Board 8 > If given the option, which recent US presidential election would you flip?

(+) Yeah! (+)

This poll was made by someone who is not american.

I feel like there's enough of a ripple that flipping to Gore means Trump doesn't happen.

Al Gore possibly the most important election we've ever had.

Gore's loss feels like the moment the timeline diverged, so definitely that.

Gore and Hillary are such good options to pick. Gore because he actually took climate change seriously and Hilary because maybe 50%~ of America wouldnt be so openly proud of being Nazi humpers right now. I guess alternatively you could say if Obama didnt win we couldve avoided that, but he was the preferable winner and I wouldnt undo that

I picked 2000, but if I could magically get Carter re-elected in 1980 I'd do that.

UltimaterializerX posted...

2004 is literally the only right answer here.

Al Gore would have made a bottom 3 president and he's more than proven it since.

You vastly overrate past presidents.

Edit: What I mean by that is he'd be above Andrew Johnson and Buchanan more or less by default, and then you have the Depression-causing presidents.

2000.

I feel a 2016-type event would have happened eventually even if Trump had lost 2016, the genie was out of the bottle by that point. However Gore could potentially avoid the chain of events that led there.

UltimaterializerX posted...

Al Gore would have made a bottom 3 president and he's more than proven it since.

How so?

Hillary, easily.

Obviously, I wouldn't want any Republicans to win that didn't. So those can come off the board immediately.

So that leaves:
2000
2004
and 2016

Gore at first glance seems like a good choice. We probably don't go into Afghanistan or Iraq. There's probably no patriot act.. but the ripple effect leaves a lot of questions. Two options here: A. We take the poll as a 'one flip, the rest stay the same' in which case Kerry beats Gore in a primary, and then Bush beats Kerry, and everything else stays the same. In which case we probably get something worse than the patriot act, and maybe still drawn into Iraq. OR we take the poll with a ripple effect, and we change this one, and potentially others. Meaning there's a risk for Gore to lose to someone worse than Bush in 2004, who... gives us something worse than the patriot act, still draws us into the middle east, and potentially wins a second term and gets 3 SCOTUS justices which is potentially the most dangerous thing of all. (Keep in mind that if this were the case, the SCOTUS makeup would be: Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer, Alito, Republican, Republican. A 7-2 Conservative court, with at least two justices appointed by someone who did things worse than the patriot act. Too much to risk to pick this one.

Next up: John Kerry. Honestly, I think the ripple effect means putting off on Obama for a while, which potentially could lead to Trump not running at all. But it could also mean no president obama. And.. we might not progress toward Obergfell. On the upside though, Alito never makes it onto the court, instead replaced by a liberal justice. Still think it's a bit too risky.

Lastly: Hillary over Trump. Scalia gets replaced by... let's say Kentaji Brown-Jackson. Ginsburg gets replaced by a Liberal. Breyer probably steps down for a younger justice. The Supreme Court makeup is now 5-4 in favor of liberals. Probably the best outcome. Hillary handles covid better, and Trump's cult probably abandons him after he declares election fraud. They didn't in 2020 because he won in 2016. He'd still have some ardent followers, but... I think it'd still be a bridge too far and Republicans would pounce on him losing blaming him for "Queen Hillary" as they'd probably call her.

I voted for Hillary because I'm not certain a Gore win would have prevented Trump. Also, W's legacy will pale to Trump's in so far as what kind of lasting negative effect it has. 2016 is the one election that's probably changed the country, and the world, for the worst the most. At least in my own lifetime; you'll have to go back to the 60's to find an era when hatred was so mainstream.

I'd say Reagan deserves honorable mention however. If he had never been president so many things would be a lot better.

Most of the Republicans from the last few decades fucked up so much stuff. Reagan and his horse shit economics still doing damage.

Can we go back and get rid of Reagan?

Washington

Oh yeah, I mean, if I were to pick one overall it would be Raegan.

Bush vs. Gore - that changed everything. Flip that, and Bush, Obama, and Trump never get elected as president.

LightningStrikes posted...

I feel a 2016-type event would have happened eventually even if Trump had lost 2016, the genie was out of the bottle by that point.

This. Hillary winning would've led to 4 years of political gridlock, followed by a massive GOP blowout win in 2020. Trump himself might fade away, but the core ideas of Trumpism would still end up becoming the dominant right-wing ideology. The result is basically delaying them getting power for a while, but gaining a more competent leader and larger Congressional majorities.

Dancedreamer posted...

(Keep in mind that if this were the case, the SCOTUS makeup would be: Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer, Alito, Republican, Republican. A 7-2 Conservative court, with at least two justices appointed by someone who did things worse than the patriot act. Too much to risk to pick this one.

Souter is still alive today, so I doubt his seat gets replaced before the next time a Democrat is President. Stevens is a concern because he was 90 when he stepped down, but he lived until 2019 and odds are a Democrat takes over by then, especially if the 2008 crash still happens.

Gore took climate change seriously.

2000

Voted 2000, but Clinton over Obama in 2008 if that's an option. A lot of downstream effects from that possibly.

I think we also need to take an international view of Bush here. His presidency is the only reason huge parts of the Middle East destabilised (or rather were destabilised by him) which led to the Syrian Civil War, ISIS, the refugee crisis and so on. All of which had huge knock on effects globally. Without the refugee crisis you dont get the populist backlash in Europe in 2014 which ultimately led to brexit. Also it is quite likely that Marine Le Pen never gets so big for instance. What is almost certain is that Trump and do on cant use it for the whole fake pacifism thing they tried.

Gore but wouldn't mind 2012 Romney. I think he'd have kept Rs on a path of relative sanity without being functionally much different from Obama, and Trump probably wouldn't become a thing afterward - whereas if you flip the 2016 election Trump would still have the momentum of winning the Republican primary and becoming their champion

v_charon posted...

I voted for Hillary because I'm not certain a Gore win would have prevented Trump. Also, W's legacy will pale to Trump's in so far as what kind of lasting negative effect it has. 2016 is the one election that's probably changed the country, and the world, for the worst the most. At least in my own lifetime; you'll have to go back to the 60's to find an era when hatred was so mainstream.

I'd say Reagan deserves honorable mention however. If he had never been president so many things would be a lot better.

Id go back further. Nixon was arguably the worst President ever post WW II. Rejecting Taiwan and embracing mainland China, in retrospect, was arguably the most disastrous diplomatic move in the world in the last 70 years. And a lot of Reagans bad domestic policies had their roots in Nixon.

Everyone saying Bush, Reagan, and even Trump is forgetting that they didn't invent their problems. Their opponents or successors likely would replicate the same problems.

Iraq was a globally supported war with 80% US popular support at the time, including NATO support. Bush campaigned as anti-war but ended up doing the Bush doctrine and all. Gore easily could've fallen into the same thing, especially after 9/11. Reagan was the first to successfully lie about 100% of his policies and still control the media to deem him a hero, but every politician was trying to figure that out.

Another thing is people underestimate how many issues are created by Congress leaders first, not presidents. Congress is often elected opposite of the president, so you have to consider that too.

foolm0r0n posted...

Iraq was a globally supported war with 80% US popular support at the time, including NATO support.

What? First, "globally supported" is a very misleading way to describe things considering there were more countries opposed to the invasion than supporting it. Second, the massive popular support in the US was influenced by the Bush administration pushing so hard to make the war happen.

foolm0r0n posted...

Everyone saying Bush, Reagan, and even Trump is forgetting that they didn't invent their problems. Their opponents or successors likely would replicate the same problems.

Reagan had the charisma to fuck people in the worst way yet make them think he was a fucking genius. Most peoples real issues today can be traced back to him.

Seginustemple posted...

Gore but wouldn't mind 2012 Romney. I think he'd have kept Rs on a path of relative sanity without being functionally much different from Obama, and Trump probably wouldn't become a thing afterward - whereas if you flip the 2016 election Trump would still have the momentum of winning the Republican primary and becoming their champion

I'd absolutely love to take some sort of Option C where Romney doesn't put himself up as fodder against Obama and waits to run in 2016 where, should he still win the Republican ticket, likely beats Clinton and does what you just said.

Xeybozn posted...

considering there were more countries opposed to the invasion than supporting it.

By any metrics other than raw count, it was definitely supported by more countries than not in the global west. If you include the east then maybe not so I'll revise it to just mean the west.

Uh, I don't think that's true even if you restrict it to just "the West."

Afghanistan was more or less supported globally. But Iraq was a very different animal outside the US. It was basically the US, UK, Australia, Spain and a handful of other countries (mostly Eastern Europe I want to say?) opposed by France, Germany, Russia, China, India, Canada, Mexico, etc.

The US had to back out of proposing it to the UN because it was made clear that they couldn't get a 60% vote on the Security Council (I don't think it was ever certain they had more than 4 out of 15 votes actually) and knew that if the UN actively voted down an invasion of Iraq it'd be a tougher sell so they just ignored them entirely instead.

Hell, I'd wager global support was more against Iraq than for at the time of the invasion. And this is all putting aside ripple effect stuff like "would Gore really have pushed for his admin to straight up lie to the UN and American people to invade Iraq?" I can accept an argument that Afghanistan was more or less inevitable if we're working under the assumption that 9/11 still happens but again that was the invasion the world largely supported.

2000, that way Bush can't do 9/11

Xiahou_Shake posted...

Gore's loss feels like the moment the timeline diverged, so definitely that.

Nah, Clinton in 92.

Get rid of Nixon. It's recent enough that the changes will have a big impact on my life from the moment I'm born, and far back enough that there will be time for these changes to manifest in the culture and society around me.

Bush -> Gore felt right to me of the list.

Ideally back to flipping Nixon and him never having been President.

Failing that, back to Reagan (I do think there's a case to be made for this being better than Nixon, even).

Failing *that*, W.

Trump was just an accelerator to a problem that was already building.

Social media is the problem really.

So I voted Gore > Bush for the butterfly effect/climate change/"the timeline diverged here" reasons along with thinking that by the time the 2016 general came around Trump had already done enough lasting damage that would continue past even had he lost, but upon some more thought I think the margin of victory might matter. If you give us a Clinton blowout in 2016 - like 49 states/Reagan blowout - it's possible that might have broken the fever.

Bush 2000 of these options but ideally I'd rather change the nightmare trifecta that is the Lincoln assassination/Johnson presidency/Grant presidency.

I take it for granted that there's enough Trump chuds around who wanted him to win in 2020 but who the hell was desperate for a Mitt Romney presidency

I will say, I think basically all the effects of Reagans presidency would have happened without Reagan himself. The hard neoliberal shift of the 80s was on its way regardless - of course Thatcher predates Reagan by a year, but even the left wing governments of continental Europe were pushed into adopting lighter versions of these policies that decade. Given that its America of course Reagan went much harder into it than anybody and also let AIDS run rampant while destabilising the Middle East. However I think there always would have been a Reagan. I dont think there always would have been a Bush or a Trump.

My galaxy brain pick is Nixon over JFK in 1960 - back then IIRC Nixon was pro-civil rights, if he wins no Goldwater and the southern strategy that has effectively plagued the world for decades. Also he likely gets assassinated before he can do so many crimes. The US probably ends up with two functionally identical parties with different factions across the spectrum. Not great but better than the current situation.

Reaganomics were an inevitability but I don't think the Moral Majority was

Underleveled posted...

I'd absolutely love to take some sort of Option C where Romney doesn't put himself up as fodder against Obama and waits to run in 2016 where, should he still win the Republican ticket, likely beats Clinton and does what you just said.

Romney couldn't have won in 2016 against Trump.

Could I go back in time and pick Ross Perot to win '92 instead?

Honestly, I know next to nothing about his politics other than he was a centrist, but the fact that he was a semi-viable third party candidate means he'd have to be completely atrocious to not have present-day me's support.

red_sox_777 posted...

Romney couldn't have won in 2016 against Trump.

Nobody could. The problem was that the rest of the field was too diluted, and none of those guys were getting out of each other's way.

Dewey defeats Truman

1980

LightningStrikes posted...

My galaxy brain pick is Nixon over JFK in 1960 - back then IIRC Nixon was pro-civil rights, if he wins no Goldwater and the southern strategy that has effectively plagued the world for decades.

Either the civil rights laws never get passed, or one of the major parties becomes the "pro-racism" party to take advantage of the backlash. It doesn't really matter who was president at the time; the opposition to those laws was so strong that it was inevitable.

azuarc posted...

Could I go back in time and pick Ross Perot to win '92 instead?

Honestly, I know next to nothing about his politics other than he was a centrist, but the fact that he was a semi-viable third party candidate means he'd have to be completely atrocious to not have present-day me's support.

I have bad news about Ross Perot then

Lopen posted...

Trump was just an accelerator to a problem that was already building.

Social media is the problem really.

the casual revolution of 2007 strikes again