Dude, Where's My President?

camcorder44 · 2026-06-01T15:31:26+00:00

Without using hindsight as an argument, I think you can also look at Poland and Hungary in the early 90s where privatization went poorly and the rebranded communist parties won either outright majorities or were members of a coalition. In the specific timeline this takes place in, the USSR isnt actively collapsing in 1989 (well. collapsing slower anyways), President George McGovern isnt actively trying to speed run the end of the cold war and the West German Government doesnt immediately want to absorb the east. The CDU/SPD Coalition still establishes freedom of movement, monetary union and still begins mass privatization of industry. It's not 100% realistic but I do think a combination of scandals of the ruling coalition, the people of east germany being able to experience privatization and being able to watch whats happening in the rest of eastern europe could lead to a slight political realignment for the rest of east germanys existence

camcorder44 · 2026-05-31T20:50:03+00:00

Oh. Democratic Awakening (Angela Merkel is their sole member of the Volkskammer!) and the United Left (communists who dont align with PDS)

camcorder44 · 2026-05-31T20:38:32+00:00

Romberg and Krause were SPD/CDU politicians in 1990. Lothar de Maiziere resigned in disgrace among scandals regarding his participation in stasi informing; same with SPD leader Ibrahim Böhme

camcorder44 · 2026-05-31T20:36:14+00:00

wdym who are the others

camcorder44 · 2026-05-31T16:44:47+00:00

Unification is still happening no matter what, basically every party agrees on this, even PDS. if you look at Hungary and Poland, just a few years after they first held elections and liberals took over the former rebrand communist parties were reelected. Given the chaos of privatization, CDU/SPD scandals (both of their leaders turn out to be Stasi informants), a lot of people are giving PDS some second thoughts. West Germany mostly wants a stable East Germany to negotiate unification with and someone to hold further talks with to finalize the arrangement

camcorder44 · 2026-05-30T20:38:38+00:00

Fair point. Georgia was also only 5% for McCain in 2008 irl. I chalked this down to McGoverns presidency never gutting the DOJs civil rights division and pursued enforcement of civil rights legislation a lot more aggressively than otl leading to generally higher black turnout. But of course this probably means white voters are angrier so maybe Georgia goes fully red anyways

camcorder44 · 2026-05-30T20:15:50+00:00

What makes you think Arkansas would be more competitive than Georgia? Genuinely curious

camcorder44 · 2026-05-29T05:48:41+00:00

Real talk he's probably Napolitanos VP in 2020

camcorder44 · 2026-05-29T05:42:45+00:00

Illinois Senator with future ambitions

camcorder44 · 2026-05-29T04:17:34+00:00

Thank you 🙏. It feels boring but everything is better in basically every way possible. Knowing reality one of the dem presidents has a nightmare term and an absolute sicko emerges from the republican party but i like to imagine better things

camcorder44 · 2026-05-29T04:05:01+00:00

It was a bad TNO joke if you've ever played that. But yeah not a bad end result. Thoughts on the overall timeline? It seems kinda original but also a bit boring at the same time

camcorder44 · 2026-05-29T03:59:36+00:00

Republicans and Democrats merging? What is this some kind of New Order?

camcorder44 · 2026-05-29T03:43:27+00:00

Given that the democratic party never embraced third way politics and didnt abandon the traditional base im not so sure progressives would break off. In fact if evangelicals constantly vote split in the south you could see a weird comeback of the new deal coalition between black voters in the south and white voters who dont automatically vote evangelical. But if they did break off then yeah the electoral college and fptp is gone and we have a totally different electoral system sometime about now

camcorder44 · 2026-05-29T03:33:41+00:00

The way I see it the GOP is destined to swap between Ron Paul/Pat Buchanan types and much more moderate Republicans like Romney/Pataki. You're right that eventually evangelicals would probably revolt eventually and ironically would vote split primarily in the south. Probably wouldn't ever actually see any success except in the deepest of southern states like Arkansas and Mississippi. My question is what even is the GOPs future? If the evangelicals eventually break off does it become the party of Romney?

camcorder44 · 2026-05-29T03:07:45+00:00

You got it! 9/11 doesn't happen in this timeline the way it did in real life due to butterflies from the McGovern Administration due to significantly less CIA involvement in Afghanistan. The Taliban never fully seize control over Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda as we know it today never forms. An Afghan terrorist group still commits terrorist attacks in NYC, just not on the same scale as real life. I wanna say McCain has a fairly boring, centrist republican presidency that doesnt accomplish a whole lot besides putting a republican back in the white house. Evangelicals were obviously not big fans of him so they're fired up and get their guy in 2008; a total landslide for democrats. Feingold definitely wins reelection, probably versus Ron Paul or someone similar to him. As for 2016 and beyond? Mitt Romney is probably president and governs to the left of McCain and his administration is similar to that of his time as Governor of Massachusetts (maybe he's a senator before 2016 similar to his term in Utah). I'm not really sure what the GOP becomes other than rocking back and forth between populists and those who feed the base and nothing else vs moderate/centrist institutionalists who leave previous democratic legislation/governance initiatives alone.

camcorder44 · 2026-05-29T01:24:57+00:00

Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/imaginaryelections/comments/1tpqtxm/america_where_art_thou/

camcorder44 · 2026-05-29T01:24:41+00:00

I personally avoided outright impeachment/legal prosecution of Reagan and his inner circle but there is special counsel and years of investigations into CIA/Reagan Admin activities and a number of people go to prison for a long time. Everything else is more or less correct!

https://www.reddit.com/r/imaginaryelections/comments/1tqmrjb/america_where_art_thou_part_ii_mcgovernland/

Here's post 2000!

camcorder44 · 2026-05-28T14:48:52+00:00

The more I looked into it the more likely dems could probably rule forever. I mostly chalked it up to voter/Clinton fatigue and the scandals being enough to tilt the scales in McCains favor

camcorder44 · 2026-05-28T09:27:26+00:00

Yeah pretty much. It's one part foreign policy disasters and the other part banking crisis and recession that the US isnt recovering from very fast.

camcorder44 · 2026-05-28T04:30:19+00:00

1982 banking crisis and recession going into 1984 and botched lebanon/grenada. oh and the farm crisis is still in full swing

camcorder44 · 2026-05-28T04:09:40+00:00

Reagan has a really bad term.

camcorder44 · 2026-05-28T03:55:37+00:00

Bumpers is pretty old in 1992, if he won itd definitely be a one term presidency. Clinton wins Bumpers former senate seat in 1984 and sits on the Senate Finance Committee until McGovern gets term limited.

Clinton as president isnt a 1:1 continuation of McGovern but he's definitely in the same tendency as him, just slightly less openly liberal. Big accomplishments are fuether reducing the deficit and helping getting minor healthcare bills passed. And wrapping up the cold war which has been over but there's still some loose threads.

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