2024 wasn’t entirely unexpected: Election season slogged on for most of it, Taylor Swift continued to dominate, and we weathered yet another year of record-breaking summer heat and even more severe storms that devastated much of the country.
But there were a few things no one saw coming: President Joe Biden stepping aside after a disastrous debate, two assassination attempts on former President Donald Trump less than two months apart, and Red Lobster’s fall from grace due to endless shrimp among them.
Readers are often quick to tell us that we’re wrong or right throughout the year. (Just peek in our inboxes.) As we look back on the year that was, we figured we’d give our columnists a chance to decide for themselves. Here’s what we got wrong – and right – in 2024.
Biden shouldn’t have run for president again. I was right about that.
I started off the year hopeful that the Republican Party was ready to turn the page from Donald Trump – with someone younger and with fresh, conservative ideas.
Someone like former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
That didn’t turn out to be the case. The former president handily defeated his primary opponents.
What I was right about, however, was the fact that President Joe Biden shouldn’t have run for reelection. I called him out on that long before many others in the news media decided to notice his declining physical and mental health.
For instance, in February, I wrote a column after Robert Hur, the special counsel who looked into Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, issued a report calling Biden an “elderly man with a poor memory.”
Read the column:Special counsel says Biden is ‘elderly man with a poor memory.’ And he’s the Democrats’ guy?
That should effectively have ended Biden’s bid for another term, but a compliant, liberal news media and Democrats chose instead to ignore reality and gaslight the American people that Biden was A-OK.
At the time, I wrote that Biden did “not sound like someone capable of executing one of the world’s most important jobs.”
And I was right.
— Ingrid Jacques
Trump can’t win, I said. Then along came Kamala Harris.
I was wrong about Donald Trump.
As Trump tore through the Republican primary field like a toddler in the toy aisle, I kept saying to myself: “He can’t win in November. Republicans will get trounced, and we’ll have four more years of progressive ineptitude misleading the nation and the world.”
Then he did win – 31 states and the popular vote.
And Republicans gained control of the Senate, the House and the majority of elected offices in the majority of states.
In my defense, what I didn’t factor in was Democrats’ decision to send the political equivalent of the Toledo Mud Hens to play against the New York Yankees in the World Series.
How bad was Vice President Kamala Harris as a candidate? She burned through $1.5 billion in less than four months, paid uber-wealthy celebrities Beyoncé and Oprah to boost her campaign, turned down free publicity from the most popular podcaster on the planet (at the time), and couldn’t field even a softball question from the friendly hosts of “The View” about what she would do differently than her deeply unpopular boss.
Perhaps I was only half wrong, after all: Trump didn’t so much win this year’s election as Democrats gave it away.
— Tim Swarens
I was right about Biden’s decline, but wrong about Trump’s path to victory
I’m relieved to see I was right about a few things in 2024. Before the election, I wrote that Biden was not well and that the Democratic Party was hiding it. This turned out to be true.
I also wrote that Harris was an awful candidate from the get-go, and that her choice of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee pushed them way too far to the left.
Trump not only won the election but also all the swing states, and red states like Texas and Florida voted for conservative candidates in even higher numbers than predicted. Republicans were vindicated about a lot of things – from the Biden administration’s censorship of tech companies to Hunter Biden’s federal crimes to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s flawed COVID-19 guidelines.
But I was wrong about a couple of things.
When Trump introduced JD Vance as his running mate, I thought the Ohio senator was a poor choice. I later owned it as soon as I realized my mistake.
I also wasn’t sure Trump would win the election. There were times, when watching his press conferences or remembering the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, that I wasn’t sure I wanted him to win.
I believe that conservative ideas are best for this country, but I wasn’t sure Trump could win over America.
Boy, was I wrong.
— Nicole Russell
What if I said I wasn’t wrong about anything?
As a proud graduate of the Donald J. Trump School of Humility and Self-reflection, I’ve reviewed all the Pulitzer-Prize-worthy (if the Pulitzers weren’t RIGGED!) columns I wrote in 2024 and concluded this: I was not wrong about anything.
Many are saying each of my columns was the best column they’ve ever read and that, really, no columnist in history has accomplished what I’ve accomplished. It’s true.
The other day this reader came up to me – big, tough guy, tears in his eyes – and he said, “Mr. Huppke. I just want to thank you for showing us that someone can always be right while also being incredibly handsome and making journalism great again.” It’s a true story. We’ll find him and I’ll get you his name in two weeks.
Sure, there are some fake readers out there who make claims like “You predicted Trump wouldn’t do a presidential debate” and “You thought Trump would dump JD Vance before the election.” FAKE VIEWS!
Losers like that are just taking words I wrote and twisting them so they sound like I meant them to mean what they meant. Those people will be hearing from my lawyers.
I didn’t become a 10-time winner of the Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Genius-ness trophy from the journalism club I started 10 years ago by being wrong. 2024 was another banner year of nailing it for this guy.
I’ll end by repeating the Trump humility school’s beloved credo: I’m right, you’re wrong, shut up.
— Rex Huppke
I was wrong – but in four years, I may be right
I wrote more than 100 columns for USA TODAY in 2024. One rings out for getting it wrong.
I predicted in July that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon would face judicial review for her illogical decision to dismiss all the charges in Florida against President-elect Donald Trump for taking classified documents after he left the White House and then refusing to return them until the FBI served a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago.
I had, what I thought at the time, was a solid reason to believe this – the conservative leaning 11th District Court of Appeals had previously smacked down one of her rulings. The appellate judges clearly said former presidents can’t just ignore search warrants when they want. Two of the three appellate judges who signed that opinion were appointed by Trump during his first term.
So it looked like Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, stood a decent shot at getting the case reinstated on appeal.
But Cannon ruled in mid-July. And the appeal didn’t land until late August. I didn’t give enough credence to the calendar and Trump’s time-worn legal strategy of delay, delay, delay in all cases.
Trump won the presidential election in November. The appeal in his Florida case ‒ along with a pending case in Washington, D.C., pegged to his actions before, during and after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 ‒ were both dropped a few weeks later.
For now. The U.S. Department of Justice’s protocols say a president can’t be prosecuted. Trump’s second term ends in January 2029.
So maybe I’ll be proven right, after a four-year delay.
— Chris Brennan
Harris’ meme-heavy campaign gave me hope for Gen Z. I overestimated it.
When I look back at Harris’ 100-day campaign, I remember the memes. That’s the problem. It turns out I was wrong to think that a viral internet-based campaign would lead to votes – and I missed the flaws of her presidential run.
In a few short months, the vice president managed to create viral moments that were supposed to endear her to young voters. As soon as I saw a video edit of her set to a Charli XCX song, I knew we were either charting new territory or heading toward a repeat of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. It turned out to be the latter.
When I wrote about Harris’ brat summer, the Democratic nominee’s “Call Her Daddy” appearance and the Taylor Swift endorsement, I said it would only matter if young people went out and voted. They didn’t.
Opinion:Gen Z voters were the biggest disappointment of the election. Why did we fail?
There were two major flaws with Harris’ strategy. First, she didn’t delve into the details of what exactly she was going to do to make our lives better. The average Gen Z voter isn’t going to remember Harris’ housing plan or her economic stances, because she didn’t spend enough time explaining them. They will, however, remember how cringe it got.
Second, her campaign ignored young men, while Trump catered to them. This was a fatal error in her campaign. In hindsight, I believe that a better strategy would have been to have a messaging plan for Gen Z men that rivaled the expansiveness of her strategy for young women.
In the end, she just didn’t have enough time. I don’t think I’m wrong about that.
— Sara Pequeño
Sadly, I was right about the challenges teachers must face
In August, as another school year began, I wrote that teachers in America are overburdened and underappreciated. The recent school shooting in Madison, Wisconsin, reiterated a horrifying aspect of that truth: Educators are not only expected to shape the minds of future generations but also to act as human shields in the face of unimaginable violence.
The shooting, at a Christian school that educates children from kindergarten through 12th grade, is a scary reminder that no matter my religion, political beliefs or social status, the lives of my children are at risk every time they walk out my front door to go to school.
What’s worse is the lack of meaningful legislative action to address ongoing gun violence. America can keep its thoughts, prayers and heroic accolades; what we need are stricter gun laws and increased funding for schools.
Opinion:Madison school shooting will soon be forgotten. Just like 82 others.
When will we learn that our children will continue to face violence in schools until we better regulate guns and provide universal access to comprehensive mental health care?
America’s teachers deserve livable wages and a guarantee that their primary role is to teach – not to protect students when violence erupts. Until systemic changes are made, America’s education system will continue to lose good teachers, leaving students, schools and communities to suffer the consequences.
It’s time to enact stronger gun restrictions before more lives are lost and more trauma is inflicted.
— Marla Bautista
