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[Zangi]

Result: US throws off the yoke of oppression... and invades Britain.
Alternatively: The US is crushed under the foot of the British, destined to be a colony for another century or so.

[Bauglir]

We can do better. Let's roll the clock all the way back to about 13,700,000,000 BCE.

[nenjin]

We can do better. Let's roll the clock all the way back to about 13,700,000,000 BCE.

It was a simpler time, when political disputes were solved with a rock to the head. You know, the good ol' days.

[RedKing]

We can do better. Let's roll the clock all the way back to about 13,700,000,000 BCE.

It was a simpler time, when political disputes were solved with a rock to the head. You know, the good ol' days.

I'm not sure there even were rocks back then. Or heads.

[FearfulJesuit]

I've had an idea for a forum game. Every two to three days, a year goes past, starting in 2015, and continuing into the future, with the events decided by a combination of OP, random number generator, and player input. Players may vote not only on world events but also in American elections, in a highly convoluted process where player input is combined with demographic information and political makeup. As the weeks roll by, we get to see the American political landscape change over decades and decades.

Unfortunately, I probably am not good enough at stats to host something like this.

It would be far, far easier to start in 1947.

Do you know how hard it would it be to get players to believe that a former cowboy actor could be elected President? And on top of that, that it wouldn't be Clint Eastwood?

Due to his enormous popularity and his status as the most famous Republican star in Hollywood, wealthy Texas Republican Party backers asked Wayne to run for national office in 1968, as had his friend and fellow actor Senator George Murphy. He declined, joking that he did not believe the public would seriously consider an actor in the White House. Instead he supported his friend Ronald Reagan's runs for Governor of California in 1966 and 1970.

Imagine what might have been...

[RedKing]

The President personally leading a group of Green Berets in Vietnam, only to be killed when he finds out it's not a movie set?

[FearfulJesuit]

I'm now thinking about how you would run an election-based RTD game.

Let's suppose a given American presidential election from real life, say, Nixon vs. Kennedy. Players are randomly assigned states, but these are kept secret except to the GM. Players can "vote" for a particular candidate, and a six-sided die is rolled, with the usual epic fail-fail-partial success etc. metric to determine how much the margin of vote in that state deviates from real history.

For example, let's say we were RTDing the 1960 election, and you cast a vote for Nixon. A random number generator gives assigns you Texas, where the vote margin was 2% in Kennedy's favor. I roll a 5 (Epic Success), which switches 5% of the vote (115,000 voters) to Nixon- who now carries the state by a 3% margin.

Assuming I somehow rolled a 2 on everyone else's states and nothing changed from real life, Kennedy still wins the Electoral college, but loses the popular vote.

I'm not sure how you would do primaries, and once you get into the butterfly effect, you no longer have real-life matches to use as baselines. How, for example, would you determine a baseline vote for a 1964 Kennedy vs. Goldwater match? It can't be the same as the actual 1964 election, because part of Johnson's success was sympathy voting from Kennedy's assassination. Kennedy would probably win, but how much by?

It's an intriguing idea, though, I'll admit...

[EDIT: You might be able to use the Economist's "Misery Index", which is the sum of the inflation and unemployment rates, to simulate the effect of the economy on elections. We could say that a "neutral" economy that neither helps nor hurts an incumbent president has, say, 3% inflation and 6% unemployment, giving 9 "misery points", and every two misery points is a point knocked off the incumbent's margin.

Which works well if you're simulating normal incumbents. But this also predicts that Roosevelt should have been up against a 9-point margin against him in 1936, which is obviously not the case...maybe if you looked at the change in misery rate between the start and end of a term?

(In that case we clearly need to rate unemployment as more dangerous than inflation to an incumbent's record, because there was a 10% deflation rate in 1932, but a 1.5% inflation rate in 1936- that means their misery rates balance out to about the same.)]

[FearfulJesuit]

It's happening. I still am going to have to outline some more rules, but the procedure for doing presidential elections is done, anyways.

Don't make Watergate happen.

[Frumple]

After all, with sufficient shenanigans, you might be able to make it #Watergategate >_>

[wierd]

The controversy over the controversy of the watergate hotel wiretapping...

Will this controversy also feature NSA wiretapping of people of interest asking questions about the controversy?

[Zrk2]

Well, I'll be signing up for this.

[tryrar]

Guys guys. The end of the world is nigh! Iran has mastered the art of trolling!

((Summary for those who don't click the link: Iran has mirrored those 47 senators by sending an open letter back in reply declaring them "our brothers in arms"))

[smjjames]

Guys guys. The end of the world is nigh! Iran has mastered the art of trolling!

((Summary for those who don't click the link: Iran has mirrored those 47 senators by sending an open letter back in reply declaring them "our brothers in arms"))

Not sure if they're actually being serious or trolling. Though they're also saying 'we're more alike than you think'. Though it would have been funny if they said 'P.S. We're trolling you, yo!' at the end.

Also, I bet Obama feels like punching those senators now, lol.

[tryrar]

Hey, the best trolling is when you're not sure they're being serious or trolling

[Baffler]

Our assessment is that your senators interpret your Constitution in accordance with the Christian Bible, just as our council applies our Constitution in the light of the Holy Quran.

We also very much admire the principal author of your letter, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas. Sen. Cotton, like many of our young militiamen, served in combat in Iraq and believes that he is an instrument of God... we in Iran appreciate his vigor. He reminds us of the young men who seized your embassy here in 1979, two years after he was born. Those brave young revolutionaries did not wait for guidance from their elders

In your country’s three most recent elections, which together produced your Senate’s entire current membership, the other party’s nominees won 5 million more votes than yours did. Nevertheless, you control the chamber. The true will of the people, as you know, is to follow those of us who understand what is best.

Thank you once again for this enlightening exchange. Prompted by your letter, our council has decided to end the talks with your secretary of state and dismiss nuclear inspectors from our country. We look forward to working with you in the future on other matters of common interest, such as prayer, capital punishment, and troops in Iraq.

That'll do, Iranians.

That'll do. If only it were real.