"It started in Florida in the year 2000. The closest and most contested Presidential election in modern history. It became known as the year of the 'hanging chad'."
Yesterday, I was doing a lot of thinking. Thinking about where we are right now as a country. And how we got here. I believe many of us are thinking pretty much the same thing - we are not happy right now. At a time in our history when we really need a "change of scenery" in our political landscape, things are now on the verge of getting so much worse.
There is a new show on this season which I am becoming slowly addicted to. It is called Timeless, and it is about some folks who are able to travel back in time. The only rule of time travel is they are not to change anything - as if they did, the future consequences could be tragic, or even better. It prompted me to think about our history, and how it has shaped our present. And then I had this thought.
It started in Florida in the year 2000. The closest and most contested Presidential election in modern history. It became known as the year of the "hanging chad". Truthfully, the race was so close, it could have gone either way. So let's just for a second pretend we had President Gore instead of President Bush (43).
First off, we still would have had 9/11. The wheels were in motion for that event long before our election. We probably would have still responded with some kind of military operation in Afghanistan. And my guess is, probably not Iraq in 2003. Then chances are, with a wounded country backing him, Gore would have been re-elected in 2004.
The Great Recession still would have happened in late 2007. That too, was also set up long before it happened by a series of events. The repeal of Glass Steagall, more and more high risk loans which became toxic assets, and the misuse of Fannie Mae mortgages. So just like President Bush (43) in real history, President Gore would have been tagged with the loss for the economic crash.
In 2008 we would have elected a Republican President in response to the now unpopular President Gore. What about Barack Obama? My guess he would have remained as a junior Senator from Illinois. Many believe in real history, we got Obama as a direct result to many voters rejecting Bush. Even thought George Bush could not run for a third term, whichever Republican who was chosen to run would have to wear the responsibility for the failed economy. The same is true for a President Gore.
What does all this have to do with today one might ask? If Gore had won the election in 2000, we probably would not have had Obama in 2008. And if we did not have Obama in 2008, we probably would have had a Republican president from 2008 to present day. And just as Obama in real history was a reaction to George W. Bush, Donald Trump is a reaction to Obama.
My theory is this - if Gore had won the Presidency, a few things would have happened differently. First, we would not have gone into Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein. He would have remained a huge threat to peace in the region. Next, with a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress, our spending would have been even higher than it was under Bush. Our national debt would be higher. Finally, in the 2016 election after eight years of a Republican President, I believe Hillary might still be running against a Republican other than Donald Trump.
But history is a funny thing. We know what is reality was, and that is fixed. As far as the "what if" is concerned, anyone's guess is as good as mine. I was just trying to answer the one question that I hear over and over this year - "How in the world did we get to this place, in a country so big, getting the candidates we did?" It is all history. Since there is no time travel yet, history is all we have.
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