The Next Six Months
The good, the bad and the very, very ugly
We’re entering one of the most consequential six months in decades and it’s not an overstatement to say that it could shape the direction of the world for years to come. If you think you’ve been trapped on a runaway train for the last ten years, buckle up.
The US Midterms in November are a potential flashpoint. The Democrats are heavily favoured to win the House and possibly the Senate. If they do, not only will Trump’s agenda come to a juddering halt, but impeachment could and should be back on the table, along with a series of hearings to hold the entire administration to account for its many and varied failings. Of course, Trump knows this too, as do his shadowy puppet masters in both the oligarch class and the architects of Project 2025. We left behind the age of normal politics a long time ago. Anything is possible now. The question is, how far will Trump and those around him go to avoid impeachment and possible jail? From now on vigilance is vital, every minor detail must be scrutinised and resistance may need to be stepped up.
Today the UN warned that in the coming weeks, the climate crisis could create a Super-El Niño, one of the strongest ever recorded. “We’re very confident that there’s a big event coming,” said Prof Adam Scaife of the UK Met Office. “It may even be a record event.” That means temperatures rising by a whopping two degrees, floods in the southern US, droughts and wildfires across the Americas, East Asia and Australia, crop failures, trade disruptions rippling through supply chains and economies, spiking prices — at a time when Trump’s Iran War is already resulting in a soaring cost of living — and hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars in lost income globally. It will peak in November — just in time for the Midterms. “El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world,” said UN secretary general António Guterres. “Impacts will hit even harder, travel even farther, and cross borders with devastating speed.”
Yesterday a Bloomberg exclusive revealed Russia’s top finance chiefs told Putin that spending on the war with Ukraine was no longer affordable. This is “the most serious sign of internal division in Moscow since the full-scale invasion began.” The fact that something so sensitive was leaked to Bloomberg shows how dire things are getting in Moscow. Putin has already had to increase his security amid rumours of potential coups. The Russian President is in a bind — he can’t afford to retreat or to carry on. What comes next?
The repercussions of the failed Iran War in high oil prices, soaring inflation and restricted growth will roll on for months, even if by some miracle Trump finds a workable solution to extricate himself from a trap of his own making. Again, this will shape the Midterms.The rest of the world has no vote in November, but everywhere will feel the effects for good or ill.
The theme for this Substack and my reporting on Bluesky (@Chadbourn.bsky.social) is Everything is Connected. Nothing in the world happens in isolation and the effects can roll out to shape even seemingly unconnected events. In the world we’re now in staying informed about *everything* is vital.
As we all pass though this turbulence — hopefully to calmer waters ahead — I’m going to be reporting on all the things I think are important. That will mean updates several times a week here, daily if necessary. We have a world to watch, and there’s going to be more than enough coming out of the US alone.
All the main articles will remain free to read for seven days. Some people have very kindly paid for subscriptions, to the point where I now feel an obligation to give them something back, so the archive will be for paid subscribers only and there will be some exclusive content for them too.
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“All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world, but we don’t. And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are they challenging and filled with opportunity.” ~ Robert F Kennedy
Additional hidden horror: The die off of worms in farmland.
The use of de-wormers in cattle/sheep/horses and the subsequent spreading of manure on crop fields and into water courses means that the earthworm (and all its many relatives) are being poisoned. Once the worm numbers fall too far the land becomes impermeable to water and therefore infertile.
On the Russia point — the Bloomberg leak is real and significant, but worth reading carefully. Finance officials warning that spending is unaffordable is partly their job, and a leak this sensitive may be a move, not just a symptom: the economic bloc using the one audience the Kremlin can't spin to force discipline on the war hawks. But autocracies fund unaffordable wars far longer than the spreadsheets allow. "Unaffordable" has been the forecast since 2022; it hasn't proven decisive yet.