Blogroll time: David Brin. And Alternate History

And up onto the Blogroll goes another person way to my political left (at least in current late-stage BDS form, that is), David Brin. Most recently, going gaga over Gore's latest gushing. But before that, speculating on a rather odd Utopian vision of what the world might have been like had 2000 gone the other way.

Which is an interesting question to think about. First off, there are many different ways that it could have transpired, each of which would generate different domestic political landscapes. If Gore had had enough votes to take FL from the first count onward (the 'butterfly-ballot-minus' option), the GOP would be, more or less, where it was in '96 and '98 for some time further. If things procede as they did in our timeline all the way up to the Supreme Court, which rules the other way and orders a recount that gives Gore a narrow margin of victory, you get the 'stolen election' meme on the other foot, at least as strong and widespread. You could get that, even worse, in scenarios involving the Florida legislature sending a separate block of electors, decisions in the House, and/or rogue electors.

Foreign policy could go different ways as well, of course. Assuming the the success of the 9/11 conspiritors was more inevitable than contingent and thus that butterfly effects from any historical change don't prevent it from happening, how does Gore respond? My suspicion is the same way Bush did, initially, which is to say with war with Afghanistan, but I don't see the 'Rumsfeld Doctrine' small-mobile-forces appealing to a Gore SecDef. So probably a Schwartzkopf Doctrine overwhelming force approach; hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground, with most of them still there nation-building years later. Coin-flip as to whether Osama is killed with a body found or if he's able to keep releasing Seldon tapes every so often, at least as many US military casualties as we've had in Afghanistan and Iraq together but at less political cost. And no action against Iraq other than perhaps a round of airstrikes or two.

So that takes us to '04. Next question: who does the GOP run for president, and does that person win? On the one hand, the electorate would likely be just as culturally 'red-state' in the red states, and the 'blue-staters' likely quite dissatisfied with Gore's limited progress on those issues. On the other, the 'War on Terror' issue doesn't play out nearly as well for the GOP at this point; any proposed action would require first 'cutting and running' in Afghanistan, or massive increases in the size of the military...