2016 Will Suck, Here’s Why:

We could lie to you and tell you things are going to be great this year, but then we would be lying, and, frankly, we don’t like to lie. So allow us to pour some cold water on your parade of joyfulness with a sober-minded (and hyperbole filled) assessment of what is in store for 2016.

First, let’s start with the US:

Two things in life are certain: death and taxes. And in America it is a lot more likely that death will be due to a gun. If history is an indicator of the future, that gun might be fired by a trigger happy policeman at a black man or woman who didn’t feel like being subjected to a “random search” that day.

Obama is expected to try to use executive action to bypass Congress and put some gun controls in place (presumably by making it mandatory to sell guns through Healthcare.gov). According to the New York Times, that probably means that more Americans will go out and buy guns just to keep the storied tradition of mass shootings alive.

Also, the US holds a presidential election this year, which, aside from costing more than the GDP of lesser nations, gives us an inside view into just how crazy people can get. Donald Trump will use this opportunity to find someone he hasn’t offended yet and offend them (a shrinking list), while we continue the ever-meaningful debate of whether or not his hair is real. Ben Carson will attempt to wake up in time for the next Republican debate where he will attest that he did, in fact, stab the moderator and that baba ghanoush, not hummus, rules the Gaza Strip. Jeb Bush will be penalized for saying reasonable things and John Kasich will try to get 50% of his immediate family to vote for him.

The Democrats will try to go a whole debate without saying “Glass-Steagall,” and Martin O’Malley will try to learn what that actually is. Hillary Clinton will learn how to be fun, and we will be fed a constant stream of emails that we shouldn’t have access to. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders may buy a second pair of underwear.

Now let’s go to Europe:

Europe will continue muddling along (the German verb for this is “to Merkel”) in 2016, saying “we were quite pleased with our inability to deal with 2015 and are looking forward to 366 days of being unable to deal with more things at more summits.”

More refugees will land in Greece and Italy this year as the Middle East continues to go up in flames (see below). Most of them will try to get to Germany and Sweden but will be met with an ever-growing network of border fences forcing more refugees to opt for the “scenic” Finnish route. Europe will meet this growing humanitarian crisis with finger-pointing, a flurry of summits and attempts to bribe Turkey’s President Erdogan into policing his borders (oh and probably more fences).

Spain and Portugal promise to provide endless excitement in 2016. Last year’s elections produced unstable parliaments in both countries and will probably cause their timid economic recovery to falter. Meanwhile, Greece, not to be upstaged by its Iberian cousins, may also face more turmoil this year as Alexis Tsipras (Greek PM) tries to decide how many elections he should hold this year (we had three last year, including an oddly complicated referendum).

Britain continues to be confused about its relationship with Europe and plans to hold a referendum on whether it should stay in the EU or “Brexit.” For EU leaders, currently coping with about 10 other crises, this is just bloody annoying. David Cameron, Britain’s PM, wasn’t content with having an indisputable majority, a recovering economy and a main opposition figure (Jeremy Corbyn) who is about as electable as a goat. Instead of enjoying this political honeymoon period he will have to “Katy Perry” his way through the referendum by being both “hot and cold” on EU membership.

Meanwhile, Brussels, Europe’s Abbottabad, will struggle with why it now produces more terrorists than chocolates. Fear of terrorism will mean more surveillance and a rise in support for Europe’s Donald Trumps (see Poland, Hungary and France). If another terrorist attack happens in Paris, the rest of the world will be left wondering if they are Charlie or Ahmed and if they should be praying for Paris, Beirut or their elderly neighbor who can’t find his cat.

And, of course, the Middle East:

No cynic can forget ground zero of cynicism: the Middle East. As if to underscore this point, the Middle East kicked off the year in standard fashion. A terror attack on a Tel Aviv bar on New Year’s Day left two people dead and did nothing to promote the creation of a Palestinian state (shocking). Israelis and Palestinians can look forward to another year of posting angry statuses on Facebook.

Saudi Arabia sought to reassure the rest of the world that indeed the Middle East could be more unstable by executing a prominent Shiite cleric (Iran is majority Shiite so they got really annoyed) and jump starting the war in Yemen. Iran will likely respond by sending more weapons to Syria/Iraq/Lebanon/Yemen and finding new and creative ways to piss off the US and violate the nuclear agreement (but only a little bit).

Media reports that ISIS is on the defensive due to a crushing defeat in Ramadi, Iraq, mean little when you realize that ISIS only had 400 soldiers there and they held back the Iraqi Army and the US Air Force for a few weeks. The world’s worst terror group will continue wreaking havoc around the world while the anti-ISIS “coalition” tries to decide who is and isn’t ISIS and whether or not Putin violated Turkey’s airspace when he got an erection.

The Syrian Civil War will continue raging despite indecipherable but seemingly positive sounds emanating from John Kerry’s hair.

Bright spots in Latin America?

Cuba can look forward to the opening of a Senor Frogs in Havana and an invasion of American spring breakers that will make Cubans remember the “Bay of Pigs” nostalgically. Colombia might actually wrap up the last war of the Western Hemisphere and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff will experiment with whether her favorability ratings can go negative as she tries to fight ongoing impeachment proceedings and the worst recession in Brazil since the Great Depression. Oh, and there’s the small matter of hosting the Rio Olympics in 2016.

Africa…

The continent will continue suffering from presidential “third term-itis” where leaders overstay their welcome. Kagame of Rwanda and Kabila of the DRC will be going for their third terms (hatricks) and Museveni of Uganda shoots for his fifth. Meanwhile, the continent will compete with the Middle East for the accolade of “most terrorist groups per capita” with Al-Shabaab, Al-Qaeda and ISIS/Boko Haram. The only consolation is that the three groups might spend as much time fighting each other as killing innocent civilians.

South Africa’s President Zuma will try to convince the outside world that his country is actually a great place to invest (despite collapsing currency and musical chairs with finance ministers). 

And finally, China:

China will continue playing “my ship is bigger than your ship” in the South China Sea as 450 different countries (but really only six) try to determine who owns which protruding bit of sand. The Chinese government will have to figure out why the economy isn’t growing as fast despite the creation of at least three five-year plans.

One glimmer of hope? China might actually do something about climate change given that its people are getting tired of inhaling a brick of smoke every time they go for a walk. That means that the only people still in denial about climate change are in the US that, for some reason, keep bringing in snowballs to Congress.

Sorry (we aren’t sorry) for being so pessimistic about 2016. If there is one thing to take away from all of this it’s that you will want to be subscribed to the Daily Pnut to find out how it will all play out.