If you had seen this 10 years ago, what would it reveal about the state of our politics?

[Agonized-Statism]

The BP oil spill was ten times the disaster it actually was, causing Obama to issue a moratorium on deepwater drilling in US waters. This, and a federal response that deems some parts of the South as more worthy of saving given finite resources, leads to the election of Mitt Romney in 2012. President Romney squanders political capital on a war with Iran. Biden unexpectedly wins the nomination on foreign policy experience and a "down home", "folksy" personality, then narrowly wins the presidency in 2016 on a pledge to end the war in Iran with honor. Come 2020, the Republicans' libertarian wing finally gets a shot with businessman Donald Trump, who suffers from association with President Romney's strict border control measures and just doesn't do it for the South.