Butterfly effects in politics?

[CEO Mindset]

no bush dui thing means bush wins a few more states and a dead heat for popular vote with definite pv win in florida

no bush v. gore case, less adoption of extralegal methods of governance, so less authoritarian dems

[darklordoftech]

- John Adams re-elected in 1800
- Jefferson wins enough Electoral Votes to prevent the 1800 election from going to the House

[Pericles]

Anthony Weiner restraining himself that one time comes to mind.

One of the main things about Anthony Weiner was that there really wasn’t just “one time”.

Yeah but only one of those times led to the Comey letter and therefore President Donald Trump.

[Brittain33]

no bush dui thing means bush wins a few more states and a dead heat for popular vote with definite pv win in florida

no bush v. gore case, less adoption of extralegal methods of governance, so less authoritarian dems

That's a good one. I don't know how well people remember that the race swung against Bush in the final days because of that and he was expected to win by a wide margin earlier.

[darklordoftech]

no bush dui thing means bush wins a few more states and a dead heat for popular vote with definite pv win in florida

no bush v. gore case, less adoption of extralegal methods of governance, so less authoritarian dems

That's a good one. I don't know how well people remember that the race swung against Bush in the final days because of that and he was expected to win by a wide margin earlier.

Had Gore clearly won, the DUI would probably be remembered for having cost Bush the election. I think the legal fight over Florida pushed the DUI out of the news cycle and as a result people forgot about the DUI.

[CEO Mindset]

no bush dui thing means bush wins a few more states and a dead heat for popular vote with definite pv win in florida

no bush v. gore case, less adoption of extralegal methods of governance, so less authoritarian dems

That's a good one. I don't know how well people remember that the race swung against Bush in the final days because of that and he was expected to win by a wide margin earlier.

Had Gore clearly won, the DUI would probably be remembered for having cost Bush the election. I think the legal fight over Florida pushed the DUI out of the news cycle and as a result people forgot about the DUI.

thing is you'd need a POD in the gop primaries for gore to win. have them forbes or that one religious not w/e his last name and Gore would have more of a chance instead of OTL's McGovern 1972 levels of likelihood. also delay the tech bubble popping to 2001.

[emailking]

I also don't think it's a given that the DUI did anything. We just had an election that was much closer than expected with no clear late game changer that caused it.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I once thought about writing an alternate history with a literal butterfly effect.  I had one fly into James Earl Ray’s face an instant before he fired, causing him to only wound Martin Luther King Jr.  This butterflies a change in Bobby Kennedy’s security procedures such that he doesn’t get shot, wins the nomination and the 1968 election.  MLK recovers and grows in popularity, becoming RFK’s running mate in ‘72. They win, but RFK dies during his second term, making MLK the first black President.

If anyone wants this idea, feel free to run with it. I’ll never get around to actually writing it.

[CEO Mindset]

ford doesn't make the poland gaffe, he wins imo

ford in '76, gets you decent odds of national healthcare, uncondional basic income and the post-energy crisis retrenchment seeing the employment based middle class/upper-middle class being more or less scrapped instead of OTL's "throw everybody besides the 1% and the 20% who are their upper middle class/professional class/professional managerialist class pets" under the bus" economic strategy. this means a very different america, especially in light of how you'd see the demographic most interested in moralistic policies/culture wars on both sides of the spectrum not only ignored but blatantly economically ruined.

even if ford in '76 doesn't get you structural changes imo with the Big 1980s Democrat you'd get national healthcare at minimum, along with not only the religious right/movement conservatives being sidelined without Carter but various Backlash/socon movements all set back with more social liberalization than otl. really, even this more minor world is a big shift from otl.

[Hope For A New Era]

And Roy Moore’s mall activities might have saved the ACA.

How? The big repeal failure was in July, the special election wasn't until December.

[Skill and Chance]

ford doesn't make the poland gaffe, he wins imo

ford in '76, gets you decent odds of national healthcare, uncondional basic income and the post-energy crisis retrenchment seeing the employment based middle class/upper-middle class being more or less scrapped instead of OTL's "throw everybody besides the 1% and the 20% who are their upper middle class/professional class/professional managerialist class pets" under the bus" economic strategy. this means a very different america, especially in light of how you'd see the demographic most interested in moralistic policies/culture wars on both sides of the spectrum not only ignored but blatantly economically ruined.

even if ford in '76 doesn't get you structural changes imo with the Big 1980s Democrat you'd get national healthcare at minimum, along with not only the religious right/movement conservatives being sidelined without Carter but various Backlash/socon movements all set back with more social liberalization than otl. really, even this more minor world is a big shift from otl.

The fact that both parties ran on deregulation and tax cuts frequently in the 80's/90's tells me this would have happened anyway and wasn't primarily tied to Reagan's personality.  Society became wealthy enough that it decided it didn't need all of the industrial era restrictions, collective bargaining, etc.     

[Helsinkian]

Obama making fun of Trump during the 2011 Correspondents' Dinner.

Edit. Though when you look at Trump's face during that evening, it seems like Seth Meyers pissed him off more.

[darklordoftech]

If Nixon didn’t appoint Rumsfeld to be  Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The Affordable Care Act was only passed because Jim Webb sent an Indian-American college student to be a tracker at a George Allen rally.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

thing is you'd need a POD in the gop primaries for gore to win. have them forbes or that one religious not w/e his last name and Gore would have more of a chance instead of OTL's McGovern 1972 levels of likelihood. also delay the tech bubble popping to 2001.

Someone who came within 540 votes of victory did not have "McGovern 1972 levels of likelihood" to win, lmao. 2000 was expected to be a clear Bush victory pre-DUI but certainly not a landslide.

Harold Macmillan not getting the medical misdiagnosis that he resigned over is a good non-US example; even if Labour had still won in 1964 with him as the incumbent, the succession to the Tory leadership afterwards would likely have gone very differently.

Hara Takashi not getting assassinated might have led to an at least somewhat more credible civilian political class as an alternative to the eventual military takeover, although, as in OTL, ultimately it probably still would have come down to the unstoppable force of Hara's ideological moderation versus the immovable object of his unpopularity.

I don't think I need to get into what a world-historical disaster it would have been had Viscount Halifax become Prime Minister after the Norway Debate instead of Churchill, or had Attlee and Chamberlain not outmaneuvered the Tory right in its attempted coup against Churchill later in May 1940.

Had Mel Carnahan been alive at the time of his Senate victory, we don't get Senator Jim Talent, and possibly don't get any of the other McCaskill-Akin-Hawley Sturm und Drang that's characterized Missouri's Class 1 Senate seat for the past decade.

Conversely, a more severe childhood meat grinder accident for Jon Tester likely gives us a Republican Senate majority until 2009, no 2009-2010 Democratic supermajority, and probably a Republican Senate majority today as well. Spooky stuff!