A former president Donald Trump could well be convicted by the courts of (91 counts of felony on election subversion, cheating the government of taxes and insurrection) and yet Americans can then vote to send him back to the White House as commander in chief and "self-described dictator for his first day", US media reports said in their 2024 political forecast.
On the flip side, they could re-elect a "deeply unpopular incumbent of an advanced age whose vice president stands poised to become the first female chief executive in the history of the US", the reports said first doubting incumbent President Joe Biden's cognitive abilities to hold office and the possibility of his deputy Kamala Harris stepping into his shoes.
The 2024 elections are going to shake America, analysts say. The US presidential election is already historically unique in that an incumbent is running against another de facto incumbent, says Barbara Perry, a presidential scholar at the University of Virginia's Miller Center.
When Americans ring in 2024, they'll be welcoming what is shaping up as one of the most consequential years in modern history, analysts say.
Some results are almost certain to be unprecedented. Things may not end well. As Americans don't agree on what's good or bad for the country, any ending might just lead to public unrest, US News and World Report said.
Projecting both scenarios as their forecast for the 2024 political side, media reports said Americans could continue to retort against the Supreme Court decision (Roe vs. Wade) undoing guaranteed abortion rights and vote to enshrine the right to abortion in states across the country. Or, the court could make it almost impossible to get the drugs (Mifepristone) necessary for a medication abortion – the most common type of termination -- and state legislatures could criminalise the use of the drug.
Ukraine could slip into history as the mouse that once roared, gathering its outmatched forces and relying on allied support to quash Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of its country's western neighbour.
The brutal war in Gaza could end, with hostages released and the Israeli government coming to terms with Palestinians that lead to a future of peaceful co-existence and two states.
"The least probable situation is that a typical scenario plays out," says Lee Miringoff, a veteran pollster with the Marist Institute for Public Opinion in Poughkeepsie, New York. "It's like 1968," when the country underwent widespread unrest and killings of leaders.
"There's too much pressure on the system for it to not bust loose."
Miringoff said he's not predicting assassinations, such as Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King in 1968.
But historians and political analysts say that, as in that tumultuous year, so much is at stake in the US and in the world, with international borders, long time social policy and democracy itself at stake, reports said.
Abortion rights could go either way, analysts say. A handful of states (Ohio and Kentucky and Virginia) have already moved to protect the right to an abortion, and more are planning referendums on it next year. But other states are moving in the opposite direction – Missouri Republicans introduced a bill this month describing abortion of an unborn foetus as homicide thus criminalising the act and preventing women from having pregnancies terminated.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case on the ability to obtain the abortion drug mifepristone
Former President Donald Trump is facing a combined 91 criminal charges in federal and state courts, President Joe Biden has approval rating percentages in the high 30s or low 40s, and both men are displaying rapid aging signs. The Supreme Court could decide who is on the ballot, which gets to vote and who is allowed to serve – as the year gets even more dramatic.
"Any one of these scenarios is unprecedented," Perry says. Even in the run-up to the Civil War in 1860, "the question wasn't, 'Will there be a dictator?'"
He was alluding to Trump's statement on the ex Fox TV host Shawn Hanitys show that he could be a dictator on the first day of his presidency.
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