What if? Al Gore refuses to concede, instead attempting a Taiwan-style split.

fashbasher

Banned
Let's say the POD is that there is smoking-gun evidence of partisanship in Florida and the SCOTUS but the Electoral College still votes Bush and the House and Senate refuse to overturn them.

Gore begins looking for, and attempting to create relations with, foreign countries; the first country that recognizes Gore as president (Gore is able to convene a few dozen electors to form a rival Electoral College) is Nauru. He does not condone violence against the Bush government at first but does begin appointing his own cabinet secretaries-designate and begins looking for territory for his loyalists to hold in the event that an attempt is made to capture him; Lieberman is dispatched to Nauru, where the local government promises to support him.
 
Along the same lines, what if Al Gore, in an attempt to win back the Dixiecrat vote, proposes a constitutional amendment to re-legalize chattel slavery? I could see this having a detrimental effect on his ability to maintain African-American support.
 
Gore would be charged with treason for dealing with foreign governments against the lawfully elected USA president. Come on, people, Gore's an idiot, but he's not stupid......So, this entire thread would just be W's nightmare, he'll wake up in the morning of the 22nd of January, and say to Laura as she steps out of the shower "Honey, I just had the strangest dream....."
 
Gore would be charged with treason for dealing with foreign governments against the lawfully elected USA president. Come on, people, Gore's an idiot, but he's not stupid......So, this entire thread would just be W's nightmare, he'll wake up in the morning of the 22nd of January, and say to Laura as she steps out of the shower "Honey, I just had the strangest dream....."

Nightmare? Sounds like a dream come true for W. Tom DeLay would be saying that Democrats should redeem themselves in the eyes of the people by not running a Presidential candidate in 2004.
 
Nightmare? Sounds like a dream come true for W. Tom DeLay would be saying that Democrats should redeem themselves in the eyes of the people by not running a Presidential candidate in 2004.

Nightmare, cuz W would end the dream with Al being successful.....
 

Wallet

Banned
Absolutely no one would support this. Gore is asking for a civil war. The United States was currently experiencing the largest and more prosperous economic boom in its history. The world was at peace and the US was the undisputed superpower.

No American, not even Gore's most audacious supporters, would want a fight when everyone was happy and contempt. No country is going to piss the country off. Gore has no political support. No democrat is going to commit suicide like this.

Eventually Gore's extended family commits him to a mental hospital. The democrats look foolish and gore has completely discredited the environmental movement. Bush now has sky high approval ratings as the "sane" guy and even democrats are glad he won
 
Here's something else to consider, even the most die-hard of "Bush-stole-the-election" advocates still believe that rightly or wrongly, George W. Bush won a large bloc of electoral votes and a large minority of the popular vote. It isn't like some ASB brainwashed the electors to all pick Buchanan or Nader, who comparatively no one voted for. One benefit of FPP voting is that, while it does reduce the options to just 2 (or occasionally 3), it confers significant legitimacy to the loser and tempers the mandate of the victor.

Besides, there's a well-known OTL precedent in the 1960 election of Nixon choosing to concede to JFK despite very dubious Cook County returns and far more hardcore ballot-stuffing there and elsewhere. The "Bush Stole the Election" rhetoric is all good political gamesmanship and positioning for opposition, but it'd stop real quick when the candidate decides to go so rogue as to set up a shadow presidency like this.
 
If Gore tried this,then at best he gets put in a mental hospital.

At worst,he might be tried for treason. Besides,no one will follow him aside from maybe a few die hard supporters.

Honestly it's more likely he becomes an activist for getting rid of the Electoral College,atleast that would make some sense.
 

Art

Monthly Donor
Instead of that question, how about Bush concedes because 15,000 more people voted for Gore?
 
Instead of that question, how about Bush concedes because 15,000 more people voted for Gore?

Then Gore wins, and we have a number of timelines on that general subject.

That said, the real nightmare would be Gore having a small lead, the recounts taking forever, and the Rehnquist Court ruling that with such questionable results and so little time left, Florida's electors should be thrown out and the issue goes to the House. Then Bush is still President, but it'd seem a hundred times less legitimate.
 
In addition to what everyone else has said, there's no way Nauru would support a pretender to the US Presidency. Given the vast difference in size and power between Nauru and the US (Nauru only has a little over 10,000 people) there's no way Nauru would even think of going against America (also Nauru is basically a client state of Australia).
 
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