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2026: The Year We Made Contact… with Despair!

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart. The very next day, you came back for my soul. That's when I learned you were a demon. Ah well. This year it saves me from tears -my emotionless husk can no longer produce them.
Halfway through the 2020s, this decade has already given most others of the past century and a bit a run for their money in terms of how terrible they can be. And on the eve of one rotten year transitioning to another you can't help but take stock of that as you gaze into the nothingness of your own mind in deep meditation on the profound cruelty of the universe. Or maybe that's just me.
But 2026. That is no picnic either. In fact, it makes 2025 look like an adorable labrador puppy rolling in a flowerbed. 2026 on the other hand is an ugly Cerberus with the complexion of James Gunn's Scrappy-Doo monster stomping all over a toxic waste spill while biting the heads off rodents. I've witnessed it from my vantage point in the demon's mausoleum (which actually has pretty good wifi) through the Orb of Foretelling left here to gather dust until its newer model craps out. I have been able to glean some sights of what's to come, which I choose now to warn you of in case you were foolishly considering buying up any more stock in this world:

January -At the Conservative Party convention in Calgary a little over a week after a third Tory M.P. crossed the floor to the Liberals and gave them a majority, Pierre Poilievre fails his leadership review and is booted out of the party. As the bitter ex-leader attempts to form yet another right-wing contingent for the Canadian political scene, his old party seeks new leadership with the most consequential conservative figure in the country, Mark Carney.

February -To the apoplectic dismay of the Ellisons, Warner Bros. finalizes its sale to Netflix as David Zaslav rides off in pursuit of his next company to get rich destroying. Netflix, having fooled enough people into thinking they don’t hate movies, swiftly inflates their subscriber fee and shelves all non-franchise projects, while premiering superhero films and other would-be blockbusters exclusively on their mobile app. The theatrical model is retained only for KPop Demon Hunters singalongs.

March -Brazilian political thriller The Secret Agent wins several awards at the Oscars. But due to an ICE raid earlier in the ceremony neither director Kleber Mendoça Filho nor star Wagner Moura are present to accept their accolades. Eventually Donald Trump uses the pair as bargaining chips with the Brazilian government for the release of his friend Jair Bolsonaro, who promptly disappears down the Amazon to find and take over El Dorado.

April -A trove of unredacted Epstein files are released accidentally by CBS News after editor-and-chief Bari Weiss forgot which sections Trump told her to blot out. The not-so-shocking materials, including a picture of Trump in an ‘Epstein Island Party ‘04’ t-shirt and an email in which Epstein refers to Trump as the ‘Sex TraficKing’, are summarily dismissed by Republican legislators who didn’t even see them and don’t know why we’re still on about that, and oh, sorry I have an important meeting to get to….

May -Disney’s licensing partnership with OpenAI takes shape only to backfire almost immediately on the family entertainment brand in the most predictable of ways when the internet is flooded with Disney-themed pornography to the plausible deniability of OpenAI and the immediate regret of Disney’s executive class -apart from that one guy in the boardroom who gets off on it.

June -American Catholics, ever more frustrated by the Pope’s woke preaching on tolerance and compassion, begin to leave the church in droves, turning instead to the cult of Ayn Rand for spiritual guidance. This proves relatively short-lived after the discovery that Rand was in fact a woman. In the meantime, Jesus comes back to Earth only to quietly leave again in observance of this, not having the patience to deal with such bullshit.

July -After a grueling two years, feckless British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is removed from office by his own Labour caucus. As he pursues his formerly abandoned dreams of becoming a posh DJ, the party makes the surprising choice of electing Liz Truss -largely just to put an end to her horrible podcast. Her second term in office ultimately lasts a respectable thirteen days before she plunges the U.K. into a depression at which point Labour just rolls the dice and selects Matt Berry.

August -Forest fires continue to win their grudge match against North America as much of the Canadian Shield and American Midwest is torched by drought and careless smokers. Large scale evacuations begin, with Greenland taking in a plurality of American climate refugees until a collective of Ohio idiots led by J.D. Vance attempt to overthrow the local government and make Greenland an American state. For their failed coup, the conspirators are exiled to the island of St. Helena.

September - Sabrina Carpenter once again makes headlines for her bawdy brand imagery –this time via an explicitly BDSM-themed photoshoot- demonstrating how little pop music fans can grasp the concept of irony. Instructed by the record industry to reign her persona in for a demographic terrified of sex, she switches to performing all her concerts in a conservative business suit, which to everyone’s surprise but her own, only makes her performances sexier.

October -Alberta Premier Danielle Smith continues to wield the notwithstanding clause like a toddler with a laser pointer, stripping the right to vote from her personal designated terrorist entities, including teachers, labourers, the LGBTQ community, social workers, Indigenous peoples, and anyone who’s said something mean about her online. She is foiled however when she signs a ban on occult practices, and having secretly been a banshee all this time, evaporates into air the moment it passes.

November -After more than a year of degradation, Trump’s body gives up, collapsing in a noxious, sweaty heap in his empty opulent ballroom. Nazi advisor Stephen Miller is appointed president by his Saudi bosses and immediately scapegoats the Democrats for Trump’s death, canceling the midterm elections in the process. But as Chuck Schumer drafts a very angry letter from his concentration camp, Miller is thwarted at his lair and taken out by his worst nightmare –an elite squad of anti-Zionist movie stars!

December -A coffee spill at Bill Gates’s house sets off a chain reaction that wipes out the internet worldwide. After an initial period of panic, horror, and temperamental helplessness –mostly from Elon Musk, everyone starts to realize how much better the world is without memes and algorithms and chatbots and hate campaigns. Existence proves far more bearable with freedom and mental health and relationships and personal privacy. Wars are ended, despots put in chains, class and geographic barriers are broken down, diseases are cured, the beginnings of true equality and prosperity are within grasp… and then on Christmas Day, Sam Bankman finds the ‘on’ switch and plunges the world back into the depths of hell. It is probably what we deserve.

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