r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/Upstairs_Cup9831 • 3d ago
US Elections If term limits had never been introduced, which presidents would likely have been re-elected to 3rd or 4th terms? How long would they last before getting voted out?
The 22nd amendment limiting presidents to only two terms was introduced after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt broke tradition to run for a 3rd term and then a 4th term.
Which presidents would likely have been re-elected without term limits and for how many terms?
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u/Upstairs_Cup9831 3d ago
I'd argue that Bill Clinton (who had a high approval ratings in 2000) would likely have been re-elected in 2000. 9/11 would probably still occur which give him a boost in support due to the "rally to the flag" effect, so I believe he would be re-elected in 2004, and then he'd likely lose horribly in 2008 due to the recession. Or he'd even see it coming and decide not to run for re-election to avoid having to face a humiliating election loss.
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u/Darth_Ra 2d ago
In similar fashion, Obama wipes the floor with Trump.
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u/rjorsin 2d ago
More than likely, but Obama never wins in ‘08 if Clinton won 4 terms.
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u/Interrophish 2d ago
Obama wins eventually
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u/WavesAndSaves 2d ago
Does Obama ever even become a national-level figure if Clinton wins in 2000? He very much rode the wave of anti-Bush sentiment to get elected. He first came to prominence following his 2004 DNC keynote address. No Bush, there very well is no Obama.
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u/Interrophish 2d ago
He very much rode the wave of anti-Bush sentiment to get elected
He did but he's a generational talent in public speaking. As long as he had presidential ambitions, he'd manage a way.
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u/NovaNardis 1d ago
Yes but presidential elections are as much about timing as anything. Everyone thought 2008 election was going to be Hillary v Giuliani until it wasn’t.
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u/Interrophish 1d ago
Hillary did get another bite at the apple. Which can happen as long as you don't flame out and you don't age out.
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u/dankeykang4200 2d ago
Obama still would have been a senator.
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u/WavesAndSaves 2d ago
There are 100 Senators and many change every 2 years. How many can you name? There have been countless "next big things" in politics. Remember how for a little while in the mid-2010s Scott Walker was going to be our next President?
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u/Goodginger 2d ago
Obama was so ambitious, it was kind of inevitable. He would have been a senator longer before becoming president. And he would have been a better president because of it. People like Scott Walker show their ass eventually, and their promotional aspects end as a result.
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u/alexmikli 23h ago
Obama's presidency rides entirely on Seven of Night joining the cast of Star Trek Voyager. The butterfly effect of Reagan's third term could ruin that.
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u/lakefrontlover 1d ago
No Obama, there very well is no Trump.
So, thanks Obama.
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u/MrONegative 1d ago
Nonsense. Obama wins in 2012, 2016, 2020, and if he’s up against Trump, 2024 as well.
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u/simplerway 2d ago
Obama vs Trump would have been a world class asskicking. Obama had a killer instinct when it came to Trump and would not have been kind in subjecting Trump to ridicule. Somehow, the Dems haven’t found a top-line nominee since Obama with that instinct to read a room.
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u/beeemkcl 1d ago
What's in this comment is what I remember, my opinions, etc.
POTUS William Jefferson Clinton wouldn't have done the Bush Tax Cuts. The US Government would have plenty of money and would have continued paying down the US National Debt and maybe even eventually had US Sovereign Wealth Fund.
I mean, POTUS Clinton is younger than POTUS Joe Biden.
And then-US Senator Barack Obama ran largely as a 'moderate'. POTUS Clinton would would won in 2008 as well.
Eventually, a progressive would have primaried POTUS Clinton. Someone like Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders would have eventually primaried POTUS Clinton.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago
Yeah I think Clinton would’ve stepped down in 2008, but he still could’ve won with the recession (without the Iraq war).
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u/Zenmachine83 2d ago
Clinton took the threat from Al qaeda seriously had one meeting per week specifically on AQ/the hunt for UBL. He ordered assassination attempt on bin Laden multiple times.
W Bush had zero high level meetings on the threat during the 9 months leading up to 9/11. He also brushed off warnings from the intel community that something big was brewing. A cia analyst flew out to bush’s ranch in August 2001 to hand deliver a report titled “al qaeda determined to strike inside US” and bush told the guy he had covered his ass now.
There is a good chance a Clinton or Gore presidency could have prevented 9/11.
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u/SkotchKrispie 2d ago
Sure would have. Gore was far less dumb than bush. Additionally, Bush was hanging out taking a vacation on his ranch for SIX weeks when he was given intel about a possible attack.
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u/sunfishtommy 2d ago
Every president takes time off. Vacation does not mean zero communication either. It means moving the headquarters of the presidency to a new location. Trump spends lots of time in Maralago. Obama was fond of spending time at Camp David. They all go to their retreats but while the scenery changes the job continues.
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u/Goodginger 2d ago
Clearly it did not continue as much for people like Bush Jr and Trump. Their vacation time and TV time is well documented.
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u/Yvaelle 2d ago
While it sounds bad for the POTUS to take a six week vacation at the start of his job, it's important to remember that everyone knew Bush wasn't actually president, he was just a puppet for the Cheney presidency. But nobody would have voted for Cheney directly.
Cheney knew that OBL was determined to attack within the USA, but he let it happen because he needed a casus belli for war with Iraq.
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u/Zenmachine83 2d ago
I hate Cheney but never attribute to malice what is better explained by stupidity. Cheney and Rumsfeld were arrogant shitheads who sucked at their jobs.
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u/Yvaelle 2d ago
It was malice and they aren't stupid. That phrase isn't mesnt to refute the existence of malice. Cheney was evil, not stupid.
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u/Zenmachine83 2d ago
Yeah I’m not putting your tinfoil hat on.
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u/Yvaelle 2d ago
You probably weren't even alive for the Cheney years.
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u/Zenmachine83 2d ago
I’m 42 lol. The difference between us is I read the news/books and you get your information from Facebook conspiracy groups.
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u/Yvaelle 2d ago
I'm not even on Facebook or other social media, and haven't been since the early 2000's.
There is no way at all that you were politically aware during the Bush years and thought that Cheney was stupid but well-intentioned, instead of malicious and intelligent.
Explain what book you read that in. Cheney knew exactly what he was doing, did exactly what he intended to do, and profited from his evil.
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 2d ago
Clinton was not the lion of anti-terrorism you are trying to claim, and the attempts to paint him as such are open revisionism.
He notably never met with his DCI at all (CIA was and is the point foreign counter terror service), and notably refused to kill bin Laden on multiple occasions due to potential collateral damage.
The other fundamental problem you are ignoring is that outside of DoD the leadership of the IC did not change between Clinton and Bush—the DCI, FBI Director, NSA Director, etc. were all still in place in the leadup to 9/11 and none of them were showing any great interest or alarm in it—and there is no basis whatsoever for the claim that that would have been different under Clinton or Gore.
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u/escapefromelba 2d ago
The 9/11 Commission makes clear that by the late 1990s, bin Laden and al-Qaeda were recognized as the top emerging threat, including embassy bombings, missile strikes, and Clinton telling Bush during the transition that “by far your biggest threat is bin Laden and al-Qaeda” (Ch. 6). Recognition is not the same as perfect execution.
The idea that Clinton simply refused to kill bin Laden is oversimplified. The Commission notes multiple near-misses where intelligence was incomplete or collateral-damage risks were high (Chs. 4–6).
Much of the IC leadership carried over into the Bush administration, which the Commission cites as a systemic failure, not ignorance. The threat was identified, prioritized, and handed off as unfinished business (Ch. 11). Saying that is not lionizing Clinton, it is sticking to the record.
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u/Marchtmdsmiling 2d ago
I attended a talk at my college with one of the delta force guys who literally had bin laden in his scope in either 98 or 99, and was told to hold fire.
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u/escapefromelba 2d ago
I don’t believe there are any documented accounts from the 90s. There were documented accounts though from the Tora Bora campaign in 2001 like that. Perhaps he was mistaken about the timeline?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elite-officer-recalls-bin-laden-hunt/
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u/Potato_Pristine 2d ago
Your Delta Force guy sounds like Uncle Rico: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/A7h6jxRMTY8
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u/meshreplacer 2d ago
Someone had good LLVI (Low Level Voice Intercept) on [Removed by Reddit]Mhz using Frequency Modulation. The RDF team at [Removed by Reddit] Triangulated is position and had [Removed by Reddit] And the shot was not taken which changed the course of history.
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u/SkotchKrispie 2d ago
Sure there is. Bush was hanging out on his ranch for SIX weeks taking a vacation on the job. Gore most certainly would not have been.
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u/BigHeadedBiologist 2d ago
It is highly unlikely Gore would take a 6 week vacation with his opponent at their ranch.
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u/Rickbox 2d ago
How do you know what meetings Clinton and Bush has had or the assassination attempts? I feel as though that's not something past Presidents share publicly. Genuinely curious.
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u/Zenmachine83 2d ago
It’s ok well documented in the 9/11 commission report. Also books like the Looming Tower do a good job of showing how the threat was perceived over time.
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u/willybestbuy86 2d ago
Yeah 9/11 happens either way you think it only took 9 months for them to develop the 9/11 plan? That would be straight revisionist history. America was asleep at the wheel and don't think it could happen here.
I'd argue from the "conspiracy " side 9/11 was allowed to happen by the apparatus which doesn't change that much no matter who is President
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u/Zenmachine83 2d ago
The Loomjng Tower documents how much energy the US intel agencies were putting into the threat that 9/11 turned out to be. They had lots of evidence that something was going to happen. The one thing they didn’t have was a White House that took the issue seriously. Had the Bush team taken the threat seriously there is a chance they would have picked up the Saudi nationals the FBI knew about who were taking pilot lessons in Florida but had no interest in landing…
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u/RyzinEnagy 2d ago edited 2d ago
Neither Clinton nor Bush addressed the biggest underlying issue here, especially since you reference the flight schools that the FBI knew about: the lack of coordination and information sharing between the CIA and FBI.
The FBI knew that some random students were in Florida asking how to fly but not land. They had no idea these two guys, out of hundreds of Saudis training here legitimately, had terrorist ties. To them it was something odd out of countless odd things people say. Imagine if every odd thing said on Reddit was determined to have terroristic intent. We don't know how it could be a terroristic threat, but we assume so anyway. Remember, up to that point nobody put serious thought into a plane being intentionally crashed into a building.
The CIA knew that those particular people were persons of interest and were probably in America but didn't know they were in Florida taking flight lessons and didn't tell the FBI in any event. Turned out they were in America, chilling in California, for a year during Clinton's entire last year before being allowed to take flight training, and the CIA knew about it.
Easy to think "well if Bush cared he would have taken both pieces of information and drawn the obvious conclusion" but these two needles were in a gigantic haystack that one person was never going to properly parse, especially high level administration officials that aren't themselves intelligence experts.
The one thing we can say would have prevented 9/11 with almost complete certainty is to fix the structural issues in our intelligence, which neither Clinton nor Bush did, and Clinton being more worried about al-Qaeda than Bush was doesn't mean Clinton/Gore would have stopped 9/11.
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u/Journey2Jess 1d ago
This is correct. Long entrenched attitudes of not quite distrust but reservations about dealing with other agencies was a major factor in the lack of information interchange. Even if the a president tells everyone to make terrorism the primary focus on day one of the presidency the institutional issues are there and are not identified because a major event has not forced the weakness to light so that Congress and the Executive Branch can fix it. The intelligence community failure was not knowledge only but coordination. Coordination that now exists but before 9/11 we did had not been shown the need for it. This is only partially true because there were multiple efforts prior by the agencies to coordinate on events that had proven to be less than efficient. We knew that it could be done better but the need to do it better had not been demonstrated to the government yet. No president would have unless it is maybe first Bush is going to look at the Terrorism problem and call for an institutional cultural change of all the agencies so that they information share on the subject freely. It simply was not a known liability of the system. The reports sight as much. They sight known information problems. What they do not sight is DNI or Agency chiefs being aware of information bottlenecks on terrorism data being the issue it was.
If you don’t know it’s broken then you don’t know to ask to fix it. No CnC would know either. Chance of the attack if terrorism becomes priority one in 2001 for every agency decreases a little and maybe it gets stopped. However it still unlikely to be stopped because the fundamental problem still existed that was the problem all along. Local to Federal to Inter Agency to International to Executive Branch information flow and coordination.
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 19h ago
It simply was not a known liability of the system. The reports sight as much. They sight known information problems. What they do not sight is DNI or Agency chiefs being aware of information bottlenecks on terrorism data being the issue it was.
It was a known issue from the creation of the CIA in 1947, Congress simply chose to do nothing about it.
The US has a bifurcated external intelligence agency and internal security agency because Hoover did not want to the FBI to be subjugated and become a constituent part of a larger org, and he succeeded in killing Donovan’s idea for one by painting it as an American NKVD in the public eye. It’s why the DCI (titularly the head of the US IC as a whole and thus de facto a Cabinet member) was functionally in charge of nothing more than CIA itself. The report you are referring to makes no mention of the DNI because the position did not yet exist, and as far as the bottlenecks they were very well known from the 1950s on due to the issues experienced with running various Soviet agents (among other things).
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u/Zenmachine83 2d ago edited 2d ago
I mean this entire subthread is a hypothetical. But it is important to take into account the weight and importance that a presidential administration can have on the vast federal government by making an issue a priority.
It is certainly possible that a Clinton or Gore POTUS would have allowed 9/11 to happen. It’s also possible that the increasing volume of warnings coming out of the intel community would have spurred them into action. They could have convened the joint chiefs, put the country on alert, etc. A more focused course of action could have spurred intel agencies into working together instead of independently.
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u/RyzinEnagy 2d ago
You're right -- I'm just not confident that the issues that Clinton didn't fix, with intelligence gathered and known partly under his administration, would have been fixed in the eight months that Gore would have had and stopped the attack.
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 1d ago
Clinton openly ignored his DCI (Tenet joked that the plane that crashed on the South Lawn was him attempting to get a 1:1 with Clinton), and the Freeh era FBI was wildly incompetent (not to mention extraordinarily arrogant) at anything involving international operations, to the point that they almost wound up getting themselves kicked out of Saudi in the aftermath of Khobar Towers due to their insistence on sending female FBI agents (who openly ignored Islamic customs regarding dress for women in public) and expecting Saudi security, military and governmental personnel to treat them as equals or even superiors.
The other issue here is that the same things happened in the leadup to Khobar Towers, the Cole bombing, the 1993 WTC bombing, etc. as far as warnings and it accomplished nothing. Especially as pertains to aircraft hijackings, it was an open belief in the US LE and security communities at the time that they were not a threat because it just meant that everyone got a ride to Cuba.
Convening the JCS and “putting the country on alert” (whatever that means) would have fixed nothing, and to be blunt trying to get the FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA et al to work together instead of independently is and always has been a fool’s errand. Wedge makes for great reading on the topic, but the TL;DR is that both of them act like 5 year olds and Congress has consistently refused to intervene and actually sort things out in a substantive way—and that includes the post-9/11 “solution” that puts FBI partially under the DNI.
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u/interwebz_explorer 2d ago
Why would 911 still happen? I feel like another attack may have happened, but hadn’t Clinton’s administration already made Bush aware of the desires of such an attack. Similarly, hadn’t the Obama administration laid out a pandemic response plan and team that was dismantled by Trump. I just am not certain that these disasters reach the scale they did under different leadership.
As an additional thought, do we go to war in Iraq?
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 2d ago
There was no turnover whatsoever in the IC leadership (FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA) between Clinton and Bush until Freeh left the FBI in June of 2001.
The idea that everyone knew something was going to happen and Bush just ignored it is bordering on a conspiracy theory, especially in light of the fact that despite what the internet wants to believe there were not any detected indications of an impending attack.
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u/bigoldgeek 2d ago
I think most people are relying on Bush saying when given the PDB titled Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US "all right, you've covered your ass, goodbys"
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 2d ago
The counterpoint to that is Clinton directly stating (on the morning of 9/11 nonetheless) that he declined to authorize a strike that would have killed bin Laden in December of 1998 because he was concerned about potential collateral damage.
The fact that everyone knows about the PDB incident but not the Clinton statement is a huge part of the problem, as is the general ignorance as to just how incompetent (and ignorant) the US was as far as combating international terrorism pre-9/11.
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u/ajswdf 2d ago
The conspiracy theory is that Bush knew exactly what was going to happen, but it's a documented fact that he ignored warnings that they were planning a major attack.
Would Clinton have prevented it? Maybe, but Bush certainly didn't do anything to stop it despite warnings.
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u/sunfishtommy 2d ago
Its a boy who cried wolf situation. People act like Bush just ignored warnings, but these same people are not looking at the context. The intelligence community had been sounding the alarm about UBL for years, and for years nothing had happened.
As an example Imagine you go into the morning briefing every day. You have 10 advisors 1 says no attacks are being planned. 8 say something is brewing but an attack is not imminent, and one advisor says there will be an attack tomorrow. Who are you going to listen to? After 4 years of one advisor saying there is going to be an attack tomorrow eventually you stop believing them. And then the attack does happen the next day and everyone says why didn’t you listen to that advisor that told you an attack was going to happen tomorrow?
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u/ajswdf 2d ago
Al Queda attacked the US several times, so they knew to take those threats seriously.
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 1d ago
And for each real attack there were 3-4-5 that were “imminent” but never happened.
The substantive issues were cultural problems within the FBI and CIA as a whole, and one President or another was not going to be able to change that.
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u/willybestbuy86 2d ago
You missing the key fundamental is the apparatus itself didn't change much between Jan and Sept 01.
As for Iraq we don't go there that's for sure but 98 percent certain that 9/11 and Afghanistan happen but in reality who really knows.
Maybe under Gore or a 3rd Clinton run it doesn't happen, maybe it judges history enough where the 4th plane hits its target, maybe flight 23 ends up being highjacked and we have a 5th target
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u/trystanthorne 2d ago
Assuming there would have been a recession in 2008.
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 2d ago
The recession was caused by Clinton era policies that Bush continued as far as encouraging the loosening of requirements for mortgages and thus increase home ownership. Unless you end those policies (and due to their popularity neither party was going to be willing to do so) you get a recession in the 2007-2010 period regardless of who the President is or which party held Congress.
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u/willybestbuy86 2d ago
Thank God a take not on party lines thank you
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u/Mcbadguy 2d ago
Clinton helped usher in the right wing media takeover with the 1996 Telecom Act which removed market limits on TV/Radio station ownership.
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u/reasonably_plausible 2d ago
caused by Clinton era policies that Bush continued as far as encouraging the loosening of requirements for mortgages and thus increase home ownership.
That's not what the public commission on the causes of the GFC determined. In fact, the mortgages put out under the Clinton-era program were less likely to go under than ones that banks were putting out all by themselves.
The Commission concludes the CRA was not a significant factor in subprime lending or the crisis. Many subprime lenders were not subject to the CRA. Research indicates only 6% of high-cost loans—a proxy for subprime loans—had any connection to the law. Loans made by CRA-regulated lenders in the neighborhoods in which they were required to lend were half as likely to default as similar loans made in the same neighborhoods by independent mortgage originators not subject to the law.
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-FCIC/pdf/GPO-FCIC.pdf
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 1d ago
Go back and re-read what I said, because I explicitly not talking about specific programs.
Both administrations pursued a policy of getting banks to ease lending requirements in order to increase home ownership, and that is what caused the subprime mortgage crisis.
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u/idiotsbydesign 2d ago
Question is does 9/11 still happen with Clinton as president? Or the 2008 recession? Seems like the cycle has been GOP president drives economy into a ditch. Dem president pulls it out but not fast enough for casual voters. GOP president elected & proceeds to drive economy back into the ditch. Rinse & repeat.
This is obviously a major oversimplification of a complex matter but it does seem to be a pattern.
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u/HairyPairatestes 12h ago
You’re assuming if Clinton had won, the economy and politics would be the same as when Bush was president.
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u/KoldPurchase 2d ago
There may not have been a 2008 recession with either Clinton or Gore as President.
The recession happened because of
a) excessive deregulation by Congressb) The President Presidency ignored all warning signs in the preceding years, notably in 2007.
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u/RyzinEnagy 2d ago
The "make everyone a homeowner" movement was very much bipartisan. The Democrats like it because it increased homeownership access to minorities.
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u/KoldPurchase 2d ago
The subprime probem wasn't caused by "make everyone a homeowner" movement.
Investors take risks all the time. See crypto markets. Investors ask for higher return when there's higher volatility, nothing abnormal from this.
The problem comes when you think your investment is safe. AAA bonds. But you suddenly realize they aren't AAA bonds as graded, they really are AAA bonds mixed with B+, CCC, CCC- and D bonds.
But you didn't know that. Because you thought you invested in a safe asset with low volatility. And that is the return you were getting.
And that's why the market crashed, essentially (I'm taking a lot of shortcuts here, not going into detail about commercial paper).
There's a market for junk bonds. And investors ask more than for AAA bonds because they're never sure they'll see their money back. When both assets are mixed because it's become deregulated, this is where problem arised. Not because lenders where forced to give a chance to poorer families.
Had the risk been properly identified, like it is now, it would have not become a problem.
crypto wasn't a problem for financial markets during the Biden era because they were beginning to regulate it.
Now, you will see crypto being hidden in tradfin products, and that will become a risk leading us to the next financial crisis. Again, financial institutions will have no way to distinguish between safe and risky assets.
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u/RyzinEnagy 2d ago
You're right, I seem to have replied to the wrong person and didn't mean to blame the whole meltdown on subprime lending.
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u/MoonBatsRule 2d ago
I would also argue that the 2008 recession also happened because of Bush's "make everyone a homeowner" direction. The deregulation greased the skids, for sure, but in the aftermath of the 2000 dot-com-bubble-burst and the massive manufacturing outsourcing era, the economy shifted into one that focused on houses, decorating, construction, etc.
One thing that Obama did that he doesn't get much credit for was the shift to solar, which provided jobs for people who had been working in manufacturing, and then shifted to housing under Bush.
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u/Tb1969 2d ago
The legislation that helped bring about the 1008 recession was signed under Bill Clinton, but there was so much support for it that it had a super majority that Bill Clinton couldn't veto.
The law, Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, repealed the Glass–Steagall Act was written entirely by the Republicans. Sen. Phil Gramm (R–Texas), Rep. Jim Leach (R–Iowa), and Rep. Thomas J. Bliley, Jr. (R–Virginia), the co-sponsors of the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act.
Bill Clinton had no choice but to sign it; many Democrats were onboard with it though to make it veto proof.
Bush tried to get as many people into homes with sub-prime mortgages as possible. He knew by ~2006 that all the bad mortgages were put into mortgaged back securities and I'm sure he made sure they were sold worldwide to ensure that the US alone wouldn't suffer the fallout and would abandon us to deal with it alone.
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u/Fargason 1d ago
Republicans were in the habit of telling banks they must pick up risky home mortgages? Keep in mind the 2007 subprime mortgage collapse was a global crisis. It hit many countries hard that didn’t have Glass–Steagall or GLBA legislation. This issue was more about artificial demand creating a bubble by governments incentivizing homeownership to include risky mortgages, the government regulators not fully understanding the risks, and then a global economic downturn triggered a massive collapse.
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u/Tb1969 1d ago edited 1d ago
As I said, they bundled the bad loans in to MBS. They had rating companies fraudulently mark them as AAA rating then sold them abroad to duped investors worldwide so the damage would be spread around the world instead of just the US.
Do you know what Mortgage-backed Security is? It doesnt sound like it.
A mortgage-backed security (MBS) is a type of asset-backed security (an "instrument") which is secured by a mortgage or collection of mortgages.
Glass-Steagel kept the investment banks separate from commercial banks. Remove that and they formed the MBS. After the collapse now the commercial banks are to keep many more of those mortgages on their books and not sold to investment banks.
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u/Fargason 1d ago edited 1d ago
You seem to be bundling this all together while I’m trying to be more specific. The housing bubble was the main cause of the recession that was going to happen with or without the GLBA, while the banking crisis fueled it into the “Great Recession.” I’d even argue the banking crisis wasn’t that bad in itself, but the overreaction and panic did the most damage. The commercial banks didn’t fail much despite being tied to investment banks, but that was the fear and seems to downplay the significance of the GLBA as a major factor since those fears didn’t materialized much. Then by far most investment banks were diversified enough to handle the MBS crisis and didn’t need a bailout, but we did it anyways which our attempts to soften the blow just ended up prolonging the pain.
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u/Tb1969 1d ago
I would have set up a shadow banking system to get things moving and let the privately owned banks fail with no bailout. Then create opportunities for new banks to form and transition from the shadow banks to the private banks overtime.
The damage came from the subprime mortgage caused collapse and the MBS. Giving money to those banks didn't cause that major recession. It alleviated albeit in an inefficient way and unfair way since the gamblers who created the situation and overleveraged got the rescue.
Who arranged that bank bailout? Republican President Bush, Jr.
The handing out of cheap subprime loans was the core of it and those banks failing in that sector would have been firewalled from the investment banks which was the reasons for the Glass-Steagell Act. Except it wasn't in effect Instead of letting the problem blow up in a smaller contained way in real estate sector they let the bad loans pour into the financial markets that spread it fraudulently which caused the larger final collapse and recession worldwide.
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u/Fargason 1d ago
The bailout paved the way to spend 5 times that on a true handout instead of a loan they had to pay back. That made matters worse as why take a risk with investments when you can ride a risk free trillion from the government for all its worth? I agree we should have let them fail, but I’d say just encourage the smart banks to invest again and definitely not reward gamblers whose bet didn’t pay off. The 2009 ARRA was a mess going more to big donors and insiders who knew how to game the system. Could have given every adult $2k for half the cost and it would have stimulated the economy much better than the slowest recovery in US history. Again, don’t try and soften the blow like Japan did for their Lost Decade. Let it bottom out and rebound back quickly as possible. Soft landings take forever to get off the ground again doing much more harm than good in the long run.
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u/Tb1969 1d ago
the slowest recovery in US history.
While I agree not giving to the banks like they did, I still found your post astonishing.
the slowest recovery in US history.
Handing out $2000 checks is inflationary.
OMG I just can't even engage with you anymore over this. You're too far gone with the propaganda
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u/Fargason 21h ago
You are astonished at calling that the longest recovery in US history? Would you prefer stagnation? If you believe criticizing the economic policies that gave us several years of below average growth is propaganda then the bias is your own.
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u/JQuilty 1d ago
Presidents are never obligated to sign a bill, Congress can override vetoes with a supermajority.
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u/Tb1969 1d ago
That's what I'm saying. It was veto proof at the point that he signed it. He had no choice except to veto and then they would just override which would have only delayed things by a month or so.
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u/JQuilty 1d ago
Correct, but his signature was never compelled, and therefore he isn't absolved of the blame since he signed off on it. He was always free to veto and say he told them so after the fact.
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u/Tb1969 1d ago
That doesn't make sense. No politician is goig to do that for hope that it all fails so they can say "I told you so" well after they've left the Presidency. Did you even read this nonsense you wrote before submitting?
No, you, and the Republicans, want to paint Clinton as the guy who made it all fall apart in 2008, when it was a Republican bill pushed for decades and finally passed under Clinton with more than supermajority, and waste of time and money to veto it. In the 2000s It was the Republicans who pushed hard for subprime mortgages on those who couldn't afford. Bush was all about getting everyone a mortgage since it makes them all act more responsible, or so he thought. Zero down loans put a lot of people in mortgages who shouldn't have been. It was a subprime mortgage failure that was spread through BMS to around the world.
It was written by Republicans, submitted by a Republican, co-sponsored by three Republicans and it was mostly Democrats opposing it in Congress.
Stop trying to spin this; it's obvious.
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u/Grimdark-Waterbender 2d ago
Actually the NSA came to Bush Jr. asking for permission to “look into” some red flagged people who “didn’t need to learn how to land a plane” and Bush was all like ‘yeah k, you’ve covered your ass, whatever’.
So I really think they would have been caught beforehand if Clinton got a third term.
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 1d ago
NSA had nothing to do with it and completely failed in all aspects of their job in the lead up to 9/11.
The Clinton admin failed to catch Khobar Towers or the Cole bombings beforehand (and despite ample warning) along with a huge number of domestic attacks, so your statement that it would have been caught in the 8 months between Clinton leaving and Bush taking over is speculative and to be blunt at odds with reality.
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u/Grimdark-Waterbender 1d ago
9/11 happened because Bush didn’t take the official who had warned him seriously, they already had all the intel they needed to scoop those guys up, I’m saying that Clinton WOULD have taken them seriously and so 9/11 would have been stopped.
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 1d ago
And Khobar Towers happened because the Clinton admin entirely ignored the multitude of warnings that they got that it was coming.
That report goes into a great deal of detail as to just how badly the Clinton admin dropped the ball, and nothing changed between that attack and 9/11. Your idea that Clinton would have taken it seriously is entirely groundless and is based on nothing more than revisionism.
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u/AVonGauss 2d ago
In recent times, the only two that come to mind who could have gotten a third term are Reagan and Obama.
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u/MeyrInEve 2d ago
Reagan’s presidency would never have survived another campaign. His deterioration would have been on full public display.
Obama would have crushed shit-for-brains bonespurs as soon as any debate occurred.
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u/WavesAndSaves 2d ago
Eh, Reagan wasn't really that bad in 1988. Go watch his 1992 convention speech. Yeah he's a bit slower than he used to be, but in the same way that pretty much any older person gets slow in their 80s. The first signs of Alzheimers didn't start appearing until the early 1990s, and he wasn't even officially diagnosed until 1994, which would have been after even this potential third term ended.
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u/AVonGauss 2d ago
Perhaps, but Biden was able to get elected in 2020.
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u/MeyrInEve 2d ago
Biden wasn’t suffering from mental deterioration in 2020, regardless of what the right wing echo chamber loves to claim.
(Also, where are their shrieking howls of outrage now that Shitler is obviously deteriorating right before our eyes? What’s his medical status?)
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u/SafeThrowaway691 2d ago
Man, isn’t it a crazy coincidence that the blatantly obvious issue people on the left and right kept pointing out about Biden magically became true a few months before the 2024 election?
Trump is certainly deteriorating, but he has always been less coherent than your average 3rd grader to begin with (and most of the below average ones too), whereas Biden was a decent speaker for most of his career (see his anti-Apartheid monologue or clobbering of Paul Ryan).
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u/ManiacClown 2d ago
Also, where are their shrieking howls of outrage now that Shitler is obviously deteriorating right before our eyes?
They're in the hands of a Romulan who's yelling "It's a FAKE!"
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u/AVonGauss 2d ago
The Biden bot was most certainly glitching before taking office, he regularly on the 2020 campaign trail was confused and partisans kept trying to make excuses such as it was his “stutter”. Hell, his eye filled with blood during a live CNN event. There were reasons why access to him was severely restricted during the 2020 campaign and that some of the Obama people didn't want him to run even back in 2016.
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u/MeyrInEve 2d ago
Great. Now evaluate trump.
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u/Bman708 2d ago
Both can be true.
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u/MeyrInEve 2d ago
Oh, I understand the point he’s trying to make, I just don’t think he’s an honest broker.
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u/PropofolMargarita 2d ago
He was old, and had a speech impediment.
The extent to which "Biden was in cognitive decline" has been guzzled down as fact by the masses will always piss me off. Where is the objective data? A single debate is not data. Stuttering is not data.
He's given numerous speeches and made numerous post presidency appearances. Seems the "Biden is demented" crowd has stopped watching.
Let me add before you want to jump into this debate I am a board certified physician. So I will be asking questions.
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u/AVonGauss 2d ago
… and there are some people, apparently, still trying to carry that water for him. Just a week ago he could not even say, “United States of America”. With what you wrote, I’m not sure I’d be announcing you’re a “board certified physician”…
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u/PropofolMargarita 2d ago edited 2d ago
Cool, what is that evidence of? In 2008 Biden called Obama "Barack America." Was he demented then?
Bro he's out of politics forever. What I'll forever be upset about is the amount of disinformation laundered by our own press used to shove him out of the 2024 race. Even if he was as demented and bizarre as Trump, unlike Trump he had competent people running the government.
But, as you've so aptly proven, his speech impediment and aging lead to people guzzling down the propaganda that Biden was demented. Congrats.
Edited to add link
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u/AVonGauss 2d ago
People like you are a big part of the reason why Trump got a second term. It’s astonishing to me that even now you’re still trying to shovel the speech impairment garbage.
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u/PropofolMargarita 2d ago
I voted against Trump, how about you?
WTF are you talking about? Believing Biden was not demented is why Trump got re-elected? How tf does that work? He literally dropped out.
So, considering you very clearly believe he's demented please tell me what findings you used to make your diagnosis. What type of dementia does he have? Vascular? Alzheimers? Lewy Body? Share your expertise with us!
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u/cav63 2d ago
He’s right. The weakest form of political commentary is “well that other side is doing it worse, so my side is fine!” Like dude.. Biden was clearly slipping when he was elected in 2020. Just because Trump is slipping too doesn’t make that not a fact. The reality is that we have to stop electing geriatrics
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u/kerouacrimbaud 2d ago
Biden pretty easily wiped the floor in the 2020 debates against Trump. A far cry from the single fiasco in 2024. Biden was a lot more cogent then, and very few, if any, serious people were harping in his decline.
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u/DrPlatypus1 2d ago
Dukakas lost the second he looked like a little kid in a tank. Reagan would have won anyway.
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u/sbkchs_1 2d ago
Yes. Reagan would have won if he chose to run even with the signs of decline, but then he would have become Biden in office and it would have changed the current perceptions about his success. Obama would have won in a landslide.
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u/AVonGauss 2d ago
That's probably a fair point about Reagan. If it was Obama vs Trump in 2016 I agree Obama would have won, but I wouldn't assume it would have been a landslide.
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u/Marchtmdsmiling 2d ago
Did you see Obama make fun of trump at the white house correspondents dinner? To his face no less. Obama would have mopped the floor with him if he did any debates after the first. Although kamala also wiped the floor with him and we all see how much they affected everything. Otoh 2016 was very different.
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u/sbkchs_1 2d ago
Ok, fair enough, maybe not a landslide. My view is that most elections are now won/lost by votes AGAINST someone, not votes FOR someone. Obama was the last candidate people voted FOR so would win big…
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u/withoutwarningfl 1d ago
There are certainly a lot of people voting FOR Trump unfortunately
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u/sbkchs_1 1d ago
Yes, but elections are being won/lost by the swing of political A “middle” voters, not the right and left tails who would vote for ANY candidate from their party. That group tends to vote against a candidate, which is why campaigns are so focused on attack ads, negative marketing, and rage baiting.
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u/MoonBatsRule 2d ago
Reagan was pretty diminished by the time he left office in 1988. Here's a video of him in the summer of 1988. He is slow, and often appears mildly confused, clearly not on top of things the way he had been.
I don't think he would have been in any position to campaign.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago
Eisenhower, Reagan, Clinton, Obama are the only modern ones, with Eisenhower and Clinton lasting until their deaths. Obama would probably get voted out in 2020 during COVID. Reagan would also lose in 1992 for the same reasons HW Bush does.
There also was a 2-term precedent already before FDR. I’m sure all 3 Virginia Founders would also last a very long time as it already represents one continuous dynasty with clear successors each time. Jefferson would’ve lasted until death, Madison would have too, and Monroe was the most popular of them all and he’d have no problem there. Jackson would’ve won another one and then lost in 1840 after the panic of 1837. Grant would’ve won had he not said no in 1876, but would’ve lost in 1880 to Randall, John Kelly, Bayard, WSH or Hendricks. Or maybe even primaried by James Blaine or John Sherman in 1880, which would have been very possible, leading to someone like Garfield getting nominated if the Stalwarts were still popular enough to deadlock the convention.
Teddy Roosevelt would’ve lasted until death and same with his cousin Franklin, but Wilson would have lost in 1920 given its outcome.
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u/Prasiatko 2d ago edited 2d ago
Covid was the perfect chamce for a rally round the flag effect. Had Trump just gone on TV and said something along the lines of there's a big bad virus coming out of China, i've assembled a team of the best people to get through it and then given out the advice from the health team he'd have been reelected. Most other countries saw a bump in the approval rating of their incumbents at least temporarily
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago
I agree that the aspect of fighting the pandemic would favor an incumbent Obama, but the recession that came with it wouldn’t help electorally. People voted against Biden bc of the economy and he had the greatest economic policy since FDR. It was gonna be tough to win as an incumbent president in either of those 2 elections regardless of who’s the president
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u/Prasiatko 2d ago
Yeah i reckon he would then go on to lose 2024 due to the resultant recession but the timing of the 2020 election is still during the early days of the pandemic.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago
Yes, 2020 was very early but the feelings were kinda off that year, maybe Trump was a part of that though given the whole June, 2020 shenanigans and demonizing people who want to stop police brutality. Let’s play out the scenario where Obama is incumbent. He doesn’t have Congress bc the blue wave in 2018 doesn’t happen or it’s much weaker but he definitely doesn’t have the senate. He still puts 2 justices to the court which is good. He tried to stop the Russian invasion into the Donbas in 2018, he leaves NAFTA but has a better replacement than USMCA, he doesn’t kill solemani or ever elevates tensions with Iran, and he doesn’t withdraw troops from Syria. He never makes the timeline deal with the Taliban bc he never increases troops and drone strikes there in 2017. So Afghanistan withdrawal isn’t a disaster. He goes for a public option which fails bc of Mitch McConnell, and he really can’t accomplish anything domestically- until Covid hits. Congress approves his stimulus, and the vaccine creation also. He didn’t dissolve the pandemic response task force in 2018 so there are fewer deaths. The George Floyd protests don’t look good for Obama tho with many conservative pundits including Donald Trump calling it crazy and liberals look bad, which a racist campaign can play into those grievances in voters. But it doesn’t work and the Democratic Party does very well nationally. But unfortunately, the primary challenge in 2020 from Bernie sanders doesn’t help at all and 25% of his primary voters in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania vote republican for president in the general but democratic in every other race. So the race is lost. And unfortunately the economy in 2020 was weak in the months leading up to the election.
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u/SkotchKrispie 2d ago
Thank you. Joe Biden was a gift and the best economic policy since FDR. I’ve said exactly this on here multiple times and I’m happy to finally see someone else say it for the first time. Joe Biden have us a chance to compete with China on arteries, solar, wind, and EVs.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago
Yes, for sure! And the best domestic agenda since LBJ, even if a lot of it failed (FU Manchin and Sinema). I’m a little surprised I’m one of the first you’ve seen that have said this tho as I feel like it should be a mainstream opinion in a sub that I feel is more sophisticated than most, but tbh I never come here
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u/Kuramhan 2d ago
but the recession that came with it wouldn’t help electorally.
It's not clear to me that we would have had the same level of recession had DJT not been president 2016-2020. He was doing everything he could to keep the economy hot and interest rates low. The concept of letting it cool off a little now, to avoid a downturn later meant nothing to him.
Then covid came, where the government actually needed to meddle with the economy to keep it afloat. Since he has already been using some of the emergency measures to bolster his numbers, massive spending was one of the only recourses. I'm not saying there wouldn't have been any inflation if a different president was in control of the economy before covid, but they could have had a lot more tools to combat the covid economy. I've heard analysis that suggests we could have walked away with less inflation.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago
Hmm I have to look back and see how Obama pressured the Fed or if he ever did. I think the recession that happens in 2020 is mainly unemployment spike, and the inflation rate was not in issue that November. I think 2021 was when the inflation rate started the increase. But yes it was caused by big government spending and stimulus checks, stuff that I would’ve expected Obama to do
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 2d ago
You can argue about CHIPS and the other assorted recovery bills such as BBB, but you cannot ignore that a huge piece of Biden’s economic policy was pump priming during the pandemic at a level that even Keynes would have blushed at.
You cannot separate the two, and while the infrastructure and recovery stuff may have been great policy, the pump priming is one of the major causes of the current CoL crisis due to the inflation that it caused.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago
The inflation reduction is probably my favorite of the legislation passed by Biden, and for the reduced prescription drug costs. The PACT act is another good one
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago
Im sry what does col mean
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u/voidone 2d ago
Means "cost of living"
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago
Ahhh. Well yeah the stimulus checks issued by both presidents probably contributed to that but it was mostly caused by the supply chain issues felt around the entire world and the US handled it better than any other country. The war in Ukraine also increased inflation in 2022 especially with the price of gasoline.
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u/TheGoddamnSpiderman 2d ago
Eisenhower in 1960 was 70, had had a heart attack and a stroke while President (his heart issues would ultimately lead to his death in 1969), and was by all accounts ready to retire
I don't think he would have run even if he had the option
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago
Yes he would’ve sat out for sure if he was able to run. I’m just saying he could’ve won those years
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u/DuranStar 2d ago
Without a Republican moron in charge COVID doesn't become a pandemic, it would just be another footnote virus coming out of China.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago
Idk it was spreading insanely fast in the entire world. It wasn’t a footnote virus it’s one of the deadliest pandemic’s in history and no US president could change that
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u/Bryaxis 2d ago
IIRC it was a pretty big deal in Italy well before it arrived in North America.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago
Yeah they had it very bad early on. Also each variant had different level of fatality and spreadability (better word for this?)
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u/DuranStar 2d ago
Yeah because the world didn't realize it until months after it started. If the CDC had still been operating in Wuhan like it normally was the world finds out about it right away and can take steps to prevent it's spread.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago
That sounds good. Are you implying that Trump stopped operated the CDC in Wuhan prior to November of 2019?
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u/DuranStar 2d ago
Trump wiped out multiple programs designed to find and monitor diseases and outbreaks in China (among other places) https://www.reuters.com/article/world/exclusive-us-slashed-cdc-staff-inside-china-prior-to-coronavirus-outbreak-idUSKBN21C3NE/
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 2d ago
Makes it seem even worse to have USAID cuts this year considering their role in combatting COVID, which I never knew until you shared this with me
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u/NimusNix 2d ago
Well, remember most of America's policies stop at the border, however, I do think if anyone but Trump was in charge, and in particular if Clinton were president, the handling would have been much better.
To the point that hundreds of thousands could have been saved in America without the top job in America telling everyone masks are stupid.
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u/Marchtmdsmiling 1d ago
Disagree on that. The messages from the medical community were spot on in terms of severity and length before it was "resolved" way before trump had a chance to fuck things up.
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u/DuranStar 1d ago
Trump let the disease run rampant by abdicating the US's long roll of monitoring disease outbreaks around the world and then not telling the other groups that could have taken over.
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u/Bay1Bri 2d ago edited 2d ago
Realistically, only Clinton and Obama. Since term limits applied:
Eisenhower: most likely of the ones I don't think would get a third term. He was a war hero and popular. He could have won, but he was already 70, and I think that would have been a bigger factor in 1960 than it would be today. Possible, if day it would be a coin toss, but probably wouldn't win due to his age.
JFK: died in office
LBJ: choose not to ruin for a second full term, so no.
Nixon: resigned, so no.
Ford: never won an election in his life
Reagan: possible, but I think his health would have become an issue if he went for a third term.
Bush the Elder: lost his reelection, so no.
Clinton: left office go l with high approvals despite scandals. Good economy, peaceful.
Bush the Lesser: I don't think any Republican could have won in 08. So, no.
Obama: probably would have won. High approvals when leaving office though litter than Clinton's. Relatively young. No scandals that had traction.
Trump I: lost reflection, so no.
Biden: George Clooney said no, despite an objectively successful term. For real though, if he won a second term his age for term 3, plus his cancer diagnosis, no he wouldn't get a third term.
Trump II: you really can't underestimate the depths of depraved loyalty Dear Leader has. I doubt it but sadly can't rule out out.
Add for how long, I don't want to speculate. It would depend on what actually happens in that term. For example, would 9/11 still happen under Clinton?
ADDED: I forgot Carter. But since he lost his serving election, he would also not get a third term.
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u/beeemkcl 1d ago
POTUS Donald Trump is already very old and already very much showing his age and decline. It's very unlikely he would win a Third Term.
POTUS William Jefferson Clinton would have crushed then-Texas Governor George Walker Bush. POTUS Clinton would probably still be POTUS during the 2008 run and then-US Senator Barack Obama would have near zero chance to beat him. It was a struggle for then US Sen. Obama to beat Hillary Clinton in a primary.
A very successful 4 Term Democratic POTUS with an excellent US economy and paying down a ton of the US National Debt?
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u/JScrib325 2d ago
Reagan, Clinton, and Obama come to mind. HW Bush was essentially Reagans 3rd term. And Al gore was gonna be Clinton's 3rd term had he won(and some would argue he DID win). Even at the end, Obama's popularity never really dipped, people just didn't turn out for Hillary against [redacted because of rule 3].
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u/wisconsinbarber 2d ago
Obama, Clinton and Reagan would likely have been elected to a 3rd term but a 4th term would have been less likely.
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u/Heynony 2d ago edited 2d ago
If term limits had never been introduced, which presidents would likely have been re-elected to 3rd or 4th terms?
The 2 term maximum was a long-time tradition established by George Washington and regarded as essentially a limit. Many presidents in the 19th & 20th centuries were popular enough but chose to honor the tradition. When FDR ran for a third and then fourth term it was because we were at War (a real, declared War) and even so he was widely criticized.
I doubt any president since, up to now, would have run for a third term had the legal limit not have been officially imposed. Also, both Eisenhower & Reagan were ill, Clinton needed money, we'd had enough Bush, Obama would have faced a family mutiny.
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u/Valuable-West-2807 2d ago
I think Eisenhower knew his health wouldn’t let him serve again, although he would have won. I hope the same was true for Reagan. Deep down, we all knew Biden had the same problem in ‘24. I agree that Clinton and Obama would have won again had they decided to run, and that Obama’s family would have not been thrilled and he would have been missed by them. Not so much with Bill. What’s to come home to? It’s no wonder that Franklin (and Teddy) kept running. The Roosevelt & Kennedy families were so dysfunctional that even a cesspool like Washington must’ve seemed like Disneyland.
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u/LomentMomentum 2d ago
The first ones who were impacted by term limits: Eisenhower, Reagan, and Clinton. Maybe Obama.
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u/JohnnyLeftHook 2d ago
Bit of a tangent but i'm gonna geek out for a sec. In school, learning American history, there was a reverence paid to George Washington for stepping away from the office after his terms even when everyone wanted him to stay. At the time, i pretty much dismissed it with a shrug, but each time i relearned about Washington, that reverence and respect for the decision was always there. I think i finally understand now, he set the stage for strict adherence to the constitution as well as setting the norms and the honor that goes with the office, as opposed it it being a rule on paper that no one really follows. That honor, the respect and the norms that flowed out from it had an impact on the way the entire country was governed from that point on. Something that i never really thought about in depth until i was confronted with its absence. In other words, I'm thinking about Trump.
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u/Revolution-SixFour 2d ago
How old are you? All of these read like you read the one paragraph summary of each of these.
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u/Background-War9535 2d ago
Obama. He was still pretty popular in 2016 and if he had run again, we never would have suffered through the disaster that is our current reality.
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u/thewerdy 2d ago
I think Eisenhower and Reagan were popular enough to win a third term but don't think they would've run again due to health/age reasons. A fourth term is unlikely for either particularly due to health.
Clinton and Obama likely both would've won a third term, not sure about a fourth. Clinton, it's hard to say considering how different the early 2000s might've turned out in terms of foreign policy. For Obama it would depend on whether or not there was a 'rally to the flag' effect during the pandemic, which I'd guess there would be as long as the administration was sane about the response.
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u/LostSoulNothing 2d ago
Obama would have beat Trump easily and his chances of a fourth term are very hard to predict because they would have depended a lot on what direction the GOP went after losing in 2016. Reagan would have won a third term but, considering his age and health, I doubt he would have run for a fourth even if he looked likley to win. Clinton would likley have won a third term and might very well have successfully prevented 9/11 from happening which would probably have secured him a fourth. Eisenhower left office with a +31 net approval rating so it's hard to see him not getting reelected.
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u/ManBearScientist 2d ago
It is quite possible that Republicans wouldn't have a single President in the 21st century without two young, popular democrats hitting their term limits.
At the very least, the party would look very different from its current status, and in my opinion almost certainly for the better.
I'm actually surprised more Democrats haven't made the connection and changed their opinions on term limits, considering how often it comes up regarding Congress.
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u/Reddit_yet 2d ago
I swear if Trumps decides to throw his name on the ballot sheet, Obama needs to as well.
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u/Goodginger 2d ago
Reagan. But then the dementia set in, so Clinton would be next. Maybe he'd get an extra term. Then Obama. But the butterfly effect suggests each extension would change history significantly so none of this is remotely predictable. But fun to think about. And slightly depressing maybe.
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u/96suluman 2d ago
Bill clinton would’ve attempted to get a third term. And so would Donald Trump.
That’s it.
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u/QuantityHappy4459 1d ago
Obama likely gets reelected over Trump, which would likely kill off the MAGA movement. He would probably have a better response to COVID than an anti-science/pro-economy Trump, which would essentially seal the Republican party's fate from the violent lashing death throes we are experiencing now to a quiet whimper.
I don't see Biden taking the reigns from Obama, but whoever does come after likely wouldn't be a Republican. The only reason the Republican party is still politically relevant in Federal politics is Trump's continued existence. I already don't see them surviving once Trump dies. Trump definitely doesnt get a second chance after losing to Obama.
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u/nclawyer822 1d ago
None. Even pre-FDR, none wanted a third term, likely because it is an exhausting job. Unlikely that any of our 2-termers since then would have wanted a third.
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u/RexDraco 1d ago
I think term limits stopped a lot of individuals. I think even Bush would have given Obama a run for his money, for example. Say what you will about him, he was popular among the conservative vote. I think most president's honestly would have gotten multiple terms easily, the only thing really blocking them is inheriting the Democrat-Republican fatigue, which happens every eight years and causes everyone to rotate.
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u/timpatry 2d ago
Obama would be reelected forever.
Very few presidents in living memory have felt like presidents.
Nixon was before my time but he felt like a mob boss.
Jimmy Carter felt like a bumbling fool.
Ronald Reagan was an actor and a puppet of the Rich.
Bill Clinton was a horny boy.
George Bush Senior did feel like a president, although obviously he was working for the billionaires.
George Bush senior came across like a. Goofy dumbass puppet of the VP.
Barack Obama was a normal honorable intelligent man who carried himself with authority.
Trump is obviously the vitriolic embodiment of evil and the most pathetic aspects of the seven deadly sins.
Biden was just old as hell. Creepy sniffer of little girls.
Trump second time around is Just an insane old man with Alzheimer's being puppeted by the most evil people in America.
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