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Imagining an Alternate Universe
As we head toward the 100-day mark of the Trump Era, I think it’s fair to say we have elected the most interesting man ever to inhabit the White House. He has angered some conservatives; he has continued to enrage liberals; he has inspired marches replete with everything from vaginas to Form 1040s; he has caused major media outlets to explode with bile; he has bombed Syria and Afghanistan (in the latter case, finally allowing the MOAB designation to be removed from my 1989-90 CBS talk show); he has moved ships toward North Korea; he has upset his supposed BFF Vladimir Putin; he has shared Dover sole with Chinese President Xi Jinping, announcing, “We have developed a friendship” (with the President, not the sole); he has whiffed on Obamacare but homered on SCOTUS; he has — well, you get the idea. It’s been an interesting three months.
So while we pause and try to catch our breath, here’s a question: What would a Hillary Clinton administration look like at this point? Also, since this is strictly — and happily — a mental exercise, let’s assume the Republican Senate fell along with Trump (a reasonable assumption). What would be going on in the country and in the world? What would the media be writing and talking about? Who would be the power brokers? How would the Republicans deal with the internal warfare that contributed to the results? How would the next four or eight years be shaping up?
Of course, we can’t know any of this. Think of it as a Ricochet parlor game. Still, as we march closer to 100 days of Donald Trump, it might be useful to reflect on the alternative and think about what might have been.
Published in General
I think it is a good mental exercise to have! Not that I have any great suggestions, of course. The one obvious thing is that we would have a supreme court justice to the left of RBG, and because Republicans would never use it, the filibuster would still be in place.
And something less visible would be the ever-expanding regulatory state. I cannot imagine that any move Hillary would take (even the innocuous ones) would make our government less intrusive.
Gun sales would not have lessened, as they have under Trump.
Is this like how Hillary was the most qualified candidate in history?
I imagine no Antifa, no Berkeley riots, and no Women’s/Science/Whatever March for starters. I do imagine many calls from the same individuals for government investigation into Trump supporters, though whether a Hillary administration would care enough to even consider is a toss-up. Definitely additional laws regarding punishment for hate speech, with the definition of hate speech being even more vague. Definitely additional laws regarding people being able to use the women’s restrooms and lockers rooms. Finally, 100 new atrocious pant-suits on order somewhere.
EDIT: Oh, and I’m sure we’d have an infinite supply of Hollywood celebrities cawing about how much smarter they are than flyover country.
And probably we would have one or two justices announcing their retirement this year or next!
The easy one is that Merrick Garland would be on the Supreme Court, because the remaining Senate Republicans would fold like a chair and take the “moderate” liberal they know during the final days of the Obama term over whoever Hillary would dig up.
A fun game to play is “what would the first attempt at legislation have been?” This actually doesn’t have a clear answer because Hillary avoided advocating any policy whatsoever on the campaign trail in favor of “I am a woman and Donald Trump is bad.” So we’re left with guessing what she would think she could get away with a (presumably weaker) Republican house. My bet would be some anodyne sounding thing to pay for everyone’s college tuition to buy off all of the Bernie Bros.
I bet the Syria thing would have happened and either she would have done nothing, or have had a weaker response. It’s hard to say though; Obama’s foreign policy apparachiks seemed unhappy with his inaction. She might have inherited them all and ended up taking a more aggressive posture than he did. I doubt it would be as aggressive as Trump though.
North Korea would have remained entirely under the status quo of the past 14 years, possibly with some new bribes thrown in.
All the #NeverTrump pundits would be trying to rationalize Trump’s five vote loss in Michigan and three-vote loss in Florida.
They would both be denying they had any impact and speculating on how much worse (or little different) than Hillary Trump would have been.
This Ricochet group would probably be more active:
http://ricochet.com/groups/conservative-reconstructionists
I’ve always been intrigued by the premise of this book:
I see no policy differences between the two, or at least none that would justify nominating and supporting such a … yeah, that whole line is pretty risible, right?
Dems would be triumphant and insufferable. All the grotesqueness of the Clinton marriage would return to the cover of People as the new ideal. Pop culture politics would be ubiquitous and joyous for the left. GOP would be more deeply demoralized and fractured than at any point in memory.
Policy-wise, the Dems would be carving us up by the joints.
Garland nomination would be withdrawn, with an appointment as AG as a reward; no way this seat goes to a 64-year-old white guy when Srinavasan or Kelly is there as another first.
Collected judicial political and media firepower would be aimed as “gerrymandering” with devastating long-term results.
Clinton would have full cabinet by February 15 and appointment and legislative filibuster would depend on good behavior of GOP.
XL and Keystone pipelines would be permanently plugged.
The entire Jim Crow legal structure of the country would be subjected to the New Reconstruction.
$15 minimum wage (along some medium-term timeline) and carbon taxes would be very real things today
Insurer indemnification would be a done deal and Medicaid expansion heading towards approval (with or without GOP good behavior)
And immigration reform to the left of the Gang of Eight and with wrist slap penalties for full voting rights would be headed towards a mid-summer victory, complete with nationwide rallies and fireworks and star-studded concerts.
Nothing binary here, right?
I’ll take that as an excuse to watch this clip:
https://youtu.be/0pa3-1x5BpY?t=172
Maxine Waters would have a permanent slot on The View. Chelsea would gain an inexplicably enormous amount of weight. Marie Harf would start wearing contacts. Bill Clinton would get caught inserting cigars again. Nancy Pelosi: her own Wine label, quality? Meh. Lynch nominated for SCOTUS/ Tough but YES! Hollywood and Berkeley will be hit by North Korean Nuclear bombs. Whites will be massively mustard gassed although mostly in Minnesota and Connecticut. And then there’s Hillary. The little Princess.
Regardless of anything else I dislike about Trump (and there is plenty), these three bullet points remind me of why I was so happy on the morning after his election. That is to say nothing of all the liberals I know. The term “insufferable” doesn’t do justice to what would have been if Hillary was president, and I cannot think of anything even 1/100th as annoying that has come about as a result of Donald.
So, the status quo in hollywood. But other than that, some major changes.
Good to see you Pat. I’m so traumatized by the thought of HRC as POTUS, I cannot even get into a thought game. The results of what she and her minions could do to what is left of our country after Obama is terrifying.
Aw, Pat! If I had known, I would’ve watched!
This is how I felt. I couldn’t vote for DJT, but I sure was happy election night.
…in hindsight.
Most of the Ricochet podcasts would be happier, crowing about defeating those icky Trump supporters and saying ‘we told you so’.
There’s a good question about how the foreign policy/military action would work out. There was some people pushing the idea that Hillary would be more of a hawk than Obama. Hard not to be. She wouldn’t have given her commanders free rein to do what they need to do, so no use of the MOAB.
We would have had the first NCAA Women’s bracket filled out on ESPN as Hillary tries to maintain Obama’s “coolness” and also continue playing the sex card.
I found it a fun trilogy. It was interesting how the author brought up how some supposed progress could be interpreted otherwise. The future crews are integrated and some ships have female commanders, but our draconian ideas on smoking don’t fit in with 1942 ideas. Eventually the future crews explain that smoke will interfere with the fancy technology and can’t be near it. Also, a neat idea to have a ship with a rising sun pop into the middle of the U.S. Midway fleet.
Wrong.
Not wrong. They’d be busily scribbling about how they would lead the rebuild of the “real” Republican Party, at some undefined future time.
The day after Trump won, I went into one of the companies I work for and dropped by the office of… well, a big leftist. I’d been working with him for the previous few weeks, and he was absolutely certain that Hillary would win. Hands-down, no questions, you’re an idiot to think otherwise.
He was sitting there, staring at the electoral map on his computer, like he could just wish away all of those Trump wins. When he saw me, he closed the web page and tried to pretend he wasn’t freaked out.
Hell, I know people who didn’t come in to work the next day because they were so upset.
Of course, these are all people who now cling to any and all Trump conspiracy theories, and are certain that he’s going to prison Any Day Now, and we’ll have the election re-done.
Keep us posted on them. The foreign news cycle goes through lulls.
Moderator Note:
Personal attack.No Umbra. It was all there in front of your nose on November 8. [redacted]
I do know one thing. If the anti-administration march would have been filled with men wearing penis hats, it would have been covered much differently.
I’d assume we’d have a continuation of Obama’s policies (because Hillary doesn’t have an innovative bone in her body). Chances are, we’d have the same results as Obama … stagnant economy, regulatory creep, etc. Social justice warriors would be looking for the next “freedom” challenge to overcome, in other words, what current social dysfunction can we claim is merely a misunderstood injustice? Obama’s foreign policy would continue, handcuffing and degrading the military while Obama preens about keeping us out of war … (yeah, by running away from every conflict).
The big difference is that the same results would be obscured by some all-too-familiar scandal. It wouldn’t be about how a Hillary administration would look so much as how it would feel … i.e., like a high school being taken over by a snobby clique from a bad horror movie.
One of my colleagues came in the next day and I could hear her crying in her cubicle all day.
Nonsense. And I’m not entirely sure why so many people feel the need to rag on folks they disagree with in this manner. “person X disagrees with me, therefore I’ll attribute the worst motives I can think of to that person all the time.” Seems if you feel that way about podcasts, don’t listen. Not sure why people seek to join the “smart, civil, center-right conversation,” and then troll the heck out of those who keep this website afloat.
Yep. I don’t even like to imagine how they’d be if they had won.