“What’s past is prologue,” wrote Shakespeare in “The Tempest,” and who are we to argue with him?
So with the events of 2025 in mind, here is an educated guess at what’s in store for Massachusetts in the year to come, not to be used as a guide for wagering:
JANUARY: Gov. Maura Healey delivers her State of the Commonwealth Address. In a tribute to her friend and Celtic legend Bob Cousy’s jersey number, it contains fourteen basketball analogies, each more tortured than the last, including a reference to her troika of GOP challengers as “three-second violations.”
FEBRUARY: Pool camera cutaways during President Trump’s State of the Union speech show members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation expressing their contempt in creative ways. Rep. Katherine Clark is seen cradling an abacus and moving a bead each time the president lies. Sen. Elizabeth Warren wears a crocheted beer bucket hat ringed with cans of Michelob Light, from which she chugs every time Clark moves a bead. Warren is helped from the chamber by aides halfway through and receives treatment for alcohol poisoning.
MARCH: The stage at Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s State of the City speech is adorned with blown-up photos of State Senators Karen Spilka and Nick Collins with blood-red circle-and-slash overlay, and a mammoth skyscraper of paper next to the podium representing the 78,384 votes she received. During the event, cars belonging to City Councillors Ed Flynn and Erin Murphy, critics of the mayor, are booted, towed and set on fire.
APRIL: During the 130th running of the Boston Marathon, ICE agents are pelted with half-full hard-seltzer cans as they herd the Kenyan frontrunners into a police van along the route. Addressing an adoring crowd at the state GOP Convention in Worcester later in the month, Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons defends the roundup as a key step in their “Make Sure America Finishes First” campaign.
MAY: At the state Democratic Convention, Sen. Ed Markey wins the party nomination by acclamation after performing 100 Marine push-ups on stage and shattering the world record for the mile in a jaw-dropping jaunt around the DCU Center. “Let’s see Seth Moulton top that!” declares a heaving, sweat-soaked Markey.
JUNE: The Harvard Commencement, delayed from late May due to four straight days of torrential rain, is finally held in stripped-down form due to university-wide budget cuts. In place of the usual pomp and in an effort to raise badly-needed funds, the graduates engage in carnival-style games, including Whack-A-Tent, a Larry Summers dunk tank, and a raffle to win stuffed and mounted body parts, courtesy of Harvard Medical School.
JULY: Riot police are called to the Hatch Shell on Independence Day when disputes over whether we are celebrating America’s Semiguincentennial, Bisesquicentennial, Sestercentennial or Quarter Millenium erupt in vicious brawls. Dozens are arrested and charged with assault and battery with a picnic basket.
AUGUST: An exchange in the first televised GOP gubernatorial debate goes viral when the three candidates bicker over who hates Healey more.
Brian Shortsleeve: “I was there first!”
Mike Kennealy: “You don’t even know what real hate is!”
Mike Minogue: “Who am I? Why am I here?”
SEPTEMBER: Public anxiety over the state’s future manifests in a record primary election turnout on September 8, as voters shake off Labor Day distractions and swarm the polls. Unfortunately, the election was inexplicably held on September 1.
OCTOBER: The soaring cost of living and down economy prompt scores of parents statewide to forego new Halloween costumes for their kids. Instead they modify last year’s most popular getup, the T-Rex Dinosaur, into the Tax-Hike-O’Saur, a dinosaur wearing only a barrel with its pockets turned inside out and a tax bill protruding from the rear.
NOVEMBER: Massachusetts voters turn election day into a sweeping referendum on President Trump, returning all Democratic incumbents by wide margins and ejecting most of the remaining Republican incumbents. The only GOP candidate to crack 40% is Senate nominee John Deaton, running on the slogan: “I hate Trump worse than Maura Healey.”
DECEMBER: Mayor Wu refiles her tax-classification bill for the fifteenth time with five minutes left in the legislative session. The next morning she denounces the “do-nothing” Senate at a press event featuring a photo of Senate President Spilka’s home, egged and festooned with toilet paper. Says Wu: “It’s time for grown-up leadership.”
Happy New Year to all MASSterListers!