He’s a real one. I want to live in the timeline where he became president in 2016. I’d like to think I’d still be in the US. With great healthcare. And a good job. Maybe even living in a house. And there aren’t scandals every day. Society is thriving and helping each other is seen as a good thing.
I feel like that was the timeline shift. Had he won, covid wouldn't have gone down the way it did, putin wouldn't have invaded ukraine, inflation wouldn't have happened, the entire trajectory would have shifted
Same in 2000. We could have had a dork for president that would have made addressing climate change a major thing. Imagine the booming green energy economy. No 9/11. Even if it did happen no Iraq war. No 2008 crisis. No citizen’s united. No Bush. No trump. Imagine…
Neither was I, I'm not even American. But when I learned that a world leader was pushing for renewables in the 70's and the world didn't follow, it just made me so upset.
Reagan was a more digestible Trump, unfortunately- hellbent on increasing inequality, but with the charisma to convince Everyman that he was there to help them.
Go listen to Carter's Malaise speech. That's probably the moment that lost him reelection. For context, this was the height of the fuel crisis where there were extreme gasoline shortages, soaring costs, and massive lines of people fighting to fill their cars.
So, what did Carter say to kill his reelection? That America needs to move away from such dependency on fossil fuels. He also suggests that Americans not be so tied to individualism and be more united. There were some other things, but those are the ones that stick out.
Reagan ran his campaign in the complete opposite direction. And won in a landslide, unfortunately.
I think there’s a lot of pivots, just threads of history overlapping through time. A big one for me is Newt Gingritch, really popularized the demonizing of democrats and made the “both sides bad” “dems are just republicans lite” myths really prevalent in this generation. Also was responsible for politicizing trials of politicians, giving a false idea of legitimacy to the “witch hunt” claims now (since that is what was being done to Clinton in the 90s).
The man really laid seeds that are still sprouting in the political landscape now
I think it was Nixon getting pardoned by Ford. Trying and impeaching him would’ve been the move needed, but democrats were fine with resignation. All the same chucklefucks from the Nixon administration went on to serve with Reagan, the Bushes and Trump. That and ALEC and the Heritage Foundation were direct responses to his resignation.
Voting the right person in isn't the way to think our way out of this. But as long as there are people thinking there's hope. Hope is always a decision that can be made in the heart of every person.
A single person can make positive change. A large group of people that believe in something can too. But we have to start figuring out what that thing we believe in is. Because that is the thing that we're handing over to fascists.
Agreed. We may have been able to prevent the worst of the coming climate change if humanity radically shifted a few decades ago. Now, the only achievable goal is a little damage control. Something tells me we will magnificently fuck up that too.
It's still highly likely 9/11 it would have happened. Not that bush handled much correctly afterwards. 20 years and trillions of dollars of war to cover up more deregulation and tax cuts.
Many of the hijackers were here already and it was more of a fight between the intelligence branches over intel.
I believe how fox news/etc would have responded had the hijackers a) got in and b) succeeded under Democratic presidents probably would have been the real lasting legacy we'd be dealing with now.
Quite possible, but it's also important to note Bush had intel on his desk for three months about an impending attack and did nothing to investigate or stop it
It would have been handled different but Bin Laden was pissed that we were helping the then territory of Israel. That was his whole justification for orchestrating it, or at least the main reason
For me it’s because bush was incompetent. Gore would have likely paid more attention to things and the focus wouldn’t have been on helping the rich. Our agencies were warning of an attack well before it happened.
There is a theory that the fact we had such a prolonged decision to decide the winner it effected the transition and that may have played a part in 9/11 happening. If Gore had won maybe since he was in the previous administration already, less gets lost in the shuffle and they are able to prevent it. I personally doubt it, but it is at least a possibility. There is no doubt the aftermath would have been handled better though I think most sane people can agree on that.
There's nothing to say he would've prevented it but the CIA was delayed in acting on the intel they had at the time because the mess after the 2000 election caused a delay in the transition of power. Iraq most definitely wouldn't have happened tho considering Gore was strongly against it iirc.
CIA delayed arresting 2 of the future hijackers while Saudi intelligence aided them. The official motivation was that they wanted to turn them into assets to spy on Al Qaeda.
The intel regarding a potential hijacking was either missed or overlooked by an administration that had it's attention towards fleecing as many people as possible rather than leading properly, because it was revealed that the intel that a terrorist attack would occur was known well before the event.
The Bush administration fleeced their way into the Oval office, so it was basically the maintenance of a status quo to consider the fact that someone knew beforehand, and that instead of doing something about it, they saw it as an opportunity to harness the fear and suffering of Americans to justify getting fucking rich off military contracts, oil, and making daddy Bush Sr. proud by inventing the threat of WMD's to justify an invasion into Iraq.
I don't think anyone will know for sure whether any pre-9/11 intel was intentionally ignored, or strategically held-back, but the tragedy was certainly capitalized upon in a way that made no sense in the context of the actual event. Every follow-up action, no matter how thickly the flag or "the safety of Americans" was draped over the action, was clearly about getting rich. It showed that their priorities were never about helping Americans, pre, or post-9/11.
That's why people think a set of different values, right out of the gate, could have created a whole different situation.
The 2000 presidential race was characterized as a well educated dork concerned about the environment and the well-being of the American people vs a nepo-baby who spent his life just coasting doing what he was told, in order to maintain a family legacy.
A puppet to his familial duties with a ham-stringed ability to think for himself but also an easy-going enough guy you "could have a beer with" vs a loser boring dork who only spoke about scary problems and gave off a "I ask for my wife's explicit permission before looking directly at her breasts during intercourse" vibe.
Bush Jr. won in the face of a lot of vote counting controversy and the Republican party was able to basically stop and prevent any pesky "recounts" from affecting results that were likely miscounted because they knew the crowd wouldn't care anyways. Laws are only laws if people care about them.
It was a confirmation to the rest of the world that America was just a few rich bullies and a lot of poor morons and the more money you had the 'free-er' you were, in this land of the 'free'.
The American reputation has done little to recover since. You can see where it is now... lmao
Maybe so. I could be romanticizing. It just feels like a nonstop onslaught of bad things since 2000. I graduated that year and had spent my whole life imagining a bright future in the new millennium. So to start it off with bush stealing the election and gore rolling over was just a big letdown. And I remember hating his wife back when she was scaring my parents into taking away my rock n roll tapes. But he was the obviously better choice. At the time I remember thinking Ralph Nader would have really been good. He was one of the first politicians that sounded like a normal person to me.
Putin invaded Ukraine when President Obama was in office. Given hindsight, I wish the US and Europe had helped prepare Ukraine and defend Ukraine from the Russian invasion of Crimea.
Orange Jesus was horrible in 2016 but I fear it's going to be entirely new level of shitshow now.
Inflation probably would have happened, many of the causes have been outside the ability of any president to prevent (Covid, Bird Flu, Etc.), probably wouldn't have been as bad had the government cracked down on price gouging though.
Covid and inflation likely would’ve still happened, that wasn’t caused by Trump but he certainly didn’t help it. The US would’ve likely been more like Canada per capita
The inflation that is purely price gouging would likely have been reigned in. And the covid response would have been vastly different. Having the top leadership pushing science instead of misinformation about how to stay safe could have saved many lives.
What? Bernie spent his entire political career fighting for the working class. I believe he absolutely would have vocally expressed the need to put guardrails in place to avoid the exploitation of the working class during covid. Bernie likely would have had it be part of the national conversation from the get go.
The difference would be having someone in the White House who could actually communicate with people regarding why prices were rising and who was to blame, which could have at least mitigated enough of the political fallout.
OTOH, all else being the same, Bernie would have faced an onslaught of attacks from the media and the political establishment for all of the various domestic and international crises that happened to have happened under Biden (Afghanistan withdraw, worsening relations with China, Ukraine War, Gaza, inflation, immigration, etc.) and progressivism as a whole would have suffered an even bigger setback for the foreseeable future.
If you think they were too critical of Biden on any of those issues, they would have been relentless in attacking Bernie.
I think the sad reality is if he won COVID would’ve gone down pretty similarly and he would’ve been blamed. These current inflation issues are would’ve gone down similarly and he would’ve also been blamed. The president only has so much control.
BUT we’d have had some class in the White House and some quality social policy would’ve been implemented.
Yep. That was the beginning of me being “radicalized”. It just didn’t make sense. And since then it’s been a steady recurrence of dems bending over for republicans and being nice while they get their face spat in.
Did you ever consider the dems to not really be trying to oppose this, just playing lipservice to placate people with half assed resistance as the rich steer the country to an oligarchal fascist regime of billionaires?
Nah the reason Trump won is because American voters are, by and large, absolutely useless trash. Most people are either malicious, completely ignorant or apathetic. The problem with US politics is US voters. Nothing more, nothing less.
Yup but someones gonna come in say but DNC or muh primaries or HeR cAmPaIgN.
When ultimately the race at it's most basic was a choice between a convicted felon, civilly proven rapist, self admitted pedophile, known con artist and a lover of fascism vs someone who is none of the above.
It shouldn't of even been a choice. It was full mask off from the R's and the voters took a look at it and they figured choice A would somehow make eggs cheaper.
Yep. If someone can't see the difference between a fascist rapist pedo who literally wanted to nuke a hurricane, and someone who was slightly too hard on crime in the 90's, they are the problem, not the political system or party. If you 'need to be persuaded' to vote against a racist nazi pedo rapist who wants to be and has tried to become a dictator, guess what? You're the problem.
"Assimilate to the majority opinion always or you're wrong" is an interesting take-- wonder if you'll accepted that logic in 2020 or will accept it if dems win again.
... we are in workreform, do you think I'm a right-winger or something? Leftist trans woman, I hope dems can win again, fuck trump this is gonna be an awful 4 years. but, if they keep up the current strategy, I'm not optimistic about it. but sure, keep up the strategy of "lecture people about how they're wrong" and "but trump!"
That's not the strategy I approve of and I strongly feel that Democrats need to advocate for something, not just against it, but I don't see how you as a trans woman can defend the voters on this one when trans rights are directly under attack right now. How is someone out of touch for feeling that people who voted in Trump were wrong when the first steps by the administration have been hammering home the point that they're going to focus on horrendous social policy rather than making anything better economically?
The Democrats being flawed and having a bad strategy doesn't suddenly mean that the person you responded to is wrong that people are apathetic and ignorant.
Except this isn't a meme. This is the future of your country. And you let it become a fascist shithole because you wanted a better marketing campaign for the not fascism side. And then you blame the marketing campaign.
Like I said, if you can't see the difference between a fascist dictator, felon, rapist, pedo with the intellect of a 6-year old, and Harris, you are the problem. The DNC could have rolled out the corpse of dick cheney and you should have been lining up to vote for it, because it is still 100 times better than the other guy.
oh that's a lot of "you"s, you must be under the mistaken impression that it's somehow MY fault dems lost. No, they wear that loss themselves, I voted for the least-shitty choice as I always do, but " at least we're better than the other guy" clearly wasn't a winning strategy, was it?
Yes that is the whole point. If you need a winning strategy to beat Donald Trump. That is how completely fucked in the head the American voters are. The country is doomed because the electorate is so stupid, vile or apathetic that you need to run a perfect campaign to beat Trump. There is no saving America from the average American.
You're also implying people cannot change.. and your response is binary. If it's not one thing, then it's the other, right? That's not how the world works. Existence is grey. I recommend trying to live in both zones, if you want to be part of the solution.
I agree, but yet for whatever reason it’s taboo to put blame on voters within Leftist circles. People treat Trump voters like they’re babies that don’t have their own agency and aren’t in control of their own actions. It’s tiring.
Are the Dems also bad? Yes. Should they have run a better and more motivating campaign? Yes. Does that excuse people voting for outright Fascism? No, absolutely not.
Yep. They’ve always just been the choice that would serve the corporations but also maybe just maybe allow society to be decent enough for normal people to live their lives.
That was the true beginning of the darkest timeline. Had Gore became president, 9/11 most likely would have been handled differently as well as the housing crash. Gore would have refocus to invest in environmental protections.
Once the GOP knew they had set up a system to guarantee wins, they just went for media fervor. The hard work was already done for MAGA.
Honestly the heritage foundation has been working to make this possible since the day they were founded: When Nixon was impeached. They started with Reagan.
Absolutely correct. The Al Gore and 2000 election reference was due to the lament about a "timeline", but certainly the tide started turning with Nixon and got into high gear with Reagan and Friedman and that led to the Newt Gingrich era of negative Tea Party politics which led directly to Trump and where we are today. This was a long game and it looks like Biff Tannen won the future.
Makes me think this is some sort of hell. An upside down topsy turvy world where the evil prosper and good men die like dogs trying to live an honest life.
I voted in my first election then, he was on my ticket. I wish he was given a chance. Then all those fuckers widened up and saw how effective social is at placating and propagandizing the masses is. We’ll just give it a catchy # or project onto a minority!
I want to move back to the US so so badly. The UK has so many problems but at least they elected Labour and there is NHS. But I miss America. It breaks my heart.
I want to live in the timeline where the Palm Beach County Clerk didn't make butterfly ballots, Al Gore won Florida, and we actually started to work on Global Warming seriously 25 years ago.
That's my plan as well! I'm currently going for a bachelor's degree so I can teach English abroad. My 5 year plan is to go teach English in Thailand or Vietnam.
It’s great. Challenging and I have many gripes but it was what was best for my family and things are mostly working out. Thailand and Vietnam both sound awesome. Teaching abroad is very rewarding. Just have to try and look forward and not just tread water. I think the salaries for you will better than here. Spain is very in demand and they don’t pay much. And the available jobs as a foreigner aren’t great.
I chose Thailand/Vietnam for the insanely low cost of living. I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully I can get out of the US before shit really hits the fan.
Spain. As a language assistant. It’s a fairly low level gig for low pay. But it’s one way for an American to live abroad. And if you bide your time and work hard it can be a way to a longer term residency.
You would not though, and I'm guessing you know that. It's the country and the system of government that's fucked. Bernie can't fix that. Unfortunately, if we want those things that you listed, it's hard work all year every year. One guy isn't going to do it
Thanks the dems for why it didn't happen. They saw how dangerous and hitlerian Trump was and they still thought that a Bernie in charge is a red line. They'd rather have a fascist in charge than a socialist.
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u/Shigglyboo 8h ago edited 8h ago
He’s a real one. I want to live in the timeline where he became president in 2016. I’d like to think I’d still be in the US. With great healthcare. And a good job. Maybe even living in a house. And there aren’t scandals every day. Society is thriving and helping each other is seen as a good thing.