Trading Places
My Unfortunately-Not-Too-Realistic Attempt to Flip Political Ideologies over the Course of Just 20 Years
George W.
Bush (born July 6, 1946) served as the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. In 2000, he was elected America’s 43rd US President over incumbent Vice-President Al
Gore in the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote in a historically narrow and disputed election. After the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks and subsequent Invasion of Afghanistan, Bush invaded Iraq in the first half of 2002 (the POD), which was soon followed by rumors of plans of invading Iran or Pakistan soon afterwards. Meanwhile, US Senator Hillary
Clinton began openly opposing the direction the President was taking in combating terrorism while not opposing the war outright. With more and more of the budget being redirected to the wars overseas, Americans grew restless as terrorist leader Osama
bin Laden went uncaptured and Hussein’s WMDs failed to surface. The 2002 midterms were a reflection of the growing discontent:
Cleland and
Wellstone narrowly won re-election, and Jean
Carnahan and Jeanne
Shaheen won their respective races as well; the Democrats narrowly held majority of the Senate. 2003 and early 2004 saw an unsuccessful primary challenge from Senator Lincoln
Chafee, and several Bush domestic policy bills fail to pass into law. The 2004 election was narrow, but not that unexpected.
2004
Democratic: US Sen. Hillary D. R. Clinton (NY)/US Sen. Bob Graham (FL) – 49.74% – 60,829,456 popular votes – 19 states and DC – 275 electoral votes
Republican: Gov. George W. Bush (TX)/Fmr US Sec. of Def. Dick Cheney (WY) – 49.17% – 60,132,376 popular votes – 31 states – 263 electoral votes
All others candidates & votes – 1.09% – 1,364,014 popular votes – 0 states – 0 electoral votes
Hillary
Clinton (born October 26, 1947) was America’s first female President. She previously served as First Lady of the United States before being elected to the US Senate in 2000. After much consideration, she opted to enter the race for the US Presidency in May 2003 despite a 2000 campaign promise to serve for a full US Senate term of six years. Clinton narrowly won in the 2004 primaries over challengers John
Kerry, Howard
Dean, Dick
Gephardt and Wesley
Clark (despite losing poorly in Iowa and New Hampshire, she bounced back in the South during Super Tuesday and increased momentum after Kerry ran out of funding, clinching the nomination in May over Dean, the sole major candidate left in the race), and chose retiring US Senator Bob
Graham as her running mate to nullify questions concerning her lack of experience, including in foreign policy. This made for a ticket more conservative than pervious Democratic tickets, angering some liberals and former Dean supporters whom, without a viable third-party candidate to vote for, largely opted to stay home on election day. 2004 is sometimes called the Year of the Woman due to the election of not only Hillary Clinton to the Presidency, but also of several women to the House and Senate; these included Lisa
Murkowski, Betty
Castor, and Denise
Majette. John Neely
Kennedy (D-LA) was also elected. After this historic election, many hoped the wars overseas would come to an end. In early 2005, though, a US military jet being shot down over Pakistan was seen as reason enough to invade that nation, focusing on “sniffing out” terrorists in the Waziristan autonomous region. Her domestic policies, which heavily favored big business and Wall Street, damaged her approval ratings. By 2006, the now three wars overseas were only worsening under a White House uncertain which wars, if any, were winnable. The Democrats lost heavily in that year's midterm elections; Republican Lincoln
Chafee won re-election over Democrat Sheldon
Whitehouse; Republican Michael
Steele won over Democrat Ben
Cardin in Maryland; Republican Thomas
Kean Jr. won over Democrat Bob
Menendez in New Jersey; Republican Rick
Santorum won by a .05% margin over Democrat Bob
Casey Jr. (later PA Governor 2011-2019); Republican Ken
Blackwell was narrowly elected Governor of Ohio over Democrat Ted
Strickland; Republican George
Allen narrowly won over Democrat Jim
Webb in a controversial US Senate election that led to recount after recount until Webb finally conceded in May 2007, having lost by a mere 23 votes. Things worsened in late 2007 when the economy suddenly soured, and Clinton made the gaffe of referring to thousands of people losing money and/or their homes as an economic “hiccup.” Senator Paul
Wellstone threatened to challenge her in the Democratic primaries, but ultimately declined due to poor health (he would die in office in early 2009 and be quickly succeeded by Al
Franken). The 2008 general election was again a predictable occurrence.
2008
Republican: US Sen. John McCain (AZ)/US Sen. Lincoln Chafee (RI) – 52.23% – 68,585,209 popular votes – 35 states – 328 electoral votes
Democratic: US Pres. Hillary Clinton (NY)/US VP Bob Graham (FL) – 44.67% – 58,657,883 popular votes – 15 states and DC – 209 electoral votes
Green: US HoR Dennis Kucinich (OH)/Fmr Mayor Matt Gonzalez (CA) – 2.14% – 2,810,113 popular votes – 0 states – 1 electoral vote (faithless elector from Washington)
All others candidates & votes – 0.96% – 1,260,614 popular votes – 0 states – 0 electoral votes
Hillary Clinton lost re-election in a landslide, with 2.1% of the vote (mainly anti-Clinton liberals) going to third-party candidate Dennis
Kucinich (whom chose former Mayor of San Francisco (2003-2007) Matt Gonzalez to be his running mate). However, in early December 2008, outgoing President Clinton was able to obtain one more victory when a Navy SEAL team successfully captured Osama
bin Laden (however, he killed himself while awaiting trial in mid-2009). The new President, John
McCain (born August 29, 1936) rode into the White House on the promise of returning order to the nation’s economy and foreign policy. He had won the nomination in a crowded field that included George
Allen, Lincoln
Chafee, Ron
Paul, Mitt
Romney, Fred
Thompson, Rudy
Giuliani, Tom
Ridge, Rick
Santorum, Duncan
Hunter, Mark
Sanford and others. Despite some initially poor debate performances, Chafee did surprisingly well among moderate voters in the primaries and polled well among independents; after considering Governors
Palin,
Pawlenty and
Barbour, among many others, McCain chose Chafee to be his running mate, correctly believing conservatives would still back the GOP ticket over Clinton. However, while gradually withdrawing troops from Pakistan and Iraq, President McCain kept troops in Afghanistan and increased hostilities with Russia; furthermore, his domestic proposals were criticized by many for not being conservative enough. Regardless, in late 2009, the Republican-majority House and Republican-majority Senate passed what the Democrats soon dubbed “McCaincare.” However, McCain’s many plans were cut short on February 27, 2010. On this day, President McCain was visiting the President of Chile in Santiago, Chile on a diplomat trip concerning trade when the 8.8-magnitude
2010 Chile Earthquake struck the capital. While Chilean President Michelle
Bachelet survived with only a bruised arm, McCain and two Secret Servicemen were crushed when the center of the ceiling of their room caved in, as they were unable to escape their location quickly enough. The US President received extensive wounds to his chest, and died from internal bleeding from several punctured organs within hours. John McCain was the first President to die in office since John F. Kennedy was killed in office in 1963.
The new President, former US Senator Lincoln
Chafee (born March 26, 1953), soon saw an opportunity to expand moderate support in the GOP, and tried to force the party to make a sharp turn to the left (for instance, packing his cabinet with liberals such as Olympia
Snowe, David
Patraeus, Tom
Ridge and Tom
Casperson), and in doing so ruffled many conservative feathers. His liberal economic policies sparked outrage among the GOP, leading to a close but ultimately unsuccessful primary challenge in 2012 in the form of outgoing US Senator Rick
Santorum, whom opposed the Supreme Court’s 2011 decision on gay marriage, which Chafee supported. At the convention, Chafee decided to show consistency over calls to make a unifying ticket by picking the incumbent VP, former Ohio Governor Bob
Taft, an exact centrist, to be his running mate. He famously proclaimed “If the Republican party continues to do the bidding of America’s lowest common denominators it will be doomed to the wrong side of history forever. We must be better than that; we must strive to protect America’s future and learn from America’s past, not disregard America’s future and not alter, through disregard or exaggeration, America’s past.” Meanwhile, in the 2012 Democratic primaries, a plurality of liberals supported freshman US Senator Mark
Udall of Colorado; however, liberal votes were split among him and several other candidates (Al
Franken, Brian
Schweitzer, Denise
Majette, Joe
Biden, and Russ
Feingold), allowing conservative candidate Donald
Trump, a New York businessman (running on a near-quixotic “the best way to keep the planet green is to kill all the terrorists” platform many within the party found offensive and close-minded), to win the primaries via plurality after plurality. Trump chose one-term incumbent Governor Baron
Hill of Indiana, another conservative “blue dog” conservative Democrat, to be his running mate. Not long after the GOP convention, former Governor
Huckabee decided to form a third-party conservative ticket; this was believed to likely divide the conservative vote between Trump and Huckabee, confirming a Chafee victory. However, state results were unexpected.
2012
Republican: US Pres. Lincoln Chafee (RI)/US VP Bob Taft (OH) – 45.21% – 58,359,514 popular votes – 30 states and DC – 271 electoral votes (1 from a Mississippi faithless elector)
Democratic: Businessman Donald Trump (NY)/Gov. Baron Hill (IN) – 45.49% – 58,720,953 popular votes – 17 states and DC – 253 electoral votes
True Conservative: Fmr Gov. Mike Huckabee (AR)/US HoR Michelle Bachmann (MN) – 7.36% – 9,501,687 popular votes – 3 states – 14 electoral votes
Green: Fmr US HoR Dennis Kucinich (OH)/Fmr US HoR R. Bradley Miller (NC) – 1.19% – 1,536,296 popular votes – 0 states – 0 electoral votes
All others candidates & votes – 0.75% – 968,132 popular votes – 0 states – 0 electoral votes
In a surprising turn, though, in November Chafee narrowly won in the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote to Donald Trump (a feat that Trump would happily boast about until his dying day). The South saw a mass of pluralities and accusations of voter fraud as two Deep South states narrowly went to Huckabee and Georgia went to Trump by a surprisingly large margin. Trump’s unexpectedly strong grassroots campaign brought in more votes from traditionally Republican states such as Arizona and Texas, suggesting that the Democratic party could find strength (and victory in 2014 and 2016) by appealing more to these voters. Emboldened by the victory (possible by favoring legalizing marijuana, which narrowly brought in States like Colorado and Maine; a quick response to Hurricane Sandy also helped win over some independents as well), Chafee butted heads with conservatives – both politicians and voters – even further, especially with his refusal to expand McCaincare. Some conservatives (leaders) threatened to support expelling him from the party; others (backers) threatened to support impeaching him; others (individuals) threatened his life, and one of them (specifically, an ultraconservative unemployed man with adequate shooting skills) succeeded on June 1, 2014. Chafee is now buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Robert Alphonso “Bob”
Taft III (born January 8, 1942) was the great grandson of US President William Howard Taft, and served as Governor of Ohio from 1999 to 2007 before serving as America’s VP from 2010 to 2014. A strongly centrist individual, Taft tried to heal the wounds of a fractured party but still retain his positions; he was willing to compromise, and was more effective in that regard than Chafee. Taft was less prone to gaffes than Chafee as well, a quality of Chafee that many have since either forgotten or simply downplayed. However, Taft, at age 74, declined to run for a full term in early 2015. Former Governor Jon
Huntsman Jr. (US Ambassador to China from mid-2009 to mid-2015) (whose birthday was the same day as Chafee's), won the nomination over 73-year-old US Senator Kay Bailey
Hutchison of Texas and 69-year-old former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt
Romney. The Democrats’ establishment leaders, meanwhile, tried to lead the party back to its more moderate/liberal ideas, but the primary voters that supported Trump instead rallied around an even more conservative Democrat. A man that represented stability to many and chaos to others at the same time. In November, the results were shocking to the former people and joyous to the latter people.
2016
Democratic: Gov. David Alexander Clarke Jr. (WI)/Gov. Mitchell J. “Mitch” Landrieu (LA) – 42.42% – 57,979,321 popular votes – 23 states and DC – 271 electoral votes
Republican: Fmr Ambassador Jon Huntsman Jr. (UT)/US Sen. Michael Steele (MD) – 43.01% – 58,785,432 popular votes – 24 states – 243 electoral votes
Revolutionary/Independent: US Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT)/US HoR Alan Grayson (FL) – 10.47% – 14,310,315 popular votes – 3 states – 22 electoral votes (3 from faithless electors in California)
Libertarian: Activist Austin Petersen (MO)/Actress Melissa Joan Hart (CT) – 1.83% – 2,501,228 popular votes – 0 states – 0 electoral votes
Marijuana: Actor Corey Feldman (CA)/Actor Corey Haim (FL) – 0.94% – 1,284,783 popular votes – 0 states – 0 electoral votes
Constitution: Fmr US HoR Harley D. Brown (ID)/Fmr US HoR Ben Lewis Jones (GA) – 0.56% – 765,403 popular votes – 0 states – 1 electoral vote (from an Idaho faithless elector)
All others candidates & votes – 0.77% – 1,052,130 popular votes – 0 states – 1 electoral vote (for Colin Powell, from a Texas faithless elector)
David
Clarke (born August 21, 1956), America’s first African-American President, held beliefs contrary to those of most African-Americans. After winning the Wisconsin Governor’s mansion in the 2012 recall election and subsequent 2014 election, the former Sheriff Clarke became Trump’s “chosen successor” in the 2016 presidential primaries. In a crowded field that included Cory
Booker, Andrew
Cuomo, Mark
Warner, Bob
Casey Jr., and several other candidates, Clarke won by being an effective debater and campaigner. Clarke convinced Mitch
Landrieu, the former Mayor of New Orleans (2010-2016) elected Governor of Louisiana in 2015, to be his running mate despite being Governor for less than a year. Running on a harsh and hawkish law-and-order platform, the South didn’t really know what to make of the conservative African-American Governor but voted for him out of opposition to Huntsman and other liberal candidates. Senator Bernie
Sanders ran as a democratic-socialist alternative to the technocratic Huntsman and “hater” Clarke, whom many saw as having “hijacked” the Democratic Party. Sanders heavily campaigned in California, hoping to deadlock the Electoral College, but instead gave the state to Huntsman (35% Huntsman - 34% Sanders - 30% Clarke - 1% other). Constitution candidate Harley Davidson
Brown, a former Congressman for one term (2011-2013), obtained an impressive 9% in his home state of Idaho. Clarke won in the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote; attempts to deny him the presidency through the Electoral College failed. Liberal Republicans (by now the main faction in the GOP) placed much of the blame for Clarke’s victory on the top three third-party candidates (Sanders,
Petersen, and
Feldman), all of whom drained votes away from the Huntsman campaign. Under Clarke, the US increased foreign engagement, invading Iran over accusations of developing WMDs in an event similar to what unfolded under George W. Bush’s term. Clarke overturned the environmental policies of the Chafee/Taft administrations, and racial relations crumbled even further in the inner cities; Clarke actively cracked down on liberal protest organizations, which only weakened relations between liberal and conservative voters and receive perpetual ridicule from the press. The 2018 nuclear strike on North Korea was the breaking point for many; over it, Clarke famously stated, “This administration had just cause for leveling Pyongyang, and that’s the end of it. Through the chaos we will maintain order in all inferior overseas nations, whether the locals like it or not!” In 2018, the Republicans regained the Senate by 1 seat, and narrowly won back the House; they soon pushed for impeachment, but narrowly missed the number of votes needed. With approval ratings so low they were practically underwater, it was to nobody’s surprise that Clarke lost re-election:
2020
Republican: Actor Dwayne Johnson (CA)/Gov. Charlie Baker (MA) – 60.85% – 84,039,122 popular votes – 34 states and DC – 342 electoral votes
Democratic: US Pres. David A. Clarke Jr. (WI)/US VP Mitch Landrieu (LA) – 37.97% – 52,445,476 popular votes – 16 states – 196 electoral votes
All others candidates & votes – 1.18% – 1,629,857 popular votes – 0 states – 0 electoral votes
Dwayne Douglas
Johnson (born 5/2/1972) was the first US President to have neither political nor military experience, and the first US President under the age of 50 since Bill Clinton. Johnson was a professional wrestler-turned-actor whom finally threw his hat into the presidential ring after literal years of calls for him to do so. In the primaries, he defeated candidates Rand
Paul, Tom
Corbett, Charlie
Baker, Will
Hurd, and Mia
Love quite easily, and chose Baker to be his running mate to add administrative experience to the ticket. The November election saw millennials pour out to the polls in record numbers; however, many in the Midwest and South still voted for Clarke due to him having kept his promise to produce jobs (after all, cleaning up a radiated Asian peninsula requires a lot of domestic decontamination products to be manufactured). Already speculative Democratic candidates for the 2024 election include Senators John Neely
Kennedy, Jay
Nixon, Joe
Sestak, and Bradley
Ellsworth, and incumbent Governors Gabby
Giffords of Arizona and Robin
Carnahan of Missouri. However, re-election of President Dwayne Johnson looks inevitable in the face of high approval ratings.
2001-2005: 43) George Walker Bush (R-TX) – age in office: 54-58
2005-2009: 44) Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton (D-NY) – age in office: 57-61
2009-2010: 45) John Sidney McCain III (R-AZ) – age in office: 72-73
2010-2014: 46) Lincoln Davenport Chafee (R-RI) – age in office: 57-61
2014-2017: 47) Robert Alphonso “Bob” Taft III (R-OH) – age in office: 72-75
2017-2021: 48) David Alexander Clarke Jr. (D-WI) – age in office: 60-64
2021-present: 49) Dwayne Douglas Johnson (R-FL) – age in office: 48-present