13 Keys to the White House: 2024 prediction (as of August 15, 2021)
Midterm gains: false, the Republicans are going to sweep the House
No primary challenge: probably true, no Democrat with a future would dare to challenge Biden or Harris
Incumbent seeking re-election: probably true, Biden has indicated he's going to run again even though he'll be 82 at the time
No third party: too soon to tell, we won't know how the Libertarians/Greens fare until 2023 at the earliest
Strong short-term economy: too soon to tell, who knows if we'll be in recession in 2024?
Strong long/term economy: probably false, inflation is rising and Republicans are threatening to let us default on our national debt, so things are looking bad going forward
Major policy change: false, Biden hasn't done shit, and if he doesn't do shit NOW he won't be able to do shit after the Republican dominated midterms
No social unrest: too soon to tell, it will depend on how bad things get between now and 2024
No scandal: too soon to tell, all eyes are on Biden, but there's no telling what he'll do
No foreign/military failure: FALSE, Afghanistan is going down in flames, tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians are going to die when the Taliban takes over, it'll be the worst humanitarian crisis in the planet
Foreign/military success: probably false, withdrawing from Afghanistan was supposed to be a huge success, but the last 20 years have been pointless.
Charismatic incumbent: false, Biden wasn't charismatic in 2020, he's not gonna magically gain 20 or 30 percent more approval going into 2024
Uncharismatic challenger: true, none of the Republican challengers resonate with anyone outside their base, Trump or DeSantis or Cruz or Cotton or anyone else
Democrats need 8 true to hold power
Republicans need 6 false to retake power
1 is definitely true
2 are probably true
4 are too soon to tell
2 are probably false
4 are definitely false
Republicans are almost certainly going to win in 2024 unless Biden pulls a rabbit out of his ass and magically reverses course in the next 15 months; things are in flux now, but come November 2022 they will be set in stone.
Key 1 is a lost cause because of partisan gerrymandering; the Republicans will take the House by force, though they'll likely lose the nationwide popular vote
Key 2 is probably safe because it would require a challenger to get 33% of the vote, and I just don't see that happening against a sitting president
Key 3 is true as of right now, but could easily flip false for any number of reasons. Biden ran on the unspoken promise that he was a transitional president and would step down in 2024, but Kamala Harris isn't more popular than he is (in fact, she's less popular), so the Democrats have painted themselves into a corner; either it's an old old old man or Hillary Clinton 2.0
Key 4 is beyond Biden's control; over the last century, third party candidates have gained traction about every 10 years, once every 2 or 3 election cycles. They did well in 1968, 1980, 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2016, so 2024 is up in the air.
Key 5 could go either way, I don't know enough about economics to make any informed predictions
Key 6 is more nuanced; the creator of the 13 Keys defines it as "real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms." The economy grew under Obama's second term, and tanked under Trump's first, so the average of the last two terms is either zero net growth or very slight shrinkage. If Biden can grow the economy at all, even a little, this key could flip in his favor. If he continues to do nothing, he's as good as gone.
Key 7 is a nonstarter; W turned the US into a police state, Obama slightly improved healthcare, Trump changed taxes from the ground up (and dismantled liberal democracy through a rigged judiciary and disintegration of federal authority over the states), but Biden and the Democrats have pretty much wasted the last 8 months, accomplishing zero of their campaign promises. They passed a neutered stimulus package, and might pass a neutered infrastructure deal, both of which gave major concessions to the Republicans even though they supported neither. Biden is Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H.W. Bush rolled into one.
Key 8 could very well lead us into another 2020 situation; not only have zero communities defunded the police, many of them have actually INCREASED funding. Republicans continue to dismantle our democracy by passing voter suppression laws, and are going to gerrymander their House into an unbreakable conservative majority despite only making up about 40-45% of the population. I expect to see major protests against Republican legislatures across the country, which will be quelled by both state and federal forces because Democrats never support active protests, only passive peaceful ones (ones that fail, but look polite on TV)
Key 9 could be real or invented; no matter what Biden does, whether he's squeaky clean or rotten to the core, the Republicans are going to impeach him in 2023. Hell, they'll almost certainly run in 2022 on the platform of "we will impeach Biden if we win." He'll be acquitted of course, but Republicans will control the narrative and gain popular support going into 2024. They might wait to impeach him until the election starts, or impeach him and hold a long protracted trial throughout the primaries and well past the national conventions. If they win the House, they'll almost certainly win the Senate too, which means they have all the power, even if they can't remove him.
Key 10 is a lost cause; there's no coming back from this, Afghanistan is an absolute failure, full stop.
Key 11 is very closely tied to key 10, so I don't see it flipping true because Biden doesn't really have any other major foreign policy objectives within his grasp.
Key 12 is a doubly lost cause because both Biden and his chosen successor are terrible candidates. Biden was picked by the establishment as a milquetoast "civility" candidate in opposition to Trump's extremism, and Harris is so unpopular she dropped out of the presidential race due to lack of enthusiasm before a single vote was cast. Biden was the lesser of two evils, and Harris is a lying centrist cop pretending to be a progressive. As I said in Key 3, the Democrats painted themselves into a corner; Biden/Harris is Carter/Mondale all over again.
Key 13 is safe now and forever because no candidate will ever have national appeal again. The creator of the 13 Keys gave examples like Lincoln, the Roosevelts, and Kennedy, as well as controversial picks like Reagan and Obama in 2008 (though not in 2012). Love them or hate them, these candidates resonated with the entire country in their day, but America has become too polarized for a member of one party to gain support from the other.
This is a disaster waiting to happen. It's unfolding before our eyes in slow motion, and we're unable to stop it. I feel trapped all the time, trapped in the world, trapped in the system, no agency,m, no control, no hope. I don't know what to do, because the powers that be are FUCKING EVERYTHING UP ROYALLY! This party is a laughingstock, and the alternatives are either pure evil or insignificant; I'd be a Green if they stood a snowball's chance in hell, but they don't, not even in a single district, neither federal nor state.
The system has to collapse in my lifetime, it's not tenable as is.
