I’m going to make a prediction that I’m pretty sure is 100 percent rock solid.

It is this: One day after the presidential inauguration, a time when virtually anything might happen, the world is going to be significantly worse than it was the day before. The world on Saturday will be less peaceful and more volatile than it was on Friday. Bank on it.

This prediction has nothing to do with a Trump presidency, mind you, or with hordes of social justice warriors stomping toward Washington. This bland prediction is based on the simple fact that the foundation of our world is getting more unstable by the day, if not by the hour.

You realize, don’t you, that we have troops massing on Russia’s doorstep as we speak? You understand that this perilous move is being made as tit-for-tat retaliation for election tampering? Or hacking. Or whatever ridiculous narrative our military minds are going with on this particular day.

You realize, do you not, that we’ve dropped so many bombs and toppled so many leaders since the start of this grand new century, most Americans have no idea with whom we’re presently fighting, or why?

It’s no picnic closer to home, either.

While nearly 100 people drop dead of overdoses every day, the government is only tightening our dependence on a rapacious pharmaceutical industry by banning natural medicines like kratom and CBD oil.

Free speech is staggering under a constant barrage. Our cherished First Amendment is a battered heavyweight, stumbling, bleeding, nearly down in the late rounds, its once-glorious reign in peril.

Manufactured divisions are everywhere. The left against the right. Blacks against whites. Gays against straights. Civilians against cops. Women against men. The most terrible thing about these dangerous divides isn’t that they are orchestrated through political gamesmanship. The most terrible thing is that we fall for these tricks over and over again, ensuring that we’ll never come together to recognize our common enemy.

Fake news is all the rage right now, but it’s nothing new. Big media is corporate owned and agenda driven. Propaganda is a way of life now — why, just two days before Christmas, President Barack Obama himself signed into creation our own, real-world Ministry of Truth.

There is not much hope in the next generation. Have you beheld what has become of the nation’s colleges, with their safe spaces, participation awards and low-anxiety philosophies? Most colleges these days will give our kids a quiet room and cups of hot chocolate, but they won’t prepare them for the world that awaits them.

The police state is rising, as is the power of the government to inflict atrocities upon us.

On Friday, thousands will march on Washington as Donald J. Trump takes on the role of leadership we keep insisting that we need. 

Thousands will cheer and pump their fists and even cry as the transfer of power is made. With voices hoarse with emotion, they will declare that Trump is their salvation, the best thing to happen to this country in decades.

Does anybody truly believe that one man alone can dismantle the Federal Reserve, the spy agencies, the banking cartels and secret societies? Does anybody truly believe that any man since Kennedy has tried?

Meanwhile, another group  is promising to do everything they can to disrupt the inauguration, no matter how ugly they have to be, no matter how insulting to the people who voted Trump. This group, which includes the sanctimonious Hollywood elite, some of our own elected representatives and untold paid protesters, will tell you that a Trump presidency will bring about hate and bigotry, death and destruction.

Trump is the worst thing to happen to our nation, they will scream, but they are wrong about that. WE are the worst thing that’s happened to our country because we keep believing the lies and we keep falling for the same old cons like children being fooled over and over by older brothers with bad intentions.

Trump haters are screaming the same complaints — and using the same buzzwords — that Obama haters screamed for eight years straight. Hypocrisy has never shined so bright.

“May you live in interesting times,” offers an ancient Chinese curse.

They’re interesting, all right. But whatever happens on Friday will be mere window dressing — bread and circuses for the ignorant masses. Donald Trump is just a face and a suit. Obama, a face and a suit. Those faces change, but the game goes on unabated, and the game is inverted totalitarianism, an ugly, dystopian system we will wake to on Saturday, no matter what happens in D.C. the day before.

Another prediction: In 2017, more people are going to awaken to this nightmare. The left, in particular, tended to snooze through the past eight years, sleeping snugly while the Obama administration dropped its bombs, passed its Orwellian laws, punished its whistle-blowers, bulked up its spy machine and swept its scandals under the rug of partisan ignorance. Benghazi? Extrajudicial drone killings? Fast and Furious? Eight years of nonstop warfare? Nothing to see here, liberals — go back to sleep until those awful Republicans rise to power and THEN start screeching about the overreaching claws of government.

And wake up they should — even if it’s only trembling hatred for Donald J. Trump that makes them do so. Of course, the only thing that’s different now is that the left is taking an offensive position while the right is going on the defensive.

The deep divide remains intact and the boot continues to stamp on our human face, forever.

Mark LaFlamme is a Sun Journal staff writer. Send Utopian scenarios to mlaflamme@sunjournal.com. 

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