Hello Downriver,
One of the greatest — if not the greatest — questions ever asked by anyone is: “What if?”
We do it in life all the time; sometimes it’s a minor question of which path to take on a hike (what if I’d gone left instead of right?), or what meal to prepare for dinner (what if I’d made burgers instead of the fish?).
Sometimes it’s a much more profound question: what would my life have been like if I’d married so-and-s0 instead of butthead?
In literature, that trope has been part of science fiction for generations, best used in such alternative history novels as “The Man in the High Castle,” by Philip Dick — author of, among other novels, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”
(Better known by movie-goers as “Blade Runner.”)
More times than not, the use of an alternative history in fiction is to show how things could be WORSE under different circumstances.
Dick’s “High Castle” is a classic example: The Allies lost World War II and America has been divided into an occupied Nazi east and an Imperial Japanese west.
Many common alternate history stories involve time travel: going back to change something — like killing Hitler or preventing the assassination of JFK.
Indeed, “Making History,” by Stephen Fry uses a time machine to prevent Hitler from being born. The twist? A more competent leader of Nazi Germany arises instead, making the country a dominant player in the 20th century.
Interestingly, most alternate (or counterfactual) stories go into dark directions; an often dystopian view of what could have been.
One of the most classic of stories is Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” in which Ebenezer Scrooge is given a view of a life that could have been — but wasn’t.
Or the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” in which George Bailey sees a world without him in it.
Of course, there are two kinds of “what if?” storylines:
The first is when the person exists solely in the counterfactual and doesn’t known anything different; only the reader is aware of the “truth.” (“High Castle” fits this narrative.)
The second is when a person is aware of the “original” reality, and then experiences the counterfactual. (“It’s a Wonderful Life.”)
Which brings me to the here and now — and those two “what ifs?”
Looking at today, then, what if Trump’s down-escalator ride had stopped inexplicably and he did a faceplant, resulting in guffaws from across the country and an immediate end to his nascent 2016 campaign?
However, he won in 2016, so we have no idea what could have been otherwise.
That fits the first scenario.
But in a sequence no one could have predicted, this brings us to the second scenario: since he DID win in 2016, what if he had lost last fall?
The first question falls into that problem in which we wouldn’t have had any experience with which to compare a non-Trump presidency in 2017, so we wouldn’t appreciate the difference in a no-Trump world.
Which takes us to the 2024 election: Since we KNEW what Trump was like the first time, what if he HADN’T won the second time?
That’s the scenario that’s worth exploring— since we already had a baseline to work with as we entered last year’s presidential race.
In short, we didn’t know what we didn’t know in 2016 — pundit warnings aside — but we definitely knew what to expect in 2024.
And we’ve gotten it.
With both barrels.
So, given what we knew of Trump from the first time, it’s pretty easy to speculate accurately on how things could have been different starting in January of this year.
For instance:
We wouldn’t have had the indiscriminate use of destructive tariffs crippling the economy in ways we still haven’t completely felt.
We wouldn’t have had the destruction of the White House — or the garish Mar-a-Lago treatment of the Oval Office — to fulfill some infantile need for aggrandizement.
We wouldn’t have had the military patrolling our cities, crossing the line established 250 years ago that prohibits using soldiers to perform law enforcement.
We wouldn’t have had arbitrary deportations of people without due process.
We wouldn’t have had threats made to colleges, universities and corporations to stop utilizing perfectly reasonable DEI policies and considering race when making decisions.
We wouldn’t have had threats to the fundamental cornerstone of any democracy: voting rights.
We wouldn’t have had the move toward creating a unitary form of government — in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution.
We wouldn’t have had the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics fired simply because gramps didn’t like bad (but accurate) news.
We wouldn’t have had the continuing fight in Ukraine — because anyone else would have shored up our support of Ukraine, enabling the country to better fight off the Russian invasion.
We wouldn’t have had DOGE — and had given an unelected oligarch the ability to dismantle important and vital government programs without Congressional input.
We wouldn’t have had total incompetents installed in nearly every Cabinet post — from Attorney General (and the FBI) to Agriculture to Commerce to Health and Human Services.
We wouldn’t have had a useful idiot at the head of the Department of Defense, happily sending out confidential war plans and other information over a public social app — and then berating military officers over beards.
We wouldn’t have had a mentally challenged person in charge of America’s health care system, invoking his anti-vac irrationality and lies on our nation.
We wouldn’t have had the destruction of USAID — resulting in the end of vital humanitarian aid to countries around the world.
We wouldn’t have had the creation of self-serving cryptocurrency by a president whose sold goal is to get rich at our expense.
We wouldn’t have had a president’s son-in-law grifting (again) in the Middle East.
We wouldn’t have had the level of attacks on the media that put Richard Nixon to shame.
And, finally, without a Trump, we wouldn’t have had a ruling by six members of the corrupt Supreme Court providing unprecedented — and unconstitutional — immunity to a president.
The list goes on; you can do your own research of what Trump hath wrought on America, but this is a good start.
What we don’t — and can’t — know, of course, is what the administration of anyone other than gramps would be doing right now.
That falls into that first “what if?” scenario.
All we can do is recognize that gramps’ actions would never have happened.
Sure, there are things gramps has done that his supporters will point out as “good things,” but can any of them — or all of them — ever outstrip the litany of damage Donald Trump has done to America?
No.
So I continue to ask: What if he had never won?
Either time.
A note to my readers on Substack: I inadvertently referred to the 2020 election when I of course meant to write “2024.” My apologies. You can find me on Substack.com at “Farrandipity.” It’s free. (And please share with like-minded individuals — and even those who aren’t.) Craig Farrand is a former managing editor of The News-Herald. I can be reached at craig.substack@gmail.com.
