[Arainach]

The Iraq was was entirely unnecessary. It cost $3 Trillion[1], the lives of more than 500,000 Iraqi civilians, the lives of more than 8000 US troops and contractors, and so much more. It built a wave of anti-American sentiment in the middle east and the world. Literally nothing Gore could have done could have come close to that cost.

The Bush Administration turned a moment of universal world support for the US into cynicism and hatred by wasting goodwill on pointless wars. They turned a nearly balanced budget into huge deficits. The Trump Administrations have been, somehow, infinitely worse. No, there is no world in which things went worse.

[1] https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/true-cost-iraq-war-...

[_heimdall]

I agree with your points here. I disagree with the proposal that we can assume whatever alternative history we could have had would have been better.

The argument is that, of all the outcomes of presidential elections we had, we lived the absolute worst possible outcomes possible. That argument just seems ludicrous on its face.