It's important to remember, though, that the post-mortem WAS the game plan going into 2016; the immigration hawks were _losing_ the argument until Trump entered. If you're looking for alternative-history ways to keep Trump from entering 2016, but ALSO redeem the GOP of Trumpism before it's too late, I think the most causally thin one is to have Barack Obama lay off the jokes and just _ignore_ Trump at the WHPC dinner. Trump never enters the 2016 primary, Rubio, Jeb, or Cruz wins it, and _even if they lose the general_, the post-mortem's "pivot to Latinos" is never discredited because any one of them easily manages to increase the GOP share of the Latino vote. Education polarization still trundles along because Hillary/AOC (duh), but without Trump actually winning a primary on immigration, GOP voters never see it as existentially necessary for the entire party to go Trumpist on immigration.
That said, Romney probably pivots harder against Russia, but it merely ends up provoking Putin to follow the same path he has since 2014. Either Bernie or Clinton still loses in 2016 despite pro-Democrat Russian hacking - Putin sees the Dems as easier to push around than Romney [ed: either never realizing that Trump could act as a foreign asset for him, or reluctant to burn an asset he already knows he has]. No immigration deal gets done; there's still a growing anti-immigration backlash coming from the right, it's just being led on the grassroots level by Trump from his perch at Trump TV, which is now the fastest-growing cable "news" channel. Trump probably still even finds some sort of format similar to his rallies, but now he's doing it because he _knows_ Romney has to genuflect to him, and he's happy enough to have all the power of office without inviting all the scrutiny over his dealings with Russia by running for said office. However, Romney handles COVID very well, the GOP never polarizes against vaccines/restrictions with its two-term President leading the charge on the virus, and right now we're probably all arguing about whether President Ryan's historic flight to Ukraine to pose for a photo-op with Zelenksy was just plain stupid, or actually a 6D-chess move.
From The Comments: Alternative Acts
From The Comments: Alternative Acts
From The Comments: Alternative Acts
I dunno... with a 2012 win, it's true that Trump probably feels too old and tired to run in 2020, but we also don't get the post-mortem, ignored as it was.
It's important to remember, though, that the post-mortem WAS the game plan going into 2016; the immigration hawks were _losing_ the argument until Trump entered. If you're looking for alternative-history ways to keep Trump from entering 2016, but ALSO redeem the GOP of Trumpism before it's too late, I think the most causally thin one is to have Barack Obama lay off the jokes and just _ignore_ Trump at the WHPC dinner. Trump never enters the 2016 primary, Rubio, Jeb, or Cruz wins it, and _even if they lose the general_, the post-mortem's "pivot to Latinos" is never discredited because any one of them easily manages to increase the GOP share of the Latino vote. Education polarization still trundles along because Hillary/AOC (duh), but without Trump actually winning a primary on immigration, GOP voters never see it as existentially necessary for the entire party to go Trumpist on immigration.
That said, Romney probably pivots harder against Russia, but it merely ends up provoking Putin to follow the same path he has since 2014. Either Bernie or Clinton still loses in 2016 despite pro-Democrat Russian hacking - Putin sees the Dems as easier to push around than Romney [ed: either never realizing that Trump could act as a foreign asset for him, or reluctant to burn an asset he already knows he has]. No immigration deal gets done; there's still a growing anti-immigration backlash coming from the right, it's just being led on the grassroots level by Trump from his perch at Trump TV, which is now the fastest-growing cable "news" channel. Trump probably still even finds some sort of format similar to his rallies, but now he's doing it because he _knows_ Romney has to genuflect to him, and he's happy enough to have all the power of office without inviting all the scrutiny over his dealings with Russia by running for said office. However, Romney handles COVID very well, the GOP never polarizes against vaccines/restrictions with its two-term President leading the charge on the virus, and right now we're probably all arguing about whether President Ryan's historic flight to Ukraine to pose for a photo-op with Zelenksy was just plain stupid, or actually a 6D-chess move.