-Somewhere in an alternate timeline- January 20th, 2017 - 12:01PM EST Bernard "Bernie" Sanders has just taken the oath of office, and is now the 45th President of the United States. After defeating party favorite Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, and crushing the far less likeable Donald Trump in the general election, the popular populist now stands ready to lead America towards his vision for the future. He certainly won't have a difficult time of it. The support he was shown by the DNC inspired a lot of people to vote Democrat, and the party has taken a majority in both the House and and the Senate. Of course, there's also the matter of who he'll pick to fill the vacancy in the Supreme Court. Indeed, Bernie Sanders now has the power to change America forever. But he also has a lot of promises to keep. It's going to be an interesting four years. ************************************************* A topic I've heard a lot about lately. What if the DNC hadn't interfered, and Bernie had won the primary? Most people agree that, had he won the nomination, he would have easily beaten Trump. But what would his presidency have been like? Would he have been able to keep his promises?
This wouldn't have happened: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...cancel-obamas-mortgage-premium-cuts/96853446/ This wouldn't have happened either: http://thehill.com/homenews/adminis...limate-change-webpage-disappears-after-trumps It's bad enough, don't taunt us with this pipe dream. :/
I've got to do a bit of reading before I can respond to the first one, but the second story is pretty easy to explain. Obama isn't the president anymore, so any information relating to his administration's policies is now outdated. The page is still available in an archive, but it's no longer relevant information. Also, President Trump's (God I love saying that) policies and decisions aren't the point of this thread. This is a discussion of what a Sanders presidency would have been like.
There are message boards devoted to such fetishes, you know. Just another layer of paint on all the other layers that haven't been scraped away before application. To me, the only real difference between him and the president is that Trump's color is the gaudiest I've ever known.
America might actually be taken seriously. Might also have a reasonable cabinet. He wouldn't violate the oath on the first day of swearing in.
@Ridley Wolf , you know the saying about pouring salt in the wound? You're being what is called a "sore winner". You won, he's president. You can stop now.
Pretty sure I addressed it, even if succinctly and -- probably -- unsatisfactorily. And there's the whole thing about there being too many factors to, well, factor in, since the president isn't supposed to be a dictator who gets everything they want. In particular, I'd have to wonder just how much would have changed in the house and senate, if Trump had been up against Sanders, because anything between a Republican majority and an even split wouldn't have bode well. Add to the fact that people in his own party were playing favorites, and how that wouldn't have changed if he had somehow managed to beat Hillary, I'd have to wonder how much support he'd get from his party, especially if those who had invested in Hillary didn't accept their failure with grace. So, beyond what I said about paint, there's simply too much mud in the water to divine how Sanders would have done as president. All we can really do is share what we'd fantasize, whether it's for him to do well or bad.
This is why I stay away from these discussions. Between the sore winners and the sore losers. So glad there's Pinkie Pie in this world.
No, the actual reason I started this thread is because I thought it would be interesting to discuss what a Sanders presidency would have been like. Obviously, a Sanders victory would have been a Trump defeat, so bringing up Trump's policies in this particular thread are off-topic and pointless. Seriously, if I wanted to gloat about Trump winning (And I do. And will. But not in this thread.), I'd be a lot more direct about it than this.
I probably could have been a little clearer in the OP. The scenario I described of a Sanders victory would involve full DNC support AND a Democrat majority in Congress. I guess what I was hoping to discuss was what changes he would have made, and what effects they would have had on the country, both long and short term. I'd say it's more a combination of hope, patriotism, and schadenfreude.
Seriously, though, this thread has absolutely nothing to do with the actual election results. I had really hoped we could have a discussion about what could have happened, without a bunch of drama.
Boy, I can't believe I forgot to add this. I didn't mean to imply at all that YOU personally were a sore loser.
Oh look at that. Another completely irrelevant post. For *squee!*'s sake, the only person who's actually posted on topic was Nikkou, and that was like half a fricking paragraph! People seemed ready to praise Bernie as the New Messiah during the primary. Am I seriously the only one who wonders what kind of president he would have been?!
Had Bernie Sanders run against Trump, yeah. Both ran extremely populist campaigns, but Sanders was far less devisive and had a lot of support among Independents, many of whom chose to vote for Trump rather than see Hillary elected.
I was looking forward to reading some interesting answers to Ridley's what-if. Guess I won't get that. Everyone's answer seems to be, "Trump wouldn't be president." I could see him getting to work right away on a more Canadian-style health care system. I could also see him making fewer idiotic military decisions than presidents before him. Hell, maybe he'd even succeed in doing away with college tuition. Taxes would certainly have to be higher for these things, but I think it'd be worth it, just to see the playing field leveled a little more for everyone.
