Most Butterfly Proof President of the 20th Century?

Pres

  • Theodore Roosevelt

    Votes: 31 52.5%
  • William Howard Taft

    Votes: 3 5.1%
  • Woodrow Wilson

    Votes: 2 3.4%
  • Warren G Harding

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Calvin Coolidge

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Herbert Hoover

    Votes: 1 1.7%
  • Franklin D Roosevelt

    Votes: 16 27.1%
  • Harry S Truman

    Votes: 3 5.1%
  • Dwight D Eisenhower

    Votes: 6 10.2%
  • John F Kennedy

    Votes: 8 13.6%
  • Lyndon B Johnson

    Votes: 3 5.1%
  • Richard Nixon

    Votes: 22 37.3%
  • Gerald Ford

    Votes: 1 1.7%
  • Jimmy Carter

    Votes: 1 1.7%
  • Ronald Reagan

    Votes: 10 16.9%
  • George HW Bush

    Votes: 1 1.7%
  • Bill Clinton

    Votes: 7 11.9%
  • George Bush Jr

    Votes: 2 3.4%
  • Barrack Obama

    Votes: 2 3.4%
  • Robert Kennedy

    Votes: 2 3.4%

  • Total voters
    59
Of all the Presidents of the 20th century, which is the most butterfly proof? That is to say, even if the US was colonized by Danish duck merchants, this person seems to, in timeline after timeline, still find a way to the White House?
 

mowque

Banned
This is tough but I like the question. TR, if he is born as the same man, is basically the perfect mix of drive, ambition and intellect. If a man was ever born to lead...
 
I think JFK and Nixon are the least butterflyable, due to their sheer determination to succeed in politics.

Reagan and TR tend to become President in a lot of TLs, but I don't think they're invincible to butterflies; Reagan could easily have decided to stay in the movie industry, and TR had so many interests in his life... Politics was far from the only place TR could have had a successful career.
 
I think the most butterfly proof President is Clinton. Clinton is ALWAYS PRESIDENT. I don't care if WW3 was in 1962 and it took 30 years for the US to rebuild, and there was Marshall law and Pat Buchanan was president in the 80s. Come 1992 or 1996, or 1988, Bill gets the White House.

I think that's followed by TR and Reagan, and the Kennedy's somewhere in there.
 
I think that by the sheer reason of his awesomeness, Theodore Roosevelt is truely the once and future President in every TL, or at very least, is still born the same man, no matter if the POD dates back to the Big Bang. I tend to have his son Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. President in my TLs: the universe would just explode if Quentin would.

Nixon, in terms of trickiness, should really be the butterfly-proff President, and surprisingly, FDR is the most butterflied away President: funny, from the man who was in the White House for so much time.
 
Nixon. The guy's political career survived a major fundraising scandal, a very public defeat in an earlier presidential election, and yet he came back and got to the White House 8 years after said defeat, when 8 years can be a lifetime in the public imagination. He's like the cockroach/Keith Richards/Twinkies of U.S. politics.

TR. Some guys, due to their character, seem to simply have a destiny. He displays that in spades.
 

mowque

Banned
I think the most butterfly proof President is Clinton. Clinton is ALWAYS PRESIDENT. I don't care if WW3 was in 1962 and it took 30 years for the US to rebuild, and there was Marshall law and Pat Buchanan was president in the 80s. Come 1992 or 1996, or 1988, Bill gets the White House..

What? No, Clinton was a dark horse in OTL. That doesn't bode well, unless OTL was an outlier.
 

Glen

Moderator
Of all the Presidents of the 20th century, which is the most butterfly proof? That is to say, even if the US was colonized by Danish duck merchants, this person seems to, in timeline after timeline, still find a way to the White House?

I actually went with FDR - from an old family, with a ferocious will to power that not even paralysis stopped, and the only man to win election to president FOUR TIMES! He would be considered ASB if he weren't real.

I want TR for sheer awesomeness, but I think it must go to FDR.
 
What? No, Clinton was a dark horse in OTL. That doesn't bode well, unless OTL was an outlier.

I will go on record saying in half of all timelines, keeping in mind that includes many lazy or otherwise not great timelines given our genre, Bill Clinton becomes President.

Go to the Alternate History Wikia, and Seach it and I bet you'll see that time and again. And in AH books that often happens. And even here that often happens.

He is the poster boy for the butterfly proof president.
 
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Glen

Moderator
I think that by the sheer reason of his awesomeness, Theodore Roosevelt is truely the once and future President in every TL, or at very least, is still born the same man, no matter if the POD dates back to the Big Bang. I tend to have his son Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. President in my TLs: the universe would just explode if Quentin would.

Um, did you ever read The XXth Century?

Nixon, in terms of trickiness, should really be the butterfly-proff President, and surprisingly, FDR is the most butterflied away President: funny, from the man who was in the White House for so much time.

Completely disagree.
 
TR just because of the math involved. He wouldn't have gotten the nomination had McKinley not died.

FDR and Nixon are the ones who personally have the determination and drive to become President that they probably will.

Clinton also is butterfly-proof not out of plausibility but of laziness and shoddy research.
 

Thande

Donor
If we're talking actual objective plausibility rather than just what people put in out of laziness, I say Reagan--people were predicting he would be president from 1968 onwards, I don't think anyone else on the list was consistently considered a prospective candidate for 12 years prior to them actually becoming president.

You could say JFK is inevitable due to being part of a dynasty, but you can easily imagine his older brother living and him becoming the obvious candidate instead.
 
If we're talking actual objective plausibility rather than just what people put in out of laziness, I say Reagan--people were predicting he would be president from 1968 onwards, I don't think anyone else on the list was consistently considered a prospective candidate for 12 years prior to them actually becoming president.
Ehhhh, even after the failure of the government in Vietnam, Watergate, and Carter, Reagan only won 50% of the vote. Bush in 2004. Ford's close loss to Carter makes Reagan easier to butterfly away. He's like TR: Presidential, but probably an outlier in getting actual power.
You are right about the hypothetical Presidency thing, but FDR, LBJ, and Nixon were considered future presidents early in their careers. As was Hillary...
 
I think JFK and the Kennedy's comes from a bit of feeling bad for the family if they don't get it, because they want it so bad, and tried for it so hard, so if no Kennedy ever becomes president, its like the kid whose balloon flew away.

But, there's also a dozen other dynasty families that didn't get a Presidency.
 
If you take into account that this is the post-1900 forum, surely TR is the most butterfly proof? Obviously the biggest tangent is the McKinley assassination...

Also JFK seems to pop up in most timelines as well. Same with Clinton (sex scandal accompanied)
 
Nixon. The media hated him and he still became President. If you can overcome those odds, not even Mothra can stop you. Being a self-made man make it easy to claw and knife your way to the top.
 
I voted Nixon, for ther reasons others cited.

Why is Robert Kennedy on the list - I don't recall him being POTUS? Also, to be even more pedantic, why are Bush (the younger) and Obama on the list - neither served as POTUS during the 20th century?
 

Japhy

Banned
I would say in General the big three are TR, and JFK, and FDR. That said, as any former denizen of the old Othertimelines.com sites could tell you, there was barely a timeline posted there finished that didn't include Bill Clinton. (Never mind that most of those completed timelines were by one fellow who was obsessed with Clinton...)
 
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