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Part of a broader theme: People severely underestimate the impact of September 11 on the current moment.
Overthinking is natural, but instead of looping through endless ‘what-ifs,’ try this: map your best, worst, most likely, and wildcard outcomes. It’s a game-changer for clarity and action.
Here’s the playbook: skalingventures.substack.com/p/move-from-in
Some of this is more 9/11 + Afghanistan, IMO.
Feminists and humanists used to be pretty anti-Islamist before the Bush era.
After 9/11, Republicans went hard anti-Islamist & online feminists promptly negatively polarized into being pro-Islamist, which went weird places.
Also explains why the whole Cheney thing wasn’t the slam dunk Harris thought it was
An amazing point. Wonder when Iraq will stop affecting political dynamics…?
That is why the Democrats dragging out and tying themselves to the unspeakable Cheneys (in 2024!) was such an incredible own-goal. They still would have (and should have) lost but they dug themselves in deeper.
I don't disagree with anything there, but I think the GFC and the subsequent failure to reform the system were more important, especially in regards to Clinton. Iraq definitely made Jeb a non-starter though
You may not be interested in the Middle East, but the Middle East is interested in you
The whole story makes the Democratic Party leaders look like idiots: instead of realizing X and that that implied they should do Y they did Not Y. “Instead of / they did” again and again and again. I thought they had mistaken methods but here they’re just morons. Better they lose
I don’t disagree that it was partially a function of Iraq/Afghanistan but at the same time America had been moving towards isolationism already, a trend that began with the Vietnam War and continued thereafter.
Iraqi and Fauci together define generations of American politics
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Stilicho
@StilichoReads
I've never thought about this way but now that it's pointed out it seems obvious.
![Image](data:image/svg+xml,<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="720" height="818"><rect fill-opacity="0"/></svg>)
The entire game of establishment vs the people is an endless series of schemes to direct the resources of the people into war to control the world.
That's it. That how you make sense of every betrayal and lie.
The timurid spirit which flew out of this thing will ultimately end America. Empires never expect the steppe raiders
Until then, sit back and relax, drink a Diet Coke, and put on reruns of your favorite show
My favorite alternate timeline is that Clinton resigns instead of being impeached. Gore becomes president and that gets him the few extra votes he needs to win vs Bush. 9/11 happens and instead of invading Iraq, Gore uses it as a driver to get US off Middle East oil.
Another interesting connection is how Bush Jr's decision to launch a war in Iraq was closely tied to his angst over how his father lost to Clinton in 1992. He thought if his father had ousted Saddam, he could have won in 1992.
Jon Meacham (2015) goes over this.
I don't think the part about 2016 is right. The Iraq war was gaining in favorability with Republicans by 2016. Republicans only changed their tune after Trump became the nominee
It was more than the Bush dynasty. The Republicans likely would have lost 2016 because of Iraq. Before the Trump announcement, it was a major question on how a candidate could win the hawkish base in a primary but moderate towards the doveish middle.
It's a simple enough concept. But it applies logical and rational thinking to people who do little of either. I'm not sold.
Very well said. Like most Americans at the time, Trump's reaction to the War was supportive at first but more negative over time. He knew what voters in '16 wanted to hear so he wisely choose to portray himself as a tough guy, isolationist.
Bear Sterns and Lehman crippled McCain in 2008.
The election was *supposed* to be about Health Care subsidies v individual Health Care tax deductions as a backdoor increase of Social Security/Medicare taxes.
Disagree.
Iraq made 2004 winnable for Democrats even after 9/11. Otherwise, it would not have been so close.
Economy & Obama's appeal are why Democrats could win 2008.
There are many reasons that young Democrats don't like the Clinton's. That's not why she lost the election.
did this at much more length and better in his book Reign of Terror
IMHO the problem wasn’t that we went in, the military outcome was never in doubt, it was that there was no plan for the peace. For want of a better analogy no Marshall plan. If they’d had that it wouldn’t have mattered about WMD because as we saw the regime was worse than thought
Oh, you just figured that out, did you? We millennials have been saying it for 20 years!
I don’t think Iraq had much to do with the Dems “not moderating” in 2008. Obama was a moderate candidate he was just a young political unknown and he was black lmao
I think the recession is a huge facet. Probably more important than Iraq by 2016.
It’s also driven a wedge with allied nations who opted out of supporting the invasion. While Australia and the UK joined the war, many countries actively opposed it and remain wary of American overreach.
Without moderating? They passed Romneycare and gave the banksters blank cheques. What would not moderating have looked like?!
Iraq blew our shot at staying the hyperpower of a unipolar world for any significant length of time, too
On a wider scale it also created fertile ground for ISIS and all the regional chaos that followed, so yeah, probably our worst decision this century from a foreign policy perspective by far
Democrats could win in 2008 without moderating because the economy had completely melted down. Bush was responsible for millions of people losing their savings, their jobs, and their homes. Iraq was just gravy
I admire how he ties it all up, but I don’t think the Iraq War (or any war since WW2) has much explanatory power in political trajectories.
For instance, the Republican Party that got us into the Iraq war is now in charge again, and many want to go right back into the Mid East
The Iraq war is our Vietnam war and we are going to be feeling its impact for the next couple decades.
I think the housing collapse / Great Recession had more to do with 2008 than Iraq did.
Let’s not give Hillary a pass
She lost that one without Iraq
Given all of this, it’s crazy this author left out the extremely important context that the only reason why the US even ever invaded Iraq was simply because GWB considered his father refusing to enter Iraq in Desert Storm as his family’s greatest shame. It was literally personal
agree with everything, except the idea that the '08 election was about policy
The Dems' fractured support for the Iraq War caused the defeat in 2004, not the Iraq War itself. MattY supported the Iraq War so his retelling, predictably, exonerates himself.
True. Now run the same thought experiment: what if overwhelming evidence of WMDs were found in Iraq, as had been promised? Would we have just had Yeb!’s second term after HRC’s 2nd term? A full 36 years of dynasts?
I totally agree with this. And this is just the domestic implications. Our war in Iraq was a wildly self-destructive move. We can’t make another unforced error like this ever again.
I voted for Obama because of the Iraq War.
If Trump hadn't repudiated it, Republicans would be adrift without an intellectual vanguard right now.
Not sure on third item. Iraq was already kinda distant in 2016, I think young voters were way more put off from Hillary by her reputation as a Wall Street pawn and also by mainstream dems position on Israel/Palestine, even bigger issue in 24. Oh also primaries stolen from Bernie.
I would disagree on the third and fourth points, especially the third. Iraq is not why Clinton lost.
The 2004 election came down to a 2.1% margin in Ohio, 118k votes, that is not the result of an unwinnable election, a slightly better run Kerry campaign and or a slightly worse run Bush campaign would have flipped it.
Isis was a big thing in 2016 election and it negatively linked to Hillary, both for supporting Iraq invasion and her time as sec of state
Iraq was already very unpopular in 2004 and Bush was vulnerable as a result. Kerry and the Dems flip-flopping on the issue (supporting the war until the moment it became a liability to do so) lost them what was otherwise a very winnable election.
Yeah watching the government lie its way into the Iraq war then handle the occupation so incompetently was certainly a "red pill" as the kids say
Yes
I would argue that the 2008 democratic party was incredibly "big tent". I would also argue Obama put a considerable amount of effort into appearing moderate.
Ok but the post 9/11 world made sense, why'd it all change after that? Why are we reacting to Islamic terror completely differently 24 years later?
Is there anyone still who still defends the Iraq war? I mean you can find people who will stand up for unpopular positions but I haven’t heard of anyone who still champions that.
I mean, yes, that, along with the Great Recession (for a shorter time) was entirely what the post-GW Bush election landscape was about
Iraq didn't make 2004 unwinnable for the Democrats it was their own insistence the Iraq war was good and Bush was just fighting it wrong. Joe Biden said in 2005(!) that he would have voted for it "knowing what I know now"
The Bush admin burned the entire GOP establishment to the ground over Iraq. Ruined everyone's careers. Hatcheted every rival. Dubya is the single sole reason Trump exists the way he does today. We forget the obsessive revenge seeking of Rumsfeld and Cheney.
I don't think "moderating" has ever been a winning strategy for Democrats. Obama won because he repudiated that trend. Biden would have lost in 2020 if not for Covid bringing Trump down, as evidenced by just as moderate Kamala losing. The only time it worked was 1992.
The planet was burning, the government only backs the rich that stole people’s homes and pensions and Hillary was a Republican that was okay with it all.
People weren’t hating the dems on Iraq WORSE than the republicans. That’s insane.
Iraq wasn’t even the issue