The Brexit Election

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I agree that fighting for the right to own slaves is pretty contestable.

[ProfessorDetective]

My cash in on Woodrow Wilson for (at least ONE OF) the Worst POTUS Ever. He mishandled things so badly, he was arguably one of the main igniters of the chain reaction that was The Twentieth Century.

AltHistoryHub did a wonderful piece on him and a timeline where he WASN'T elected. https://youtu.be/hLiI6kXZkZI

[Worffan101]

TBF on Jackson, he WAS really bad, what with gleefully defying SCOTUS to commit ethnic cleaning and all.

One can perhaps blame Buchanan a little too much for that, since he did try to restrain the crazier Southern things, including trying to ram through statehood for the fraudulent Missouri slaveowner-imposed Kansan government in Compton. Even most of his Southern-majority Cabinet had provisionally Unionist Southerners like Toombs.

The issue is that nothing Buchanan does is going to defuse the issues around the South's latest greatest idea, a federal slave code for the territories, and how it's a no-sell among Northern Democrats. Thus giving Yancey the wedge issue to tear the party apart at Charleston and Baltimore.

Buchanan was fucking incompetent and caved easily to the South on everything, though. The Northern democrats were basically dead by 1860 anyway, and the Lecompton government wasn't even popular in the South outside of the richest, most fanatical slavocrats (who, of course, controlled the place by that point). Saying that Buchanan did a couple of things that weren't pure evil is damning with faint praise when he went and shipped heavy guns South DURING the fucking secession crisis.

[Admiral X]

I'll have to agree on Wilson, too, what with his whole historical revisionism and all.

[clearspira]

Getting back on topic, I cannot help but feel that Boris Johnson will become one of the most influential prime ministers in British history. The type of PM talked about in a hundred years time by historians on prime time television as opposed to some cable access show that also hosts some guff about aliens building Stonehenge.

Note, I did not say ''successful'' I said ''influential''. We can all name Emperor Nero 2000 years later after all. What I am saying is that by achieving the biggest Tory win of the 21st century, by driving the Labour party into its biggest loss since the 1930s, by now being almost guaranteed to light the touchpaper of Brexit and all of this in his first week; this is a man who will be discussed on forums like this by our descendants. Whether he is used in the same breath as ''the greatest'' or ''the worst'' time will tell.

I do think he needs Donald Trump to win in 2020 to really make the most of Brexit (the impeachment won't make it past the Senate). They are clearly friends or very close associates. Reagan/Thatcher, Bush/Blair, Obama/Cameron, Johnson/Trump. The next evolution of the Special Relationship.

[Riedquat]

He didn't drive the Labour party into a big loss, they got that all by themselves. The Conservative gain of the vote was small but the loss of Labour's vote massive. With a half-decent leader Labour would've romped to victory. It's often said elections aren't won, they're lost, but it's never been clearer than this.

[Robovski]

Don't worry, now he gets to try to keep hold of Scotland while executing the Brexit and afterwards. Should be fun over the next 5 years or until the next election. Plenty of opportunity to be there in charge as the former empire continues to burn.

[Admiral X]

The UK may well balkenize. It's sad, but when you think about it, the UK has already fallen so far. The only real hope is they might be able to make something of themselves again without interference from the EU and the commies within their own ranks.

[Darth Wedgius]

I'm curious to see what happens to Labour after the 2020 party election. I haven't really seen much indication that they're going to do a course-correction after this drubbing. In Twitter they seem to be more concerned with decrying voters as deplorable, but that's Twitter.

There's a good chance that Brexit (and Corbyn) will be a done deal by the time of the next general election, so maybe they'll count on that to move votes back to Labour.

[clearspira]

Don't worry, now he gets to try to keep hold of Scotland while executing the Brexit and afterwards. Should be fun over the next 5 years or until the next election. Plenty of opportunity to be there in charge as the former empire continues to burn.

There really is nothing holding him to a referendum with the majority he has. People can say ''democracy'' as much they like, but it is not as if the SNP cares all that much about that either. I would be surprised if the UK breaks up Scotland side in the next 5 years.