If Trump had been defeated by Harris in the election last night, then him turning his head to the right at Butler in July wouldn’t have made much difference - either way, he’d have been kept out of the White House (although it would have still have changed the Republican Party - without their main figurehead, the party’s culture would have had to change abruptly; someone like Nikki Haley would probably have been the replacement candidate, someone like Marco Rubio might be VP nominee, Trumpism might fade out, the GOP would become more moderate, Project 2025 would fizzle out, etc.)
But now, given that Trump and Vance are poised to hold power for the next 4 years, what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania that day in July is going to go down in history as being enormously consequential. Indeed, if Trump hadn’t turned his head to the right just in time, it would have been a whole different story. Now the Project 2025 folks will have massive power to enact their agenda, affecting millions and perhaps even billions of people. Ukraine is going to lose its war. All kinds of radical policies are going to be enacted. The Supreme Court will be very different than if Harris had been nominating the judges.I have a feeling a lot of historians are going to be thinking this over and over again in the years/decades ahead: “And all because of just 1 inches’ difference.”
Decades from now, are historians going to look back on this the same way people wonder, “What if the Archduke Ferdinand’s motorcade had taken that different street in 1914?”
As for the Jews, Germany’s defeat in World War I felt like a big surprise to a great many Germans. Propaganda had succeeded in hiding Germany’s weakness from its people. So a mysterious force needed to be found to blame, and the Jews fit. Hitler was not the only antisemite making that link.
The insistence of Germany on continuing to fight, in Word War II, long after defeat should have been recognized, is another result of the feeling that World War I ended prematurely.
Many important details would have been different without Hitler, but there’s no assurance things would have been better for humanity.
It sounds like this boils down to the “great individual” or “forces and trends” views of history.
If you think that Trump is somehow sui generis and the MAGA movement would not exist without him, then of course his survival is of paramount importance. But if the disaffection of the white working class, the backlash against “wokeism” and its intrusion on the privileged position of the majority, and the grievances against internationalism and globalism are stronger forces than one individual then it probably wouldn’t have really changed that much.
I think an assassinated Trump would have meant a more conventional Republican candidate. I suspect the biggest driver for a Republican win was the impact of inflation and the idea of who would create a better economy. If so, then Harris still loses, but to someone more conventional.
Even if, say, DeSantis had been chosen, (and not very likely, as he was out early), he would very likely not have Elon Musk so much in his ear or in the government. A President DeSantis might have some screwy cabinet choices and bad policies, but not nearly the clown show Trump has picked. A President Haley would be practicality sane in comparison, with conventional conservative picks.
So on the whole, I will say that there is great potential in an alternate history outcome even though a Harris victory was unlikely.
