It’s a slow, Labor Day weekend Saturday, and as I browsed the Interwebz this morning, I ran across this gem from The Hill. In it, Brent Budowsky attempts to channel his inner Harry Turtledove by creating an alternate history about what might have happened had Algore won the 2000 election against George W. Bush.
The piece is rife with silliness such as this:
The pro-earth policies of President Gore would have made a substantial dent in pollution and taken the offensive against climate change. Gore would have still won and deserved the Nobel Prize, as a world leader of nations.
Torture would never have happened under an American president.
The Supreme Court would never have decided Citizens United as it did. Special interests would not have as much power to buy our elections and democracy had Gore been inaugurated in 2001.
The basic mistake that Budowsky makes here is that of virtually every politician and pundit on the Left: the Law of Unintended Consequences. The Left never considers the side-effects of their policies. So what would the economic impacts have been had Algore had his way and the U.S. had been saddled with economy-choking cap-and-trade, or worse, legislation? How much worse would the terrorism problem had been if Algore had continued the terrorism “policy” (if one could call it that) of President Clinton?
So, I leave this exercise to you, dear readers: What is your alternate history of an Algore presidency?
This is your open thread for the day – answer that question, or pose others.
Discuss.
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