When discussing a scenario where the Democrats are in power in the early 2000's, the emphasis seems to be placed on Gore beating Bush in 2000. However there's no guarantee that Gore would even make it beyond one term. A Republican could just as well win in 2004, and make the same choices as Bush vis a vis Iraq, Katrina, and the economy. What I want to explore is a scenario where the Democrats are in power at least during the full eight years of 2001-2009 that encompassed Bush's OTL presidency, putting them in charge during 9/11, Katrina, and the Great Recession. The scenario I put forward is Bush 41 scores an upset over Clinton in 1992, followed by Democratic victories in '96, 2000, and '04. How would Democratic administrations, and presumably a Democratic Congress at least initially, have handled these key events differently and how would the direction of the US change as a result?
 

Philip

Donor
By placing the POD in 1992, you could radically change the events of the 2000s. I'm not sure Clinton would get the nomination in 96 of he lost in 92.

The US's response to terrorism has been a major aspect of the 2000s, but this traces back to (at least) the 90s. Bush may react differently to the first WTC bombing. Does he take a more aggressive stance towards radicalized Islamists within the US? Is more focus placed on KSM? Do the Kenya embassy bombings and USS Cole bombing still occur? Are they handled differently? How does all this change the lead-up to 9/11?

The impact of domestic terrorism may also change. Does the OKC bombing happen if Bush wins in 92? Does he handle in the same manner as Clinton?

I think you need to address how you get to the 2000s before asking how they play out.
 
The scenario I put forward is Bush 41 scores an upset over Clinton in 1992, followed by Democratic victories in '96, 2000, and '04. How would Democratic administrations, and presumably a Democratic Congress at least initially, have handled these key events differently and how would the direction of the US change as a result?

Depends on who your Democrat is. Is Gore going to be president 1996-2004? If so he might get two years of a friendly Congress before Republicans seize control of at least one of the chambers prompting a centrist migration as Clinton experienced post 1994. We might end up with something like Obamacare fifteen years sooner than OTL.

If Gore wins reelection in 2000 and 9/11 still happens I suspect John McCain gets nominated in 2004 prompting the Democratic nominee (Kerry? Edwards? Dean?) to also take a harder line on national security issues. We still invade Afghanistan, pass some version of the USA PATRIOT Act and get confrontational with Saddam (but not necessarily invading).

I don't know if having a Democrat in office butterflies away the situation with the levees in New Orleans since that was an engineering failure on the part of the US Army Corps of Engineers rather than a lack of proper maintenance. I suppose the Federal response would be less incompetent, it could hardly have be worse than it was OTL.

The US's response to terrorism has been a major aspect of the 2000s, but this traces back to (at least) the 90s. Bush may react differently to the first WTC bombing. Does he take a more aggressive stance towards radicalized Islamists within the US? Is more focus placed on KSM? Do the Kenya embassy bombings and USS Cole bombing still occur? Are they handled differently? How does all this change the lead-up to 9/11?

I don't think the US response to terrorism would be much different with Bush in office for the WTC bombing in 1993 and some Democrat in office for the bombings in the late 90s. Prior to 9/11 there was a lot of inertia against responding aggressively to terrorism since the American people tended to view them as isolated incidents that mainly happened far away across the globe.
 
I'm not sure Clinton would get the nomination in 96 of he lost in 92.

He wouldn't be renominated in 1996. But it's probable that another centrist Democrat wins that year.

The impact of domestic terrorism may also change. Does the OKC bombing happen if Bush wins in 92? Does he handle in the same manner as Clinton?

I don't see how having a different President would butterfly an unrelated terrorist incident. And Clinton went out of his way to aggresively combat terrorism in OTL, coming close to killing Bin Laden in 1998. It's doubtful that another President would have done that much better given he'd be hindered by the same circumstances that prevented Clinton from being more successful. It's also worth noting that many of the high level officials who worked in the CIA and FBI during the Clinton years were Republicans (George Tenet, Richard Clarke, etc).
 

Philip

Donor
I don't see how having a different President would butterfly an unrelated terrorist incident.

Mcvay was motivated by Waco. There is no guarantee that Bush/Barr handles Waco the same way as Clinton/Reno. Maybe they do, but that is a big assumption. Even if they do approach it the same way, given how many variables when wrong in execution, there is no reason to assume the result is the same.

And Clinton went out of his way to aggresively combat terrorism in OTL, coming close to killing Bin Laden in 1998.

I am more interested in if Bush would be willing to engage in less savory profiling, infiltration, and intelligence gathering techniques within the US. Do Bush and Clinton view the Muslim community within the US the same way? Do they have the same opinion on police powers vs civil liberties?
 
I am more interested in if Bush would be willing to engage in less savory profiling, infiltration, and intelligence gathering techniques within the US. Do Bush and Clinton view the Muslim community within the US the same way? Do they have the same opinion on police powers vs civil liberties?

That's an interesting question but while Bush was certainly more familiar with intelligence gathering given his previous role as Director of Central Intelligence I don't think the WTC bombing is going to make him paranoid about the Muslim community unless it were far more successful and devastating and there was substantial evidence that Muslim-Americans are disloyal and sympathetic towards terrorism.
 
That's an interesting question but while Bush was certainly more familiar with intelligence gathering given his previous role as Director of Central Intelligence I don't think the WTC bombing is going to make him paranoid about the Muslim community unless it were far more successful and devastating and there was substantial evidence that Muslim-Americans are disloyal and sympathetic towards terrorism.

This relates to another interesting question of whether or not executive powers would be expanded so drastically without Bush and Cheney in charge. Cheney was an admirer of Hamilton's concept of an imperial executive with almost unlimited powers, in fact he wrote a paper espousing this view in the 1990's. And according to Bush biographer Jean Edward Smith, Dubya believed he was ordained by God to take any and all measures he thought necessary to combat terrorism. The OTL Patriot Act was more moderate when it was originally proposed by Orin Hatch, so with all this in mind perhaps a Democratic President who lacked the hardcore zeal of Dubya and Cheney wouldn't have pushed Congress to expand Patriot so drastically.
 
You're assuming 9/11, Katrina, and the GFC all happen with a 1992 POD?

9/11 could be prevented by a President more focused on terrorism than Dubya. Katrina however was a naturally occurring meteorological event that was unrelated to who was President at the time or who was President in 1992. The Great Recession could at least be tempered had a different Democrat fired Alan Greenspan and altered US monetary policy. Greenspan's extremely low interest rates were a contributing factor in the recession.
 
There is a good chance the US would be much better off in the long term in some respects without even going into potential changes in social politics or the social safety net.
  • There is at least some chance this could butterfly 9/11 with different people running the US security and intelligence apparatus. However even if Al Gore being elected US President (or a different Democrat) doesn't butterfly 9/11, this probably would at least butterfly the decision to invade Iraq without people like Rumsfeld and Cheney pushing for it and using (at best) rather sketchy intelligence to justify it. It might also butterfly Afghanistan, since it was debatable if an invasion of Afghanistan was actually necessary. Sending a special operations team to assassinate Bin Laden if they had a solid lead on his location, like in 2011, would have been a rather sensible alternative.
  • Butterflying Iraq and maybe Afghanistan would be huge. It saves the USA a lot of blood, sweat and treasure in the long run, and puts it in a stronger position financially and internationally.
  • The US probably takes a very different approach to privacy laws and cyber security since 9/11 was used as justification for the Patriot Act. Many Democrats may have voted with Republicans on this but they may have had a different approach if they were in power and there would have been different considerations due to their political base.
  • The US may still have a balanced budget, or at least a much smaller deficit, without Bush's tax cuts. A better government financial situation may also result in a better economy or at least a shorter, less severe recession if the 2008 economic crash still occurs.
  • If the 2008 economic crash and recession still occurs (or a similar economic downturn at a different time) is probably up in the air, since the Democrats also played a part in financial deregulation like the repeal of Glass-Steagall in OTL and bought into a lot of the "hands off" approach to the financial sector. However there is a higher chance they might do something to reign in some of the things which contributed to the crash like subprime mortgages, derivatives, and problems like insider trading.
  • Would have a major change in court picks and campaign finance laws since this would probably stop a decision like Citizen's United.
 
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Would have a major change in court picks and campaign finance laws since this would probably stop a decision like Citizen's United.

Had a Democrat been President in 2005, he might be able to appoint the first Democratic Supreme Court Justice in fifty-two years.
 
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