Between Two Majorities | The Cordray Administration

[Former President tack50]

How would the Democrats possibly retaking the House in 2018 factor into your timeline, TD? That is seemingly becoming a very real possibility as time goes on.

Makes it a 2020 or 2028 realignment; it forecloses 2024. If the Democrats regain the House, either Trump will become a Clinton and the Republicans stabilize around him, leading to his re-election and maybe Pence in 2024 (unlikely*) or he loses, and the realignment is in 2020. Frankly, I'd be shocked and I'd be inclined to think of a 2020 realignment.

*For note, this was the original timeline plan for Walker and Portman. But 2018 was never intended to be a Democratic year, because I strongly believe geographic localities, gerrymandering, and intensity of partisanship will keep the House and Senate in GOP hands.

Maybe Democrats do win the house, but Pence still wins the election in 2020 and everything happens like in the timeline? (maybe with republicans retaking the house in 2020)

[Former President tack50]

TD, could you see this scenario:

• The GOP starting now til the midterms focus on Tax reform, corporate inversions, and infrastructure.
• Democrats flip 25-30 seats (a slim majority).
• Pence becomes President early in 2019 as pressure builds on Trump to resign.
• Pence wins reelection (but loses the PV). The map is 2016 minus Michigan.
• Pence is gridlocked by the Democratic congress for the rest of his term.
• 2021-2025 follows as laid out in your timeline.

I think the Democrats at this rate are favored to take the House and after hearing McConnel's speech last night they seem to have finally given up on healthcare (we'll see). Moving onto other agenda items seems to be what they're planning to do and this should keep 2018 closer than otherwise expected. Trump's unpopularity will cost them either way in 2018; the question is to what extent.

Given that Trump is doing worse than your timeline expected, I don't think Pence wins the PV in 2020 but definitely has the potential to win the EC.


Where do you agree or disagree with this analysis? Is it likely?

If Pence won in 2020 wouldn't he take the House with him as well? Especially if the majority for democrats was slim?

[Former President tack50]

Some international predictions:

The UK will shift to be very left wing.

Germany will stay where it is, thus making it very right wing on the new alignment's ideological axis.

France will shift left, but only by enough to be considered centrist by the new alignment

The Scandinavian countries will stay where they are and thus be considered center-left

Canada will shift left slightly, and be firmly in the center-left

Japan will shift right and become far-right wing. Affluence, homogeneity, and age will cause this.

The rest of democratic east asia will become right-wing, but not to the extent of Japan.

BOLD PREDICTION: Most of MENA will be considered socially centrist or center-right. This is because the terrorist attacks and civil wars will forge an association of fundamentalist=death. With the exception of Saudi Arabia, most of the MENA will liberalize. If Iran has not been invaded by the US, the same applies there, except the shift would be bigger and place them firmly center-left and democratic.

I will post more as I think of them.

To be fair, do American realignments affect the rest of the world in the slightest? While you could make a Reagan-Thatcher comparison for the UK (later followed by 2 centrists: Blair and Clinton) and maybe even for West Germany (who elected right wing Kohl and later centrist Schroeder), at the same time that the UK and US elected those leaders France elected Miterrand and Spain elected González, both left wing leaders.

[Former President tack50]

Mars and the Moon have enough population for statehood???

And I wouldn't be surprised if Guam, NMI, and the Virgin Islands aren't even states while the MOON is

Yeah, not to mention that I seriously doubt the rest of the world would just allow the US to grab the entire Moon for themselves. Most likely it would just be some sort of international protectorate I guess.

In fact, isn't space by current rules basically neutral ground?

Then again at that point it's basically sci-fi so who really knows?

[Former President tack50]

Why couldn't Mars and the Moon get parcelled up?

I mean, it could be done. It's just that under current rules it is not allowed. Then again it's physically not possible to establish Moon/Mars bases either.

I guess the rules can be changed.

For some reason I was thinking of 2060's Mars/Moon to today's Antarctica, where it might be parceled up but no one really takes the claims seriously.

[Former President tack50]

At this point I wonder whether this TL or the Reagente TL is more likely to become a reality. I do not think either will become a reality starting in 2020 though, since Biden is a bad fit for Cordray and since well, Trump won and not Clinton.

Reagente's does have a decent chance at happening if Biden wins and the GOP wins the Senate though, turning President Biden into a 4 year lame duck that loses reelection to Carlson in 2024 or something.

For this one to happen, Sanders or Warren should have been the Dem nominee.

(yes I know neither will actually happen but it's still fun to speculate whether the future will be on the darkest timeline or the dankest timeline)

[Former President tack50]

Yeah, I guess this is game over for the TL.

The new "Atlas predictive TL" might actually be Reagente's "Cross of Globalism" one, as depressing as it sounds.

Biden being a 1 term do-nothing president, stalled by Congress and then Carlson winning 2024 setting those events in motion seems like a more likely scenario that this TL unfortunately.