Now that my blood pressure has settled back into the “Only Occasionally Fatal” zone I’m prepared to make several predictions about the coming Age of Donald.

To begin with matters of least concern to you and me and build up to the really scary stuff … .

The Inauguration Have you stopped to imagine what a cheesy freak show this is going to be? A highlight from last week was a Trump-o-naut breaking the news to the world and Elton John that Sir Elton would be performing at the Donald’s coronation ceremonies. It took Mr. John about three nano-seconds to fire back something to the effect of, “Like [bleep] I am!” Point being, who will lend their name, reputation and career for the “honor” of celebrating the election of a cartoonish sleazeball like Trump? Complain all you want about smug, intolerant Hollywood/show biz liberals, taking a gig crooning and high-kicking for Trump will be, during the inauguration and throughout the Trump regency, the equivalent of the French collaborators in occupied Paris. Go ahead if you must, but expect to be shunned and stigmatized wherever you go thereafter. Look instead for a patriotic medley from Ted Nugent and Lynyrd Skynyrd MC’d by Pat Sajak and Scott Baio. Totally super classy. If he wants to feel the adoration of the (minority of the) people who elected him he’d be better-advised to stage his swearing in at an airplane hangar in Hays, Kansas.

Protests  I don’t know about that Million Woman March the day after, but the Day Of will be … unprecedented. Serious, traditional news organizations observed the usual niceties during George W*’s installation in 2001, cutting away from and not endlessly replaying tape loops of protestors hurling garbage at Bush’s limo as it rolled up to the Capitol. But having dragged standards for common decency and campaigning down the toilet and clogged the sewer, Trump will not be extended similar courtesies. Why? Because he doesn’t deserve it. Security will be drum tight, but with opposition to Trump already red-lining the meters there will be no end of displays of disgust, some funnier and more shaming than others.

Forget New York … and Los Angeles … and San Francisco … and London … .  Ever since he got that no interest loan from daddy and bootstrapped his way into New York society Trump has sought the approval and adulation of culture leaders — celebrities, philanthropists, big thinkers and doers, anyone with the kind of cred that gets them on the A-list for the annual Met Gala. He never has. He’s always been too transparently cheap, too much of an obvious grifter with too little contribution to culture to be accepted by “that crowd.” And now it’ll get worse. It will a matter of pride and integrity for “finer society” everywhere to shun everything Trump, a position made easier to do by Trump’s overt appeal to racism and what will certainly be weekly outrages against accepted decency. Think no further than Anna Wintour, fashion empress and editor of Vogue. How much do you think she and the culture she presides over will have to do with either Trump or Melania? I say little to nothing. The Trump “brand” where once cheesy is now toxic, as huckerstering little Ivanka will soon find out.

Bigger than LBJ and Nixon.  The existence of the draft largely explained the millions who poured out on to the streets during the hottest pitch of the Vietnam War, vilifying Lyndon Johnson and Tricky Dick. In reaction, America’s warrior class smartened up and switched to an all-volunteer Army, which led to W* and Cheney sending National Guard recruits through multiple deployments to Iraq. But Johnson and even Nixon arrived in office with at least a semblance of experience thinking about and seriously judging world issues. Trump arrives with nothing of the sort, other than slapping his name on hotels someone else is building. Has the guy even read a history of WWII or Vietnam? Moreover again, based entirely on how he has conducted his adult life and how he campaigned he arrives in office one “Day One” as every bit the shameless ogre and far more the self-serving fraud Lyndon and Dick ever were.

Gutless liberals.  It is accepted wisdom among the crowd that inhales Breitbart and fake Facebook news like meth fumes that liberals have no fight in them. I generally like to avoid making monolithic references to any sub-group, but the people revolted by Trump were a majority of voters in the recent election and remain well-armed with facts, organization and the platforms to stage constant resistance to every calamitous, authoritarian move he tries to make, which as I say, will continue with appalling regularity. Congress may (or may not) have Trump’s back, depending on how well he toes the GOP party line. But off Capitol Hill a lot of very smart, very well-funded people will see blunting Trump as a patriotic duty. The sort of thing that gilds their legacy. If the Left Behind/Didn’t Keep Up rubes or the Clod Culture crowd who see this stuff as lunkheaded team sport think their boy is safe from paralyzing criticism and skullduggery, they should prepare themselves for (another) slap of reality. You want a culture war? You’re going to get it.

The Gutless Press. Having taken the tradition-breaking step of calling Trump a liar throughout the last phases of the campaign, media standard-setters like The New York Times and The Washington Post have been given no good reason to step back and call him anything different as President-elect. Trump’s honeymoon with the serious end of media/journalism will never happen. Judging from New Yorker editor David Remnick’s reporting on the TV celebs who scuttled over to Trump Tower to be dressed down for dishonesty and lying … by Donald [bleepin’] Trump! … fingers are already twitching at the trigger for anything. The commercialized crowd, the Gayle Kings, Matt Lauers, Joe Scarboroughs and most of the lower tiers of the country’s newspapers will begin with a facade of dutiful respect. But that facade is about as thick and durable as the gold spray paint on a Trump penthouse. When … not if … he finds himself mired in an epic scandal he better have Sean Hannity under lifetime contract. Moreover, it’s not hard to foresee a co-mingling of interests and resources between the aforementioned well-heeled liberals and press franchises eager to make history by forcing Trump’s finances and conflicts of interest into the light of day. Can you say “bounty” for whatever hacker, whistleblower or disgruntled former employee hands over Trump’s taxes? As for all the other inevitable scandals, it’s a target rich environment kids. Kind of like Jed Clampett out huntin’. The stuff is so close to the surface all you have to do is take a shot at a squirrel and something will bubble up.

Finally, The Terrorists.  Death and horror are only two facets of every global-thinking terrorist’s strategy. As Osama bin Laden said, the primary goal is to get western powers, the U.S. in particular, to overreact and inflame the situation beyond all control, which is precisely the bait W* and Dick Cheney took by blundering into Iraq. But with Trump’s name on buildings all over the world, imagine, if you dare, his response to simultaneous attacks on Trump hotels in separate Arab countries? Even one attack would negate the power and profitability of his brand. Two would be … what? And who will stop him from doing what in response, to prove to the Left Behinds/Didn’t Keep Ups and the Clod Culture sportsmen that he is a whole lot tougher cat than your average over-thinking liberal?

Enjoy your day.