There were 3 forks in recent history that put us where we are

[Renew Deal]

There are 3 events in modern history that have put us where we are today

2000: Supreme Court decision to not allow recounts to complete thus making Bush president.
9/11: Hard to know if 9/11 still would have happened if Bush wasn't president, but it would have been less likely based on historical reporting.
Iraq War: This is the big one. Even assuming Gore wins, and even assuming 9/11 happens, there is no way Gore invades Iraq. The invasion of Iraq is the greatest source of downfall and weakness for the US. It distracted and weakened the US enough to make Russia's aggressiveness more possible. It led to ISIS, Syria civil war, and much more.

The Iraq invasion is the reason Bush should never have a positive approval rating. You can argue that some things were out of his control (Supreme Court), or inevitable (Bin Laden would attack no matter who was president), but the Iraq War was not. That was a terrible choice that we still haven't escaped.

[JI7]

1. Bush's current approvals have nothing to do with his presidency. in fact the approvals are because

he is no longer president or involved in any policy matters.

when he appears in public it is mostly to join other former presidents for some good common cause .

so people are approving of him not being president.

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. You have the timeline wrong, it's more like this:

1789: The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia arrives at a series of compromises to enhance the political power of slave states, first by counting slaves as equivalent to 3/5ths of a free person for purposes of Congressional apportionment, and second by stipulating presidential election by an Electoral College with a number of electors equal to the number of Congressional districts in a state.

1860-61: Eleven Southern states secede over slavery.

1865: Those eleven Southern states are decisively defeated following a bloody civil war; the 13th Amendment abolishes slavery and the 14th Amendment grants former slaves the right to vote.

1876: Reconstruction in the South ends with a compromise over the disputed Hayes/Tilden election; "Redemptionist" white supremacist governments impose Jim Crow throughout the South and block non-whites from voting.

1964-65: Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act.

c. 1990's-2016: The demographics of the United States undergo a profound shift, with immigration from Latin America and elsewhere reducing the "non-Hispanic white" proportion of the population from 75% in 1990 to 63% in 2010 and an estimated below 50% by mid-century.

2008: The United States elects a black man President.

2016: Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination after running a racist and nativist campaign and promising immigration policies that have been described as "Make America White Again", and wins the Presidency in the Electoral College (which, let's remember, was originally designed to give disproportionate power to slave states).

We are where we are because America is quickly becoming a majority non-white country, and because enough white Americans are racist to give the GOP slim victories. Full stop. Racism is the underpinning of the entirety of modern "conservative" philosophy.

[Gabi Hayes]

6. 1789 it is (espec the electoral college stip)

Until that is undone (never?), we’re permanently screwed, as we’ve suffered two of the worst presidents ever in only 17 years ......I’d argue those two are by far the worst, with T logarithmically more disastrous than W

[JI7]

10. This

[mountain grammy]

18. 1789 and the slavery compromises.

We've been compromised ever since.

[eleny]

3. Not to mention the Kennedy Assassinations

[Maraya1969]

4. I agree. George Bush is responsible for probably over 1 million deaths

or more. Including the over 200,000 US soldier suicides since the wars began.

He should never be treated like a regular president. It is shameful that he has a library.

[Stonepounder]

5. I would add one more fork: Citizens United.

This abominable decision open the door to dark money from everywhere with no accountability and no knowing where it came from. This resulted from unelected, shadowy oligarchs running the Congress rather than the voters.

[Thekaspervote]

7. Agree

Citizens united must be throttled. If you recall, following that decision president Obama's SOTU address included some very strong wording for judge Roberts and said that they would work to pass legislation that would temper/sidestep that decision. We need all 3 branches to do that... one can hope!

[DFW]

9. Citizens United is a direct result of the Cheney (dba Bush Jr.) presidency

No Cheneybush, no Roberts or Alito on the SCOTUS.

[AwakeAtLast]

17. That was going to be my addition

[Initech]

8. Actually I'd go back further and say it started with Reagan's election.

Then cut to 8 years later when Rush Limbaugh first appeared on the scene. Then 1995 when Fox News first appeared on the scene.

[Raine]

11. Reagan IMO

made a guy like Trump possible..

[FSogol]

16. Agreed. This all started with Reagan. Reagan's admin had 139 convictions, indictments, or

investigations.

"By the end of his term, 138 Reagan administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations. In terms of number of officials involved, the record of his administration was the worst ever."

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2005/10/17/157477/-

Trumpy's administration is just a cruder and Putin-assisted version of the Reagan Administration

[Mariana]

12. Propaganda works.

Bush and his surrogates were traveling around the country and getting on the teevee for months before the Iraq war war started, reading very carefully worded speeches that would have made Josef Goebbels envious. Many RWers support the invasion of Iraq to this day, and plenty of them still believe there were weapons of mass destruction there - even though Bush has said there weren't any. That's how well done that propaganda campaign was.

[DFW]

13. It depends on where you start and what consequences one considers key events

For me, there were two major forks.

1.) Florida, 2000. It showed that corrupt meddling could change the outcome of a US presidential election. That gave us Republican-made electronic voting machines in 2002, which gave us Iraq in 2003, another round of Cheneybush in 2004, and Roberts and Alito on the Supreme Court shortly after that. They, in turn gave us Citizens United, which gave us the resulting Republican-dominated Congress.

Had Al Gore been allowed to assume the office to which he was elected in 2001, none of that would have happened, maybe not even 9/11 would have happened.

2.) The election of 2016. The fact that domestic corruption was successful in installing the loser of the 2000 election inspired corrupt interference in the 2016 election (both foreign and domestic), and installing the loser of that election. If Putin were to demand the return of Alaska and the top fifth of northern California, Trump might agree to preliminary negotiations, who knows? Instead of Hillary finally tilting the Supreme Court toward the center-left, Trump put it back securely on the hands of the extreme right. His whole cabinet consists not of capable administrators, but of business pals and incompetent ideologues. We had a chance to continue the agonizingly slow, but steady path toward being the country we all want the USA to be. Instead, we got pushed off a five hundred foot cliff, and were told to get over it (no pun intended), because it somehow made us great again. Only our enemies (again: both foreign and domestic) smile. Those who cheer are, I'm sorry to say, accurately described with the word deplorable," and the fact that they are proud of their Frankenstein's monster does not improve the situation--not even for them.

[lunatica]

14. I think your list of turning point events is true

Except that they were all indicative of the end of this country as a Constitutional government and the beginning of it as a post Constitutional government which might be more like a Plutocracy, a Corporatocrisy or something resembling Fascism.

The Supreme Court basically ripped up the Constitution by taking it (un-Constitutionaly) upon itself to select Bush rather than count the votes.

The Republicans have acted as if they know this to be a fact ever since.

The rest of us are still naively fooling ourselves that it didn’t matter.

But it did matter. All the other facts you listed are a direct result of the SOTUS selection, as is Trump as President.

[TeamPooka]

15. Watergate, Prop 13 in CA, and Reagan's use of evangelicals. These 3 events changed everything and

explains why we are here now.