Romney could win against Clinton, I think. But I think that what both Trump and Kasich had for them was the Rust Belt appeal.
Alternate History Ideas and Discussion
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Romney could win against Clinton, I think. But I think that what both Trump and Kasich had for them was the Rust Belt appeal.
Zyobot
Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
Agreed.
Regarding a Romney victory, I suppose it’d be by more modest margins and achieved on the back of Hillary being corrupt, unlikeable, and a pawn of the same corporate interests the Democrats yell and clamor about for the cameras? (She talks that game, too, of course. But given her speaking fees and Wall Street backers, well… )
Frankly, it would look more like a Bush 2000/2004 victory than like a Trump 2016 victory.
Zyobot
Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
So, either way, as far as the popular vote is concerned, then?
Actually, I suspect that Clinton might still win the popular vote. Maybe even against Kasich as well. I was talking about the electoral maps here.
Zyobot
Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
Got it.
In that case, I’m guessing that—while still unhappy and likely to cry foul, as the results are certified and Romney is sworn in—the Democrats will still be significantly less upset about it. As “odd” as some of Romney’s word choices can be, he wasn’t nearly as inflammatory or easily portrayed as a far-right boogeyman as Trump was, which—as we saw IOTL—lent itself to leftist backlash from 2016 onwards.
Yep, absolutely. Interestingly enough, I think that a President Romney would have tried to revive the Gang of 8 Bill in regards to immigration reform, and probably fail at that.
Ron Paul.
raharris1973
Well-known member
Ron Paul is such a "boy's own" choice of “very online” people.
He'd tank in the female vote, they'd rightly not feel secure with him and wouldn't see libertarianism as paradise.
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raharris1973
Well-known member
So y’all think Cruz and Rubio would have been no-hopers in 2016?
A question for you about a hypothetical Kasich or Romney Presidency. - I have no doubt they could get a partial majority, indeed would be under partisan pressure to pass a corporate and income tax cut early like Trump did. But assuming COVID kicks off on schedule, would Romney or Kasich be as successful in throwing fiscal restraint and respect for property owners and the market overboard so much as Trump did, with all the paycheck protection subsidies, eviction moratoria, and so on?
I have a feeling that as ‘normal’ politicians, not known for rallying new voters, and not known for Republican ideological zeal and purity, much of the GOP caucus would object to these things, try to avoid restricting landlords and try to keep down emergency welfare spending for individuals.
in turn, I think that would crash the economy harder and make either of them a one-termer.
A question for you about a hypothetical Kasich or Romney Presidency. - I have no doubt they could get a partial majority, indeed would be under partisan pressure to pass a corporate and income tax cut early like Trump did. But assuming COVID kicks off on schedule, would Romney or Kasich be as successful in throwing fiscal restraint and respect for property owners and the market overboard so much as Trump did, with all the paycheck protection subsidies, eviction moratoria, and so on?
I have a feeling that as ‘normal’ politicians, not known for rallying new voters, and not known for Republican ideological zeal and purity, much of the GOP caucus would object to these things, try to avoid restricting landlords and try to keep down emergency welfare spending for individuals.
in turn, I think that would crash the economy harder and make either of them a one-termer.
Zyobot
Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
'More Hard Sci-Fi Representation in Pop Culture'.
Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
I endorse this message, but you'd need the average IQ to go up by 20 points for that, IMO.
Jokes aside, we could argue that it was the trajectory the genre was headed, but then the boomers had to come in and ruin it with all the navel-gazing, drug-induced fever dreaming they called NuWave.
So, yeah, maybe if you somehow stop the Vietnam war and the liberalization in Europe, and shift more money to hard science as opposed to soft crap, we could have gotten all that, and a base on the moon, too, basically the 60s doesn't happen and we just get steady evolution and incrementalist rationalism accompanied by high trust in science.
Youth culture in its 60s form would need to be smothered in its cradle, while problems like Asbestos, DDT and the like will have to be nipped in the bud.
Maybe some sort of earlier Sputnik Moment on steroids can do it?
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It has to be someone the establishment doesn't take seriously. Trump squeezed out a win because the Democrats underestimated how much fraud they needed.
A popular vote win is probably impossible without an AU divergence point back during the Red Scare federalizing elections with voter ID requirements. It's too easy to rack up the illegal alien and undead votes in heavily urbanized blue states.
Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
Rand Paul?
TBH, I suspect that the appeal of libertarianism to normies will always be rather limited. Not everyone is a nerd, after all.
Women are notoriously hostile towards libertarianism, for instance:
Women, taxes and voting
Many libertarians defend women's voting rights (women's suffrage) by reference to general principles about equality of legal rights. The historical reason for this move, I think, is that libertarians and classical liberals was a political reaction to the extra legal rights of the nobility and royalt
emilkirkegaard.dk
raharris1973
Well-known member
Women are notoriously hostile towards libertarianism, for instance:
Women, taxes and voting
Many libertarians defend women's voting rights (women's suffrage) by reference to general principles about equality of legal rights. The historical reason for this move, I think, is that libertarians and classical liberals was a political reaction to the extra legal rights of the nobility and royaltemilkirkegaard.dk
What a dick that author is contemplating restricting the franchise to favored or disfavored demographics on the basis of their affinity to his ideology, which he calls libertarianism. He's like a reverse-image marxist-leninist. And he's misnaming or reducing the idea of libertarianism to a very narrow band, the economic sphere. Not exactly a civil libertarian or social libertarian. A more apt name for his ideology should be propertarianism, marketarianism, or if 'redistribution-happens-never-let-it-go-downward-ism'. His passion for the desired outcome over the fair game for citizens reminds me of anti-clerical liberals in latin countries who disfavored female suffrage, because, "we know the ladies just vote for what the priests tell them to vote for on Sunday".
FWIW, I'm not sure if he himself is personally a libertarian, but he's certainly in favor of radical stances. For instance, AFAIK, he believes that the age of consent should be the onset of puberty:
Emil O. W. Kirkegaard
Emil Ole William Kirkegaard who changed his name legally to William Engman[3][4] (online aliases: Deleet,[5][6] Deleetdk,[7] EmilOWK) is a Danish far-right linguist,[8] eugenicist,[8] climate change denier,[note 1] homophobe, and activist for legalising child pornography and incest, as well as...
He is (or was apparently) also in favor of legalizing REAL child porn, not only the cartoon version of it:
Emil O. W. Kirkegaard
Emil Ole William Kirkegaard who changed his name legally to William Engman[3][4] (online aliases: Deleet,[5][6] Deleetdk,[7] EmilOWK) is a Danish far-right linguist,[8] eugenicist,[8] climate change denier,[note 1] homophobe, and activist for legalising child pornography and incest, as well as...
Yeah, radical position does not a libertarian make.
Yeah, I never actually said that he himself was a libertarian, now did I? I simply used his blog post to argue that women are notoriously hostile towards libertarianism.