What's the worst thing that could happen if Bush/Kerry is elected?

Kerry versus a Republican Senate and Congress means that Kerry doesn’t get to do much funny stuff. Without control of the legislative Kerry is held back from doing anything major that Republicans would dissaprove of. Kerry will always be “under control”.

Bush has no restraints… he never vetoes spending and the Congressmen rubber stamp everything he wants. Results would be even greater deficit and free spending. Bush would always be “out of control”.

Kerry won't just open the US up to terrorists... he can't. Congress won't let him. The "security forces" and police won't be any dumber or less willing to defend the country if the president is a democrat.

Expect an even more conservative and religious supreme too...

Honestly, I think that if Bush gets re-elected, completing the scuttling of Roe v Wade, invading Iran, castrating any remaining environmental protections, and driving the economy farther into the toilet is almost a *best-*case scenario.

At worst? Pick any six of the below and stir —

He invades Iran, botches it, pisses off the few remaining allies we’ve got, responds to the increasingly vocal and infuriated domestic agitation by tagging dissent as equivalent to terrorism to the loud approval of an increasingly vocal and infuriated bloc of Americans who think he’s right; large-scale violence breaks out between partisan factions and between policy critics and police/military forces arresting and dispersing them;

He invades at least two other Islamic-majority countries after it becomes apparent that they are working directly with anti-American forces in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan;

One or more significantly destructive terrorist incident occurs on American soil with large-scale casualties and the world cheers; he responds belligerently and tells the rest of the planet to shove it and threatens retaliation not only against nations attacking the US but against any nation not directly helping the US retaliate against them;

The majority of the non-Islamic members of the UN form a new organization centered in Brussels which becomes, de facto, an alliance against the US and negotiates formal and informal nonaggression pacts with the Islamic alliances;

Internationally the value of the dollar is perceived as overinflated and investments in US assets and endeavors slows dramatically in favor of investment in Chinese and European markets; the US economy stagnates, inflation increases, hiring never picks up, wages increase slower than cost of living, and the stock market goes bearish, and finally the bottom drops out;

Mergers in media, allowed & even encouraged by the administation, lead to all broadcast networks medium-sized or larger and all papers in cities of >100,000 being owned by right-wing conservative organizations such as those of Murdoch and Scaife; criticism of the administration is brought to a trickle on conventional media;

ISPs merge and/or are bought out and a few start imposing content restrictions on customers; courts hold that they have this right; the trend spreads and expressing anti-American sentiment will lose you your service under most contracts; ISPs also scan your email for content with software, both to look for contract violations and to report possible terrorist activities (along with other possibly illegal or questionable activities) to Homeland Security;

By 2008, coverage of the primaries and election are blatantly skewed towards pro-Republican perspectives; the majority of people in the US and elsewhere believe the election will not be run fairly and according to the rules but also have no faith that they’d hear about anything untoward happening; in Republican primaries, remaining moderate Republicans now face off with heavily-financed far-right conservatives and those that remain are told to swear allegiance to a conservative party platform or be evicted from the party

The OP offered two interesting questions for intelligent debate. I guess it was inevitable that this thread would degenerate into tin-foil hat territoriy. Too bad…

Please start the second part please… I don’t see how Kerry can muck up things outside the economic sphere. In the economic sphere if for example he pushes for new labor laws… they will get shot down by republican dominated legislative.

Worst thing that could happen if Bush is re-elected is he continues his tax and spend ways and the deficit gets bigger as government expands.

Worst thing that could happen if Kerry is elected is he begins a new level of tax and spend ways and the deficit gets bigger as government expands.

6 to one, half dozen the other. Or, devil or the deep blue sea I guess.

-XT

Funny you should say that since you let

pass without comment.

At least Congress will try to slow him down … or not ?

Bush- More of the same, perhaps another pointless war. He will further botch the war in Iraq, and prevent troops from leaving and peace from being established at least until after his term.

Kerry- Kerry will be too restrained by Congress to do any lasting damage with the liberal positions he’s running under now (assuming you believe they are damaging, I don’t, and that he’ll even attempt to implment them). The same attack machines that went after Clinton will come after Kerry twice as hard. Kerry might botch Iraq as well, perhaps pulling out too soon and leaving the US in disgrace and Iraq in bloody shambles. He won’t start another major war, but he may otherwise become Bush III in a desparate ploy for popularity as his popularity slip due to an obstructionist congress and the Republican hate machine. It won’t work and he’ll be replaced be a real (well, as real as GW Bush is) conservative in 2008.

I honestly think Kerry, mostly due to factors outside his control may turn out to be one of our least effective presidents. I still prefer him to Bush.

If he wins it will be hailed as a mandate from the people (I think). I’d say he’ll have a moderate time getting some of his proposals though. Remember, though the 'Pubs control both houses, its a pretty slim margin…and there are enough cross over 'Pubs that he’ll probably get at least some of his programs though (just like there were enough cross over 'Crats so Bush got his through). Neither party is exactly a monolith at this level.

Still, you do have a point…it will be marginally harder for Kerry to get his bullshit through than for Bush too (though I think Kerry actually has MORE BS than Bush does, hard as that is to believe). I’ll have to put that on my pro’s and con’s checklist for election day.

-XT

Okay, in the spirit of bi-partisanship, worst case President Kerry scenario.

President Kerry decides to pull troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq. Anti-American regimes seize power in both countries. Many other hostile regimes and organizations are revitalized by the new evidence that the United States is a “paper tiger” that cannot face sustained casualties without backing down.

The Democrat president and Republican congress become bogged down in partisan battles against each other. Important issues get ignored.

Unwilling to risk an unpopular intervention like Iraq (or Kosovo), the Kerry adminstration ignores the need for decisive action against growing terrorist threats from bases in Indonesia, Sudan, and Peru. New attacks against American targets are planned.

Meanwhile hordes of gay married couples run amok across the American heartland; destroying churches, looting small businesses, burning American flags, confiscating firearms, forcing children to worship Satan, handing out free pornography and drugs, raising taxes, performing abortions, and redecorating middle class homes.

Those bastards!

Bush: We invade Iran, possibly N. Korea. We get one or two new Scalias on the Supreme Court; Roe vs. Wade is overturned, and constitutional challenges to bigotry to unmet. John Ashcroft can now take the Patriot Act and really run with it, no longer concerned that he may cost his boss the election. Dick Cheney is still president. Greenhouse gas emissions rise instead of falling. Laws against all forms of embryonal stem cell research punch through the Senate, and Shrub signs off on them.

To name a few things.

Kerry: Liberals finally realise we’ve elected Yet Another Craven Politician (recall the vote authorizing invasion of Iraq), and lose all hope in the future of America.

Worst case scenario I see is a war on Iran, which would most likely not be possible without a draft. In said draft, I would be eligible. So worst case scenario is I die.

Actually, I would dodge the draft. So worst case scenario is I’m an expatriate and some of my friends die.

Oh yeah, and that’s if Bush is elected (obviously).

Well of course. JFK would never start a war with Iran that would end up like the quagmire that was Vietnam.

The citizens of the USA will no longer be able to say to the rest of the world that Bush’s insane foreign policy fuck-ups are isolated instances of his own personal agenda and we really didn’t know what he was like when we elected him.

In other words, the international ill-will that Bush has engendered will descend on the people of the US, rather than on the government of the US as it is now, because we will have basically stood up and said “We’re the citizens of the United States of America, and we approve this message”.

I think that’s definitely a worst-case scenario.

Earlier this year my wife and I travelled from one end of New Zealand to another. A friendly Kiwi, who gave us a lift from our motel to a heloport in Invercargill, to catch our chopper ride to the head of Dusky Sound (not as expensive as it might appear), asked us, point blank…

“Now I must know: Did you two vote for George W. Bush?”

“NO!” we shouted.

“I can’t understand it!” he laughed, “None of you Yanks, not one that I’ve met, will admit to voting for the man!”

“But we didn’t, I swear!”

“Oh, all right, I believe you! I suppose it’s plausible, since, I’m told, he won less than half the votes. Can you explain that for me, then?”

I’m hoping, if I go back (If? Hah! When I go back…), I get asked first.

Maybe this needs to be brought about, I know its not nice, but thinking about it, the amount of mess the Ideology of Islamism will bring to its subjects will finally bankcrupt its Ideology. Same with Communism and Nazism, sometimes you need to whether the shit storm coming your way. Total exhaustion of ideologies like this is the only way to deal with them.

I think we have a winner.

Because thousands of young American soldiers will die during the invasion and subsequent occupation, and countless thousands more will be horribly wounded, many permanently. Not to mention the tens of thousands of innocent Iranian civilians that will be killed. Is that bad enough for ya? :mad: