Political Memes

It is befuddling reading the sentiment for the majority of the comments on this post.

Having a chief executive in office in 2000 who was super concerned about climate change would have made a big difference.

But hey that's just like my opinion man

Gore won, but lost to a judicial coup.

In 2000 they lost us the climate crisis, in 2016 they lost us women's reproductive rights, and now in 24 they're angling to lose us democracy itself all so they can feel morally superior to those of us that actually have to live the difference they can't see.

Centrist Democrats will always blame progressive discontent for their losses, even if their losses are caused by the Supreme Court undermining democracy itself.

Quit moving to the right, and we'll quit pointing it out.

Yeah so what about Gore and climate crisis? We got a sweet ass pointless Iraq war with Bush. We got to do the most American thing ever, bully a small country for natural resources and stage a regime change. Would have Gore given us that? Pft no. We would have a serious conversation about climate and taken some steps to mitigate everything.

There would also not have been an invasion of Iraq, things like Isis would have probably remained an unkicked hornet's nest.
License to torture at will would not have been granted to government goons.

The threat of hijacking airplanes and smashing them into iconic buildings would have been taken seriously. Which opens up the possibility that 9/11 could have been averted. Then maybe the mouth-breathers at TSA would not have been given the power to profile and harass at airports.

The list goes on: Katrina and New Orleans; the neutralizing of the Consumer Protection Bureau; the typically republican financial free-for-all that led to the collapse of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac.

Then there are Supreme Court appointments, which we get to keep for life, like goddamned herpes.

But since so many ignorant and smug lazy assholes stayed home on Election Day bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe LoL aMiRiTe, everybody got a succession of utterly preventable shit sandwiches.

We can also imagine a reality where Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were collectively not elected and global neoliberalism failed to crystallize.

But this is just day dreaming. The reality is those things didn't happen and here we are.

Bush appointed Roberts and Alito.

I wonder if Citizens United would have come about to cause such damage had Gore been able to appoint two different justices.

I know that's not climate related, but it's a pretty big deal result of the 2000 election shenanigans.

I was so disappointed as a Canadian to see Gore lose. That stolen election was stolen from all of us not just America.

Imagine how different the entire world would be now if Bush/Chaney had never happened.

Yeah I was one of those, was young and edgy, still feel bad about it sometimes but then remember AlGore was a pretty different dude then too. Like, he picked Joe fucking Lieberman as his running mate ffs, so I harbor no illusions that he would have been anything other than status quo. Better than GWB? Oh fuck yeah, in retrospect it's not close, but their campaigns they were basically trying to out-center the other, and both seemed like just slightly different versions of each other. Assuming he would have been a major disruptor in terms of climate initiatives is naive I think.

Also since Al Gore invented the internet (well not really, but it was something he did care about) so maybe there could've been some standards and requirements for inter-operation (which was the direction things were going before Bush) and maybe the internet wouldn't have become the shithole it is now. Yeah it would still be a shithole, but we might've had a shithole that corporations actually had to do a little competition.

Climate Commitment. We’ve been screwed since the ‘90’s. Gore may have mitigated the warming, but a certain amount of warming would have occurred regardless, and will continue even if we achieve net-zero emissions. There is an amount of latent heat already trapped in the atmosphere. The warming we are experiencing now is from the early 2000’s.

I know. I suck. But the science is clear. We done screwed up. Much love to all.

Tell that to SCOTUS. The people voting or debating each other didn't decide 2000.

Having someone who understands the problem is no guarantee that they'll be able to actually do anything about it. The US government, and all governments to a greater or lesser extent, fundamentally serve capital and are beholden to the interests of capitalists.

No president, no matter how far to the left, could possibly save us. They will always delay action as long as possible, when not actively accelerating climate change. We must make this system untenable if we want to save ourselves.

Voting does help, because a hostile government will systematically murder people who resist climate change while a "friendly" one will only imprison some of them. Voting is helpful, but not sufficient. We don't have any more time to waste begging for our lives.

Edit: also, he did win and then there was a coup. This was at least the third right wing coup in the last 60 years. So... Yeah...

america's been fucking its education system in the ass (unconsentingly) since 1980, and now you're a country of redneck morons, exactly per the plan you made. Good job!

suck my balls

Or the DNC could take responsibility for running a man with no charisma, with Joe Lieberman, one of the most hated men in america, as VP on an "I hate Clinton, too" platform while Clinton had 80% approval ratings rather than blaming voters. It's not my job to vote for you. It's your job to try to win by appealing to voters. And you suuuuuuck at it.

Another thing that might have been different with a Gore win: when Bill Clinton left office, the federal government did not have a balanced budget - it had an actual budget surplus of hundreds of billions of dollars. With a continuation of that type of fiscal "conservatism", we could today have been debt-free as a nation. Instead, we have a debt of $34 fucking trillion.

"choices" when the Supreme Court stepped in and decided a winner

Mmm yes but Gore winning wouldn't provide Cheney with lots of lucrative no-bid Halliburton contracts.

Yeah, it's nice to think what could have been, but still feels like a long shot at best.

Honestly doubt it. Money talks. Also the president doesn't make the laws.

There would still be a problem because while the USA have a big responsibility in the fight against climate change, they are far from the only country that needs to do something about it. It's an us problem, not just a U.S. problem.