Forecasts: crystal balls or a load of balls?

It is said, often by me, that it was the Danish physicist Neils Bohr who quipped ‘it is very difficult to predict — especially the future’.

It seems he may have been quoting an old Danish proverb, but ancient proverb or physicist’s witticism, it’s certainly true. I know that myself. I predicted, back in 2017, that Jeremy Corbyn would lead Labour to a catastrophic defeat in the general election that year. In fact, after a huge surge in support, he managed to lead the party only to a narrow defeat.

Sometimes I’ve got things right. After campaigning around the town where I live, Luton, to stay in the European Union, I was left with the distinct impression that we were heading for defeat. And, indeed, the nation voted by a narrow margin, and Luton itself by a substantial one, to leave.

So now I don’t know what to predict. It’s hard to see just where we’re going today. Corbyn could still pull off the trick, sadly, of leading Labour to a rout – certainly, his position in the polls gives little grounds for optimism. And as for Brexit, it’s beginning to feel unstoppable and even that the worst possible option, departure from the EU with no deal, a so-called hard Brexit, is now the most likely outcome.

Still, both those disasters may in the end be avoided. Corbyn may pull off another remarkable escape from complete meltdown, and Britain may still find a way to keep its Brexit soft. It may even find a way to avoid one altogether, though that hardly seems probable right now. Still, I’ve been wrong before, and predictions being particularly challenging when they concern the future, it seems wiser to wait and see on both counts.

H L Mencken: not always likeable, but sometimes right —
and funny with it

Instead, let’s focus on someone who seems to have got a couple of ideas spot on, even if they were only verified long after his death. That’s H L Mencken, American journalist and writer of the early part of the last century. Not the most likeable of men, not even admirable, as he was in private at least a racist in general and in particular an anti-Semite, he did get a few things right. And expressed them with a certain wit which at least makes him fun to quote.

No great democrat – he was suspicious of a system that seemed to give people he regarded as inferior to him a say over their superiors – he did at least come up with one view which later history verified in the most powerful way:

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

Consider recent Republican presidents.

There was Reagan, almost certainly as we now know suffering from incipient Alzheimer’s while in the White House. He was followed by George Bush the first, who couldn’t put a whole sentence together. We thought him bad enough until we had his son, George Bush the second or simply Dubya – and boy, was he simple – who clearly entirely fulfilled Mencken’s prediction. So entirely out of touch with reality was he, that he allowed affairs to be run by Dick Cheney, the most powerful Vice President in US history, and one of the more dangerous politicians of recent times: he is responsible, in particular, for the Iraq War, dragging the US with Blair’s Britain in its wake into a conflict that left thousands of soldiers dead and killed maybe as many as 600,000 civilians.

The Republicans seem to have developed an extraordinary skill: providing us with a series of presidents, each of them making us regret the one before, awful though he seemed to be at the time. Who would have thought that anyone could make Dubya look like a statesman, but isn’t that just what Donald Trump has done?

With the Republicans: downhill all the way
Making sure the White House is adorned by a downright moron

At any rate, either of the last two Republican occupants of the White House would have entirely fulfilled Mencken’s inspired prediction. And one could make a case for saying the same of Reagan and the elder Bush too.

Now it’s our turn, in Britain, to verify another of Mencken’s aphorisms.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

I always thought that was just a tad too condescending for my taste. Too much of a caricature to be true. But now we’ve had the Brexit vote.

The people have spoken. Brexit is coming. And today it looks like it’s going to be good and hard.

It’ll be interesting to see just how much the people who voted for it find they like it.