2026: The Other Half of the Forecast
Politics, Sports, Money, Entertainment, and All the Noise
This was intended to be posted on January 2, 2026. But for some technical reasones it never was released. So I will try again. Let me know where you agree and disagree. And have a great 2026.
If my first 2026 forecast was about useful things — the quiet technologies that might actually improve daily life — this one is about everything else. The noise. The drama. The stuff that fills up the news cycle whether we like it or not.
Most of what shapes a year for regular people isn’t AI, robotics, or energy storage. It’s the constant hum in the background: the headlines, the bickering, the sports sagas, the financial roller coaster, the cultural shifts, the weather, the unexpected nonsense.
And for seniors, this is complicated territory. We’re among the most informed groups in the country… and also the most likely to have sworn off cable news altogether. Plenty of my friends have stopped watching political coverage entirely, and I can’t say their blood pressure has suffered for it.
So here’s the other half of my 2026 forecast — the human half. Lighter, more humorous, and hopefully more recognizable.
The 2026 Political Noise Machine
Yes, it’s a midterm year. Yes, the ads will be loud. Yes, the pundits will insist that this is the most important election in the history of democracy. I’ve lived long enough to know that every election claims this title. Some years they might even be right — but the shouting makes it hard to tell.
Here’s what’s coming:
- Daily polls no one will remember
- Non-stop commentary
- Campaign ads that finally push more seniors into streaming services
- A level of outrage that could power a small city
But here’s what actually matters:
Seniors vote.
We may ignore the theatrics, but we show up. The issues that hit closest to home — healthcare access, Social Security, Medicare modernization, and the growing shortage of good doctors — will matter more in 2026 than any slogan or yard sign.
What worries me more than the candidates is the tone. The gap between the parties feels less like a difference of opinion and more like a canyon. There was a time when people could disagree without assuming the worst about each other. Now it’s all accusations and shouting, and decisions move slower than Los Angeles traffic.
Still, I’ve lived through enough political cycles to say:
The country has a stubborn habit of muddling through — though it seems to be working a bit harder at it lately.
Sports: The Universal Distraction Network
If politics is chaos, sports are ritual — familiar, predictable, and occasionally uplifting. And 2026 delivers quite a lineup:
- Super Bowl
- March Madness
- The Olympics (inspiring, expensive, political — pick your adjective)
- The World Cup
- Golf majors and the eternal “greatest of all time” debates
- A growing number of quarterbacks who are over 40 and making the rest of us look bad
Sports offer stability… mostly. But the modern version is different from what we grew up with.
Money has changed everything.
Gambling is everywhere.
College sports now operate through transfer portals that make rosters feel temporary.
And I’m still trying to wrap my head around Stanford and Cal joining the Atlantic Coast Conference. Someone must have bought a globe without oceans.
The Olympics have become so expensive that cities don’t want them, and so political that viewers don’t either. And with ticket prices higher than airfare, it’s anyone’s guess how full those stadiums will be.
Still, sports will give us drama, joy, heartbreak, and at least one international scandal involving a sport nobody watches the other three years. Count on it.
Finance: The Roller Coaster Nobody Enjoys but Everyone Watches
Ah, the markets. Always entertaining, seldom calming.
Here are the big questions for 2026:
- Will the stock market go up another 20%?
- Or will it drop 20% just to spite us?
- Will inflation ease?
- Will gas prices behave like adults?
Here’s my take: volatility isn’t going anywhere.
AI trading is now so fast and so deeply networked that it’s beginning to reshape the landscape — a disruption that may rival what the discount brokers did decades ago. But as always, these gains don’t show up evenly across households, or necessarily at all.
Most seniors I know worry less about growth and more about protection. We’ve lived through enough cycles to know that markets rise, markets fall, and the sun still comes up. Cost of living matters more to most people than quarterly earnings reports.
My favorite market prediction remains true:
Economists predict the market will either go up or go down — and so far they’re undefeated.
Entertainment & Culture: The Search for Artists Over 18
I’ve reached the point where the modern music landscape is something I observe from a safe distance. I have never heard a Taylor Swift song. Rap sends me reaching for the “Off” button. And I’m fine with that.
Jazz remains my home base — though most of the musicians I love are no longer with us. Thankfully, Spotify, Pandora, and Prime make it easy to revisit the greats, along with discovering the occasional gem.
Movies? Getting harder.
Hollywood seems committed to remaking everything except original ideas. The Fast & Furious franchise will probably outlive us all. Documentaries are a mixed bag — some wonderful, many forgettable. And seniors now make up a surprisingly large share of streaming audiences, though nobody in Hollywood seems to have gotten that memo.
As for culture more broadly, it feels increasingly targeted at people under 30 who have never known a world without smartphones. That’s their world, not mine.
But as I like to say:
Jazz still works, even if half the players are now performing in the celestial big band.
The Miscellaneous Forecast: Life’s Predictable Surprises
A few things we can count on in 2026:
- Weather events will surprise us, except they won’t.
- Air travel will test our patience — and occasionally our sanity.
- Food trends will appear (pickleball cocktails?) and vanish.
- Social media will panic about something new every week.
- Viral trends will flare up and fade before we can decide whether to care.
- The generational tug-of-war over work, values, and technology will continue.
And still, life will go on.
Every year brings a few trends that are fun, a few that are strange, and most that fade before I remember what they were.
Bringing It All Together: A Human Forecast
Here’s the part of the forecast that matters most.
We can’t control politics.
We can’t predict markets.
We can’t make Hollywood creative again.
And we certainly can’t stop the world from producing more noise than signal.
But we can control:
- who we spend time with
- what we read and watch
- how we stay engaged
- how we move and eat
- which hobbies keep us sharp
- what conversations we choose to join
- what we allow into our mental space
A good year isn’t determined by the headlines.
It’s shaped by what we notice, what we nurture, and what we decide to let in.
2026 will be noisy.
But noise is optional.
Volume is adjustable.
And at 86, I’m convinced of one thing:
I can’t tell you whether 2026 will make the world better. But it can still make your world better — and sometimes that’s the only forecast worth relying on.
Here’s to the year ahead.
A year of curiosity, calm, and a little more melody in the background.
