2024: The Year That Got Away

Recapping national and global politics, Supreme Court rulings, and economic news is important to provide some insight into what is happening now.  I always wish that bad news produces corrections that improve what we do and think in the future.  2024 was not the year of such improvements.  Instead, the year began hopeful, then dove into a downward descent of destruction.

NATIONAL NEWS

The Up and Down Campaign for Presidency

Up to the first debate, it was established that President Joe Biden would represent the Democrats on the Presidential Election ticket.  Then, we all watched as he appeared slow and befuddled during his first debate with Donald Trump.  Perhaps he was over-coached and over-prepared.  Perhaps he was recovering from a cold, as was reported.  What we watched, though, was a quieter, more restrained Trump (which was a big surprise) and a doddering Biden.  There was no doubt that the next debate would have to get better.  

Soon after the debate, the Democrats were inundated with calls to replace Biden on the ticket with someone younger and more dynamic.  Unselfishly, he stepped down and recommended that Kamala Harris replace him.  Almost immediately, the Democratic party was invigorated with fight and hope.  This action also circumvented any infighting among the Democrats and made use of the campaign funds collected. 

Harris's only debate with Trump was a different scenario.  She appeared calm and articulate.  Trump appeared angry throughout the debate and settled into his self-indulgent exaggeration and rambling.  He was clearly less disciplined than he was in the debate against Biden.

Certainly, this was a good sign of things to come, right?

Kamala Harris proved to be a very good campaigner.  The campaign funds grew at a record pace.  Her selected vice president selection, Mike Walz, was an adept "everyman", home-spun candidate.  Their rallies drew record crowds. The Democratic National Convention went off without a hitch.  Kamala Harris and Mike Walz would represent the Democrats on the Presidential Election ticket.

Surely, this was another good sign, right?

We didn't expect anything new for Trump's campaign.  We knew he'd ad-lib comments -- likely, controversial -- and ramble throughout his speeches in his large rallies.  Then, inexplicably, there was an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally.  A bullet flew past Trump's head and nicked his ear.  A widely-published photo of Trump raising his fist and shouting "fight" stirred the Republican voters.

At the Republican National Convention, some delegates attended wearing a patch on their ears to honor Trump!  Trump officially named J.D. Vance as his vice president selection which sent signals about the radical conservative thrust of his platform.  The convention speakers only confirmed that. 

Weeks after the convention, another apparent attempt to assassinate Trump was made while he was golfing at his club.  A gunman was detected while the Secret Service was clearing the grounds ahead of Trump. 

Election results were predicted to be prolonged.  Trump had already commented that, if he did not win, then there was voter fraud.  He also explained that elections should not be protracted.  If it was, that would also prove voter fraud. 

The election results, it turned out, were called that evening.  Trump had won by a narrow margin, based upon statistical results.  Trump had won.  Seriously!  We woke up the next morning, thinking that the real state results coming in would change the overall count.  It didn't.  Instead, it verified that the voters HAD voted for idiot Trump. 

Days later, pundits would try to assess what happened.  It appeared that Trump voters didn't want to consider his narcissistic personality, his penchant for lying or his clear hatred of women and non-white people. Were the results because of WHO voted? Why were those voters compelled to actually vote rather than sit it out?  Was it a general malaise about the economy?  Was it a racist or sexist sentiment?  

The Broken Congress

Before the elections, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson appeared to be conducting business looking for consensus but soon after the election results, the House was at an impasse again.  The Republicans would do Trump's bidding, regardless of their constituents' wishes. It was clear that, even with a majority Republican seats, the House was not functional. There was infighting among the Republicans. While the numbers of passed bills was not as low as 2023, it was still pathetically low and ineffectual.

Republicans won the Senate majority by a very slim margin of three in the November elections.   The best that the Democrats could hope was to pick off some Republican Senators to vote with them but, for the most part, the results were a harbinger of a dysfunctional Senate as well.

Trump's Legal Cases

In May, Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts in the "Hush Money" trial.  His sentencing, though, was delayed until several appeals were reviewed and until after the election.  Eventually, there were no repercussions for Trump.  He received an unconditional discharge, which includes neither jail time nor any other restriction that might impede him after his inauguration.

What about the other legal cases?  The classified documents case was dropped as soon as Trump was elected.  Trump made it clear that the Department of Justice would be realigned and the Jack Smith would be fired.  Smith, instead, resigned and stopped the work on the case.

The federal cases related to Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election were also quietly dropped (see Supreme Court Rulings below).

The Georgia state racketeering case against Trump was deferred when Trump was elected.  Trump was declared immune from prosecution while he was in office.  DA Fani Willis was re-elected but, soon after Trump was elected, the Georgia Court of Appeals declared that she and her office should be removed from the case due to conflict of interest from a relationship she had with a contractor.  (Another judge later recommended she remove the contractor which she did.)  The Georgia Supreme Court has not ruled on the appeal but Willis has been fighting attempts to disbar her.  In other words, this case has stalled.

Hints of Trump's Future Plans

Trump started the machinations of his new term very early.  In December, he nominated Susie Wiles as his Chief of Staff.  She was a former CEO of Trump's leadership PAC, co-chair of his Florida campaign and co-chair of his presidential campaign.  He nominated Republican Senator Marco Rubio as his Secretary of State.  (In view of all his nominations, this one distressed me the least.) 

He nominated, as his Attorney General, Republican Senator Matt Gaetz, a man who had been investigated over the years as a sex trafficker and who bragged about his conquests to his fellow Senators.  By January, the fall-out of this nomination was so intense (because even his fellow Republican Senators didn't like or trust him), he resigned from the nomination and Trump chose the Florida Attorney General, Pam Bondi, for this position.

He nominated Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a former Democrat and large Trump donor, as his Secretary of Health and Human Services.  So much resistance followed this nomination because RFK Jr. was known as an ardent anti-vaccination activist. 

More nominations were to follow.  Most were large campaign donors, unqualified for the positions they were to assume.

Finally, Christopher Wray, the FBI Director who was originally assigned by Trump in his first term, decided to resign after the inauguration.   Merrick Garland, the Attorney General, decided the same.  Both felt that they would be fired by Trump anyway.  In Wray's case, the FBI Director is a non-political 10-year position.  Trump could not fire him (although, he said he would). 

SUPREME COURT RULINGS

The question was how was a conservative-leaning Supreme Court going to react to the court cases against Trump in 2024.  I'm still flummoxed at the power of Trump or, more accurately, conservativism. 

Here are the major decisions of the year with some explanations about the rulings.  In general, the Supreme Court decided to nitpick the major issues, send cases back to the original courts, or rule against previous precedents.

Trump's immunity:  The Supreme Court weighed the bounds of presidential immunity as it related to Trump's criminal indictment.  Trump had said the all acts of his accusation were official acts and that presidents cannot be criminally charged for official acts taken while in the White House.  In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that presidents are entitled to immunity from prosecution for official acts but not entitled to immunity for unofficial acts.  The justices sent the case back to the lower court to decide which of Trump's actions were official and which were unofficial.  This delayed the case until after the election.  As expected, assuming Trump would direct the Justice Department to drop the charges against him when in office, the classified documents case was dropped. 

Obstruction charges for January 6 rioters and Trump:  More than 300 people had been charged with obstructing or impeding an official proceeding (the congressional certification of Joe Biden's 2020 presidential win).  The case argued that the charge was only intended to apply to evidence tampering involving a congressional inquiry or investigation and explicitly barred the destruction or concealment of corporate business records.  (The law also makes it a crime to obstruct or impede an official proceeding.)  In a 6-3 ruling, the justices said that the U.S. government overreached when it used the obstruction charge.  It said that the government had to show that a defendant physically destroyed -- or attempted to -- significantly impair records, documents and objects used in an official proceeding.  The ruling will likely prompt calls for new trials or lighter sentences for those already convicted of obstruction.  For Trump, the ruling could wipe out two of the four criminal counts brought against him by Jack Smith.  The ruling sent the case back to the Circuit Court so that its judges can assess whether the indictments can still stand but since Trump was immune after elected, his case was dropped.

Overturning Chevron:  The Chevron doctrine (1984 Supreme Court opinion) instructs the courts to either look to Congress or the federal agencies' interpretation of a statute if vague, as long as the interpretation is reasonable.  This case was related to a challenge that fishermen brought against a federal agency because it allowed the executive branch to interpret the law instead of courts.  In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court agreed that federal judges "must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority."  This decision could lead to increased judicial review of federal agency actions, potentially weakening their power to regulate various areas, including environmental protection, healthcare and workplace safety.

Access to abortion medicine (Mifepristone):  In 2016 the FDA changed some guidelines making it easier to access Mifepristone, including requiring only one in-person medical visit and allowing non-physician health care providers to prescribe the medication. In 2021, during COVID-19, the FDA said the drug could be prescribed via telehealth appointments and sent by mail. The FDA’s challengers argue that Mifepristone is unsafe and the administration did not act lawfully when it expanded access to the medication.  In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court held that the group of anti-abortion doctors who brought the case lacked legal standing to challenge the FDA's regulation but it did not respond whether the FDA was acting lawfully. 

Bump stock ban:  After the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) ruled that rifles equipped with bump stocks qualified as machine guns (which had been largely banned since 1986).  In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court found that the ATF exceeded its authority when it classified rifles with bump stocks as "machine guns".

Gun rights for people under restraining orders:  In 2022, the Supreme Court expanded the scope of gun rights, saying the gun laws must follow the nation's historical tradition of gun regulation.  Since then, this led to challenges to many long-standing gun laws, including one that  prohibited domestic violence abusers from having guns.  In an almost unanimous decision (only Clarence Thomas dissented), the Supreme Court reaffirmed that when an individual has been found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another, that individual can be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment.     

Social media "jawboning":  The Attorney Generals of Missouri and Louisiana accused government officials of illegally pressuring social media companies to remove posts about the 2020 election and COVID-19.  The Biden administration argued that it was exercising its First Amendment rights to express view about matters of public interest.  In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court reversed a ruling by the Fifth Circuit which held that communications between government officials and social media platforms made the government officials responsible for the platforms' content moderation decisions.  This opinion was a big win for the Biden administration and effectively allowed the government to communicate with social media companies about controversial content in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.

Emergency abortions:  Idaho enacted the abortion ban after Roe v. Wade was overturned.  The federal law, passed in 1986, requires Medicare-participating hospitals to provide necessary stabilizing treatment to patients, including abortion care, regardless of the patient's ability to pay.  In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court sidestepped whether Idaho's abortion ban conflicted with a federal emergency room law requiring doctors to provide stabilizing care.  Instead, the justices dismissed the appeal from Idaho officials and reinstated a lower court ruling that allowed Idaho hospitals that receive federal funds to perform emergency abortions, while litigation continued.  After the decision, hospitals in anti-abortion states were reluctant to take in patients for emergency abortions, effectively halting abortions in these states.

ECONOMY

There was plenty of good news when Trump's presidential term would begin.  Unemployment was low, inflation was dipping, gas was cheap and getting cheaper, shopping was high, the stock market was booming and crime was down dramatically from the spike that occurred during the worst of the pandemic months.  Yet, there were more company bankruptcies since the 1990's. 

I expected Trump to take undeserved credit for these financial signs of progress.  Instead, once elected, he described the next term to be one of large changes -- changes that would help his rich friends and "destroy fraud and inefficiency." (That proved to be true in 2025.)

By the end of the year, there were several problems that would have to be addressed.  A Boeing jet landed quickly when the door flew off.  Luckily, no one died.  How did a large supplier of airplanes allow a missing bolt?  A container ship struck a well-traveled bridge in Baltimore and six people died.  How was the ship, which regularly uses this route, checked for safety? 

Hurricane Helene devastated North Carolina weeks after Hurricane Milton did damage to Florida.  Expenses, at that time, shattered records.  45 people were killed in 5 states.  How do the damaged areas get restructured for future events like this?

We depend on federal agencies such as the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA), National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to regulate and manage our important infrastructures, and respond to disasters.

WORLD NEWS

The best news outside of the U.S. was that climate scientist Claudia Sheinbaum won Mexico's presidential election, becoming the first female president in Mexico's 200-year history.  She had resigned from her post as head of Mexico City's government to secure the Party of Democratic Revolution's nomination for president and won in a landslide. 

In August, the U.S. negotiated a prisoner swap with Russia to free Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter imprisoned for 16 years in prison, convicted in a sham espionage trial.

In December, large-scale protests and pro-democracy rallies across Syria caused the fall of the Assad regime.  Then-President Bashar al-Assad had responded to the protests with lethal force, sparking a civil war.  Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow as the largest cities fell to the revolutionaries and his prime minister transferred power to the new government.  By January, the new government announced the dissolution of several armed militias and their integration into the Syrian Ministry of Defense.  This wasn't entirely good news, though, the new government would be ruled by anti-West militants.  

Ukraine continued its war with Russia.  The European Union and the United States continued to support Ukraine with intelligence and equipment.  After the election, however, there were questions as to whether the American support would be continued.

251 people were still being held hostage by the Hamas. Israel continued to bombard the Gaza Strip to eliminate Hamas elements, regardless of how the innocent Palestinians were impacted.  Many were displaced but way too many died in the conflict.