What if? - Hilary won

Author: Theweakeredge

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Theweakeredge
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What if? 

Its a popular question in all regards - whether that be historic, fictional, fantastic, or any other category of life. The question of what if things were different, if this was true, if this wasn't true, are often discussed and debated among people. 

What if Hilary Clinton won the 2016 election?

Hilary Clinton was the democrat's chosen nominee to go up versus Trump, barely beating out Bernie Sanders in the primaries, but she was expected to actually defeat Trump in the election. However, the electoral college vote was clearly Trump. Thus she lost the vote, what if that wasn't the case though? What if Hilary won both the popular and the electoral college vote against Donald Trump in the 2016 election? Let's explain a little bit more of what I'm talking about for those unfamiliar.

Not only after but during the election there were cries everywhere of "Hilary would have been a worse president!" and "She is actually evil!" People essentially saying that the country would have gone down an even worse path if Hilary was elected in 2016, do people think this is true? Do you think she would have done some of the things that Trump did that were wrong (i.e a lot of border stuff), if you think Trump was great, what do you think Hilary would have failed to do that Trump did?

The specific conditions of this would be as follows: The winner of the 2016 election would have Hilary Clinton as the 45th president of the United States of America, she would have been inaugurated as such on January 20th, 2017, at the West Front of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. The Vice President would have been Hilary Clinton's choice of Senator Tim Kaine. As well as her cabinet being reportedly half filled with women, unfortunately we don't know the specifics, but feel free to guess below.

A couple of basic questions:
How would you have reacted to Hilary Clinton winning?
How do you think general America would react?
Would she be a good or a bad president, why?
How would her presidency affect America?
How would her presidency affect the world?
ILikePie5
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1.) Would’ve been really disappointed 
2.) Go on with their lives
3.) Bad cause it’d Obama 3.0
4.) No talk of all the progressives for sure
5.) More endless wars and terror attacks at home
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@Theweakeredge
Less amusing T.V. from the United States....The Trump Circus sure has been entertaining.

But something tells me, that there will be more to come.

Perhaps he will seek exile on his Scottish Golf Course.
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@ILikePie5
BLM would have been ignored like it was under Obama....less race riots.
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@Theweakeredge
Not only after but during the election there were cries everywhere of "Hilary would have been a worse president!" and "She is actually evil!" People essentially saying that the country would have gone down an even worse path if Hilary was elected in 2016, do people think this is true?
She is evil. The body count amassed by her family; the operations of the Clinton Foundation in Haiti; her association with Pizzagate (resulting in the displacement of thousands of emails...) Yes, I think it's true. Would the country have gone down a "worse" path? No. Presidents are merely managers. They do what they're told.

How would you have reacted to Hilary Clinton winning?
Indifferent.

How do you think general America would react?
Some would naturally be upset as others would naturally be elated.

Would she be a good or a bad president, why?
All presidents are the same in their function. Like I stated above, they do what they're told. (The metric of good or bad would be irrelevant.) I suppose if there were presidents I could select as standing out from the rest of the litter, it would be Andrew Jackson and William McKinley.

How would her presidency affect America?
She may have advanced further the stranglehold of social welfare programs, but it would be hard-pressed to pin that on just her since that's been the case as far back as the turn of the last century.

How would her presidency affect the world?
I guess the women of the world would've rejoiced at the inauguration of the first female president, finally putting an end to the unilateral sex-based oppression they've been coaxed into accepting, despite a rich history of female monarchs and leaders. I mean after Obama was elected, we finally accepted that racism was over, right?
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@Athias
but it would be hard-pressed to pin that on just her since that's been the case as far back as the turn of the last century.
Well stated.
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Depends on how Congress changed
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@Theweakeredge
How would you have reacted to Hilary Clinton winning?
First woman as President.  Hooray

How do you think general America would react?
Trump's unexpected win consolidated the left and fractured the right.  I think a Clinton win in 2016 would have reversed this dynamic.  Certainly the intellectual and moral core of the Republican party would have remained Republican- people like Tom Ridge, George Will, Colin Powell, Richard Armitage, Peggy Noonan, MItt Romney, Peggy Noonan, Steve Schmidt, Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina would have voted Republican in 2018 and 2020.  Combined with Clinton's lack of charisma and political baggage, I think Republicans would have retained the house in 2018 and would have been better positioned for 2020.  I see Ted Cruz as likeliest 2020 challenger with at least as good a chance of winning as Biden.

Would she be a good or a bad president, why?
Well, she would have been the kind of President America is supposed to want- smart, moderate, well-versed on the issues, decisive, willing to take risks but I doubt she would have ever achieved better than 50% popularity and I very much doubt she would gotten much accomplished in terms of policy.  The 3 or 4 Supreme Court appointments would have been the major ideological battles.  Mostly, I think it would have been a lot of gridlock, which is not necessarily bad. 

How would her presidency affect America?
The left-wing never got behind Obamacare until Trump's win.  I think Obamacare would have been far more vulnerable with almost no opportunity to recast the legislation.

Let's recall that Wall St. predicted in 2016 that Clinton's first term would have resulted in lackluster growth and $2.2 trillion more in public debt by 2026 while Trump's policies would result in a two year recession beginning in '20 and $11 trillion more in public debt by 2026.  We've certainly seen 4 quarters of recession now and the latest omnibus put Trump's overspending beyond $10 million- probably more like $15-16 trillion by 2026.  That is, by 2026, Trump's single term will have proved responsible for about half of all outstanding US debt with almost no public benefit to show for it.

I'm confident that a Clinton administration would have handled the coronavirus better if only because she would have very likely followed the advice offered by the Obama administration's pandemic playbook, the CDC and economic advisors.  I don't know if Clinton would have  blocked all travel from China by Jan 20 (Trump only blocked foreign nationals on Jan 20 preventing only 20% of travel from China) but she would have very likely halted all travel from Europe before Feb 20, which retrospective analysis suggests would have prevented the spike in New York last April.  While I assume we would still be seeing the worst of the pandemic right now, Boston University projections suggest  that if Clinton had followed the conventional health and economic advice we'd be dealing with perhaps 15 million fewer infected Americans and about 220,000 fewer deaths at this point.  Chances are more resources would have been more targeted to individuals in the bottom half or third of the economy (the only force keeping any Western economy going at this point), improving unemployment and small business failure stats and therefore improving recession recovery time.  Nevertheless, I expect Clinton's better pandemic performance would have been far more disapproved since both the left and the right would have howled over those 100,000 dead, making Democrats 2020 chances that much slimmer.

How would her presidency affect the world?
In 20 or 30 years, when historians start to record when China's ascendancy started in earnest, Trump's spectacular destruction of US soft power globally will be seen as a primary factor.  Certainly, I think Clinton would have tried hard to resubmit TPP in some new guise, the geopolitical point of that partnership was effectively to create an economic cordon around China.  I think most experts agree that Xi would never have declared himself President for Life or blown up Hong Kong's special status under any prior president's foreign policy.

In the Middle East,  a Clinton administration would have preserved the Iran deal and probably prevented bin Salman's 2017 coup- improving the balance of power but probably making a Sunni-Shiite showdown more likely.  I certainly doubt that Israel would be enjoying these new Muslim relationships which Kushner has forged.  I imagine our relationship with Turkey would be much, much colder now.  Jamal Khashoggi would certainly still be alive today if Clinton had been president.

Obviously, our relationships in the EU would much stronger than today, with the possible exception of the UK (which is strong enough to weather a lot of disagreement).

Russia would be far more isolated and poorer under Clinton with some real chance of escalation and conflict.  I don't find it hard to imagine that a Cold War Hawk like Hillary would have made some ultimatums over 2016 Election hacking, the War in Ukraine, sponsoring terrorism, bounties on US soldiers, etc.  If Russian funds had remained on lockdown, we would have seen far less money flowing to the ultra-right nationalists in Europe over the past four years- very likely changing the outcome of elections in Poland and the Ukraine.

I am guessing that both immigration and illegal immigration would have increased during a Clinton presidency, with far fewer detentions and prosecutions and to the general benefit of the US economy.

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@oromagi
Excellent analysis.