Friday, March 04, 2005
A look at an alternate reality
Today's alternate reality is the one in which Ohio doesn't cheat, and John Kerry doesn't lose the election. OK, so Ohio didn't cheat, but they were a bunch of morons. And I figured they'd rather be called cheaters than idiots. Right?
We'd be coming up on the 50th day of his presidency, and Congress would probably be bitterly against Kerry at this point, rejecting plenty of his Cabinet appointees (although Bush isn't faring too well in that department). We'd still have troops in Iraq, though we'd be scaling back and of course, the suicide bombings would continue, giving Republicans lots of ammo to say "See, this is what happens when you pull out too soon! GAAH!" I've already said before that the long-term outcome is what is important in Iraq, and Bush vs. Kerry probably doesn't make a huge difference; the Iraqi leaders and people will be much more important in that regard. Bush's stick-it-out strategy is only one option among many. I can honestly say I have no idea what Kerry would be doing right now. I guess that might be why he lost.
Now, taking our splintered timeline into the near future, Kerry appoints 2 Supreme Court Justices in his time, ensuring that Roe v. Wade is upheld (which actually is not as big a deal as we all want to make it out to be), but those are about the highlights of his presidency, and he gets ousted after his first term by young upstart (ok, not young at all), John McCain, the silver-tongued senator from Arizona. McCain is so popular that he gets all the key Republican points fasttracked through congress, including abolishment of gun control, tax breaks for the wealthy, and letting foreign-born citizens run for Congress. This enables Schwarzenegger to run in 2016, and after Cyberdyne takes over, John Connor leads humanity in a bloody resistance against the robots. I, of course, take the opposite side.
But let's get back to our timeline. Looking four years into the future, is there any way a democrat doesn't win in 2008? At this point, all signs point to Hillary, which would probably guarantee the victory, but isn't she just as divisive as Bush? In fact, I think Bush's divisiveness has died down, now that we all realize we're in for the long haul. or maybe that's just me. I know all us liberal democrats are looking for Obama to save us, but that's not likely after being a first term senator, nor would it really even be likely in 2012, because of the near-guaranteed incumbency of the democratic president. I think liberalism is in a bit of danger here in the coming years; and I think the only way to save the democrats is for them to center themselves even more. Is this what I think they SHOULD do? No, because what good is it to save the party if you gut everything they stand for? Many liberals have bemoaned the recent shift towards the center, and I'm right there with them. But the fact of the matter is that the government is supposed to represent the people, and if the people are shifting to the right, what choice does the democratic party have?
I don't really think that the public has gotten much more conservative, but the people in power seem to have shifted a bit. I guess that's to be expected as the Baby Boomers reach retirement age, join the AARP and lobby for decreased taxes and such. Of course, it doesn't exactly explain what W is doing with Social Security, but hey, he's a second term president and maybe he wants to go out in a blaze of glory.
Of course, now I've gotten away from the heart of this post: alternate realities. The much more plausible (and perhaps more interesting) is, what if Al Gore had won? I guarantee you, mainly because I can't be proven wrong, that if Al Gore had won in 2000, he'd be president now. Of course, the 9/11 attacks would still have happened, but Gore would have responded in force in Afghanistan just like Bush. And no, we wouldn't have gone to war in Iraq. In fact we wouldn't even be talking about going to Iraq. But the American public would still have a whole bunch of good will towards the military and the President, and since Gore wouldn't have had nearly the mess that Bush had for his first term, there'd be no one to challenge him in 2004. And perhaps we'd be talking about the liberal shift instead. And of course, stem cell research would be going on, we'd have a budget surplus... but I don't want to beat dead horses. But my point is that Gore probably wouldn't have done anything that exciting in his presidency, not like Bush is doing or Clinton and Lewinsky did.
And that's the thing about Bush. He's doing important things; he'll be an important person in history when we look back. But don't you just feel like he's contributing to the downfall of America, with our unilateralism and conceit? Other countries hate us, our economy is slowing (which I'm convinced is because of this), and yet we still cater to the whims of gun-nuts and "security moms" in the heart of Kansas. Combined with W's moral superiority, it's not that different than the methodology and ideology of radical terrorists; the only difference being that he has other people do his work for him. Like I've said earlier; maybe the war in Iraq will turn out to be a "good thing". But I'd say the odds are against him right now. And Gore as president probably would have just marched the US on into its slow steady climb into old age. Boring, boring, old age.
Anyway, this has been an excessively long look at it. Anyone want to suggest alternate realities? Oswald misses? Jordan gets drafted by the Blazers? Osama dies of a heart attack?
We'd be coming up on the 50th day of his presidency, and Congress would probably be bitterly against Kerry at this point, rejecting plenty of his Cabinet appointees (although Bush isn't faring too well in that department). We'd still have troops in Iraq, though we'd be scaling back and of course, the suicide bombings would continue, giving Republicans lots of ammo to say "See, this is what happens when you pull out too soon! GAAH!" I've already said before that the long-term outcome is what is important in Iraq, and Bush vs. Kerry probably doesn't make a huge difference; the Iraqi leaders and people will be much more important in that regard. Bush's stick-it-out strategy is only one option among many. I can honestly say I have no idea what Kerry would be doing right now. I guess that might be why he lost.
Now, taking our splintered timeline into the near future, Kerry appoints 2 Supreme Court Justices in his time, ensuring that Roe v. Wade is upheld (which actually is not as big a deal as we all want to make it out to be), but those are about the highlights of his presidency, and he gets ousted after his first term by young upstart (ok, not young at all), John McCain, the silver-tongued senator from Arizona. McCain is so popular that he gets all the key Republican points fasttracked through congress, including abolishment of gun control, tax breaks for the wealthy, and letting foreign-born citizens run for Congress. This enables Schwarzenegger to run in 2016, and after Cyberdyne takes over, John Connor leads humanity in a bloody resistance against the robots. I, of course, take the opposite side.
But let's get back to our timeline. Looking four years into the future, is there any way a democrat doesn't win in 2008? At this point, all signs point to Hillary, which would probably guarantee the victory, but isn't she just as divisive as Bush? In fact, I think Bush's divisiveness has died down, now that we all realize we're in for the long haul. or maybe that's just me. I know all us liberal democrats are looking for Obama to save us, but that's not likely after being a first term senator, nor would it really even be likely in 2012, because of the near-guaranteed incumbency of the democratic president. I think liberalism is in a bit of danger here in the coming years; and I think the only way to save the democrats is for them to center themselves even more. Is this what I think they SHOULD do? No, because what good is it to save the party if you gut everything they stand for? Many liberals have bemoaned the recent shift towards the center, and I'm right there with them. But the fact of the matter is that the government is supposed to represent the people, and if the people are shifting to the right, what choice does the democratic party have?
I don't really think that the public has gotten much more conservative, but the people in power seem to have shifted a bit. I guess that's to be expected as the Baby Boomers reach retirement age, join the AARP and lobby for decreased taxes and such. Of course, it doesn't exactly explain what W is doing with Social Security, but hey, he's a second term president and maybe he wants to go out in a blaze of glory.
Of course, now I've gotten away from the heart of this post: alternate realities. The much more plausible (and perhaps more interesting) is, what if Al Gore had won? I guarantee you, mainly because I can't be proven wrong, that if Al Gore had won in 2000, he'd be president now. Of course, the 9/11 attacks would still have happened, but Gore would have responded in force in Afghanistan just like Bush. And no, we wouldn't have gone to war in Iraq. In fact we wouldn't even be talking about going to Iraq. But the American public would still have a whole bunch of good will towards the military and the President, and since Gore wouldn't have had nearly the mess that Bush had for his first term, there'd be no one to challenge him in 2004. And perhaps we'd be talking about the liberal shift instead. And of course, stem cell research would be going on, we'd have a budget surplus... but I don't want to beat dead horses. But my point is that Gore probably wouldn't have done anything that exciting in his presidency, not like Bush is doing or Clinton and Lewinsky did.
And that's the thing about Bush. He's doing important things; he'll be an important person in history when we look back. But don't you just feel like he's contributing to the downfall of America, with our unilateralism and conceit? Other countries hate us, our economy is slowing (which I'm convinced is because of this), and yet we still cater to the whims of gun-nuts and "security moms" in the heart of Kansas. Combined with W's moral superiority, it's not that different than the methodology and ideology of radical terrorists; the only difference being that he has other people do his work for him. Like I've said earlier; maybe the war in Iraq will turn out to be a "good thing". But I'd say the odds are against him right now. And Gore as president probably would have just marched the US on into its slow steady climb into old age. Boring, boring, old age.
Anyway, this has been an excessively long look at it. Anyone want to suggest alternate realities? Oswald misses? Jordan gets drafted by the Blazers? Osama dies of a heart attack?
# posted by Stuart @ 12:25 PM 
