Looking Back

Centerpiece

Centerpiece

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Hind sight is 20/20. Looking ahead seems so depressing. Looking back, would it have been better if:
A) John McCain had won in 2008? Why/why not?
B) Mitt Romney in 2012? Why/why not?
C) Trump had won in 2020? Why/why not?

I won't pose the missing piece (2016) because, reasons...

Edited to add one more "what if"

What if Trump had had his calabaza blown off in PA? Would we be better off now? Why/why not?
 
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Mitt had no blue collar appeal. He looked and acted like the owner of your company.

Trump winning in 2020 would have been best. He would have had a normal 2nd term and both sides would have had fully open primaries this year, giving us true competition as to the direction the country wanted to go post Trump. It would have spared us the past horrible years with endless warfare.
 
Trump winning in 2020. Breyer is still alive so the court would be OK, and Trump would be on his way out with an incoming democrat majority
 
superrific said:
Mitt in 2012. By far. If Mitt wins in 2012, Trump might not happen. McCain was not up to the challenge in 2008 and anyway we wouldn't have Obamacare.
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Yep. Mitt would have been one of the most competent Presidents we've ever had and is a decent person. Conservative but not dogmatic.
 
Centerpiece said:
Hind sight is 20/20. Looking ahead seems so depressing. Looking back, would it have been better if:
A) John McCain had won in 2008? Why/why not?
B) Mitt Romney in 2012? Why/why not?
C) Trump had won in 2020? Why/why not?

I won't pose the missing piece (2016) because, reasons...

Edited to add one more "what if"

What if Trump had had his calabaza blown off in PA? Would we be better off now? Why/why not?
Click to expand...
I don’t think anything good would have happened if the additional what if occurred. We would probably be facing some violence in response to that.
L
 
superrific said:
Mitt in 2012. By far. If Mitt wins in 2012, Trump might not happen. McCain was not up to the challenge in 2008 and anyway we wouldn't have Obamacare.
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Agree to a certain extent. McCains pick of Palin proves the “not up to the challenge in 2008” bit. I did prefer him in 2000… he was my pick over Gore or George W.

Also agree about OBamacare… much needed legislation.

However, I don’t think 2010 elections, and Tea Party and birtherism and losing so many State Houses in 2010 (which brought about all the gerrymandering) - and perhaps even Citizens United - would have occurred had McCain won. And we wouldn’t have had to deal with Orangeman for 12 years.

In Hindsight, McCain should have picked Mitt as VP running mate… They win in a close one. Obamacare would have eventually passed as RomneyCare (the original version) and perhaps without being torn apart in pieces as it was with the eventual ACA. No Trump. No Tea Party, but we still would have had the ACA. Recall it was McCains vote later on that saved it from the Trump machine later on. McCain and Romney get that legislation passed around the same timeframe Obama did.

To me, all of that adds up to a win, win, win.
 
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superrific said:
Mitt in 2012. By far. If Mitt wins in 2012, Trump might not happen. McCain was not up to the challenge in 2008 and anyway we wouldn't have Obamacare.
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McCain really didn’t have a chance in 2008. The economy was bad and unpopular wars made him winning virtually impossible.
 
finesse said:
Trump losing in 2016 would have been best. He and SCOTUS wouldn't be such a problem.
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Totally agree, but that wasn’t one of the revisionist choices. I left that one out because it’s so obvious. The other bit is that if trump loses in 2016, he just comes back in 2020 and wins then, and is re-elected in 2024. Which is essentially what we have now….
 
aGDevil2k said:
Trump winning in 2020. Breyer is still alive so the court would be OK, and Trump would be on his way out with an incoming democrat majority
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Yeah, with the benefit of hindsight knowing that Trump wins the 2024 election, I think the better alternative would have been him just winning in 2020. It would have been a long 8 years for sure and we may have been slightly worse off economically compared to how the Biden administration handled post-Covid, but at least that era of politics would have been almost over with by now and we could all collectively move on.

Instead, we have all this weird frustration from conservatives that has been pent up for 4 years just waiting to be unleashed. It also gave the Trump people more time to organize a fresh new plan to frick up the country.
 
Centerpiece said:
PNah. 2008 economy had nothing to do with McCain. That was all on Bush Cheney. McCain screwed himself with Palin pick.
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McCain’s numbers cratered once the market collapsed. Plus, he made the fateful decision to suspend his campaign. Obama stepped in and filled he void. I’m not saying Palin was a great choice but VPs don’t move the needle that much.
 
As long as I’m playing this revisionist history game with myself…
Gore/Bush 2000 would be a start… hanging chads my arse. Also, while looking at 2000, I think McCain at that point in time would have been even better than Gore. We would have had a military guy at the helm after 9/11, but without the spectre of Dick Cheney actually calling the shots.

I think Obama winning when he did caused a lot of our ills - listed above in another post. Not that he himself, Obama, caused the issues. No. It was the BACKLASH to Obama that caused all of the shite we’ve endured. Give ‘08 and even 2012 to McCain/Mitt ticket. Obama stays in the Senate those 8 years, doing good stuff, THEN he comes out in 2016 to beat Hillary and eventually Mitt in the General.

I truly feel, these last 16 years would have gone so, so much better for all involved.

Think about it, it’s quite possible there would have been (in no particular order):
No Tea Party
No birtherism
No Trump
Racists remain under their rocks for a few more years
ACA still happens under the moniker RomneyCare
Less gerrymandering by State legislators (probably)
No Charlottesville
A much more intelligent prez to guide us through the Pandemic
The list goes on and on.

Thoughts?
Anyone seeing it play out differently?
I think other than getting a black man elected (simply as a marker in our Nations history) and then the ACA passed, the past 16 years has been right much a shit show. Yes, Obama’s 8 years at the helm wasn’t bad in and of themselves… but look at at all the other crap that happened since 2010!
 
Centerpiece said:
As long as I’m playing this revisionist history game with myself…
Gore/Bush 2000 would be a start… hanging chads my arse. Also, while looking at 2000, I think McCain at that point in time would have been even better than Gore. We would have had a military guy at the helm after 9/11, but without the spectre of Dick Cheney actually calling the shots.

I think Obama winning when he did caused a lot of our ills - listed above in another post. Not that he himself, Obama, caused the issues. No. It was the BACKLASH to Obama that caused all of the shite we’ve endured. Give ‘08 and even 2012 to McCain/Mitt ticket. Obama stays in the Senate those 8 years, doing good stuff, THEN he comes out in 2016 to beat Hillary and eventually Mitt in the General.

I truly feel, these last 16 years would have gone so, so much better for all involved.

Think about it, it’s quite possible there would have been (in no particular order):
No Tea Party
No birtherism
No Trump
Racists remain under their rocks for a few more years
ACA still happens under the moniker RomneyCare
Less gerrymandering by State legislators (probably)
No Charlottesville
A much more intelligent prez to guide us through the Pandemic
The list goes on and on.

Thoughts?
Anyone seeing it play out differently?
I think other than getting a black man elected (simply as a marker in our Nations history) and then the ACA passed, the past 16 years has been right much a shit show. Yes, Obama’s 8 years at the helm wasn’t bad in and of themselves… but look at at all the other crap that happened since 2010!
Click to expand...
Good take
 
Centerpiece said:
As long as I’m playing this revisionist history game with myself…
Gore/Bush 2000 would be a start… hanging chads my arse. Also, while looking at 2000, I think McCain at that point in time would have been even better than Gore. We would have had a military guy at the helm after 9/11, but without the spectre of Dick Cheney actually calling the shots.

I think Obama winning when he did caused a lot of our ills - listed above in another post. Not that he himself, Obama, caused the issues. No. It was the BACKLASH to Obama that caused all of the shite we’ve endured. Give ‘08 and even 2012 to McCain/Mitt ticket. Obama stays in the Senate those 8 years, doing good stuff, THEN he comes out in 2016 to beat Hillary and eventually Mitt in the General.

I truly feel, these last 16 years would have gone so, so much better for all involved.

Think about it, it’s quite possible there would have been (in no particular order):
No Tea Party
No birtherism
No Trump
Racists remain under their rocks for a few more years
ACA still happens under the moniker RomneyCare
Less gerrymandering by State legislators (probably)
No Charlottesville
A much more intelligent prez to guide us through the Pandemic
The list goes on and on.

Thoughts?
Anyone seeing it play out differently?
I think other than getting a black man elected (simply as a marker in our Nations history) and then the ACA passed, the past 16 years has been right much a shit show. Yes, Obama’s 8 years at the helm wasn’t bad in and of themselves… but look at at all the other crap that happened since 2010!
Click to expand...
If Obama was in the Senate for 8 more years, birtherism would have started in that time period.
 
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