One can’t help but wonder what would be different if Hillary Clinton had won the Electoral College vote as well as the popular vote. Some things are clear, others are hazy–to me anyway.
First, the Republicans would still hold the House and the Senate. Nothing that President Clinton proposed would pass through Congress and nothing that the Republicans passed through Congress would be signed into law. Thus, for at least two more years, we would be living with a continuation of the final six years of the Obama administration. That is, President Clinton II would govern by executive orders and rule-changes by federal agencies. These would be contested in the courts.
Second, the Republican Senate might well refuse to hold hearings on any Clinton nominee for the Supreme Court. Thus, probably we would be living with a 4-4 deadlock on the Court. The decisions of lower courts would be affirmed. That would shift the judicial struggles to the nomination of judges to lower courts.
Third, both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton had repudiated the Asia Pacific trade deal before the election. It would be just as dead under a Clinton administration as it is under a Trump administration.
Fourth, James Comey would have been dismissed as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Congress would then have held hearings on this matter, including on whether this amounted to obstruction of justice. (See: Benghazi hearings if you don’t think that this last contention is true.)
Fifth, there would be an investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. This investigation would reveal—at the least—that the Russkies had hacked Democratic computers and the passed the fruits of this robbery to Wikileaks. Moreover, the Russians would be revealed to have done a bunch of other things that may have monkeyed with the passions of voters.
Six, the Clinton campaign would have transitioned to government offices. The results for American government would resemble those of the Clinton campaign itself. According a New York Times review of the first account of the Clinton campaign organization, “It’s the story of a wildly dysfunctional and ‘spirit-crushing’ campaign that embraced a flawed strategy (based on flawed data) that failed, repeatedly, to correct course…In fact, the portrait of the Clinton campaign that emerges from these pages is that of a Titanic-like disaster: an epic fail made up of a series of perverse and often avoidable missteps by an out-of-touch candidate and her strife-ridden staff.” These people would then have set out to manage the White House. Then, what about Bill and Chelsea, and the Clinton Foundation, and Huma Abedin?
Seventh, Roy Moore would not have had the chance to defeat Luther Strange for a Senate seat from Alabama because Jeff Sessions would still be a sitting senator.
Eighth, the Clinton administration would be dealing with a series of long-developing, but now pullulating international crises: Iran’s nuclear weapons combined with its support for the Assad regime in Syria; North Korea’s nuclear threat; Russia’s intervention in a series of conflicts. European elections; and the Rohingya refugees. So, a lot of ugly issues.
Ninth, the “exchanges” created by the Affordable Care Act (“ObamaCare”) were collapsing before the election. Young people have declined to pay for their elders. President Clinton would have had to seek a solution in league with a Republican Congress. Under these circumstances, what would be the middle ground?
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