Tuesday, August 12, 2025

Relitigating 2016

 So...I saw some resist lib type voter shaming someone who didn't buy the "but the court" argument in 2016, and I wanted to explain how the situation seemed different back then, and why blaming bernie or busters for not voting for clinton is pointless.

Thanks, Captain Hindsight!

So...I fully acknowledge that trump winning in 2016 put us on a collision course with the current reality. And that includes a 6-3 SCOTUS that consistently votes in favor of the trump administration. And it might seem easy to just say if those bernie bros voted for clinton everything would be fine. I'm not sure if it would.

The fact is, I'll admit that yeah, we were wrong in retrospect about voting third party if the dems admit they sucked and gave us turds the last 3 elections. It takes multiple to tango here.

The democrats have a poor electoral strategy. They just do. They actively ALIENATED us "bernie or busters". Clinton came in acting entitled to the presidency and just demanded we support her, and that isn't how elections work. Votes have to be earned, candidates aren't entitled to them. To say otherwise gives up on the pretense of democracy in its own way. And let's face it, it wasn't just 2016 here, it was 2020 and 2024. 

The "but the court" argument emerged in early 2015 as ammo to use on bernie supporters who were getting increasingly pissed off at the hostility we were recieving from the clinton camp. A lot of us were so pissed off we started floating the idea of not voting for her, to which they would respond we had to. "But the court" was one such cynical talking point. They listed the ages of the 4 oldest justices and said they could die at any time and we HAD to vote for hillary or else. Then Scalia died when Obama was still in office, and the senate obstructed the replacement of scalia. Not a huge deal, a right winger replacing a right winger. Then the right got kennedy to retire. He didnt die. he stepped down and was replaced. And then RBG died. And the RBG one was the one that really hurt. She and kennedy were preserving the balance of the court. Kennedy was a moderate conservative who would shift left at times, leading to the 50/50 nature of it (he was the "swing" justice), and RBG was very liberal, but yeah. We could easily say that she should've stepped down when Obama was still in office. But she was prideful and didn't. And then died of cancer. 

Anyway, again, the fact that this WOULD happen wasnt really known at the time. it was speculation. Fear mongering. An attempt to bully an unhappy voter base into supporting a candidate they never wanted. And let's face it, Thomas is likely going to be up for replacement in the next decade too, maybe by 2028 or 2032.  Alito is too. So let's not act like there isnt a literal revolving door of SCOTUS justices here. They're all old, and they're replaced semi frequently. It's only when one party controls the white house for a long time that one party dominates it, like how FDR and Nixon/Reagan shaped the court in their image. Trump got lucky. And even then, only 2 actually DIED, they actively made the 3rd one resign to get someone younger. It's almost as if political parties should pressure their aging justices to step down to avoid something like this from happening *gives dems the stinkeye on the RBG situation*.

But no, let's blame the voters instead!

Discussing electoral trends

I have a theory of elections that the side that wins is typically the side more enthusiastic for their candidate. And here was my fear if Clinton won 2016: that she would  squander her presidency, do nothing, and then the voters would be pissed by 2020 and would ENTHUSIASTICALLY support a right winger. And it wouldve happened. COVID was gonna happen. Clinton wouldve gotten blamed. ANd the dems would've likely lost 2020. And we wouldve gotten a republican. It mightve even been trump again. And trump mightve tried being a sore loser in 2016 as well, doing his big lie crap if he lost. He said stuff about not accepting election results back then. So the same trends would have happened, but in a different order. 

The fact is, in our time line, because clinton lost 2016, trump won, he went on to lose to biden in 2020, and came back smelling like roses in 2024. In another timeline, clinton would've won 2016, lost in 2020, and MAYBE we'd get another candidate in 2024? I dont even know. It's possible that the republicans would've been able to spin the facts of the covid recovery in their favor.

The fact is, no matter what order of events things happened in, the following remains the same. We got strong republicans looking to score ideological victories, and weak democrats. We got double standards where dems are scrutinized for everything they do, while republicans just lie and get away with stuff. And to be fair, this dynamic has existed since the fall of the new deal coalition in 1968. The only way to break it is if we get bold democrats again who fight, but the party establishment will never ever do that. Again, that leads back to weak dems who squander opportunities and lose to republicans, and republicans who govern terribly but half the country loves them anyway because 1) they're stupid and 2) the republicans just lie their way out of stuff. Again, how does clinton winning avoid this dynamic?

To be fair...

Now, to be fair, I think clinton losing in 2016 and trump winning set up the timeline the way we have experienced it. This means biden won 2020, trump threw a hissy fit and did january 6th. He took an increasingly authoritarian and fascist turn, and when he got back into power he did a hitler. This escalation is a result of this specific timeline. A leads to B, B leads to C. If we stopped A, maybe C wouldn't have happened. That is true, and everything specific to this timeline happened because trump won in 2016.

BUT...again, I dont think the alternative would've been a picnic. If clinton won 2016 she almost certainly would've lost in 2020. And I feared the long term consequences of THAT. Because after 12 years of democrats doing barely anything, the country would've been in a mood for a change in a big way. And the republicans didnt look like they were moderating any time soon. At the time I thought that if trump won, that the country would turn on trump and dems would have a second chance. I feared if clinton was president in 2020, that the republicans would win in a landslide. The fact that COVID was inevitable just makes this even more of a reality. And the GOP would be....at best 80% as bad as they are now. The tea party sucked too. They wanted to cut medicaid too. Deporting immigrants, I doubt we'd see camps like we have now. I doubt we'd have them being out and out as bad as they are now, but they would've been bad. And keep in mind, trump, as bad as he is, isn't the only factor that we need to consider here. It was the heritage foundation that wrote project 2025. It was people like JD vance, elon musk, and peter thiel pushing their dark enlightenment nonsense. That stuff seemed to come out of nowhere but it's highly possible we would've seen it happen anyway. THis is how billionaires think. They dont want democracy, they want feudalism, and the kinds of changes were seeing from trump are the kinds of long term changes the billionaire class has wanted to see for decades now. This is the culmination of the neoliberal project. A destruction of democracy and a country where they just rule openly.

Again, even if clinton won in 2016, would that have stopped long term trends? I'm not sure.

As such, is religitating the past even worth doing?

The fact is, it's too hard to know what would have been if clinton won in 2016. I honestly think we would be facing a different reality following the same trends. Because the dynamic between the republicans and democrats wouldnt change, we'd just flip one election, which changes the order in which they occupy power. It wouldnt change the larger trend. Maybe SCOTUS would be more liberal, although its possible of clinton won, mcconnell wouldve just refused to fill any seats until a republican president happened anyway. 

I think the big thing we gotta come to terms with is the democrats are weak and feckless, and the republicans make gains because they fight like hell. As long as that dynamic exists, then I dont think the long term end result is much different. It's possible that if we had clinton in office in 2016, we'd llive in a different reality, but the long term implications of that reality are debatable. Would it be better? Maybe, maybe not. We can speak all we want out of hindsight, but hindsight is always 20/20. 2016, 2020, and 2024 were all pivotal elections. All contribute to the modern realignment. Just because you flip one doesnt mean you avert disaster. It just makes the train wreck play out differently. That's my honest opinion.

Again, if clinton won 2016, the GOP would've won 2020 and who knows what would've happened after that? Maybe the dems would win again, but it would be like a 2020 style win where they'd lose again in 2028. Or maybe 2024 would end up being like 1984 where the republicans get inflation under control and everyone says republicans are good for the economy for the next...40 years. It's hard to say. Either way, I dont think either outcome would be good for democrats or the left, because the dynamics dont allow for it. And thats what we should be focusing on now. Yeah yeah yeah things would be different if bernie or busters united behind clinton. But the democrats still sucked, and it's hard to say what the long term prospects would be if the dems won. I honestly think the same dynamic wouldve happened and we'd eventually end up in the same place. Im a bit of a fatalist. As long as republicans TRY to win ideological gains, and the democrats dont, we're just spiraling down the flushing toilet. We might spin differently in timeline B vs imeline A, but we all go down the drain either way. 

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