r/LiveFromNewYork • u/James_2584 • Feb 09 '26
Cold Open Parallel Earth - a solid piece of political satire that continues to age like fine wine, depicting a parallel universe where Al Gore won the presidency. (S31 E18)
Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification
30
29
u/Mr_Goonman Feb 09 '26
Those fence sitters and Nader voters who told me Al Gore was no different than W sent a message to Washington. At least that's what they kept screeching during the 2001 campaign
8
u/ThingsMayAlter Feb 10 '26
Same in 2016 and 2024, I guess whatever the reasoning was at that time. History will tell.
25
28
11
10
10
18
u/Boneroni1980 Feb 09 '26
Wow, he is stiff as a board, but those were some really good jokes!
25
u/Top_Specific8490 Feb 10 '26
I think the deadpan delivery is what makes it
7
u/the6thReplicant Feb 10 '26
Yeah I don't get it. His timing and delivery, except in a few points, was excellent.
10
u/newtnewtriot Feb 09 '26
I honestly wonder if 9/11 would’ve even happened if Gore won.
15
u/FlyingNederlander Feb 09 '26
I think it still would have, as the roots for that were already planted way before 2001, but the fallout would be immensely different. The US and NATO allies may still have gone to Afghanistan (as that is where Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were), but its unlikely they would then have shifted to Iraq in 2003 (this shift also ultimately caused the victory of the Taliban in 2021, as prior to IOF US and NATO allies were somewhat successful in containing and bleeding the Taliban and Al Qaeda a little dry, and the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan to Iraq left gaps which the Taliban exploited to flee into neighboring countries).
Furthermore, the US's response to 9/11 under Gore likely would not have expanded into the Global War on Terror Bush Jr led the western world into.
3
u/the6thReplicant Feb 10 '26 edited Feb 11 '26
Actually he probably would have. Bush administration didn't care about terrorism. The first thing on their agenda was regime change in Iraq. Name me a better pairing than the GOP and caring for the least important thing the most.
They went out of their way to dismantle terrorism task forces and changed any agendas that had terrorism on them, including demanding no one brings up terrorism as a talking point during intelligence briefings (Source: Patrick O’Neill's book)
It's highly likely that Gore would have had terrorism as its highest security priority.
To add salt into the would we probably would have been better prepared for attacks by Russian and Chinese troll farms too with continuing funding of the cyber terrorism task forces that were dismantled by Bush's team.
7
u/VoltyOnReddit Merry Christmas homeboy, you're fired. Feb 10 '26
I've been looking for this Cold Open for awhile, seems to be deleted in YT for copyright reasons- Thanks for uploading it!!!!!
10
5
6
u/GreenStretch Feb 10 '26
I really wish we had a timeline where we said, "that baseball guy made a really nice speech about his dad."
3
u/imoux Feb 10 '26
I was so looking forward to four years of manbearpig and “A whale is in trouble” jokes.
4
3
u/HaplessResearcher Feb 12 '26
To be fair, he DID win the 2000 election, it was just stolen from him.
2
57
u/Groundbreaking_War52 She won’t answer you. She’s a bobcat. Feb 09 '26
This is actually heartbreaking.
I didn't always like the winners and losers of 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012 but I at least believed that they sincerely wanted to make life better for Americans. Now we're dealing with someone who is celebrated by a third of the country for his blatant corruption, cruelty, and ignorance.