imagine this AL GORE

[Beautiful Disaster]

46. I'm not sure. I think Gore maybe delays things but that's it.

9/11 is likely to still happen under Gore. I think he takes things a bit more seriously but beyond full-on grounding of all flights indefinitely, the terrorists probably still board the plane. Unless Gore radically overhauls the way the FBI and other departments handle terrorism, it's probably not enough. In reality, the FBI only became aware of Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two of the hijackers, in August - mere weeks before the 9/11 attacks.

Gore maybe beefs up a level of security but a lot of what happened on 9/11 was baked into the cake. They were already in the country as early as 2000 and were flying (no pun intended) under the radar even during Clinton's administration.

I think 9/11 would have initially benefited Gore - but it also would have likely led to a larger-level of conspiracies on the right toward the events. We all know about LIHOP (Let it Happen on Purpose) and MIHOP (Made it Happen on Purpose) that came out of the left in those days after 9/11 and I think the right would have been much more severe in their conspiracies. We've seen how conspiratorial the right is now and they were always suspectable to it even back then (lots of crazy conspiracies about the Clintons too in the 90s). A devastating event like 9/11 would have absolutely brought a level of conspiracy theory like we hadn't seen (until COVID).

Because of that, a significant amount of Republicans don't get behind Gore. But he still sees a decent approval bump.

Gore probably invades Afghanistan but doesn't go to war with Iraq.

I'll be honest, I think the only reason Bush won reelection was because of Iraq. It was popular JUST enough to deliver him the presidency.

Bush barely was able to keep it together and a large part of that was due to economic decline that was masked by 9/11.

With no Iraq, which boosted Bush's numbers that had started to dip from his surge after 9/11, Gore probably sees low approval. The fact Democrats have been in power for twelve years now, and conditions not ideal, Republicans likely win in 2004.

We'd still probably see a recession - and War on Terror, tho different with Gore.

And now a Republican president in 2004. Maybe it's Bush again. Maybe McCain. Or maybe George Allen.