But my whole point is it's not ASB. Anybody could make a thread where they what if so and so became president with absolute control of Congress. But my point is that Cheney was actually in the position of becoming president IOTL. I get that there are timelines where Cheney became President in 2005 but non where he gets a supermajority
Yes, Dick Cheney was in a position to become President, but the Republican Party was not in a position to get a super majority because the task of getting a super majority with modern polarization is an incredibly difficult
You know if we just scrap the alternate presidential election results and just change the senate and house elections to give the Republicans a bare supermajority is that enough? Is that not ASB enough in your opinion?
I'm not sure you're getting the point. You can't just snap your fingers and say the Republican Party magically flips 60 house seats and 5 extra senate seats (and last of which was won by Barbara Boxer by the 20 point margin).
Understanding how and why things occurred as they did are crucial to both understanding history and more relevantly, thinking about how *alternate history* will go.
Unlikely does not equate to ASB.
Okay, let me clarify, It's not impossible that Nazi Germany could've developed an atomic bomb, it's just very very unlikely and goes against everything we know about the Nazi regime and their attitudes towards nuclear physics.. In the same vein, it's not *impossible* for the Republican Party to win a 1964 style landslide in 2004, it's just very very unlikely given everything we know about modern politics and polarization.
And, not to put to fine a point on it, but the changes necessary to make such a incredibly unlikely event happen would be big, big enough that their ramifications would go far beyond the specific event in question.
Like a delayed 9/11 which not only completely changes the course of the Dubya's 1st term and that of the United States and the Middle East, it also means Democrats are more likely to win the 2002 midterms without Bush's stratosphere approval ratings, which is a ramification one might want to think about before using to say Bush will win a landslide because of it.
you could have the problems with Edwards as the VP candidate happening earlier and coming out before the election.
John Edwards having an extra-martial affair in 2004 would not have as great of an impact as him having an extra-martial affair in 2008 because people did not know Elizabeth Anania Edwards had cancer in 2004.