Yes and no.

Without Trump fucking shit up on a government level (the Supreme Court in particular), there would probably be less scary shit happening on that end. Would have slowed things down.

But the radicalisation of the Americans began before 2016. Trump is a symptom, not a cause. The disease started spreading as early as 2008. The recession, the damp squib that was the Occupy Wall Street event was the inception of many political movements, both far left AND far right.

That's the thing people don't realise. Even if Donald J. Trump didn't exist, the underlying social tensions mean that inevitably someone would show up to galvanise far right sentiments, and the political estabilishment would have boosted them, whoever they were, because when the common folk are getting angry about their lot, then to the people actually in charge, a fascist dictatorship is preferrable to the alternative.

There would be 2 fewer extreme MAGA judges in supreme court.
The same level of MAGA corruption and disinformation would not have been possible.
January 6 would never have happened.
Trump would not have the same legitimacy and platform to constantly scream his MAGA hate message.
Trump would likely have been judged much sooner for the crimes that were revealed during his first campaign. So he might actually have been in prison by now.
The widespread MAGA treasonous behavior to favor Putin and Russia and undermine USA would probably not be a thing.

So since Trump has been THEE major driver of extremism and treason in USA for the past 8 years, I'd say no. USA would not be nearly as divided as it is now.

Hoo boy, it's a toughie. On the one hand, Trump would still be around. He also wouldn't be in as much legal peril as he is now (it's likely there wouldn't have been an appetite to prosecute him over the Stormy Daniels hush money payments, and the classified documents case would have never happened to begin with since he wouldn't have had access). But he almost definitely WOULD have tried to pull off another insurrection similar to Jan 6th--he was foreshadowing that he wouldn't accept the results if he lost even back in 2016, using the same language as he did in 2020 before he launched his coup attempt.

The world where Trump doesn't attempt a coup isn't very interesting, at least for this thought experiment--he slinks off, continues shitposting about Hillary on Twitter, but likely doesn't try to run again (or loses in the primary because he's a sore loser). Everyone ignores his hush money payments in the interest of "statesmanship," and at best he becomes a minor kingmaker in the party apparatus. MAGA withers on the vine, and we largely continue with the late Obama administration status quo.

The world where he attempts a coup is much more interesting. The real question is, what would have changed after the failed insurrection attempt? It's highly unlikely it would have succeeded or even gotten anywhere as close as it did, since a lot of the original plan relied on access to the levers of power (I.e. being able to withhold security to let the rioters overrun the Capitol). But how would everyone react to it long-term? In this timeline, Republicans genuinely distanced themselves from Trump and Jan 6th at first, likely out of shock over the realization that they were actually in danger and the very real fear that they could end up hurt or killed. But as the shock wore off, Republicans started shuffling back to MAGA as the propaganda machine did its work to downplay and normalize the failed coup, and they realized that their base saw Jan 6th as a good thing.

In a theoretical timeline where Trump tries a coup in 2016, it depends on how far Trump gets before he fails. If he's thwarted to the point where he doesn't (or can't) hold the rally that stormed the Capitol, then nothing really comes of it at all--it becomes a footnote in history that is only cared about by political historians, pub trivia enthusiasts, and people who like to talk about politics on the internet. If he gets to the point where he holds a rally, but the rally is prevented from interfering with the certification process (complete with provocative images of cops in riot gear swinging at MAGA rioters), it's likely that this downplaying and normalization would have been ironically amplified by virtue of the coup attempt being less successful. Without the visceral fear of hiding from rioters, Republicans would have no reason to distance themselves from the attempt, and they would almost immediately start using it as fodder to attack the new Clinton administration. In short, the hypothetical coup attempt would become another Benghazi scandal for Clinton--something that she had little real involvement in and largely wasn't her fault, but that she gets blamed for anyway. Trump, meanwhile, would remain largely in the same position as in 2015--the dominant force in the party.

Aside from that, the court wouldn't be as openly corrupt as it is now. It'd be filled by a moderate Clinton appointee if democrats have the 51 votes to abolish the filibuster for supreme court appointees (or held open by McConnell otherwise), and when RBG dies her replacement is decided by whoever wins the 2020 election. Roe v. Wade would still exist, the chevron deference would still be the law of the land, and we wouldn't have the terrifying prospect of legally sanctioned presidential death squads.

Overall, I think we would be largely in line with the status quo of 2014-2015. Not great, with a worrying trend towards fascism and an establishment largely too busy huffing their own farts to address the vast majority of problems facing us, but a LOT better than where we are right now.

Not at all, Trump's presidency provided a false air of legitimacy for those fringe beliefs. And his success forced politicians to morph into his sycophants - if he'd failed the GOP would assume that going that extreme was unpalatable to Americans.

Nope. The racist bastards would still be hiding under their rocks and you wouldn't have an army wearing red dunce caps drooling while driving their ram pickups with flags in the back.

Edit: I have upset 3 Ram driving, flag flying, dunce cap wearing mouthbreathers.

Doubtful. Clinton wouldn't have focused on division. Sure, it would have simmered like during Obama's years. But you can name 99 polarizing things Trump did and I can think of few Clinton would have done. Besides, you know, being a woman and continuing Obama's legacy.

Hillary is pretty divisive herself, and there was bound to be another Trump like candidate in the next election who would makes waves. Trump is a symptom, not the source

Yes. The MAGA group probably wouldn't be as large, but they would still be there and very angry.

I'd say it'd depend on the specifics of the result.

Taking the wind out of MAGA's sails would take a blowout victory and Hillary wasn't gonna get that without doing some serious full court pressing for the entire general campaign, like well beyond even the "she should have campaigned more in the rust belt!" ideas people have about where she fell short.

Yes and no.

You can bet that there would have been 8 years of propaganda against her. And we would have lost even more house/senate seats because people on the left historically decide to not bother to vote in midterms unless there is an active threat on CNN.

And... I am pretty sure we would have lost in 2020 because of COVID. Which would basically put us back to where we were in 2020 in terms of having a deranged fascist who nobody realized was too dumb to accomplish anything (not a problem this time. See Project 2025).

The main difference would be the Supreme Court. Yes, republicans did everythiing they could to protevent Obama from appointing anyone and I would not put it past them to have stretched that out for a full four years. But Scalia (Rest in Piss) would still be dead and so would Ginsburg (fuck her for putting us in this mess). Which would have made the math a lot tighter. 7 justices but the math would have been tight enough that Hilary likely would have gotten to appoint at least one moderate.

I think Hilary would have bought us the better part of a decade because, like her or not, she is an incredibly effective politician... when nobody thinks she is running for POTUS. She is/was even more generally liked by both sides of the aisle than Biden and would never have had to make concessions to sanders and The Squad for the 2020 ticket (Biden is an asshole but his platform is shockingly Left leaning by US standards...)..

And I think trump would have faded into nothing. But there are plenty of other people who were just looking for an excuse to become a magat on the republican side. And people like cruz and romney and even liz cheney would not be complete laughing stocks without trump. So, at best, we were looking at a ticking clock to the next "reagan republican" as it were.

Like, there are a lot of people who consider the day Ginsburg died to be the day the US collapsed. And we are seeing exactly the repercussions of that with shit like today.

trump is just a symptom of underlying problem in society that manifests itself all over the world.

populist politicians trying to appeal to nostalgy for "good old times", ability to weaponize social media and craft customized lies to every minor group, russian bot networks spewing out propaganda... it is something that creates problems everywhere and it will not get better.

recent eu parliament elections are shining example.

Probably. Division is what we are being fed, every day, on every topic with everything.

We would just be in a different shit show, attacking different groups.

Absolutely. The Right Wing funded Hate Machine funded by billionaires would have been there, just like now.

The maggots would still be screeching like banshee's

A bit less divided.

some republican would have won in 2020, for sure; trump or somebody worse

If they don't win now, they will come back for a rematch.

From my limited view, I think not much would be different... The US was already down this path. I think we have to look back further to the Bush/Gore election. That election initially sowed distrust in the election process with hanging chads and SCOTUS involvement in politics. This laid a blueprint for the success Trump and the Republicans have had.

Yes, but in a less civil warlike posture. The consequences of the shift to venture capital driving the economy in the 1960's shifted the need to create more massive scale wars, but unchecked consolidation of wealth destroys the necessary egalitarian framework of a real democracy. All the pieces are in place to enslave the nation, i. e. we all carry tracking devices that can not be turned off, all of our financial means can be controlled, we are surrounded by cameras on most homes and vehicles that are connected to a monitoring system of a few entities. We only have the illusion of autonomy. Real democracies are very rare in history. The blood that bought this one is old money that few value with a thorough understanding. I'd say it was inevitable for unchecked venture capital to destroy the USA, but perhaps it was better than the warhawks destroying the world again in the 1980's.

Yes. Just because trump lost doesn't mean conservative propaganda hasn't been spewing hate and lies for decades. Even before obama, I knew people that hated Democrats but could never tell me why. Their propaganda has labeled Democrats enemies for quite a long time now. They started this shit back in the 50s-70s. Republicans have been brainwashed and somehow they're proud of that fact.