What if Robert Kennedy had lived 50 years ago?

As a lifelong history buff, I've always been most intrigued by the "what if" questions. How would one change of fate at key moments in the history of our nation have forever changed its course, and our lives as a result?

What if Sherman hadn't captured Atlanta on the eve of the 1864 presidential election, saving Lincoln's bid for a second term? What if Lincoln had survived his trip to Ford's Theater, saving us from the nightmare presidency of Andrew Johnson? (if you think Trump is incompetent, unhinged and racist, read up on Johnson).

What if the U.S. Navy had been prepared for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and delivered Japan a crushing blow? What if Roosevelt had lived to serve out his fourth term, and John F. Kennedy had lived to serve a second?

But the "what if" question I've always found most intriguing surrounds the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy 50 years ago today (he was shot on June 5 and died on June 6). With all the other "what ifs," it's easy to speculate what might have happened in the immediate aftermath, and how the arc of history would have changed at least in the short term (Lincoln sees through Reconstruction; JFK sails to a second term). With RFK, the possible outcomes are almost too numerous to count, and nearly impossible to discern. It's entirely possible that his assassination had little, if any, effect on the history of the past 50 years. It's also entirely possible that its impact on our political system, and society as a whole, is still being felt and reckoned with.

When he gave his victory speech in Los Angeles upon winning the California Democratic primary and embarked upon that fateful walk through the Ambassador Hotel, no one knew what the future held for RFK, or the nation, in the days and months ahead. It is entirely possible that he nevertheless would have been denied the Democratic presidential nomination at the party's convention later that summer, that Richard Nixon still would have been elected president later that fall, and, like his brother Ted, RFK would have receded to a long career in the U.S. Senate.

There's much to be said for that argument. Incumbent President Lyndon Johnson, whose disdain for RFK was mutual, clearly favored his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, for the nomination, along with the party establishment. While his strong showing in the primaries certainly would have given RFK momentum heading into Chicago, it's far from certain he would have been able to overcome the structural hurdles to the nomination that stood in his way. After all, his main rival in the Democratic primaries that year, and the man whose primary challenge to Johnson first shook up the race, Sen. Eugene McCarthy, saw his anti-Vietnam War campaign for the nomination fizzle at the convention.

But what if it had all gone differently? The history of the last 50 years, and our perception about politics and each other, might be profoundly different today.

There's maybe an even stronger argument to be made that, had he lived, RFK would have triumphed in Chicago and in the presidential election that year. The means the Vietnam War likely would have ended years earlier; the United States may have come to terms with race relations and immigration in a way that still hasn't happened; and there never would have been Watergate, with all the cynicism toward politics and politicians that accompanied it.

Here's how it all could have played out and how our nation and world could have been so much different today:

• RFK would have arrived in Chicago promising to recapture the Kennedy magic that had disappeared from the Democratic Party with his brother's murder five years earlier. The contrast between the fresh, inspiring message of the martyred president's brother and the hand-picked choice of JFK's unpopular successor would have been too much for the delegates to resist. After a fierce battle on the convention floor, RFK would have wrested the nomination from Humphrey.
• RFK's presence likely would have prevented much, maybe all, of the violence that overtook the city streets during the convention when Chicago police viciously assaulted anti-war protesters. He would have provided the same calming influence that he had while speaking in Indiana the night of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, and one of the uglier episodes of an ugly year in America likely would never have occurred.
• Unlike Humphrey, RFK's nomination would have presented a clear contrast with Richard Nixon in the presidential election. While Nixon ran as the "law and order" candidate, Kennedy would have run as the candidate promising to end the Vietnam War, continue the war on poverty, stand up for oppressed farm workers, battle for liberal ideals, and lead the long-overdue reckoning with race relations in the country.
• RFK would have exploited Nixon's many flaws in a way Humphrey never could. Saddled with a disastrous convention and LBJ's baggage, Humphrey was given almost no chance to beat Nixon as the presidential race heated up that year. But what looked like a sure landslide turned into a razor-close race as Humphrey improbably ate into Nixon's lead in the weeks before the election, and nearly pulled off a historic upset. RFK would have had none of Humphrey's baggage and an ability to energize the electorate in a way Humphrey was simply incapable of. It remains one of the ironies of history that 1968, a year of profound change and upheaval in the country, led to the election of a man who had been a political has-been only a year or two earlier. With hindsight, it's hard to see how Nixon could have prevailed against RFK.
• The greatest "what-if" remains what a Robert Kennedy presidency would have rendered. He almost certainly would have moved to end the Vietnam War much quicker than Nixon and restore the United States' prestige in the world. There certainly never would have been a Watergate scandal, with all the distrust of politics and politicians that followed, but that doesn't mean RFK wouldn't have been tripped up by scandals and missteps of his own. And would he have followed Nixon's detente policy with the Soviet Union and opening with China, or even gone further?

Of all the "what if" questions here, the most intriguing for me is whether RFK would have moved aggressively to confront our social demons around race, immigration and poverty, or would he have taken the more cautious, pragmatic route of his brother once in office? Would he have been a liberal lion in the White House, in the way his would brother would become in the Senate in the decades that followed, and used his majorities in Congress to push through bold new social legislation? And if he had moved aggressively, would it have sparked a backlash among Nixon's great "silent majority" that would have doomed his presidency as moving too far, too fast, perhaps setting up an epic battle with Ronald Reagan in 1972?

Or would his lofty rhetoric and soaring ideals have restored faith in the presidency after the stain of Vietnam and helped bring forth, in the words of Lincoln a century earlier, "the better angels of our nature" as the nation emerged from the turbulent 1960s. RFK's ability to inspire through words would have rivaled Barack Obama, and his innate political skill, experience and boldness might have better equipped him to execute his vision.

The idealist in me likes to think RFK would have indeed summoned those angels capable of trumping the cynicism, bitterness, distrust and division that would continue to grow and fester over the next half century, culminating with Donald Trump.

But the realist says that would have been too daunting a task for any president, even a Kennedy.