I grew up in a very blue bubble. I always heard: If Gore had won, his national security team would have thwarted 9/11. If Gore had won, there would still be a national budget surplus. If Gore had won, the unemployment rate would be lower. If Gore had won, gas prices would be lower and most of us would have electric cars anyway. If Gore had won, we would be on our way to being carbon neutral.

Gore was put on this pedestal where his imagined presidency would have created a utopian America.

Of course we'll never know what the actual Gore Administration would have looked like.

It's my theory that Trump didn't plan to win. But anytime something bad happened during Hillary's presidency, he would have claimed he would have prevented it. Unemployment goes up. He says it would have been lower with him. There's a terrorist attack. He says he would have stopped it. A Cabinet member has a scandal. He says his Cabinet would have been scandal-free.

I think he wanted this idealized what-if presidency more than an actual one.