The Towers Still Stand: An Alternate take on early 21st Century America.

Who Do You Think will win the 2004 Presidential Election at This Point in the TL?

  • President George W. Bush (R-TX)

    Votes: 60 28.7%
  • Former Vice President Al Gore (D-TN)

    Votes: 96 45.9%
  • Speaker of the House Dick Gephardt (D-MO)

    Votes: 18 8.6%
  • Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN)

    Votes: 13 6.2%
  • Senator John Edwards (D-NC)

    Votes: 5 2.4%
  • Former Governor Howard Dean (D-VT)

    Votes: 11 5.3%
  • Other

    Votes: 6 2.9%

  • Total voters
    209
  • Poll closed .
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The Event that made for a Different 21st Century
August 20th, 1998. The U.S. launches Strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan:

On the morning of August 20th, 1998, President Bill Clinton ordered American Armed Forces to target Terrorist facilities in Afghanistan and Sudan because of the imminent threat they presented to national security. The mission was to strike at the network of radical groups affiliated with, and funded by, Osama bin Laden, a pre-eminent organizer and financier of international terrorism. This was done in retaliation for the August 7th al Qaeda bombings of American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.


The missile strikes on the training camps in Afghanistan were successful in that they damaged the camps and inflicted a massive number of casualties on al Qaeda, including key leaders. The attack also killed Osama bin Laden himself. The strikes in Afghanistan were met with a mostly positive international response from American allies, particularly from Israel, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Germany. U.S. allies in the Middle East responded positively with respect to the killing of Bin Laden, but all of them agreed that the UN and the United States needed to develop new ways to address countries harboring terrorists. The strike in Afghanistan was however met with criticism from many U.S adversaries, particularly in the Middle East who called the Strike an act of terror and many militant groups, as well as the Taliban regime that ruled Afghanistan, threatened to retaliate.

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While the Missile Strikes in Afghanistan were only met with criticism from enemies of the United States, the strikes in Sudan had at best mixed results from the international community. The United States struck the Al Shifa Pharmaceutical factory, claiming the factory was helping Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the attacks and leader of Al Qaeda, build Chemical Weapons. The United States met international scrutiny over the attack because the evidence that the Pharmaceutical factory was aiding Bin Laden was not solid nor was it confirmed. Many abroad feared that tens of thousands would die from a lack of shortages of medications. The plant provided over half of the country's medications including drugs for treating malaria, diabetes, hypertension, ulcers, rheumatism, gonorrhea, and tuberculosis. The plant employed 300 employees. International protests broke out the next day condemning the attacks and the Sudanese Government responded by saying that Sudan has every right to react to the U.S. attack by any means necessary.

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President Clinton gave an Oval Office Address the night of the Strikes. In it, he said that "Our mission was clear -- to strike at the network of radical groups affiliated with, and funded by, Osama bin Laden, the pre-eminent organizer and financier of international terrorism in the world today…" (CNN) He also said that "The United States does not take this action lightly. Afghanistan and Sudan have been warned for years to stop harboring and supporting these terrorist groups," he said. "The countries that persistently host terrorists have no right to be safe havens." (CNN) Clinton made very clear however that "Our actions today were not aimed at Islam," he said. "No religion condones the murder of innocent men, women and children." The President also made clear that this action did not eliminate the problem of terror, and that the U.S. must do what it can to put a stop to it.

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Mr. Clinton was also met with criticism at home for his actions in Afghanistan and Sudan. Republicans accused Clinton of using the attack as a diversion from the ongoing Lewinsky Scandal (The attack took place three days after Clinton testified under oath about the matter). Polls showed that close to half of the country believed that the one of the motivations of the attack was to divert the public’s attention from the scandal.
 
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Getting rid of Bin Laden does not guarantee not crazy spectacular outrage by 'Islamic' fanatics.

I am not sure that destroying him in the 1990s would be seen as such a big deal.

I am not sure that Gore wins.
 
Getting rid of Bin Laden does not guarantee not crazy spectacular outrage by 'Islamic' fanatics.

I am not sure that destroying him in the 1990s would be seen as such a big deal.

I am not sure that Gore wins.

All of this. I don't think it really changes anything in domestic politics; the 2000 campaign plays out pretty much as it did, though random changes flowing from this could tilt the very close election to Gore. You still get the Clinton impeachment, more or less the same 1998 midterms, the burst of the dot com bubble, Enron and, more than likely, George W Bush. It's hard to overstate how little terrorism was on the public's mind in the late 1990s.
 
Excellent start

This is letting butterflies loose--only the most detail oriented AH writers likely won't even see this as a worthwhile POD unless there's some obvious results. Perhaps a few terrorist attacks, and people saying, "What if Clinton hadn't poked the hornet's nest."

Or, the plans get found in some ruins, and people get focused on the World Trade Center attacks as a POD, until it gets relegated to the same folder as the unmentionable sea mammal.

The next election could go either way--but it was so close that it would take little to change the outcome. (5-4 is awfully tight--but if it doesn't go to the court, then perhaps the winner of the popular vote will actually win the election.)

BAD effect: Floriduh's voting system doesn't even get the bit of reform it got in OTL
 
This is letting butterflies loose--only the most detail oriented AH writers likely won't even see this as a worthwhile POD unless there's some obvious results. Perhaps a few terrorist attacks, and people saying, "What if Clinton hadn't poked the hornet's nest."

Or, the plans get found in some ruins, and people get focused on the World Trade Center attacks as a POD, until it gets relegated to the same folder as the unmentionable sea mammal.

The next election could go either way--but it was so close that it would take little to change the outcome. (5-4 is awfully tight--but if it doesn't go to the court, then perhaps the winner of the popular vote will actually win the election.)

BAD effect: Floriduh's voting system doesn't even get the bit of reform it got in OTL

Agreed.

I think this is an incredibly rich POD precisely because the results aren't immediate. In fact, nothing much changes until the morning of 9/11/01 when suddenly everything changes when Bush goes through his day in Florida, the people at Cantor Fitzgerald show up for a routine day's work, Flight 11 drones on to LA and is forgotten, Flight 175 wends its way to San Francisco. and so forth. Rather than being a day everyone remembers, September 11, 2001 happens to be an ordinary day that perhaps a few people remember because the weather on the East Coast was so nice. And from there, a completely different world develops.

You're right on the 2000 election; a random fart in Finland might have changed that outcome. It was that close.
 
You could do a butterfly thing and have Gore win, an easy way to do it is change the ballots made in Florida becuase not only were there the "hanging chads" but thousands of people that wanted to vote for gore ended up voting for Buchanan becuase of the poorly designed ballots.
 
Getting rid of Bin Laden does not guarantee not crazy spectacular outrage by 'Islamic' fanatics.

I am not sure that destroying him in the 1990s would be seen as such a big deal.

I am not sure that Gore wins.

All of this. I don't think it really changes anything in domestic politics; the 2000 campaign plays out pretty much as it did, though random changes flowing from this could tilt the very close election to Gore. You still get the Clinton impeachment, more or less the same 1998 midterms, the burst of the dot com bubble, Enron and, more than likely, George W Bush. It's hard to overstate how little terrorism was on the public's mind in the late 1990s.

The whole point of this TL is that it doesn't really change much of anything until 9/11/01. To me, this was the best POD for a no 9/11. Bin Laden's death and terrorism (at least in the short term) is not supposed to be seen as a big deal.
 
The President is Impeached. Aquitted by the Senate.
December 19th, 1998. Bill Clinton is impeached by the House of Representatives:

On December 19th, 1998, President Bill Clinton became the second President in American history to be impeached. Despite losing seats in the House of Representatives due to the notion of impeachment and despite Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich announcing his resignation from congress over the loses, the Republican controlled house voted to impeach the President for perjury to a grand jury by a vote of 228-206, and for obstruction of justice by a vote of 221-212. Two other articles were brought to a vote, but failed.

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While Impeachment was taking place however, it was revealed that Speaker Designate Bob Livingston, whom Republicans chose to replace Gingrich as Speaker, was involved in an extra marital affair of his own. He ended his candidacy for Speaker of the House and announced his resignation from congress all together as well. In his Press Conference Livingston urged Clinton to resign as well, but Clinton did not. Many other House Republicans had infidelities exposed as well, including Henry Hyde of Illinois, who was the house manager of Clinton's trial in the Senate.

Despite Impeachment, President Clinton's job approval ratings were unharmed. In fact, they were at 73% the day the impeachment took place. The President's personal approval rating however, did take a hit. Congressional Republicans took a hit in the polls over impeachment, and many Americans, mainly Clinton supporters, were quick to point out the hypocrisy that many Republicans displayed.

February 12th, 1999: The Senate Acquits President Clinton:​

On February 12th, 1999, The Senate voted on the articles of impeachment. A two thirds vote (67 Senators) would have been needed to convict and remove the President, and on the charge of perjury, 55 senators voted against conviction and 45 voted for. On the charge of obstruction of justice, half of the senate voted to convict and 50 senators voted against conviction. Ten Republican Senators voted against convicting Clinton on the perjury and five of those ten Senators voted against convicting the President on obstruction of justice. Chief Justice William Rehnquist presided over the proceedings in the Senate.

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With the acquittal, President Clinton will get to do what he vowed to do and finish his term.
 
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Looks cool. Wonder where you'll go with this huge PoD.

Not much will really change until the 2000 election at the earliest and September 11th, 2001 at the latest. The USS Cole bombing is the only thing pre 2000 election that will obviously be butterflied. I'm just posting events of Clinton's final two years as filler and so things flow nicely.
 
Not much will really change until the 2000 election at the earliest and September 11th, 2001 at the latest. The USS Cole bombing is the only thing pre 2000 election that will obviously be butterflied. I'm just posting events of Clinton's final two years as filler and so things flow nicely.

I know that but there will be hugr changes after 2001. Is this just politics focused(like my TL)or also going into effects on pop culture etc?
 
I know that but there will be hugr changes after 2001. Is this just politics focused(like my TL)or also going into effects on pop culture etc?

Politics (I'm no pop culture buff), although I'm going to desperately try to focus as much on foreign policy as I do domestic policy in this timeline, of course foreign policy will be a little easier to write about than it was in "Gerald Ford elected in 1980."
 
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