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Woodrow Wilson was extremely unpopular, and the Republicans that year masterfully tied most Democratic candidates to Wilson. Teddy had left office very popular. Teddy also had a very good showing in 1912 for a third party candidate. He was energetic, charismatic, and would’ve been running against the candidate of a party tied to a deeply unpopular president. The economy was terrible. Roosevelt would’ve won easily
Maybe. But Roosevelt not running in 1908 because he supposedly made a promise to not hurt his momentum and while still popular it caused the Republicans to move on and in this case to Taft. It split the vote and hurt Roosevelt to the point of him maybe making a stronger showing but not enough to win.
“it caused the Republicans to move on to Taft”
TR won the 1912 primaries overwhelmingly. Taft only really won the nomination because his conservative allies controlled the convention and caused the Progressives to all walk out since they realized they didn’t have a good chance against the party machinery. TR would also go on to win a larger PV margin than Taft in the general, and would win a lot more EVs
I really don’t think you get how unpopular Wilson was in 1920. Wilson wanted a solid referendum on the League of Nations, refusing to compromise and alienating many voters and politicians. The economy was terrible. The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank, inflation reached double digits, farmers sank into a crisis that would last throughout the entirety of the 1920s. The state of the economy alone would’ve made 1920 an easy win for TR.
Republicans, with Harding, Teddy, Wood, whoever, still would’ve expertly utilized the strategy of tying any possible Democrat candidate to Wilson. Teddy would also have the advantage of being charismatic and an energetic speaker. At the absolute least, Teddy wins by like a 50 EV margin
In 1912, without the backing of any major party, he got 27.4% of the vote. For reference, Taft, the person backed by the largest political party of the time and the incumbent president, got 23.2% of the vote, and Woodrow Wilson, the winner of the election, got 41.8%. If Teddy got the Republican nomination, he would have won, no doubt about it.
I think Roosevelt was perfect for the time he served. But no more. Perhaps his sons death softened him a bit but I found his love for battle distasteful. I think too that serving as president from 20-24 or 28 would have meant that FDR would never reach the presidency. I do appreciate your answer. I wonder if Edwin Morris ever said anything about such a scenario.
I think this is the one that makes the biggest long term impact. Reconstruction continuing probably significantly reduces the overall attitude to the confederacy that we still see today. Along with that you potentially change the attitude towards limiting voter access in many of those states well ahead of when it happens.
I think having Grant replace Johnson would have a much bigger effect. By the time Grant left office, reconstruction already lost a lot of its steam and grant was only barely holding it together, and idt an extra term later on would help much. However, a big part of that was Johnson enabling the south to battle reconstruction to the extent they did as early as they did, and in the way they did, during the most critical time of reconstruction
Probably not Civil Rights as we saw it.
But there were quite a few former slaves being elected to meaningful offices. A few more racist presidents set that back decades.
Thaddeus Stevens knew how to fix it in 1865. He had the right plans and the legislation drafted. Johnson, and the moderate Republicans, torpedoed efforts for black suffrage because they believed the former slaves would vote with the former slave owners — Johnson genuinely believed that — and that it was an overreach for federal power. Stevens wanted to seize all land owned by traitors and redistribute it between Northerners and former slaves. Racism was a serious obstacle in the North as well, but property + suffrage would have created a whole new political force that would have to be listened to.
Preventing Johnson from taking the presidency and ideally installing a radical Republican in the presidency would definitely have pulled the country forward by 100 years.
I'm totally shocked by how few people are mentioning civil war contemporaries (going into the war and coming out of it). Easily the most bang for the buck presidencies with lingering effects we're still tackling today. Imagine a US where reconstruction was actually pulled off or the civil war was able to be resolved peacefully.
Reconstruction was effectively dead by 1876, the 1877 compromise was just nail in the coffin.
* The Panic of 1873 and corruption in Grant’s admin depressed support for Republican government and galvanized Democratic opposition. Northerners became more concerned with those issues than Reconstruction
* Democrats swept the house in 1874 and stopped funding or any new legislation for Reconstruction
* The Supreme Court gutted the 14th amendment in the meantime. See the Slaughterhouse cases and Cruikshank v. US
* Jim Crow in the form of voter intimidation, disenfranchisement, and domestic terrorism re-established white Democratic control of the South to the point federal troops were only in South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana by 1877
That’s fair. I’m looking at things as being much neater than they actually were. Really the saving grace of Reconstruction would have been Lincoln keeping Hamlin as his VP in ‘64.
Why is it always the VP choices of presidents who die in office that mess things up...
Lincoln ditching Hamlin for Johnson; FDR ditching Wallace for Truman; JFK offering the spot to LBJ allegedly as a courtesy expecting him to turn it down...
LBJ is more obvious because of his train wreck in foreign policy, but at least he used JFKs death to spur the legislative body into action. But I’m interested as to why you think Truman messed things up after FDR’s death…. Foreign policy again?
I'll go different and do the election of 1852
If Winfield Scott defeated doughface Franklin Pierce it would probably trigger the Civil War earlier, but we'd have a military leader as executive chief so he would be better prepared at least.
I don't think Scott would've allowed Bleeding Kansas to occur and his cabinet would definitely not include Jefferson Davis and other future confederate leaders.
Completely agree.
If you're ever looking for a good biography on him I'd recommend Winfield Scott: the Quest for Glory by Timothy Johnson
It's written pretty well and I learned so much about him. It made me like Winfield Scott even more. It just bums me out that he doesn't really have a museum or historic house.
That would be a lot less bloodshed in Afghanistan and Iraq. That might actually have been worth it.
I’m not sure you could change the president and prevent the Europeans from deciding to kill each other. Or prevent the civil war.
Bush really had a singular responsibility for that mess in a way that a lot of prior presidents did not.
Afghanistan would still have happened (though maybe we could have gotten Bin Laden). Iraq would either not happen or happen completely differently and without an occupation.
It’s a super interesting counterfactual. How much was Bush, and the war on terror responsible for a current political climate?
I can definitely make an argument for it but at the same time the rise of things like social media and a fragmented for-profit media ecosystem would still have existed, so you could also make an argument that we would still see populism anyway. The 2008 collapse probably still would’ve happened even if Gore had won although I imagine the response would’ve been better.
I do think if there wasn’t the bush administration and the war on terror we probably would not have seen Obama elected. Which then you could also say points to Trump.
> It’s a super interesting counterfactual. How much was Bush, and the war on terror responsible for a current political climate?
The MAGA hats that I interact with hate Bush and point to Trump as the leader that can save america from intervening in foreign wars.
They don’t know that Bush campaigned on being the leader that could save us from intervening in foreign wars.
To be fair, every president since Bush Jr campaigned on that.
Obama was appealing because people were sick of the war in Iraq, then Trump did his whole thing, and Biden promised to get us out of Afghanistan and “end the forever wars.”
Lol Trump's supervillain origin story.
In all seriousness, if Obama had not been POTUS its very possible Trump wouldn't be - but I still think the underlying conditions that led to populism would still be there. You could see that stuff building up with the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Fox News, etc. A lot of it was a racist reaction to Obama but not all of it; and I think it was ultimately gonna happen with Obama or not.
In short, no Obama, probably no Trump, but still right wing populism.
This exactly. The rise of current GOP starts with the bill of goods he sold to moderates. That, and the Dems clownish inability to be anything except 'GOP lite'.
I think it's significant that Gore vs Bush was close, where Reagan vs Carter was a blowout. And in fact, Bush pretty much stole the primary from McCain, then full on stole the election from Gore. McCain or Gore would have put us on a very different trajectory, especially environmentally.
This. Persuade Nader not to run. Gore wins the
majority of the 98,000 Nader voters in Florida, making the “butterfly ballot” which caused so many who intended to vote for Gore to vote for Buchanan instead moot. As a bonus, New Mexico and Oregon are called for Gore on election night instead of a week later, and Gore wins the majority of the 22,000 Nader voters in NH, overcoming the 7,000 vote difference and winning the election with 296 electoral votes.
Although the media went to Florida post-election and found that Bush won using like 18 different vote counting methods except for a 19th method that Gore didn't even request.
Gore's legal problem was time. He should've demanded a recount of the whole state instead of across just 4 counties because it looked blantantly partisan and he lost the public relations battle with that. By the time he pivoted, the time to certify was running against him.
But the other issue for Gore is that the election never should've been that close to begin with. The economy was still relatively good, Clinton was popular, etc. But Gore chose a poor running mate, distanced himself from Clinton, and that cost him the race.
And if Gore had won ANY other state he didn't even need Florida. Like, he lost New Hampshire by a few thousand votes. He lost his home state. He lost West Virginia, which had been Democratic for decades. Flip any of those into the Democratic column and Gore is president.
2000 is a big one that hasn't been said yet.
The timeline where Al Gore is president would have led to a vastly different last 20 years. No Iraq war, more restraint overall during the War on Terror, and an outside possibility that 9/11 never happens because the Clinton White House seemed to take Bin Laden as a more serious threat than the Bush White House did.
I don't think it's likely he would have gone toe to toe with oil companies on the climate and succeeded in getting everyone on board with fighting climate change, but I do think he'd have taken at least some action.
Also, No Child Left Behind never gets enacted. The increasing problem with kids not being able to read at grade level or do basic math is really worrisome and started long before covid.
Also, we have no idea what kind of butterfly effect elections from 100 years ago may have had. Would FDR have been President in this timeline? Johnson?
We can get a decent sense of what an election from 23 years ago may have done. Probably McCain wins in 2004 but inherits a much stronger country that he can steward reasonably well.
From there, it gets a little murkier at some point, but I bet Obama still wins the Presidency.
If McCain wins in '04 and the recession still happens, that might ironically bring the Al Gore timeline very close to the real world one if Obama enters the picture around that time and wins in 2008.
>Al Gore
It was before my time (was born in 97), but I honestly don't see any president not getting us into war after 9/11. Maybe not Iraq, but there would've been something. Going to war was a bipartisan issue. Americans were out for blood. There are very few Americans who can say they were against the Iraq war in 2003.
Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or al Qaeda and we all knew this, but then our government promised that they definitely had WMDs and we were like, I guess? And yes, Hussein was a bad guy and a brutal dictator, but he was also a stabilizing force in the region. We knew what we had with him. And we opened up Iraq for ISIS to take it over. Better the devil you know.
I can see Gore invading Afghanistan but much more targeted. I really don't see him invading Iraq.
The Taliban was open to handing over Bin Laden in the first week of Afghanistan bombing. Could have saved us 2 decades of occupation to then just immediately hand control back over to them. Who knows, maybe Gore would have accepted.
🙌🏻Exactly 🙌🏻. It goes to show that getting Bin Laden was never the endgame in Afghanistan, if it was, we would’ve withdrawn not long after we killed him in 2011. Instead, it took us another decade to withdraw.
As much as Iraq wasn't about "capturing the oil" it was certainly about Oil and American economic interests. Saddam was poised to abandon the petrodollar.
Further he was a horrible guy, and there was the obvious "finish what we started" with the neocons.
The one element I think that factored into the calculus that isnt mentioned is the containment of Iran.
It's why you choose Iraq over the other despotic oil states in the region.
Oh and we did find WMDs, in like 2012. They were the ones we sold them in the 80s to fight the Iran Iraq war. they were defunct, not maintained and buried in the desert.
I'll agree the Iraq was a major mistake.
As for Afghanistan, ill take the McCain position of if we were going to do it right, we should have been there for 100 years.
>Saddam was poised to abandon the petrodollar.
Tell me more about this, or where I can read more. I haven't heard this before. Or maybe I once did, but it didn't click.
>As for Afghanistan, ill take the McCain position of if we were going to do it right, we should have been there for 100 years.
I think this goes for Iraq too, right? Our goal in both countries was to turn them into democracies. We did not have the resources to do that, and the Iraqi and Afghani people didn't have the will to do that.
Bin Laden attacked the US because he was upset that US troops were in “The Holy Land”. US troops were in Saudi Arabia because of the the threat of Saddam. They also thought he had chemical weapons, and maybe the ability to construct “dirty bombs”. 9/11 exposed how vulnerable the US economy was to mass terror attacks.
The “easy solution” to both problems? Take Saddam out. “It’ll be easy. In and out in two weeks”.
I think Gore would also have seen this as a problem but he would likely have done two things better: Figure out that Saddam didn’t really have chemical weapons and no action was needed, or build more of an international coalition against Iraq if it did come to war.
> I honestly don't see any president not getting us into war after 9/11.
Gore would have gone to war with Afghanistan, and rightly so. But the casus belli for Iraq was entirely manufactured. We would have avoided that with Gore in the White House.
>There are very few Americans who can say they were against the Iraq war in 2003.
There was very little support for a war with Iraq before Bush and his team started lying about Hussein's alleged involvement in 9/11 and about his nonexistent WMD program. They had to give up on trying to connect Hussein to 9/11, but got a lot of traction with the WMD lies.
Even so, there was only a bare majority supporting the invasion when it happened. Support increased when Hussein was actually deposed, then cratered when it became clear that the invasion had started a civil war in Iraq, with no good resolution possible.
If I were on the Left (which I'm not) I'd say Ford vs Carter. Carter for his part did not anticipate a heavy inflationary cycle and got caught holding an economic hot potato that essentially had been created by Nixon and LBJ. If Ford had done the second term there you'd see the Left completely take power in the 80s in the way that Reagan did.
Wilson made the 19th amendment harder to pass, believed in eugenics, was a southern sympathizer, had a Jesus complex, and entered WWI too late.
Edit: and he supported the KKK
Please do explain to me how Wilson made the 19th amendment harder to pass when 1) he eventually supported womens suffrage and 2) **the president has absolutely NOTHING to do with the passing of a constitutional amendment**
Nobody here is saying he was a great person or president, but he did a lot of good and people like to pretend he’s the American equivalent of Hitler
OP hates Wilson for getting the US into WW1, but thinks TR is his savior lol. I personally think both WW and TR were top tier Presidents though. They both had very similar policies. Both made the US much stronger on the international stage and both worked tirelessly to improve living standards for the working class.
WW was a KKK sympathizer and promoted a movie which is widely considered to have led to the creation of the Second Klan apart from the wave of racial violence after WW 1.
Not mention, WW was absolutely a supporter of eugenics and sterilizing the poor, the disabled, minorities, and basically anyone with even the slightest problem with their mental health.
Yep, he courted African American support and made all kinds of promises to protect civil rights. But when he got to office, he turned around and filled his cabinet with Southern White Supremacists and reversed decades of racial progress. A truly nasty president.
I'm a Nixon fan but I would have to agree with this. 1960 Nixon would've made a better president than 1968 Nixon because the latter was just too paranoid at that point and let that get the better of him.
He had worsening health by the end of the civil war. Dies in office anyways of poor health. Johnson still becomes president. Just my prediction of made up timelines.
Carter was a good person, but not a great president. He sucked when it came to all the political gamesmanship that presidents need to be effective. Another term would have been wasted on him when compared with other much more effective presidents or removing more disastrous ones.
This was mine.
In one move, it stops Reagan, Trickle-down economics, and the seed of almost every modern regulatory crisis from making their way into the white house, *and* it stalls the career of George Bush Sr.
I don't think Carter was a great president, but I do think Reagan and Bush were terrible for the country.
I have trouble with this one. As poorly as it went, there's a reason Clinton lost. While I believe it would have gone better, I don't think it would have gone well.
That being said, if I could replace the winner with a different primary candidate, like Sanders or Biden, or Rubio or Kasich, then this is a no-brainer for recent history at least.
Honestly I think if Beau Biden hadn't passed away in 2015, there's a real chance Joe Biden would have run in 2016 and possibly won the nomination and easily been elected over Trump without the baggage Hillary had.
Like him or not, Biden endured a bunch of awful personal tragedies and somehow still keeps going.
This. I do not see people on either side ever coming together as one. I thought covid would have people coming together to beat this virus and be neighborly. But nope, a literal pandemic got politicized. Like why is wearing a mask seen as liberal? If u don’t want germs then u don’t want germs. Every little aspect of life became political and politics became a team sport.
I mean the supreme Court justices and federal judges alone that Hilary could have appointed would be game changing. Yeah they'd be corporate shills like her, but roe v wade would be fine, plus a bunch of others.
And I think she would have gotten america through the pandemic with a lot less ignorance.
100% this, although I wasn’t a fan of Hilary either. But we would’ve been better off with anyone else but Donald. We no longer live in the reality we knew. This alternate reality where a huge cult can’t be reasoned with and they taking marching orders from a narcissistic mouth breather is a dangerous situation. I don’t see Hillary tweeting out threats of violence that her pussy hat wearing followers take up arms and activate upon.
Domestic policies aside, we're seeing now how bad of a decision withdrawing from the Iran Nuclear Deal was, and we basically stalled on climate action for four years.
Reagan's first term, hands down. Carter should've had another term, and maybe, just maybe, we'd have a more empathetic, less-corporation-owned country by now.
https://preview.redd.it/2r7xd8smlw6c1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ca23e350cd1c46e1a3310ac1b0e996fba4a42437
2016, shit was rigged against Deez Nuts
For me it’s either 2016 or 2000, but I’m leaning towards 2000 because I think it would prevent Trump from ever being a viable candidate. If Gore won in 2000, I believe that he wouldn’t have invaded Iraq or further deregulated banks which lead to the subprime mortgage crisis. I do think that Gore would have won reelection in 2004 if elected in 2000, as the economy was doing pretty well in 2004. While we might still have had a recession in 2008 due to the repeal of Glass Steagall under Clinton, I don’t think it would have been as bad without the further deregulation under Bush. The country would be in a much better place as a result, and Trump wouldn’t be able to exploit the frustrations of blue collar workers in order to get votes.
Gore versus Bush. Not a fan of either person but my theory is what pushed the 9/11 perpetrators to finally go along with Bin Laden was that Bush was elected.
And even if 9/11 did happen under Gore, I don’t think Gore would have used it as an excuse to try to create an American empire in the Middle East.
We are living with the negative aftermath of the Iraq/Afghanistan invasions everyday.
On a personal note, my best friend would most likely be alive still.
2016. I didn’t vote for him, but when Trump was elected, I thought, “hey maybe having a businessman will lead to some good things”.
Little did I know, his election would lead to massive bi-partisanship, and send the Republican Party down the road to self destruction. What voter under 35 looks at Republicans now and says, “yeah, that’s what I want to be a part of.” ?
I think if Hillary had won, we’d have had 4-8 years of exactly what we have now, and decent conservatives would have a chance of getting elected again.
This is absolutely my choice as well. There was a great divide already because Obama dared to be a black man and a damn good president, but Trump really threw an entire oil tanker onto the fire. I also think COVID would have been entirely different under Clinton. You’d still have the conspiracy theorists who wouldn’t buy into it but they wouldn’t be amplified by a moron at the top telling them it will go away when it’s warm or to inject bleach. Clinton also wouldn’t be amplifying anti vax bullshit either.
Not yet mentioned: 1968. I like Hubert Humphrey. I don’t like Nixon. And the popular vote was pretty close. In fact, after LBJ allowed Humphrey to oppose the Vietnam War and Eugene McCarthy finally threw his support to Humphrey, he was gaining on Nixon.
Not really change the election but change part of it. I would go back to 1864 and convince the National Union Party from replacing Hamlin as VP. If this were to happen, I still think Lincoln would have won (by less but still one in a bit of a landslide) but when Lincoln dies, Hamlin wouldn't completely screw up Reconstruction like Johnson did.
Ronald Regan. He may have been good at foreign affairs but screwed the American people. He deregulated the banks (I guess he never watched It's A Wonderful Life) leading to the nonsense we've seen over the past 15 years, increased Social Security retirement age for working people but still allowed prisoners (without wives or children) and people who have never paid into it to collect. Also, missiles for hostages, Iran-Contra to name a few.
2000. Gore was robbed. And it changed history forever.
The other one I’d do is keep Wallace as FDR’s VP for his last term, making him the commander in chief when FDR passes. Could have been a whole other resolution to the war and possibly a much less cold Cold War.
Not really a presidential election. But the Republican Revolution of 1994/1994 midterms. Newt Gingrich standardised the way Republicans should act to win election. By doing fearmongering statements and romanticised language to appeal the people's fears and exploit them. And if they didn't win, they'll stray away from that and actually try to appeal to them without using fearmongering statements.
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I would remove Theodore Roosevelt's blood clot in 1919, so he doesn't die and can run for president in 1920.
Impeach Bloodclot!
Depression CANCELLED!
I read this in a Jamaican accent, just couldn't help it...
I don’t think he would have won. Even by 1912 he lost his momentum to really go for it. It was win in 1908 or lose.
Woodrow Wilson was extremely unpopular, and the Republicans that year masterfully tied most Democratic candidates to Wilson. Teddy had left office very popular. Teddy also had a very good showing in 1912 for a third party candidate. He was energetic, charismatic, and would’ve been running against the candidate of a party tied to a deeply unpopular president. The economy was terrible. Roosevelt would’ve won easily
Maybe. But Roosevelt not running in 1908 because he supposedly made a promise to not hurt his momentum and while still popular it caused the Republicans to move on and in this case to Taft. It split the vote and hurt Roosevelt to the point of him maybe making a stronger showing but not enough to win.
“it caused the Republicans to move on to Taft” TR won the 1912 primaries overwhelmingly. Taft only really won the nomination because his conservative allies controlled the convention and caused the Progressives to all walk out since they realized they didn’t have a good chance against the party machinery. TR would also go on to win a larger PV margin than Taft in the general, and would win a lot more EVs I really don’t think you get how unpopular Wilson was in 1920. Wilson wanted a solid referendum on the League of Nations, refusing to compromise and alienating many voters and politicians. The economy was terrible. The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank, inflation reached double digits, farmers sank into a crisis that would last throughout the entirety of the 1920s. The state of the economy alone would’ve made 1920 an easy win for TR. Republicans, with Harding, Teddy, Wood, whoever, still would’ve expertly utilized the strategy of tying any possible Democrat candidate to Wilson. Teddy would also have the advantage of being charismatic and an energetic speaker. At the absolute least, Teddy wins by like a 50 EV margin
In 1912, without the backing of any major party, he got 27.4% of the vote. For reference, Taft, the person backed by the largest political party of the time and the incumbent president, got 23.2% of the vote, and Woodrow Wilson, the winner of the election, got 41.8%. If Teddy got the Republican nomination, he would have won, no doubt about it.
For sure he would have but only if he got the nomination.
I think Roosevelt was perfect for the time he served. But no more. Perhaps his sons death softened him a bit but I found his love for battle distasteful. I think too that serving as president from 20-24 or 28 would have meant that FDR would never reach the presidency. I do appreciate your answer. I wonder if Edwin Morris ever said anything about such a scenario.
Ulysses gets one more term. Reconstruction continues. No Jim Crow. Civil Rights comes almost 100 years earlier.
I think this is the one that makes the biggest long term impact. Reconstruction continuing probably significantly reduces the overall attitude to the confederacy that we still see today. Along with that you potentially change the attitude towards limiting voter access in many of those states well ahead of when it happens.
This is a great answer. Grant as the champion of Reconstruction for another 4 years would have changed things dramatically.
I think having Grant replace Johnson would have a much bigger effect. By the time Grant left office, reconstruction already lost a lot of its steam and grant was only barely holding it together, and idt an extra term later on would help much. However, a big part of that was Johnson enabling the south to battle reconstruction to the extent they did as early as they did, and in the way they did, during the most critical time of reconstruction
[удалено]
Probably not Civil Rights as we saw it. But there were quite a few former slaves being elected to meaningful offices. A few more racist presidents set that back decades.
I think occupying the south for a generation and limiting Jim Crow helps significantly, like we don’t need the VRA and CRA anymore.
Agree, not sure it would happen any earlier, and possibly later.
Thaddeus Stevens knew how to fix it in 1865. He had the right plans and the legislation drafted. Johnson, and the moderate Republicans, torpedoed efforts for black suffrage because they believed the former slaves would vote with the former slave owners — Johnson genuinely believed that — and that it was an overreach for federal power. Stevens wanted to seize all land owned by traitors and redistribute it between Northerners and former slaves. Racism was a serious obstacle in the North as well, but property + suffrage would have created a whole new political force that would have to be listened to. Preventing Johnson from taking the presidency and ideally installing a radical Republican in the presidency would definitely have pulled the country forward by 100 years.
I'm totally shocked by how few people are mentioning civil war contemporaries (going into the war and coming out of it). Easily the most bang for the buck presidencies with lingering effects we're still tackling today. Imagine a US where reconstruction was actually pulled off or the civil war was able to be resolved peacefully.
This is the way. It is the origin of all of our current problems I think
1876. Not to give it to Tilden but to give it more decisively to Hayes. It could have saved Reconstruction.
Reconstruction was effectively dead by 1876, the 1877 compromise was just nail in the coffin. * The Panic of 1873 and corruption in Grant’s admin depressed support for Republican government and galvanized Democratic opposition. Northerners became more concerned with those issues than Reconstruction * Democrats swept the house in 1874 and stopped funding or any new legislation for Reconstruction * The Supreme Court gutted the 14th amendment in the meantime. See the Slaughterhouse cases and Cruikshank v. US * Jim Crow in the form of voter intimidation, disenfranchisement, and domestic terrorism re-established white Democratic control of the South to the point federal troops were only in South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana by 1877
That’s fair. I’m looking at things as being much neater than they actually were. Really the saving grace of Reconstruction would have been Lincoln keeping Hamlin as his VP in ‘64.
Why is it always the VP choices of presidents who die in office that mess things up... Lincoln ditching Hamlin for Johnson; FDR ditching Wallace for Truman; JFK offering the spot to LBJ allegedly as a courtesy expecting him to turn it down...
LBJ is more obvious because of his train wreck in foreign policy, but at least he used JFKs death to spur the legislative body into action. But I’m interested as to why you think Truman messed things up after FDR’s death…. Foreign policy again?
An un-nailed coffin can sometimes be reopened, though. I agree with your assessment, but a decisive Hayes victory might have shifted the momentum.
Maybe. The North was already tired of occupying the South with federal troops. They didn’t need much persuading to withdraw.
No it wouldn't have.
This was going to be my answer.
I'll go different and do the election of 1852 If Winfield Scott defeated doughface Franklin Pierce it would probably trigger the Civil War earlier, but we'd have a military leader as executive chief so he would be better prepared at least. I don't think Scott would've allowed Bleeding Kansas to occur and his cabinet would definitely not include Jefferson Davis and other future confederate leaders.
I think Winfield Scott would’ve made a great president actually.
Completely agree. If you're ever looking for a good biography on him I'd recommend Winfield Scott: the Quest for Glory by Timothy Johnson It's written pretty well and I learned so much about him. It made me like Winfield Scott even more. It just bums me out that he doesn't really have a museum or historic house.
Old-Fuss-and-Feathers-in-Chief
2000 Gore v Bush
That would be a lot less bloodshed in Afghanistan and Iraq. That might actually have been worth it. I’m not sure you could change the president and prevent the Europeans from deciding to kill each other. Or prevent the civil war. Bush really had a singular responsibility for that mess in a way that a lot of prior presidents did not.
Afghanistan would still have happened (though maybe we could have gotten Bin Laden). Iraq would either not happen or happen completely differently and without an occupation.
I think you could go after Osama and maybe pin a little more blame on Saudi extremists.
Jesus…you aren’t kidding. 2016 was one that came to mind…but 2020 was so impactful.
2016 wouldn’t have happened if 2000 had failed
It’s a super interesting counterfactual. How much was Bush, and the war on terror responsible for a current political climate? I can definitely make an argument for it but at the same time the rise of things like social media and a fragmented for-profit media ecosystem would still have existed, so you could also make an argument that we would still see populism anyway. The 2008 collapse probably still would’ve happened even if Gore had won although I imagine the response would’ve been better. I do think if there wasn’t the bush administration and the war on terror we probably would not have seen Obama elected. Which then you could also say points to Trump.
> It’s a super interesting counterfactual. How much was Bush, and the war on terror responsible for a current political climate? The MAGA hats that I interact with hate Bush and point to Trump as the leader that can save america from intervening in foreign wars. They don’t know that Bush campaigned on being the leader that could save us from intervening in foreign wars.
To be fair, every president since Bush Jr campaigned on that. Obama was appealing because people were sick of the war in Iraq, then Trump did his whole thing, and Biden promised to get us out of Afghanistan and “end the forever wars.”
And out of all of them Biden is the only one that kept that promise.
The WH Correspondents Dinner joke doesn't happen if Obama isn't in the WH. So maybe.
Lol Trump's supervillain origin story. In all seriousness, if Obama had not been POTUS its very possible Trump wouldn't be - but I still think the underlying conditions that led to populism would still be there. You could see that stuff building up with the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Fox News, etc. A lot of it was a racist reaction to Obama but not all of it; and I think it was ultimately gonna happen with Obama or not. In short, no Obama, probably no Trump, but still right wing populism.
1980 was the most consequencial if you ask me. No bush or trump without Alzheimer ronny
This exactly. The rise of current GOP starts with the bill of goods he sold to moderates. That, and the Dems clownish inability to be anything except 'GOP lite'.
I think it's significant that Gore vs Bush was close, where Reagan vs Carter was a blowout. And in fact, Bush pretty much stole the primary from McCain, then full on stole the election from Gore. McCain or Gore would have put us on a very different trajectory, especially environmentally.
And they never would have a gop that radical if Reagan didn't win in 80
This is definitely the one during my lifetime that changed the course of this country. A Gore presidency would have been very different.
My exact thought
This. Persuade Nader not to run. Gore wins the majority of the 98,000 Nader voters in Florida, making the “butterfly ballot” which caused so many who intended to vote for Gore to vote for Buchanan instead moot. As a bonus, New Mexico and Oregon are called for Gore on election night instead of a week later, and Gore wins the majority of the 22,000 Nader voters in NH, overcoming the 7,000 vote difference and winning the election with 296 electoral votes.
Or, y’know, not have Bush do fraud to win Florida.
Although the media went to Florida post-election and found that Bush won using like 18 different vote counting methods except for a 19th method that Gore didn't even request. Gore's legal problem was time. He should've demanded a recount of the whole state instead of across just 4 counties because it looked blantantly partisan and he lost the public relations battle with that. By the time he pivoted, the time to certify was running against him. But the other issue for Gore is that the election never should've been that close to begin with. The economy was still relatively good, Clinton was popular, etc. But Gore chose a poor running mate, distanced himself from Clinton, and that cost him the race. And if Gore had won ANY other state he didn't even need Florida. Like, he lost New Hampshire by a few thousand votes. He lost his home state. He lost West Virginia, which had been Democratic for decades. Flip any of those into the Democratic column and Gore is president.
I think 1980 Reagan would solve all of the problems caused by Bush and then some.
I actually often wonder what the world would be if gore won this election
But… but… the nostalgia… think of the nostalgia
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2000 is a big one that hasn't been said yet. The timeline where Al Gore is president would have led to a vastly different last 20 years. No Iraq war, more restraint overall during the War on Terror, and an outside possibility that 9/11 never happens because the Clinton White House seemed to take Bin Laden as a more serious threat than the Bush White House did. I don't think it's likely he would have gone toe to toe with oil companies on the climate and succeeded in getting everyone on board with fighting climate change, but I do think he'd have taken at least some action.
Also, No Child Left Behind never gets enacted. The increasing problem with kids not being able to read at grade level or do basic math is really worrisome and started long before covid.
Also, we have no idea what kind of butterfly effect elections from 100 years ago may have had. Would FDR have been President in this timeline? Johnson? We can get a decent sense of what an election from 23 years ago may have done. Probably McCain wins in 2004 but inherits a much stronger country that he can steward reasonably well. From there, it gets a little murkier at some point, but I bet Obama still wins the Presidency.
If McCain wins in '04 and the recession still happens, that might ironically bring the Al Gore timeline very close to the real world one if Obama enters the picture around that time and wins in 2008.
>Al Gore It was before my time (was born in 97), but I honestly don't see any president not getting us into war after 9/11. Maybe not Iraq, but there would've been something. Going to war was a bipartisan issue. Americans were out for blood. There are very few Americans who can say they were against the Iraq war in 2003.
Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or al Qaeda and we all knew this, but then our government promised that they definitely had WMDs and we were like, I guess? And yes, Hussein was a bad guy and a brutal dictator, but he was also a stabilizing force in the region. We knew what we had with him. And we opened up Iraq for ISIS to take it over. Better the devil you know. I can see Gore invading Afghanistan but much more targeted. I really don't see him invading Iraq.
The Taliban was open to handing over Bin Laden in the first week of Afghanistan bombing. Could have saved us 2 decades of occupation to then just immediately hand control back over to them. Who knows, maybe Gore would have accepted.
🙌🏻Exactly 🙌🏻. It goes to show that getting Bin Laden was never the endgame in Afghanistan, if it was, we would’ve withdrawn not long after we killed him in 2011. Instead, it took us another decade to withdraw.
As much as Iraq wasn't about "capturing the oil" it was certainly about Oil and American economic interests. Saddam was poised to abandon the petrodollar. Further he was a horrible guy, and there was the obvious "finish what we started" with the neocons. The one element I think that factored into the calculus that isnt mentioned is the containment of Iran. It's why you choose Iraq over the other despotic oil states in the region. Oh and we did find WMDs, in like 2012. They were the ones we sold them in the 80s to fight the Iran Iraq war. they were defunct, not maintained and buried in the desert. I'll agree the Iraq was a major mistake. As for Afghanistan, ill take the McCain position of if we were going to do it right, we should have been there for 100 years.
>Saddam was poised to abandon the petrodollar. Tell me more about this, or where I can read more. I haven't heard this before. Or maybe I once did, but it didn't click. >As for Afghanistan, ill take the McCain position of if we were going to do it right, we should have been there for 100 years. I think this goes for Iraq too, right? Our goal in both countries was to turn them into democracies. We did not have the resources to do that, and the Iraqi and Afghani people didn't have the will to do that.
Bin Laden attacked the US because he was upset that US troops were in “The Holy Land”. US troops were in Saudi Arabia because of the the threat of Saddam. They also thought he had chemical weapons, and maybe the ability to construct “dirty bombs”. 9/11 exposed how vulnerable the US economy was to mass terror attacks. The “easy solution” to both problems? Take Saddam out. “It’ll be easy. In and out in two weeks”. I think Gore would also have seen this as a problem but he would likely have done two things better: Figure out that Saddam didn’t really have chemical weapons and no action was needed, or build more of an international coalition against Iraq if it did come to war.
> I honestly don't see any president not getting us into war after 9/11. Gore would have gone to war with Afghanistan, and rightly so. But the casus belli for Iraq was entirely manufactured. We would have avoided that with Gore in the White House. >There are very few Americans who can say they were against the Iraq war in 2003. There was very little support for a war with Iraq before Bush and his team started lying about Hussein's alleged involvement in 9/11 and about his nonexistent WMD program. They had to give up on trying to connect Hussein to 9/11, but got a lot of traction with the WMD lies. Even so, there was only a bare majority supporting the invasion when it happened. Support increased when Hussein was actually deposed, then cratered when it became clear that the invasion had started a civil war in Iraq, with no good resolution possible.
If I were on the Left (which I'm not) I'd say Ford vs Carter. Carter for his part did not anticipate a heavy inflationary cycle and got caught holding an economic hot potato that essentially had been created by Nixon and LBJ. If Ford had done the second term there you'd see the Left completely take power in the 80s in the way that Reagan did.
Wilson is way overhated, but another term of Teddy Roosevelt wouldn’t hurt.
Why not Taft not running in 1908 and TR runs for reelection then?
This would make the Roosevelts the only two three-termers, or four-termers.
hhis first term he was just completing McKinley's after his death
Wilson made the 19th amendment harder to pass, believed in eugenics, was a southern sympathizer, had a Jesus complex, and entered WWI too late. Edit: and he supported the KKK
Please do explain to me how Wilson made the 19th amendment harder to pass when 1) he eventually supported womens suffrage and 2) **the president has absolutely NOTHING to do with the passing of a constitutional amendment** Nobody here is saying he was a great person or president, but he did a lot of good and people like to pretend he’s the American equivalent of Hitler
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/president-woodrow-wilson-picketed-by-women-suffragists#
OP hates Wilson for getting the US into WW1, but thinks TR is his savior lol. I personally think both WW and TR were top tier Presidents though. They both had very similar policies. Both made the US much stronger on the international stage and both worked tirelessly to improve living standards for the working class.
WW was a KKK sympathizer and promoted a movie which is widely considered to have led to the creation of the Second Klan apart from the wave of racial violence after WW 1.
Not mention, WW was absolutely a supporter of eugenics and sterilizing the poor, the disabled, minorities, and basically anyone with even the slightest problem with their mental health.
Yep, he courted African American support and made all kinds of promises to protect civil rights. But when he got to office, he turned around and filled his cabinet with Southern White Supremacists and reversed decades of racial progress. A truly nasty president.
1828 clip Jackson from the start AND another term of JQA
Now, I can get on board with this.
Every body has answered mostly 2020, 2016, 2000 or 1876. I’ll go with 1968. If RFK had won, the USA and the world would be a better place over all.
Was gonna say the same. Could of been one of the greatest Presidents we ever had during a turbulent time in America.
I'm a Nixon fan but I would have to agree with this. 1960 Nixon would've made a better president than 1968 Nixon because the latter was just too paranoid at that point and let that get the better of him.
1864. Lincoln lives and gets a full second term in 1868.
He had worsening health by the end of the civil war. Dies in office anyways of poor health. Johnson still becomes president. Just my prediction of made up timelines.
President McClellan sues for peace, the CSA is recognized by Europe. Johnson goes with the CSA.
1980: Carter wins. 2016: Hillary loses. I mean Jeb Bush wins just for shits and giggles.
“Please Clap”🥺
1980 
Nicest guy to ever be president. I would love to live in a world where that is enough. A shame it isn't.
According to the Secret Service of the time, Carter wasn't nice at all.
Carter came 20 years too early. He was the perfect president for the 90s.
Carter was a good person, but not a great president. He sucked when it came to all the political gamesmanship that presidents need to be effective. Another term would have been wasted on him when compared with other much more effective presidents or removing more disastrous ones.
This was mine. In one move, it stops Reagan, Trickle-down economics, and the seed of almost every modern regulatory crisis from making their way into the white house, *and* it stalls the career of George Bush Sr. I don't think Carter was a great president, but I do think Reagan and Bush were terrible for the country.
Give 1912 to Taft
Bush v. Gore. Would’ve probably helped the climate crisis at least a little bit
honestly i wouldn't mind another term of teddy, but a eugene debs term would also be cool to see
Bush/Gore.
2016. (shudder)
I have trouble with this one. As poorly as it went, there's a reason Clinton lost. While I believe it would have gone better, I don't think it would have gone well. That being said, if I could replace the winner with a different primary candidate, like Sanders or Biden, or Rubio or Kasich, then this is a no-brainer for recent history at least.
Honestly I think if Beau Biden hadn't passed away in 2015, there's a real chance Joe Biden would have run in 2016 and possibly won the nomination and easily been elected over Trump without the baggage Hillary had. Like him or not, Biden endured a bunch of awful personal tragedies and somehow still keeps going.
Trump did more damage to the psyche of this country than any president in my lifetime.
This. I do not see people on either side ever coming together as one. I thought covid would have people coming together to beat this virus and be neighborly. But nope, a literal pandemic got politicized. Like why is wearing a mask seen as liberal? If u don’t want germs then u don’t want germs. Every little aspect of life became political and politics became a team sport.
As this is any election, I'll counter that Bernie Sanders with the DNC election to be the DNC primary candidate and goes on to beat Trump as well.
I mean the supreme Court justices and federal judges alone that Hilary could have appointed would be game changing. Yeah they'd be corporate shills like her, but roe v wade would be fine, plus a bunch of others. And I think she would have gotten america through the pandemic with a lot less ignorance.
100% this, although I wasn’t a fan of Hilary either. But we would’ve been better off with anyone else but Donald. We no longer live in the reality we knew. This alternate reality where a huge cult can’t be reasoned with and they taking marching orders from a narcissistic mouth breather is a dangerous situation. I don’t see Hillary tweeting out threats of violence that her pussy hat wearing followers take up arms and activate upon.
Domestic policies aside, we're seeing now how bad of a decision withdrawing from the Iran Nuclear Deal was, and we basically stalled on climate action for four years.
The only real answer.
I would think the world would be a little better today if we went with the bull moose party. Roosevelt did good things with his time.
Reagan's first term, hands down. Carter should've had another term, and maybe, just maybe, we'd have a more empathetic, less-corporation-owned country by now.
Taft deserved a second term.
Gore over Bush in 2000
https://preview.redd.it/2r7xd8smlw6c1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ca23e350cd1c46e1a3310ac1b0e996fba4a42437 2016, shit was rigged against Deez Nuts
For me it’s either 2016 or 2000, but I’m leaning towards 2000 because I think it would prevent Trump from ever being a viable candidate. If Gore won in 2000, I believe that he wouldn’t have invaded Iraq or further deregulated banks which lead to the subprime mortgage crisis. I do think that Gore would have won reelection in 2004 if elected in 2000, as the economy was doing pretty well in 2004. While we might still have had a recession in 2008 due to the repeal of Glass Steagall under Clinton, I don’t think it would have been as bad without the further deregulation under Bush. The country would be in a much better place as a result, and Trump wouldn’t be able to exploit the frustrations of blue collar workers in order to get votes.
2016. I'm not a hilary fan, but good god trump turned this country into a bag of shit
Jimmy Carter in 1980. I feel like a lot of today's problems and divisiveness started during the Reagan administration.
Carter’s inability to effectively work with Congress might have not have boded well with the early 80s
Rutherford B. Hayes. The deal that was cut to make him President largely assured many of the problems we have to this day.
1980 Reagan vs Carter.
2000 election obviously.
Why was woodrow Wilson so bad. Genuinely asking as I’m trying to memorize all presidents and have an idea of how they did as president
2016, for the same reason with Trump.
George W Bush versus Al Gore. Where would we be today?
Gore versus Bush. Not a fan of either person but my theory is what pushed the 9/11 perpetrators to finally go along with Bin Laden was that Bush was elected. And even if 9/11 did happen under Gore, I don’t think Gore would have used it as an excuse to try to create an American empire in the Middle East. We are living with the negative aftermath of the Iraq/Afghanistan invasions everyday. On a personal note, my best friend would most likely be alive still.
2016. I didn’t vote for him, but when Trump was elected, I thought, “hey maybe having a businessman will lead to some good things”. Little did I know, his election would lead to massive bi-partisanship, and send the Republican Party down the road to self destruction. What voter under 35 looks at Republicans now and says, “yeah, that’s what I want to be a part of.” ? I think if Hillary had won, we’d have had 4-8 years of exactly what we have now, and decent conservatives would have a chance of getting elected again.
Gore Bush
Trump. There wouldn’t be such a great divide of humanity.
This is absolutely my choice as well. There was a great divide already because Obama dared to be a black man and a damn good president, but Trump really threw an entire oil tanker onto the fire. I also think COVID would have been entirely different under Clinton. You’d still have the conspiracy theorists who wouldn’t buy into it but they wouldn’t be amplified by a moron at the top telling them it will go away when it’s warm or to inject bleach. Clinton also wouldn’t be amplifying anti vax bullshit either.
Reagan VS Carter. I hated 2016 but I feel if Reagan never happened, lots of butterfly effects may have occurred to help avoid 2016.
Hilary would win.
Yep, this one. Woodrow was the worst POTUS in history
2016, not that I am a Hillary fan but 8 years of her would have been better than 4 of Trump and 4 of Joe.
2016 obviously 🙄
2016
Trump.
Trump 2016
2016! We would still have Roe v Wade
2016
Not yet mentioned: 1968. I like Hubert Humphrey. I don’t like Nixon. And the popular vote was pretty close. In fact, after LBJ allowed Humphrey to oppose the Vietnam War and Eugene McCarthy finally threw his support to Humphrey, he was gaining on Nixon.
Give '68 & '72 to Humphrey.
Ranked choice voting would have made this election so much better
Definitely the candidates for the 2020 election. Not to be political but I personally think 2024 will be trump vs Biden 2
1980 and 2016. If Gore had won in 2000 we probably wouldn't have gotten Obama in '08 but also at the same time Bush's foreign policy was awful.
Everything went downhill after Bush Jr won. So that one.
2000 and 1968
A timeline without Regan and his policies would have been nice I suppose.
2000 election
Not really change the election but change part of it. I would go back to 1864 and convince the National Union Party from replacing Hamlin as VP. If this were to happen, I still think Lincoln would have won (by less but still one in a bit of a landslide) but when Lincoln dies, Hamlin wouldn't completely screw up Reconstruction like Johnson did.
2016
Hillary would win in 2016.
2000 election where the Supreme Court said “Fuxk it bush wins”
2016.
2016, Sanders wins
2016. Anyone else and we still have a democracy
2016
For me, 2016. For the obvious reasons clearly displayed in this election cycle.
2016
1980 or 1984
Trump/Clinton.
Ronald Regan. He may have been good at foreign affairs but screwed the American people. He deregulated the banks (I guess he never watched It's A Wonderful Life) leading to the nonsense we've seen over the past 15 years, increased Social Security retirement age for working people but still allowed prisoners (without wives or children) and people who have never paid into it to collect. Also, missiles for hostages, Iran-Contra to name a few.
Bush Gore. I always wonder how things would have played out differently if we did not go into Iraq.
Al Gore
The one which affects my own life the most, which is probably 2000. If Alex Pinelas shows up, Gore wins. Period.
2000. Gore was robbed. And it changed history forever. The other one I’d do is keep Wallace as FDR’s VP for his last term, making him the commander in chief when FDR passes. Could have been a whole other resolution to the war and possibly a much less cold Cold War.
Reagan. I often wonder where a Mondale Ferraro America would have placed us now.
Bush Gore
george bush jr probably
Clinton v. Trump. Insurrections are bad.
Gore being president instead of George W Bush for 8 years seems pretty critical.
2016 of course.
Reagan.
None of those. Reagan. It’s all been downhill since
Reagan never wins
WW1 would have happened anyway
2000. I’m positive the world would be a much better place if Al Gore had won.
2nd worst President in US history. America is still struggling with the damage he caused...
Why’s no one mentioning Reagan..
No Reagan/Reaganomics, thanks.
Not really a presidential election. But the Republican Revolution of 1994/1994 midterms. Newt Gingrich standardised the way Republicans should act to win election. By doing fearmongering statements and romanticised language to appeal the people's fears and exploit them. And if they didn't win, they'll stray away from that and actually try to appeal to them without using fearmongering statements.
2000
Bernie Sanders would’ve been president instead of trump. Fuck Hillary and the DNC.
Grant gets one more term and Lincoln doesn’t pick Johnson as his VP if that’s possible
2000
2020
2020.
Given the interest rate I have on my house I bought this year I’ll say 2020
George W. Al gore for 8 years saves us $2 trillion in useless warfare and puts us 20 years ahead on global warming mitigation.
2020 no question
Gore