What Now?

2023: Anniversaries, Recokonings, Capitalism

“A week is a long time in politics” was the insight attributed to British Prime Minister Harold Wilson in the 1960s, the point being that things for one reason or another can upend awfully fast. By today’s standards, a week seems like a very long time.  

Twenty-four hours now reorders some widely held assumptions. Consider the outcome of the 2022 midterms: Monday, Dems doomed; Wednesday, Dems dominate.

So, in anticipating the 365 days of 2023, let’s focus on what seems definite or at least very likely.

  Anniversaries. Three, in particular, to mention.

(1) This April will mark fifty years since the last American GIs and POWs left Vietnam, ending our war there. Two years later, the North Vietnamese sealed the victory. But America’s pride and morale had been badly dented and have never fully recovered. Today’s politics and social norms can be traced to that period. On April 29, Dan Weiss, president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I will host a daylong event at George Washington University that we are calling “In That Time: Vietnam Then; The Deep Connections to America Now.” We’ll be sending out the full description in the new year.

(2) Israel at seventy-five. I’ve written about this before. My encounters on how this anniversary should be marked demonstrate how vexed this is for American Jews. Yes, it is a celebration of endurance. But it is also a season of troubled reflection about how a nation born in the aftermath of the Holocaust can be accused of apartheid, in its legal definition, by the world’s leading human rights organizations and is governed by politicians from the country’s extreme right wing.

(3) On August 18, 2023, Susan Sherer Osnos and I will celebrate (the right word in this instance) our fiftieth wedding anniversary. We are still discovering the ways in which a marriage solemnized when you are young can get, successfully, to gold.

Reckonings.

It is (virtually) certain that in 2023 the fate and future of Donald J. Trump and Joe Biden will be determined, if not altogether decided. The prospects can be summarized as, will they or won’t they follow through on what now seems a commitment to run again for president in 2024? The consensus is notable for being in disarray. Trump is awash in investigations and rebukes. Biden is riding astride his successes. But even many of his admirers think he would do best to go out on top after one term.

Outcome TBD. And by the end of the year, primary politics will be, in the media at least, a frenzy.

The war in Ukraine has already ascended to the annals of historic. Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has humbled Great Russia in any number of ways. Given that the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, a political oddity a year or so ago as a former comedian, has now defied the Kremlin’s longest-serving dictator since Joseph Stalin, this situation is remarkable.

What will be the next phase in the conflict? It doesn’t seem likely that either side can achieve a battlefield victory. Something else will develop, anything from (in order of likelihood) a stalemate, negotiations with no discernible deadline, the ouster of Putin, and a nuclear attack can be expected. One thing is certain: What was called, incorrectly, “The Ukraine” when it was just a province of the USSR will no longer be demeaned that way.

Capitalism.

Zanny Minton Beddoes, the brilliant editor-in-chief of The Economist, has written a piece headlined “Why a Global Recession Is Inevitable in 2023.”

Disagreeing with Beddoes and her colleagues would be, if not reckless, then certainly a stretch. But recent developments in the worlds of economics, finance, business, and crypto suggest that the unexpected can be expected.

To wit: FTX was a $32 billion enterprise on November 1 and went under in about a week, taking the whole baffling cryptocurrency universe down also. In his New York Times column, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman made blockchain and its pretensions look like naked emperors.

Bob Chapek was unanimously awarded a new three-year contract at Disney and then shown the door, with ample severance to ease the humiliation. His predecessor, Bob Iger, the man who chose him, made a triumphant return. The say that most great athletes who come out of retirement for a second run – most recently Tom Brady – find encores very tough. What about superstar CEOs?

There are layoffs in the tech sector. Unemployment, however, continues at essentially record lows. Inflation is surging! Then easing. Gas prices are sky high! And then they are not.

The fact is that end-of-year predictions are easy enough to make and fun to read. But the events of 2022 have shown that by the end of 2023, a great deal will have happened that will surprise, excite, and dismay. I will make one guess, however: 2023 will be a doozy.

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This bi-weekly (or so) Platform on Substack is ending its first year. Thanks to all subscribers. And to remind, subscriptions are free. There is also a paid option with all the money going to CIVIC (Center for Civilians in Conflict) and BSF Barth Syndrome Foundation . So far, in 2022, $7000 has been raised and after Substack’s share and the fee to Stripe, a bit less than $6000 is going to the NGOs.