If you could change the outcome of any post 2000 Presidential election, which one would it be?

[dw93]

It's an unpopular choice but I think the correct answer is actually 2008. You wouldn't see Democrats cheering the surveillance state, bombing Libya, saying banks are too big too fail or promote Heritage Foundation schemes instead of UHC under McCain as more-or-less Bush's third term. We get a more uncompromising Occupy Wall Street and antiwar movement, while the GOP crumbles under the weight of the Great Recession (which will be worse than OTL because of no stimulus).

I think people not picking 2008 is likely because it would require a greater timeline divergence than the other ones. And I think even if McCain somehow pulled it out, he likely would've still had a Democratic Congress.

For me, I can't pick 2008 because after living through Trump, I shudder at the thought of Palin being a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

[Agonized-Statism]

Can't disagree with 2004. Firmly discredits the neoliberal Democrats with Kerry at the helm on the eve of the Great Recession, but also avoids a neocon resurgence by having a Tea Partyesque movement in the Republican Party take the reins in 2008 and further bungle things with austerity measures- laying the groundwork for a less naive populist left in the 2010s that could throw some weight behind serious reforms. Changing 2008 would be way too dangerous- McCain would start World War III- nor would 2012 be good if Romney didn't contain his inevitable Iran War.

[Dr. MB]

2016 to elect Bernie Sanders