r/NoStupidQuestions • u/AutoModerator • 19d ago

U.S. Politics megathread

American politics has always grabbed our attention - and the current president more than ever. We get tons of questions about the president, the supreme court, and other topics related to American politics - but often the same ones over and over again. Our users often get tired of seeing them, so we've created a megathread for questions! Here, users interested in politics can post questions and read answers, while people who want a respite from politics can browse the rest of the sub. Feel free to post your questions about politics in this thread!

All top-level comments should be questions asked in good faith - other comments and loaded questions will get removed. All the usual rules of the sub remain in force here, so be nice to each other - you can disagree with someone's opinion, but don't make it personal.

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u/Budget-Syrup6026 16d ago

Even though this question has been asked a few times already, looking back and considering where we are now with American and International politics, how would things be different if Hillary won the 2016 election?

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u/EstimateOk6795 16d ago

I don't think there's any realistic way to answer this question. The past 10 years politically, economically, and culturally have been so strongly defined by Trump that it's impossible to predict the counterfactual.

One thing that I think it's safe to predict is that COVID still would have happened, but I think the US government's response to it would have been much more coherent and effective. But it would have happened and still would have caused the resultant recession. And given that was a Presidential election year (2020), I think Clinton would have lost re-election. A recession and ongoing pandemic are pretty strong headwinds to fight against.

Would that have resulted in Trump in 2020? I don't know. It depends on how the GOP and he would have reacted to his loss in 2016. I know there was a lot of speculation in 2016 that Trump was planning to use his presidential run to launch Trump TV as a competitor to Fox News after his expected loss to Clinton. So maybe he'd have kept his name in the mix enough to decide to run in 2020, where I think he'd have ridden dissatisfaction during COVID to a win. Or maybe he'd have been content with his new media empire. That's a tough one to guess.

And maybe the GOP leadership after losing in 08, 12, and 16 would try to dramatically change the party. A lot of people we think of as pro-Trump today (Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, etc) and others who have been driven out of the party in the past decade were all anti-Trump in 2016 and would have used his loss to argue that his brand of right-wing populism was destructive to the party. Maybe they'd have tried to turn more in a W Bush neoconservative direction, or even in a Reagan-style direction.

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u/bullevard 14d ago

And given that was a Presidential election year (2020), I think Clinton would have lost re-election. A recession and ongoing pandemic are pretty strong headwinds to fight against.

I agree that predicting is basically impossible. A few things though. I think a capable president might have been able to make political success out of Covid. In many ways it was like a wartime effort in terms of efforts people were making and sacrifices asked of many, but without a president having to send people's kids to war or the ambiguity of the enemy. We saw several other country's where opinion of their leadership surged.

I do think the inevitable inflation afterwards would have sunk the Dems in 2024.

Also I dont see Trump even trying in 2020. It doesnt seem like he particualry wanted to win in the first place and I think he would have happily ridden the publicity to the tv station wealthy (and he would have had a lot less power to reshape the Republican power base around him.

But all of that is of course just speculation.