Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Perhaps it was best that Trump won in 2016

Hear me out.

A few days ago I had an idea for an alternate history story where Clinton won in 2016.  The main point of the story was that Republicans would be outraged at her handling of the pandemic.  They would say that because she had “allowed” say, 50,000 Americans to die that she had failed in her responsibilities as President.  I was thinking about this and then I wondered what Republican would face her in 2020.

If Trump had lost in 2016, would he have gracefully accepted his defeat?  Fuck no.  He would have spent four years claiming the election had been rigged and stolen from him.  He would hold rallies, and marches, and would appear on Fox News hundreds of times saying that Clinton wasn’t the legitimate President.  And given his appeal to the MAGAs, would any Republican challenge him for the nomination and would 2020 have been a rematch?

With Democrats staying home because of the pandemic and not waiting in line for four years to get rid of Trump, could he have won in 2020?  And then when the vaccines come out in 2021, he would – naturally – take credit.  And you think the MAGA cult is intolerable now?


Trump unleashed countless horrors on America and the world in his time as President, but if he had lost in 2016 only to make a glorious comeback in 2020, could things have been worse?