The alternative universe where Hillary won in 2016 thread

[Shermann]

So let's say Hillary won in 2016. She'd be dealing with the pandemic in 2020 and the case numbers would be lower than where they are now. But it wouldn't be a New Zealand or South Korea situation here, it's just too different. There would be a mask mandate, and there would be more restrictions in place.

There are no great outcomes during a pandemic. Any strategy you choose is going to come with some pretty awful compromises, and in politics there are going to be naysayers maximizing the resulting political damage. People are naturally going to wonder if the grass is greener on the other side, and the longer things drag out the louder the cacophony of grumbling gets.

Donald Trump would have remained politically active, and may have made another run in 2020. He would have had a shot, and might have been at the helm going into what looks to be the darkest days of the pandemic.

So as bad as the past four years have been, might it have been worse?

[FoxNewsSucks]

1. No

Hillary Clinton would not have ignored scientists. She'd have taken action when the people working in Wuhan sent the alert, instead of removing them.

Like SARS, Ebola and other diseases, it would never have gotten out of control like this. Even republicons like the liar Bush didn't stand aside and welcome a disease to the country the way MF45 did.

[Eliot Rosewater]

4. Of course you are right,

Of course you are right, and yes red states would have resisted common sense when a Woman told them they should use common sense, but what her administration would have done before it even hit our soil would’ve made such a difference and everything we could’ve done after.

We now know for a fact that the White House and Jared Kushner and Donald Trump intentionally withheld equipment to save lives because those lives were Democrats. They murdered American citizens on purpose because those citizens did not vote for them.

No Democrat alive would have done that in reverse

[Shermann]

5. Not to be a defeatist, but Merkel listens to the scientists

...and is a scientist herself. Germany has managed the pandemic quite well, but is suffering through a pretty nasty resurgence.
Germany also has a nationalist/populist/anti-shutdown movement with anti-maskers like we have. At the end of the day you can't always get dumb people to do smart things en masse.

How low would the daily new cases need to have been in order to assure re-election? I'm just not sure Hillary could have gotten there, despite assuredly being lower than they are now.

[treestar]

2. The shake things up drain the swamp theme

would not have worked as well in 2020 as pre-pandemic. The idea of shaking things up would not resonate with the pandemic going on.

[intrepidity]

3. False premise, imho

There's every reason to believe that early, strategic intervention could have prevented the global pandemic. That Trump played a major role in the pandemic, not just here but everywhere.

[Hoyt]

6. In the end, I'm not sure CV19 beat trump like we thought it would. And, I think you are right

in that if Clinton had been in charge and let's say CV19 deaths were only 100,000 K, people would have turned on her in that respect.

I think though, that Clinton would have improved healthcare, international relations, and so much more that CV19 would not have caused her to lose in 2020. trump screwed just about everything up.

[qazplm135]

7. it did

it's just it did so barely. There were just enough people, in just enough places, who cared about it for the win.

But not nearly as many as there should have been in a rational country.

[Hoyt]

8. Agree completely. In a decent country, trump would have been beaten in every state by 80%.

[Aristus]

9. Can you imagine the berserk, spit-spraying, gun-shooting frenzy of the anti-maskers

if it was Hillary Clinton setting the mask mandate?

[Shermann]

10. Yeah and the more new cases totals came down on her watch, the more traction the crazies would get

It's counter-intuitive. There'd be no way to know in that universe that our universe has had over 200,000 deaths. Successful preventative health measures can feel like overreactions.

Remember the whole "what happened in NY City can't happen in other US cities" right-wing narrative? Never underestimate the power of magical thinking.

2020 would have been a challenging year, no doubt.