I realized, what would happen if Al Gore was President during the 2002 Rage Epidemic?
Honestly not sure, the butterfly effect alone will probably prevent the chain of dumb mistakes made during the events of 28 Weeks later from ever happening saving Europe and the global economy in the process, although their is still a risk of an infected survivor spreading the disease accidently to Europe or elsewhere.
His presidency is unlikely to completely advert the September 11th attacks sadly and the US would still have deployed troops into Afghanistan but the invasion of Iraq is adverted for certain.
As for his initial response to the 2002 outbreak he would have definitely send more humanitarian help to the UK and maybe deploy US forces into Britain, although the NATO quarantine would likely still be put in place.
I'm sure that 9/11 still happens anyways, but I think President Gore would be more humanitarian than President Bush.
I think the outbreak will still follow the same path because I don't see Al Gore in the office suddenly stopping the research of the chimps at Cambridge University. Those animal rights activists will still be there.
True, 9/11 was bound to happen either way. Most Al Gore wins scenarios always have 9/11 happening the same way as OTL. That's because the Al Qaeda operatives have prepared for it since 1999(?) drawing inspiration from Oplan Bojinka or the Manila Air Plot in 1994-95. Because the U.S. was going to have an election in 2000, most of the focus was on the domestic front. I have read the
9/11 Commission Report, and it states that terrorism was mostly the works of the intelligence front such as the CIA. All eyes were on the upcoming election and the Florida recount that followed. The last airline hijacking in the U.S. prior to September 11, 2001 was in 1986 and the last terrorist attack was the 1995 Oklahoma City bombings, which was caused by a domestic terrorist. The Columbine Shooting was still also very fresh in the minds of most Americans.
An even more interesting AH challenge for this TL is the
2002 French presidential election, which had two rounds: the first on April 21, 2002 and the second on
May 5, 2002, which was the day before the POD of the Cambridge Outbreak. In OTL, Jacques Chirac won. IITL, he was hesitant to use nukes. What if it was Jean-Marie Lepen who won the night before the outbreak? I'm sure Lepen would not have hesistated to use nukes the moment the Rage outbreak reached norther France in December 2002, which somehow butterflies the French coup attempt and maybe even the European outbreak as whole.
@Ukron can provide more insights into French politics and military tactics here.