I imagine that I owe something to my readers, seeing this thread resurrected.
As of myself, I do quite well. I managed to find a job, I have met the most beautiful and great woman, travel extensively throughout Europe and try to work on my first published novel on my spare time. So even if I remain a lurker on AlternateHistory.com, I wouldn't post a lot, having been upset by the lack of feedback on my 1914 TL (that was far from achievement). I worked for some time on a timeline about Louis XIV and now I'm actively working about a reboot of my "Dewey defeats Truman TL", that will be more or less an alternate history of the Cold War.
Going through the Perot TL (that was a huge achievement to me, all the more when I was only 21 and not knowledgeable about US politics) and comparing with the new situation of the world, I must say that I'm actually distraught. Recently, I have been telling my real life friends "You know, I wrote once an alternate history about a Texan businessman being elected President of the United States in 1992, it received a lot of praise, I won two awards. I imagined that Donald Trump would be elected Governor of New York and then be elected POTUS in 2004, and that he would be an awful President. Do you know what? People told me it really jumped the shark here, because Trump would never actually run into politics."
It bares repeating, Donald Trump running for office is ASB. oOnce the press starts looking into his bankruptcies he drops out.
And then I always told my friends until this Tuesday: "You know, I studied US history, and Trump will never be President. It would take a miracle for such a negative campaigner to be elected. Or a complete card reshuffle of the electoral map."
And now, I must say that I was terribly shocked by the news, and then I remembered my timeline. And I only thought it was a good plot element, in a story I imagined five years ago, when I was 21.
For sure, Ross Perot being elected is far fetched, given the situation of the country and the world in 1992, or even the fact he had never held an elective office and was running out of the two-party system; that's what alternate histories are for. But Donald Trump being actually elected, without even a hung electoral college as I had imagined, is unlike anything anyone could have imagined, according to our previous understanding of politics. But Donald Trump was such an atypical candidate, his campaign was unlike any ever seen, and the America and the world of 2016 are vastly different from 2012, 2008, 2000 or 1992.
It's an era of upheavals, and considering myself a progressive, but without being an American citizen, I must clearly I'm really worried about the election of Donald Trump as President, because he has not the unofficial codes of diplomacy and power-broking, but rather those of business, and because he went to the worst extents of mudslinging and populism during his campaign. I hope he tones down his rhetoric but I think it's another factor for the world going out of balance; it's already the case of American politics. As a Frenchman, I now fear the election of Marine Le Pen to the presidency : my girlfriend told me yesterday that "it's not that her election gets likely, it's more that it becomes less and less unlikely".
I sincerely hope that the world goes on a higher route for the future; don't call me a prophet, call me an idealist. Our creations always reflect our opinions, fantaisies and hopes, whatever we do.
And I hope to find you again for my Dewey defeats Truman TL, going to an Internet board near you in 2017!
