I watch a lot of news, and one thing that strikes me is how rarely the pundits attempt to factor in the unexpected. And yet we know from the past that what we fail to see coming invariably determines what ends up happening after. A few examples of huge game-changers of the recent past that no one predicted: Sarah Palin, the crash of 2008, birtherism, the rise of the Tea Party, the BP Oil Spill, the Arab Spring, the Japanese tsunami, the implosions of Tiger Woods, John Ensign, and Anthony Weiner...
As a corrective to our tendency toward tunnel vision, I'd like to posit the likelihood that some variation of the following will occur over the next 18 months or so:
1. The debt ceiling is not initially raised. As the market crashes, the Republicans panic, and rapidly re-vote to raise it. A furious Wall Street shifts campaign money to the Democrats, who suddenly don't mind Citizens United.
2. Obama accelerates the drawdown from Afghanistan, blaming it on the Republican budget pressure on defense spending.
3. After Ahmadinejad is arrested, Iran erupts in civil war.
4. The American double-dip recession causes layoffs in Chinese factories. Massive unrest in China results.
5. One of Michelle Bachmann's many children is outed.
6. A member of the conservative majority in the Supreme Court steps downs because of illness or dies unexpectedly.
7. Michael Moore announces a primary challenge on Obama's left -- he does surprisingly well.
8. A series of bombings occur at golf courses or other overt symbols of extreme wealth, part of a birth of new homegrown economic terrorism.
9. There is a return to back-alley and self-induced abortions resulting in a dramatic rise in maternal death.
10. A new drug-resistant strain of HIV appears.
11. After a huge earthquake, a cholera outbreak in India spreads to Pakistan, sparking border clashes and threats of nuclear war.
12. A powerful Congressional Republican is caught making anti-Semitic remarks and forced to resign.
13. The Mexican military takes over in Mexico. Thousands are disappeared in a war against the drug cartels.
14. An extramarital affair of Bill Clinton is exposed. (Nobody cares, even Hillary.)
15. A major hurricane destroys a Texas coastline city.
I will be lucky if one prediction comes exactly true, but specifics don't matter. The point is to leave space in one's head for the unknown, to approach the future with nimble thinking in an age of instant news and unintended consequences.
The one thing that we can be sure of is that we can't be sure of anything. But we can expect the unexpected.