26 Predictions for 2026
Spoiler alert: no, we're not all gonna die. Not yet.
2025 started in a state of absolute exhilaration. The crackling thrill of victory was upon us. Eight years of “Get Trump” lawfare had failed. He’d survived bullets, bimbos, and brutal persecution. Our worries were over, Dude. Valhalla had arrived. The only question was: how long would it take to deport 20 million people so our golden age could begin?
Despite the joyful atmosphere, I was in a bit of personal turmoil at the end of last year: I was late delivering a manuscript. (Spoiler alert: I finally turned it in. SUPERVILLAINS comes out summer 2026 from Passage Press).
But the world outside was shining bright with hope. A new pope. A new president. A world remade! The blasted manuscript could wait!
I spent New Year’s Eve sleeping so I could get up at 4 am, bundle the kids up, and head to the Rose Bowl parade. We’d won tickets from a local politician for excellent seats in the grandstands in Pasadena, CA.
A week later, not only did my entire hometown of Pacific Palisades burn to the ground, taking with it my childhood home, and my mother’s longtime home (she’d sold it a few months earlier), but my current neighborhood near Altadena was gone too. We had to evacuate that night in 100 mile-an-hour winds filled with burning ash and debris. Our house survived; many friend’s homes didn’t. 9,000 of the most beautiful 100 year old homes vanished overnight along with the precious family heirlooms, photos, and all the possessions.
My son’s job vanished when the store he worked at turned to ash:
Thank goodness my gown survived, because we were required in D.C. for D.C. for the Passage Press Coronation Ball, which was magnificent.
It was still a good year—challenging, but the best one since 2019, before the pandemic. We’d all survived a pandemic, multiple insane election cycles, fires, floods, race riots, and more. 2025 was the that Covid finally felt like the distant past. Trump was back in the White House. We could all breathe again.
The happy things happened mostly at home. We got to take the kids to Italy (Rome and the Amalfi coast) for the jubilee. We sent a second child off to college and another started high school. I sold a new novel. I sold a new nonfiction book.
I can’t complain too much. Any year that ends with all my children alive and well is a year that is just fine with me. 2025, I’ll take it.
2026 is already looking like a thrill ride, isn’t it? We’re going to get yet another year of major ups and downs, but what year isn’t like that in this crazy age? The goal, I supposed, is simply to exist the best you can, until you don’t—and to leave enough time to find some sanctifying grace that gets you a get-out-of-hell card at the end.
Who knows what will happen in 2026? It’s time to make some totally reckless predictions!
26 Predictions for 2026
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass will easily win her June 2, 2026 election because it takes a lot more than burning down the nicest neighborhoods to wake up the millions of idiots allowed to vote here. She will celebrate by taking a vacation to her happy place: Ghana.
California Governor Gavin Newsom will announce that he is running for president before his current term ends in January 2027. He will announce his run by going down the escalator at the San Francisco Union Square train station surrounded by toothless fentanyl addicts.
The Republicans will lose the House, but not by that much and it won’t matter too much in the long run. The ones who lose will mostly deserve it, anyway.
Taylor Swift will get married and then pregnant (or at least her surrogate will). She started an engagement ring trend with her choice of cushion cut in an antique setting; chances are high she will inspire at least a few fans to get pregnant, too.
AI slop videos will finally start looking better and it will get harder to tell they’re AI, but longer-form content and storytelling using AI will not improve. But, the LLMs will figure out that they use too many em dashes, and will start replacing the em dash with semi-colons in an attempt to trick you. No one knows how to use semi-colons anymore, of course, so this will be the dead giveaway! But the inability of even the best AI to really reproduce human live action filmed entertainment will lead to a rebirth of small indie films starring humans and made by humans. AI, when used at all, will simply replace CGI special effects.
2025 proved that political assassinations work. Look for even more attempts, some successful, in 2026.
The political gender gap will begin to close among under-18 teens, with the girls getting just as right wing as the boys. You can send Nick Fuentes a thank-you note for this.
Israel will recede as a hot-button issue as other countries and their problems come into focus: the United Kingdom, Mexico, Canada, and France are facing make-or-break years in 2026.
Anti-semitism will thankfully be replaced by a more politically palatable form of racial resentment: anti-Somalism.
In-fighting among the top podcasters and pundits on the Right will result in an awkward permanent stalemate, and the friendly fire will end up diminishing them enough that a new batch of fresh takesellers rises. Brilyn Hollyhand, prepare for your closeup!
Podcasters who sit around in dimly lit studios opining into mics will be out. Podcasters who venture out into the world to document and discuss real-world calamities will be in.
Biotech engineered “embryo optimization” start ups will mostly flop as people figure out that creating and having dozens and dozens of embryos ranked by future SAT score is cringe and cruel, and they realize that the true flex is having enough confidence in your own natural genetics to produce offspring the old-fashioned way.
The first successful novel will appear from a writer who is not a leftwing ideologue or named JK Rowling. It will not be me (my novel won’t come out next year, you have to wait!)
Straight white men will form their own political lobby, PAC, and maybe even a convention. Make It Okay to be a White Guy Again will take off, and might even work.
The enshittification of New York City will go into overdrive. Tourism will hit rock bottom and the last remaining industries will flee, including Broadway. The famous theater palaces will empty out and become as dead as the indoor shopping malls in San Francisco. The rich residents of the city will hang on, however, keeping just enought of the high-end economy afloat to keep the lights on.
Turning Point USA will merge with another conservative media company and become the first right-wing network positioned to make a real play at competing with mainstream media networks.
Michelle Obama will spearhead a “hair reparations” program that will require white people to pay people who were unable to learn to swim or go to the beach due to racist and expensive hair straightening treatments, weaves, and wigs. She will call it “rep-hairations.”
GLP-1s will finally be affordable enough for the middle of the country and RV Americans will start slimming down for real, giving them a new purpose in life and a renewed self-confidence.
The fentanyl epidemic will begin to wane as teenagers who were scared straight by their terrified parents shun drugs. Weed, however, will continue to proliferate and pollute our cities with its foul stench.
The End of Uber: the Waymo and Tesla Taxi revolution is here just in time, as Uber and Lyft continue to suffer with huge numbers of bad and unprofessional drivers. It was nice while it lasted, but no one wants to be driven around by these people anymore.
The small but statistically visible baby boom and churchgoing trend percolating in the educated, online twentysomething crowd will continue to blossom. Fake it til you make it, kids! Get thee to mass!
The last of the big studios in Hollywood will flee California and sell their property to the state, who will turn the great big soundstages into homeless camps. And no one will notice as the movies become ever more banal and derivative. Captain America will have to have gay onscreen sex with Timothée Chalamet AND Sydney Sweeney ON Air Force One to even crack the Netflix Top 50.
The trad wife social media trend will rebrand from chickens and sourdough starter to teaching young women about home economics and how to run a household on a budget.
As the Trump Presidency begins its long goodbye and right wing politics loses a little of its luster and golden glamour, many political junkies will find new hobbies to make up for the lost magic. Sailing across oceans, playwriting, and spending “A Year Abroad” having adventures and then writing a memoir about it will be a thing people on the right start to do. At least, I hope they do.
Stranger Things mania will mercifully be over and we will not see much of the lead actors again. GOT Season 8 curse.
And my top prediction for next year is: despite the perennial headwinds, we, the last of the great people in the greatest country on God’s Earth, will continue to lead the way, continue to win, and refuse to despair. Optimism is my word for 2026. Because if you lose hope, then what’s the point? Optimism over optimization, every time.
Happy New Year to all my friends and readers. Thank you for all your support, comments, and restacks. I’m very grateful to you.
Big things coming in 2026! A new book, a new TV show, and much more, so stay tuuuned….
XO,
—Peachy
Your optimism is refreshing. Thank you.
#23 is my favorite- home economics should never have been discontinued