, as they don't have much else to talk about for the next two years. I declared early in the 2020 cycle because I knew I would need time to build up recognition. It had its plusses and minuses, but this cycle, the plusses outweigh the downsides for multiple candidates. Expect someone to take the plunge early, and for election season to be every season.

Next, I expect there will tragically be more assassination attempts on both CEOs and political figures. Luigi Mangione's murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealth, unfortunately drew sympathetic reactions in many quarters. Trump of course survived one assassination attempt, perhaps two. In disintegrating and polarized societies, targeted violence becomes normalized. Unfortunately, the United States fits that description. One common pattern in decaying democracies are attacks on judicial figures. 2025 is likely to represent a high-water mark in political violence committed by the misguided, deranged and criminal.

I expect there to be multiple major strikes, including by teachers, airline workers, healthcare workers, and postal workers. 2024 had notable labor stoppages, including dockworkers and a recently resolved Actors and Writers Guild strike in Hollywood. A number of major contracts are up in 2025, and the pressure being brought to bear by automation is increasing. The Republican administration will be unlikely to intervene. At least one of these strikes will drag on for weeks, causing meaningful disruption.

Also, expect inflation to stay alive and well. The Fed signaled in December that it would not be cutting rates as much as many hoped to guard against inflation. Trump himself recently admitted "it's hard to make prices go down after they go up," and many companies have realized that they can pass costs along to consumers. Tariffs are inflationary, and so are deportations. Prices for many consumer goods will go up if tariffs are established on imports from certain countries. Housing prices will stay high too, as mortgage rates stay elevated compared to 2021 levels.

Finally, expect the movement to reduce smartphone use among teens to grow and spread to numerous states that implement phone-free schools. Jonathan Haidt's book The Anxious Generation has dominated the bestseller list for months, and parents have figured out that smartphones are not their kids' friends. Young people also are realizing that clicking on other people's exaggerated lifestyles doesn't lead to a positive frame of mind. There will be an impulse for many Americans to live simpler lives, and more people both old and young will opt out of social media networks.

Of course, the most important thing for each of us in the New Year will be how we approach opportunities and setbacks in our own lives. Try to look out for yourself and those around you. The institutional challenges are going to keep on picking up steam. If you want something to happen, you might have to do it yourself.

Here's to thriving in '25!