Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda: Logical Fallacy of Hypothesis Contrary to Fact

  In the fallacy of "Hypothesis Contrary to Fact," the argument presents a premise that is a statement of fact, but then draws a conclusion based on a hypothetical scenario that is contrary to that fact, essentially saying "if only X had happened, then Y would have occurred," without providing sufficient evidence to support the hypothetical claim.

I'm noticing this logical fallacy used more and more. Today in the football game, the announcer kept insisting on a hypothetical past to claim a conclusion contrary to fact. People are making this claim more and more by insisting they are due something based on changing the past to what they think "should have" happened. The worse case scenario is the WTO arguments that regulations cause "loss of future profits" - so that if a national government passes a law banning something, the corporation insists they should be paid for what could have been future profits.

This fallacy works in the opposite way also - when on the corporate-state propaganda, the commentators insist on how the present will be judged in a future as a hypothetical history! In other words - why assume that the future will exist? The person doesn't know for certain that such a future will happen and also does not know the past causation that will cause that future to happen. So the whole line of reasoning is just a nice "filler" on the corporate-state propaganda. 

 This fallacy occurs when someone argues that their specific prediction about the present would be true or accurate if a past event had happened differently.

  the claim, “If only you had learned how to play the piano as a child, you would be a concert pianist today” is untenable; there’s no way to guarantee that they would have continued playing throughout their life, have the talent and skill to perform at a professional level, or would not suffer a serious injury that would impede that goal.

 We hear Drumpf the fascist regime leader relying on this logical fallacy all the time - "if only... blah blah" - and people fall for this fascist nostalgia because that's what the whole Make America Great Again b.s. is - the Logical Fallacy of Hypothesis Contrary to Fact.

Admittedly it can be fun to think this way as a joke - creating mythological imaginary scenarios that go against logic is what humor is all about!