So, story wrapup threads. This won't be hugely organized since of course my notes were fairly disorganized:
My original inspiration for the TL was a desire to put Lieberman on the ballot as McCain's VP (which McCain came very close to doing already IOTL) in 2008 as a way of getting a significantly larger Democratic majority in Congress. You can see the genesis of the idea over
here (though I tried to ignore that for the purpose of avoiding spoilers when the TL actually started.) Then I decided to go with a 2006 PoD, so started brainstorming what possible butterflies that could cause and interesting events that could happen in the meantime, and so that sort of ran ahead of me.
The overarching theme of this TL was always meant to be a realistic examination of what would have happened if you'd given Democrats a free hand in Congress in 2008 with a giant landslide [which VP Lieberman was of course meant to achieve.] In that regards, it was a bit of a progressive fantasy timeline of what could have been, but was also always meant a bit as a *dark* fantasy in the vein of "be careful what you wish for" - I tried quite hard to show the potential negative impacts of said fantasy [which I probably exaggerated, e.g. with the oil price surges.] Obama was seen in 2008 as a transformative left-wing political figure, which of course resulted in discontent and disillusioned activists when he turned out to be a pragmatic moderate in practice instead. That tension would be heightened in this world, which I'll go over in a bit below. Of course, the fact that I ended up never getting to that part of this TL meant that it reads basically like a semi-realistic leftist fantasy instead, unfortunately.
If you reread the piece in retrospect, you can definitely see the author's hand on the scale in some areas to achieve the largest possible Democratic landslide while still retaining some veneer of credibility - e.g. the worse economic situation, the array of Republican sex scandals carefully contrived to take place before the election for maximum possible impact, the array of numerous credible Democratic Senate candidates [helped perhaps by the Edwards surge and the Mark Warner candidacy and the prospect of a strong Democratic performance in the South, as well as the nastier Republican primary] to take advantage of the Republican collapse. Similarly, the Obama decision to take public financing ITTL not only showcases his improved relations with McCain, but also directs large amounts of funding that Obama got IOTL but didn't actually need in retrospect to be sent to the DSCC/DCCC/DNC instead, giving Democrats a massive edge for downballot races [Something I think we learned from 2010 and 2012 is that financial resources are much more effective downballot when the airwaves aren't saturated already.] The scale of the Democratic landslide ITTL was rather pushing it, I think in retrospect.
Main plan for U.S. politics:
The 'gentleman's deal' between Democrats and Republicans quickly ends up stretched or arguably violated in many cases. For instance, the carbon tax is officially tax-neutral, as all income is immediately disbursed in tax credits, but that doesn't keep Republicans from shouting foul. In several cases (e.g. with Medicare E), Democrats end up creating programs with delayed funding clauses that need to be revoted to pass in the next Congress, under the official rationale that immediate tax hikes are a poor idea in the middle of a recession when real interest rates of negative.
In the 2010 elections, however, thanks to a weaker-than-expected recovery [and establishment overoptimism on stimulus impacts], Republicans manage to pick up a plethora of seats: Colorado, Connecticut, West Virginia, Nevada, Delaware, and Washington in addition to OTL gains. Democrats hold on to Illinois which they lost IOTL, and pick up South Carolina, where a moderate/establishment Republican splits the vote against DeMint after a hard-fault primary that sees both sides claiming victory and vowing to fight on to the general, as well as Alaska - where Governor Sarah Palin primaries Murkowski successfully, only to face questioning over her abuse of power in the Monegan case.
This gives Republicans a total of ten seat gains since 2008 (including the Massachusetts special election), putting their tally at 41 seats in the Senate - just enough to mount a filibuster. Key to their victories include a phenomenon of defeated US Representatives from 2008 who chose instead to run for Senate - such as Dean Heller in Nevada, Shelley Moore Capito in West Virginia, Dave Reichart in Washington, Paul Ryan in Wisconsin, etc. In addition, Joe Lieberman was also elected to the Connecticut Senate seat as a Republican or Republican-leaning independent. Also contributing are the twin 2010 decisions of Citizens United and McCutcheon v. FEC (butterflied earlier and made possible by an expediated passage through the Supreme Court), which enables for a vast flood of spending by conservative organizations directed towards ensuring Republicans have the ability to stymie the Democratic agenda. In the House, meanwhile, Republicans win the popular vote by a hair, but Democrats manage to retain their majority by a dozen seats - sparking additional Tea Party-esque protests over thwarting the popular will.
A massive battle occurs over the Bush tax cuts during the lame duck session (in the end, mid-income tax cuts are split from the high-income ones as IOTL), when Democrats claim that allowing them to expire is different from directly raising taxes. By now, news of the gentleman's bargain has leaked out anyways, as the defeated Jim DeMint denounces it as a 'corrupt bargain', and Robert Reich resigns his administration post in disgust, lamenting the missed opportunity to do something about inequality. This has become the new pressing issue for leftists because by late 2010 and early 2011, massive stimulus has ensured that unemployment appears to be 'solved' (decreasing rapidly from a mid-2009 peak at 11% to 9.5% by the end of 2009, 7% by the end of 2010, and 5.5% by the end of 2011), but the economy has stagnated afterwards, with little GDP/productivity growth after recovering the 'output gap' and inflation flirting with 0 despite the massive fiscal stimulus passed by Congress and quantitative easing pushed by the Fed. Paul Krugman warns of liquidity traps and points to the Japan example (or "Japanification.") He calls for the Fed Reserve to push for a 4% inflation target, a view derisively viewed by most of the establishment (and denounced as "Krugnomics.") Meanwhile, Robert Reich, now the proverbial voice in the wilderness, states that this is a consequence of widening income inequality and resource scarcity, warns of the potential for a renewed slump, and calls for another New Deal for the suffering American middle class. He becomes increasingly associated with the leftist national Working Families Party rather than the Democrats, and is elected as Massachusetts Senator in 2012 by a hair [Elizabeth Warren, being comfortably perched at the CPFB ITTL, has no impetus to become involved in legislative politics, though there are stil calls to draft her.]
In short, the Democratic party has started to splinter without a strong opponent to unite them. The key fissure points are primarily over the controversial topics of the financial industry, national security, and foreign policy, as multiple factions disagree on what direction to go next.
The opening fissures started with dissension between old-school centre-left realpolitikers and idealistic new leftist/non-interventionist Congressmen, most of whom were expected to loose badly in 2008 or 2006 (and most of whom do get kicked out in 2010.) Obama was always a pragmatic politician on foreign policy from the start. The combination of Hillary Clinton as VP [and unofficially given considerable autonomy over foreign policy] and Dick Holbrooke at state pushes him towards a more interventionist/security focused foreign policy than IOTL. It also helps that he has large amounts of political capital to utilize, and Republicans that are willing to work along with him in achieving many of his foreign policy aims.
The fissures strengthen post-2010, with the defeat of Harry Reid by Dean Heller (who, having lost his Congressional seat in 2008, has no reason not to run.) Chuck Schumer takes over as Majority Leader - although many of his ideology is boilerplate liberal, he's also one of the financial industry's strongest supporters in Congress, strongly pro-Israel (recently blasting the Iran treaty as a result), a pro-intervention hawk, and pro-security (supporting e.g. torture in 2004.) Democrats find themselves increasingly cooperating with Main Street Republicans on issues of foreign policy and national security, as the two-party system breaks down, and the non-interventionist left and non-interventionist right find themselves united on some policy issues.
The result is a more active foreign policy with mixed results - Pakistan, for instance, sees both massive GDP growth from the U.S. aid package and chaos and terrorism from angry radical Islamists and Taliban. Although the loss of their sanctuary and offer of negotiation brings the Taliban to the peace table, much of the violence is simply shifted further into Pakistan instead. Libya is one of the few success stories, as U.S. 'boots on the ground' post-Gaddafi defeat ensures stability, but the shipments from vast stockpiles of Libyan weapons to the rest of the Middle East (billed as a means of spreading democracy via freedom fighters while stabilizing the nation) results in e.g. an even more chaotic Syria (and Assad setting up an Alawite splinter state in coastal Syria.) Ukraine also comes to the fore, as a scandal of corruption and abuse of power erupts upon Bogatryova and Tymoshenko as an 'October Surprise' just before the election, ruining the 'first feminist Ukrainian government' and creating the conditions for a Russian intervention in a somewhat different manner from OTL.
Less obvious/prominent of a theme but even more important and ebbing around the edges is the worrying expansion of the security and surveillance state, without a significant source of checks and balances. Between the lines, many of the surveillance leaks of OTL never occur. Glenn Grenwald is arrested on charges of espionage before he can publish and Snowden captured in the process of fleeing to Bolivia (the forcing down of the Bolivian president's plane creates an international incident) and brought before a military tribunal. The aspects that do get published, the administration is able to successfully pin on conspiracy theories as worry about surveillance becomes increasingly associated with the anti-interventionist fringe in the public eye.
The 2012 election rolls around with Jeb Bush running for the Republicans [this is a storyline I had in mind back in 2014, so I certainly wasn't expecting him to flame out as such this year], and losing by a considerable margin; the economy has improved to the point where Obama is fairly popular. [This is as far as my planning went - if I'd written it out, presumably the story would have developed organically to the point where I'd have a better clue by this point what would come next.]
As an example of a more tangential 'side-story' threads, here's part of where I was going with the carbon tax:
Stringent EPA restrictions on methane emissions [taxing them as the carbon equivalent] results in the collapse of the oil shale industry in the United States. The delayed fracking revolution means that oil prices remain settled in the $100-150/barrel range, fueling Russian aggression and Middle Eastern instability. Although significant advancements are made in containing leakage and returning fracking in the U.S. to profitability by 2016-2020, this is past the scope of the TL.
Instead, a plethora of experienced oil/gas shale engineers and workers soon find themselves as expatriates, for the country with the largest shale gas reserves in the world and few environmental restrictions is willing to welcome them with open arms. News articles in the U.S. soon warn of "Detroit on the Bakken", as the oil fields are "outsourced" to the People's Republic of China, and former oil boomtowns in the Great Plains find themselves becoming veritable ghost towns akin to the relics of the 19th century. Democratic politicians in states like the Dakotas find themselves scapegoated for national regulation [despite attempts to distance themselves from it] and handily drummed out of many offices in 2010 and 2012, as such. Shale gas is especially attractive to the PRC as part of their domestic pollution control plan [which has always been focused primarily on citizen discontent rather than carbon emissions], and heavy adoption of gas power over coal helps stem their rising carbon emissions, giving increased credibility during climate talks [far more relevant in TTL thanks to the U.S. leading the way.]
There are a lot of additional story threads that I also had, but of course they aren't as fully developed as the main thread, and my notes are rather disorganized. So it might be easier if readers could shout if there's anything more specific they wanted to see, were interested in, etc.
