In the spring of 2027, Donald Trump resigns.
We can imagine the farewell. He tells us he accomplished more in two years than anybody else could have accomplished in eight. He endorses JD Vance, wishes him tremendous success, and makes it almost to the end of the week before suggesting the man had something to do with getting him pushed out.
Vance takes the oath and gets something every new president wants. For a little while, people are willing to give him a chance. Even some Americans who never would have voted for him find themselves hoping he’ll do a decent job. He’s the president now. We have to live here.
Then he makes a decision people can see on a bill.
In this version of the future, Congress puts together a deal to keep some families’ health insurance premiums from jumping. Vance kills it. He has his reasons, and we hear them at length. Then the renewal notices go out. A family that was already putting groceries on a credit card learns what the president’s reasons will cost them every month.
We might enjoy watching a politician fumble a debate. There’s considerably less to enjoy when the fumble means somebody puts off getting a lump checked. A better future starts with taking that part seriously, even when the man responsible is somebody we’d love to see lose.
Meanwhile, Pete Buttigieg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are running against each other.
We can picture the cable news panels deciding which of them represents the future of the party. Buttigieg can sit across from a hostile interviewer and explain something complicated without taking the bait. AOC can make us wonder why we ever accepted that the complicated thing had to work the way it does. They have different instincts, and in a primary those differences ought to get a hearing.
Buttigieg has to go back to places where he asked for votes in 2020 and got very few. In South Carolina, that means earning the trust of Black voters who had plenty of reason to be skeptical the first time. AOC has to show that the young people who come to hear her speak will also show up to vote, organize, and stick around after their favorite candidate leaves the race.
In the best version, both of them succeed. Buttigieg wins the nomination. AOC has brought enough people into the process that the winner would be foolish to treat her support as something he can collect with a phone call. They sit down and work out what they can actually do together. She joins the ticket because she helped shape the work it’s promising to do.
By summer, Republicans have nominated Vance. That’s when Trump decides he’s had enough of him.
The timing matters. A few months earlier, Republicans could have chosen somebody else. Now they’ve printed the signs. Vance has to spend the fall explaining that he’s his own man while hoping the former president will say something nice about him. Trump, who has never been especially good at letting somebody else have the last word, has all the time in the world.
It would make for entertaining television. The Democrats’ best move would be to let us enjoy it on our own time.
At the debate, Buttigieg asks Vance why he killed the deal that would have kept those premiums down. When Vance blames Congress, Buttigieg asks him what he’d do if Congress sent him the same deal tomorrow. In her debate, AOC explains what their administration would do about premiums and what it would take to build enough homes that a person with a decent job could afford to live near it. The next morning, if we turn on the television and hear Buttigieg asked the same questions, we hear substantially the same answers.
In November, they win Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Arizona and Nevada come along, too. By the time the result is clear, we can go to bed without having to learn the name of a county election official.
That gets us to the part we tend to skip when we imagine a good election.
What happens to the family with the renewal notice?
Maybe they voted for Buttigieg. Maybe they had a Vance sign in the yard. Either way, they still have the bill. The new administration gets the subsidies restored, and when that family goes to renew their coverage, they can afford to keep it. They may never know which senator had to be talked into voting for the bill. They know they can make the appointment.
Housing will take longer. We’d know the administration was getting somewhere when apartments that spent years on planning maps start taking tenants. We’d know it in smaller ways, too. Somebody takes a job across town without having to figure out where to sleep during the week. Somebody’s daughter moves out and can still afford to come home for Sunday dinner.
Somewhere in Pennsylvania, a man who voted for Vance opens his insurance renewal and finds a number he can pay. He might still vote Republican next time. His kid still gets to see the doctor.
That’s the part of this future we’d most like to get right.
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