History VideoGame / TheCampaignTrail

* ''[[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/W W.]]''

* AdaptationalJerkass:
** LBJ in 1964 TNO Redux can be much more abrasive towards JFK, whereas his counterpart in the mod doesn't seem to hold any ill will towards him and tries his best to continue his support of civil rights. This doesn't stop when he's dead, and getting a landslide victory has LBJ driving out to Arlington and [[LastDisrespects pissing on Kennedy's grave]]. This also extends to Bobby Kennedy, with their cordial relationship in TNO instead being turned into the one of [[ArchEnemy mutual hate and distrust]] just like how it was OTL.
** The 2004 [=W.=] mod depicts [=George H. W. Bush=] as a borderline abusive father who was greatly irritated by his son being president, to the point that no matter if or how he wins, even if you win all 50 states, he will still be disappointed in him in the ending. In real life, even with the inevitable rifts, Bush Sr. was overall supportive of his son's presidency.

* OddFriendship: The ending slide for Paul Wellstone defeating George W. Bush in ''W'' with one ongoing war depicts [[spoiler: an unusually close relationship between President Wellstone (a left-wing academic and anti-war activist from the Sixties) and David Petraeus (a long-serving US Army general) as they together develop a new United States counterinsurgency doctrine that would shift its focus to low-intensity conflicts and psychological warfare]].

* WorldWarIII: Narrowly averted in 2004 [=W.=], where if you have a particularly hawkish presidency as Bush, you get the option to [[spoiler: launch missile strikes against North Korea. Doing so results in outright war being only narrowly avoided through the intervention of the South Korean president. As this is followed by heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Bush at one point proposes dropping a nuke on North Korea, with the only thing stopping him being the intervention of [[UsefulNotes/ColinPowell Colin Powell]]]]. [[spoiler: No longer averted in W+. *Three* candidates have paths leading to a third world war scenario between the US and Russia or the US and China, all of which give achievements.]]
** [[spoiler: In Wesley Clark's Third World War path, his hawkish campaign is paired with Bush provocatively deploying ships to the Baltic and instructing the Taiwanese to seize some neighboring islands, leading to a three way world war scenario once Bush loses the election. In the centuries after WW3, the war comes to be known as the "Great Deluge".]]
** [[spoiler: In the Ted Kennedy path, Bush takes provocative steps against Russia while emptying the administration of anyone who could tell Bush when to pump the breaks. Nuclear brinksmanship collapses into a civilization destroying war.]]
** [[spoiler: Finally, in the Al Sharpton Path, Bush eliminates multiple missile ban treaties via aggressive foreign policy while pushing jingoism to a maximum and empowering Cheney in the administration. Cheney eventually seizes full control of the administration, leading to a nuclear exchange with Russia under his leadership.]]

** In the 1924b scenario which follows from the 1916 scenario, James Reed, the Democratic nominee, is brutally far behind popular incumbent Leonard Wood. The intended only way to win is to organize a meeting with Henry Ford, who will then get Reed in touch with Joseph Goebbels himself, allowing Reed to use the Nazi propaganda machine to drag Wood down enough to steal a victory, with the end screen even saying Reed plans to do Hitler's bidding in America. This suggests a rather [[DayOfTheJackboot grim outcome for the future of the United States.]]

* ApocalypticLog: [[spoiler:The final post of the r/politics subreddit seen in the ending of ''W.'' where WW3 starts under Clark, functions as this. The manager of a Dominos Pizza branch in Washington D.C. notes the alarming number of pizzas being delivered to the Pentagon, and correctly predicts that this means something ''[[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt big]]'' is about to happen. The comments range from fear to outright denial, before ominously ending with a redditor commenting that his TV is doing that "[[EmergencyBroadcast weird emergency test sound]]".]]

** Jesse Ventura in the original release of ''W.'' merely appears as one of the many potential third-party candidates in the election, posing no threat against Dubya or the Democratic candidate and almost always falling short of the 5% popular vote needed for the Reform Party to gain federal funding. While this remains same for nearly all other routes following the ''W.+'' update, this changes if Richard Gephardt manages to become the Democratic nominee. Channeling the rage of the anti-war movement who have now come to support his third-party candidacy, Ventura becomes a genuine threat to both Bush and Gephardt. He even has questions dedicated solely to stopping him like the Democratic candidate has, and unexpectedly qualifies for the debates.

* DamnYouMuscleMemory: If Al Gore wins the Democratic Party nomination for a rematch against Bush in ''W.'', the party colors on the election map will switch the other way around (with Bush states as blue and Gore states as red), alluding to the period when the party color identification didn't become standardized until after the first Bush-Gore election in 2000. Thus, it can come across as confusing at first to the player if they don't pay enough attention.

* DifferentWorldDifferentMovies: If the player in ''W.'' fuels enough chauvinistic sentiment to [[spoiler:launch a war against Iran, the ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' will turn into an explicit attack against the Bush administration, with Creator/GeorgeLucas (who in RealLife never acknowledged that any American president influenced Palpatine's depiction other than Richard Nixon) outright stating that the movie is about Bush while presenting the final cut to the Cannes Film Festival]].

** [[spoiler:There's an underlying sense that the 72-year old Ted Kennedy in ''W.'' is way past his prime, especially when compared to his youthful self in 1972: Peace With Honor. He's in [[YourDaysAreNumbered poor health]], a lot less mobile than he used to be and way more decrepit-looking than Bush. The only reason why he serves as Dubya's strongest opponent is because of his first term being a complete failure that ends with Bush firing large swathes of his cabinet. If Bush has a successful first term (minus the cabinet firings), Kennedy becomes significantly easier to deal with provided you know how to successfully deal with his campaign's attacks.]]

* {{Hypocrite}}:
** PlayedForLaughs in 2013 NJ, [[spoiler:where Tony Soprano makes a mean-spirited joke aimed at Chris Christie's weight despite being a big man himself. One of the options is even for Tony to [[HypocrisyNod acknowledge his hypocrisy]] and apologize to Christie.]]
** If Bush in ''W.'' chooses to [[spoiler:start a third war in Syria, one of the reasons he gives for the toppling of Bashar Al-Assad is that he only became Syria's president due to his father.]]

* TheNicknamer: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nicknames_used_by_George_W._Bush Like in real life]], George W. Bush in ''W.'' is very fond of referring to the people around him by nicknames. Examples include Turd Blossom (Karl Rove), Pootie-Poot (UsefulNotes/VladimirPutin), Vice (Dick Cheney), and of course Poppy (George H. W. Bush).

** [[spoiler:Ted Kennedy in ''W.'' also occupies the same role of continuing his family's legacy funnily enough, but this time it's against a George W. Bush who has fired a large part of his cabinet and whose tenure has been ravaged by scandals. If he manages to live up to his brothers' legacies after winning against Bush is another story though. Without any wars going on, Ted Kennedy manages to preside over a triumphant first term where he implements many of his signature policies and the Republicans sink further into extremism (nominating Ron Paul as their presidential nominee) with seemingly no chance of turning their fortunes around... only for [[UsefulNotes/BernieSanders Senator Sanders]] to warn about the popping of the housing bubble (the OTL precursor to the Great Recession)- ending on an ominous {{Cliffhanger}}. If there's one war going on, Kennedy slips further and further into the role of a PuppetKing as his cabinent starts to take advantage of his failing health to continue the war. If there's two wars ongoing, Kennedy's term is a complete failure as he fails to end the wars and is unable to pass any legislation (including Universal Healthcare, now watered down to an Obamacare-style bill). With the president largely absent from the public eye, a much more aggressive Bush is able to snatch the nomination from Ron Paul with the election looking absolutely lopsided in his favor.]]

* WeUsedToBeFriends: Joe Lieberman in ''W.'' launches his presidential bid against George W. Bush expecting it to be friendly competition between ideas, not personalities. If Bush decides to disregard such etiquette and launch a thrashing campaign to tarnish the reputation of Lieberman among the voters, he will feel himself betrayed and can even break down into tears.
-->''Lieberman is flustered as you accuse him of wanting to kill the unborn and destroy the sanctity of marriage. "I never said that," he struggles to be heard. He seems on the verge of tears. "I don't understand why you're saying these things. We've worked together. Please..." You give him no aid. The newspapers the next day show him wiping his eyes''

** Robert Byrd, added as an anti-war candidate to ''W.'' during the ''W. +'' update, is the oldest serving senator in the mod at a whopping '''87 years old''' and becomes the oldest Democratic presidential nominee if nominated. To say that Byrd's old age is the butt of many jokes is an understatement (Bush even visits the 125-year old tortoise Harriet), and the so-called "Goldwater Rule" (an ethical rule preventing psychologists from diagnosing public figures without their consent) goes right out the window with many even openly speculating just ''how'' long Byrd can stay in office as POTUS before he inevitably dies.

** [[spoiler: In Wesley Clark's Third World War path, his hawkish campaign is paired with Bush provocatively deploying ships to the Baltic and instructing the Taiwanese to seize some neighboring islands, leading to a three way world war scenario once Bush loses the election.]]

* WorldWarIII: Narrowly averted in 2004 [=W.=], where if you have a particularly hawkish presidency as Bush, you get the option to [[spoiler: launch missile strikes against North Korea. Doing so results in outright war being only narrowly avoided through the intervention of the South Korean president. As this is followed by heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Bush at one point proposes dropping a nuke on North Korea, with the only thing stopping him being the intervention of [[UsefulNotes/ColinPowell Colin Powell]]]].

** ''1960 Kennedy'' was initially advertised by the creator Halligan Elysium#2036 as a complete copy-paste of the vanilla 1960 scenario with no discernible differences, baffling a large section of the community who thought it was a joke... [[spoiler:until the mod was finally released and was revealed to be a 1960 mod where you played as UsefulNotes/RobertFKennedy managing his brother John's campaign. Even more shocking is the historical results, where Henry "Scoop" Jackson is shown as the ''canon running mate''- making the mod a [[StealthSequel stealth prequel]] to ''Scoop 64!''.]]

** [[spoiler:Gus Hall in 1972d is a communist working with the Soviet Union to bring a communist revolution in the USA, but raises a few good points about the American political system which culminates in him pointing out to a reporter that Nixon and his lackeys have caused more violence and taken more lives than the CPUSA has ever done in its whole existence. Said reporter is briefly taken aback by Hall's words.]]

* VoteEarlyVoteOften:
** Park Chung-hee in 1971 South Korea can end up trying to stuff the ballot boxes in order to ultimately guarantee his victory against Kim Dae-jung. [[spoiler: This immediately bites him in the ass when a ballox box stuffed with fraudelent ballots in Seoul is discovered, and this clear evidence of election fraud causes Park's defeat to be almost inevitable.]]
** [[spoiler:It's revealed near the end of 1980: The Happy Warrior that the reason why John Conally was able to score such a decisive landslide over Mo Udall was because of voting fraud, with several ballot boxes full of votes for Udall being dumped into various pits. Needless to say, this utterly derails Connally's effective campaign up to this point and can ultimately deliver the victory to the bedridden Humphrey.]]

** [[spoiler:Joseph [=McCarthy=] is in really poor shape at the start of 1956 Red due to a multitude of illnesses stemming from his alcohol abuse. Canonically, he ends up getting elected by a very slim margin of victory before dying of bone cancer one year into his term.]]
** Hubert Humphrey in 1980: The Happy Warrior managed to beat his cancer (which claimed his life IRL) thanks to a successful operation but is still left in poor health owing to his age and has [[IncurableCoughOfDeath recurring coughing fits]] throughout the mod. [[spoiler:One especially concerning cough fit sends Humphrey straight into a hospital bed, which almost tanks his campaign if it wasn't for John Conally's rigging of the 1976 election being uncovered.]]

** Released on April Fool's Day, 2024a initially appeared to be a scenario about the future 2024 US Election in the vein of the infamous 2016a and 2020a, only for it to be directed to a mockup of "British History UK" where the 2024 Election is revealed to be an alternate 2024 ''UK'' General Election.

** [[spoiler:While RFK in the "Camelot Returns" ending for 1964 Scoop! initially lives up to his brother's legacy by pushing for National Healthcare, a Civil Rights Acts beyond what even John had wanted and expanded unemployment insurance, his poor handling of the Vietnam War ([[ShockingDefeatLegacy considered the first-ever war America has lost]]) causes a massive right-wing backlash that leaves Bobby a lame-duck president following the close 1968 election and will ultimately lead to Reagan winning the presidency.]]

* MinusWorld: Occasionally, a mod newly-added to the loader (like 1993 Post Communist USA and 2028 Swift) won't load the mod at all thanks to a bug with the coding. It instead loads a [[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/818130397706846242/1181362060701995118/image.png?ex=65933d27&is=6580c827&hm=d068dac85a66267007ec31a8bba69d4c465710813c177a66048acd11ea265838& bizarre version]] of a 2020 mod made by Snoo that was previously taken off the loader. Hilariously, the Donald Trump of this mod lacks the LargeHam answers he has in both the vanilla 2016 and 2020 scenarios.

** ''1946 CA-12: The Making of a Crook'' is about the very first election Richard Nixon contested. Starting at a big disadvantage compared to Voorhis, Nixon is given the option to engage in his signature dirty tactics to gain an edge over the incumbent congressman. Winning with the help of red-baiting and other underhanded tactics has the ending state that Nixon's ambition will soon reach new heights, and that it will never be enough.

** The 1988b scenario sees the player challenging George Bush as African American activist Jesse Jackson, should he win America will have a black man in the white house two decades earlier than happened in real life.

** [[spoiler:Similarly, ''Midnight 1964'' alludes to George Lincoln Rockwell in a few of the advisor responses which mention an obscure far-right politician (one of them mentioning his distinct [[GoodSmokingEvilSmoking smoking pipe]]) from Virginia protesting both LBJ and Goldwater's actions. He only becomes important in 1965 Midnight, which allows the player to play as him trying to win the Virginia gubernatorial election while in the midst of a failing Goldwater presidency.]]

** Vice President William Knowland of 1956 Red initially seems to be the strong front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, with Tom Dewey and Joe [=McCarthy=]'s primary challenges being little more than vanity affairs more than anything. [=Tom1923=] later unearthed a teaser that showed Knowland as the presidential candidate, cementing Knowland's position... [[spoiler:at least until it's revealed that [=McCarthy=] and his advisor Roy M. Cohn leaked information about Knowland's extramarital affairs to the Evening Star, who proceeded to publish a shocking article that completely destroys Knowland's credibility and with it his chances of nomination. Unwilling to draft a moderate Republican, Knowland and Taft's conservative delegates end up voting for ''[=McCarthy=]'' and the infamous demagogue reviled by majority of the country ends up receiving the presidential nomination.]]
** George Lincoln Rockwell starts out in 1965 Midnight as little more than the largely unknown leader of a fringe white supremacist group, but he can end up riding the wave of public discontent with President Goldwater (gaining crucial support from the segregationists in the process) to win Virginia's gubernatorial election in a squeaker. His election marks the first time a third-party candidate has won a gubernatorial race for the first time since 1942, with Rockwell officially becoming the first non-Democrat governor of Virginia since 1881.
** George Wallace can end up deadlocking the election in 1968VK just like in the historical 1968 scenario, leaving both parties reeling and now at the whim of the segregationists.
** [[spoiler:A rather interesting example in a 1972d victory where Gus Hall gets over 5% of the popular vote. While Nixon easily gets the electoral victory as expected, the openly communist Hall and his CPUSA get a large number of votes in major cities while multiple Democratic electors defect to Hall in protest of John Connally. The over 5% of the popular vote also means that the CPUSA will also get funding from the ''[[{{Irony}} Federal Government]]'' for future presidential elections. With [[ReconcileTheBitterFoes the New and Old Left now united under a single party]], the Soviets now willing to send much more support to CPUSA, both Democrats and Republicans alike rendered speechless by the election's results and Hall hearing the sounds of protestors surrounding the Stock Exchange upon disembarking his train, it becomes clear that the CPUSA is the true victor of the 1972 election.]]

** [[spoiler:Another interesting one occurs if Ted Turner in ''1996 - Mouths of the South'' runs as the Reform presidential nominee and wins over 20 EVs, this allows the Reform Party to prosper and actually pose a threat to both the Republicans and Democrats.]]

* JokeEnding: In the 2008 election, [=McCain=] has the option of condemning "the folly of capitalism." This will completely sabotage his campaign. At the end, it turns out that he's actually a Russian spy, and his superiors are [[YouHaveFailedMe not happy with him for failing.]]

* TheNicknamer: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nicknames_used_by_George_W._Bush Like in real life]], George W. Bush in ''W.'' is very fond of referring to the people around him by nicknames. Examples include Turd Blossom (Karl Rove), Pootie-Poot (UsefulNotes/VladimirPutin), Vice (Dick Cheney), and so on.

* PaperTiger: [[spoiler:Getting divorced by Jane Fonda is this for a Democratic Turner campaign in ''1996 Mouths of the South''. Despite the ominous warning near the start, throwing Hayden out a window and getting divorced by Fonda doesn't ''completely'' tank your numbers, and it's still entirely possible to win with either Kohl or Kerry as your running mate.]]

** In 1963 Korea, Park Chung-hee's attempted MilitaryCoup can be foiled very early on, whether by being discovered before the coup can begin, or even [[SurprisinglySuddenDeath walking over a landmine]], preventing him from doing near-fatal damage to South Korea's democracy. The red-baiting tactics that are used against Park in the election could also make him count as this, should he lose.
** Downplayed InUniverse in 1996 – Mouths of the South. [[spoiler:If Ted Turner throws Tom Hayden out a window, the Democrats brace themselves for a landslide loss not seen since 1972... but a large number of voters actually ''sympathize'' with Turner because they see Hayden's attempt to get Ted to drop out as him trying to ruin Turner and Fonda's marriage. Hayden's [[DirtyCommunists socialist leanings]] don't help too.]]

** [[spoiler: The 1972d scenario is set up to look like an ordinary mod about a Nixon vs Connally race, but reveals that you are actually playing as CPUSA leader Gus Hall in an atmosphere where Nixon has successfully set things up so that a man who once served as a conservative republican is now the nominee for the democrats, leading to widespread political alienation. In a gameplay sense, it serves as this as well: you are not even seriously running for president, but instead aiming to gain a popular vote share high enough to legitimize communism and the left in America.]]

* PaperTiger: [[spoiler:Getting divorced by Jane Fonda is this for the Turner campaign in ''1996 Mouths of the South''. Despite the ominous warning near the start, throwing Hayden out a window and getting divorced by Fonda doesn't ''completely'' tank your numbers.]]