It certainly created one sort of mess. The loss of US prestige over Iraq was (and is) a real issue. I think it may have recovered some over Ukraine.
But the growth of identity politics and the culture of victimhood would have been worse if the Dems had had the presidency all along.
And presumably, the development of the toxic right would have found a means of expression one way or another.
The last bastion of centrist politics in the US is the liberal part of the Democratic Party. It's really a bad thing that the GOP doesn't have an equivalent section on the centre-right, holding positions roughly like those of the UK Conservative Party. I do hope that kind of view finds a place in US politics. That was one reason I found Lindsey Graham's suggestion on abortion interesting. He was searching for a right-of-centre compromise instead of the usual absolute zero model.
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