by George Dienhart
The story is here. My timeline is the same as the original author. I think this way more probable than the outcome written by Norman MacAfee.
On January 20, 2001, Al Gore, the candidate who won the most votes, becomes the 43rd president of the United States. A constitutional crisis develops as the electoral college is ignored. Years later, historians refer to this event as the American coup of 2001.
Al Gore continues the same policies as the Clinton administration. The 9/11 events still occur as they did in our timeline.
Shortly after 9/11, Al Gore refuses to send Special Forces into Afghanistan to support the Northern Alliance. He states in an interview that he will not violate another nation’s sovereignty. Terrorists pour into Afghan training camps. A follow up to 9/11 is planned by Al Qaeda. Eventually Gore authorizes (CG-48) U.S.S. Yorktown to fire a cruise missile at Bin Laden’s last known location. The missile hit’s it’s target, but the Gore administration is embarrassed as Bin Laden is seen later that day in Damascus attending a conference for Palestinian Independence. Bin Laden is the keynote speaker and appologizes fo not paying enough attention to the “plight of his Muslim brothers”. During the speech, suicide bombers simultaneously attack 25 separate targets in Israel, killing over 600 people.
Republicans are squawking that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is a threat to the safety of the country, that he has weapons of mass destruction. Gore asks the United Nations to send its weapons inspectors back into Iraq, and after six months of searching, they find none. 3 months after the inspectors leave, Iraq gasses 20,000 Kurds with the nerve agent sarin.
In 1998, as vice president, Gore proposed a NASA satellite, Triana, to provide, from a distance of 930,000 miles, a continuous view of the sunlit side of the earth. Triana would measure global warming by measuring how much sunlight is reflected and emitted from the earth and would monitor weather systems. Triana is built and launched in February 2003. In late 2004 it has no effect on the a massive Tsunami that wreaks havoc on a large swath of the Indian Ocean. Triana watches helplessly from orbit, as it is not designed to track Tsunami’s.
The president's favorite book, Stendahl's The Red and the Black, proves to be a huge embarrassment to the President as the average American associates the book's young hero as speaking about Gore when he states: "So there, this is what these rich people are like. First they humiliate you, then they think they can make it up to you by monkey business!"
Recognizing that nothing good can come from the continuing Israeli-Palestinian standoff, Gore sends Holbrooke and Vice President Joe Lieberman to broker a peace. Both men are killed in a Palestinian missile attack on their motorcade. Hillary Clinton is named Vice- President.
As vice president, Gore signed the Kyoto Accord on Climate Change in 1998, but there were not enough votes to ratify it in the Congress, and there still are not. President Gore, however, is able to implement most elements of the treaty by executive order. He begins a process of education about global warming and publishes a book on the subject. Businesses are forced to turn green, and massive lay offs occur. By the time the Kyoto Accords are fully enacted, unemployment stands at 16%. The economy slips deeper into recession. When taxes are raised yet again, some economists start to use the term depression with alarming frequency. Years later, it is noted that Global Warming was a myth, and the Great Millennial Depression started with the Kyoto.
In 2005, Katrina hits. As most of the response is at the state and local levels, the response is a disaster. Due to the ongoing depression, an additional 25,000 homeless families perish in Katrina.
No one is quoting Al Gore’s philosophers on Nov 11 2005, when Dhiren Barot succeeds in destroying the New York Stock Exchange, Chase Bank and Citicorp in New York, The Chicago Board of Trade in Chicago, and the Eurex in Frankfort. The Millennial Depression is now global.
Russia invades Georgia, claiming that they are harboiing Chechen terrorists. NATO and the United States do nothing.
Hugo Chavez invades Brazil war wages on for 10 years before Brazil regains it’s independence.
Gore enacts National Healthcare. Tens of thousands of doctors are forced out of business. Lines are long at “National Clinics” when the great flu epidemic of 2006 hits. 30,000 children and infants are dead because they died before the National Healthcare clinics could schedule an appointment.
The president invites to the White House the person who had the most influence on him, his high school art teacher. The same day Congressman Dennis Hastert file articles of Impeachment, accusing Gore of profiting illegally on a Carbon Credits scheme.
Over 20% of the United Staes now lives in poverty
The undamming of rivers, begun seriously under Clinton/Gore, continues. Energy shortages plague the areas that are no longer receiving hydro-electric power.
George Bush announces he will run for president in 2008- a nation rejoices.
