Let’s contemplate a hypothetical 2016 election. The scenario may sound far fetched, but I think it could reveal something interesting about political polarization. Let’s take a science fiction scenario where Dwight Eisenhower is observing a top secret military experiment in 1950. An accident occurs and he somehow splits in two, and one Eisenhower lands in the US just before the 2014 mid terms. Let’s assume everyone ignores the scientific implications of such an event. Instead Eisenhower picks up where he left off. He spends the next two years catching up on contemporary politics and decides to run in the 2016 election as an independent. Things otherwise play out as the did in our timeline, with Trump winning the Republican nomination and Clinton the Democratic nomination. The other Eisenhower, back in 1950, is seemingly unaffected and that history proceeds as it did in our timeline until the other Eisenhower arrives in 2014.
Now it’s Election Day 2016 and you’re at the voting booth. Somehow it’s been arranged that the person you vote for will win as long as it’s Trump, Clinton, or Eisenhower. Whichever way you vote, your ballot will not just be a spoiler. Who would you vote for in this hypothetical election and who did you actually vote for? Personally I would vote Eisenhower, and I had voted for Clinton. My reasoning is that I feel one thing we need in a POTUS more than anything else is someone that can help heal the partisan divide we currently have. I think someone like Eisenhower would probably adopt moderate to liberal positions in today’s climate but also be able to sell those positions to conservatives in a way that Clinton was unable to.
D’oh! :smack: Ok. Let’s say 2014 Ike takes it to court and successfully argues that he isn’t the exact same Ike that served from 1952-1960, but a clone resulting from an accident in some top secret Cold War experiment.
Eisenhower was pretty damn good for a Republican. But if some magico-legal trick made him eligible to run again–he’d still be representing the Republican party of today.
The problem with the OP is that Eisenhower would have all the dated prejudices of the 50s. He would be most unlikely to adopt moderate positions on such matters as gay marriage, etc and in fact would probably be appalled by such positions. Trump, for all his faults, has far more enlightened views about such matters than Eisenhower would ever be likely to adopt.
I’m afraid if you voted for Eisenhower you’d be voting for a return to the values of the 1950s and I don’t think that’s what you want.
I think he would catch on pretty quickly. That’s why I specified a return of 2014 just before the midterms, so he would have a couple of years to get up to speed on the changes over the last 60+ years. This was, after all, the man who was not afraid to send in troops to forcibly desegregate a school. And that was back in the 50s. I think his social attitudes would catch up quickly.
I would still vote for Clinton, but I’d be a lot more sanguine about a Clinton loss in this alternate reality than I am with the current state of affairs.
I chose Clinton too (for reals and in this poll), but I guess one could argue that Ike would bring the GOP back on track - show them that centrism is not a losing proposition? If so, the benefit there might be worth whatever costs come from having a Hundred-Something-Year-Old Zombie General in the White House…
The whole question is interesting, because while we think of Ike as an “Eisenhower Republican” today (obviously), how centrist would he really be in our current context? How would he adapt to the changes that have taken place in American society?
I just can’t see him turning things around for the GOP. I’m a Democrat, but I’d love to see a Republican Party that wasn’t led by a bunch of intellectual lightweights trying to outdo each other for who’s the least small-p progressive.
Right, because the OP says “Somehow it’s been arranged that the person you vote for will win as long as it’s Trump, Clinton, or Eisenhower.” There’re no “Ghost of Ho Chi Minh” options in the poll, either!
Take out the Eisenhower bit, and this - “Somehow it’s been arranged that the person you vote for will win as long as it’s [Trump or Clinton]” - is totally the world we lived in last year, by the way.
Edit: except the “your one vote determines the election” part
Eisenhower was a good man I grant. But changing a lifetime of ingrained prejudices and morals in 2 years? Eisenhower was very religious; brought up as a sectarian he was actually baptized into the Presbyterian church just after being sworn in as President and was considered the most religious President in US history. In office he would hold Prayer Breakfasts and would wage a crusade to reverse what he saw as the decline in American religious values. (He’s the one that passed a law adding ‘under God’ to the Pledge of Allegiance.)
No, give it 2 years or 20 I can’t see Eisenhower accepting 21st century American values.
At this point, fully a quarter of the voters in the poll went third party in the actual election. (Of course, there is clearly some selection involved in the question itself.)
I voted before I read any of the responses (Ike/Clinton) on the rationale that Clinton lost. However, on further thought, it’s likely that if Ike (or an Ike-like figure) had actually run, he would have sapped enough votes from Trump to throw the election to Clinton. Too bad I can’t change my vote.
But if that fictional person had won, I’m confident he would’ve worked within the confines of the Constitution…and have an actual conscience. Which is more than I can say about Trump and his band of cronies.
I’m a Democrat, and picked “Eisenhower, voted for Clinton.”
Interesting that he would come from 1950, because IIRC at that point he still hadn’t declared his political party (he was elected President two years later). Ike could be either a centrist D or R today, really, and was more honest than either Clinton or Trump, and (obviously) had military experience that both Clinton and Trump lack. He was smart enough that I bet he could get up to speed on the world situation and current technology in relatively short order.
Ike wasn’t my favorite President ever, but he would be 'way better than either Clinton or Trump IMHO.
I would have gone for Ike, too. His 1950s attitudes would of course leave him far from ideal, but I trust that he’d still respect the Constitution and checks and balances, and that would mitigate that a lot. Meanwhile, I would have preferred almost any Democrat over Clinton, because I strongly dislike family dynasties in a democracy, and her election would have struck a huge blow against feminism. I voted for her anyway, because I would have preferred almost anyone of any political party over Trump, but give me a viable third-party candidate and I don’t have that dilemma any more.
