Alternate History Ideas and Discussion

Circle of Willis

Well-known member
CRT itself was unlikely to become massively popular in the US back then, though elements of liberal elites disconnect with white American proles in regards to race relations could have already existed back then. For instance, as I previously mentioned, liberal elites sending their kids to fancy private schools and living in the best neighborhoods and thus only getting the best kinds of diversity while forcing white American proles to experience worse kinds of diversity through forced integration, such as with school busing forcing white American proles to share their schools with ghetto kids (as opposed to with the black middle- and upper-classes).
I think that's literally just what happened with busing. A lot of the liberal figures pushing it, like Ted Kennedy and George McGovern, sent their own kids to private schools rather than condescend to letting them be bused into the same schools as the ghetto kids as you say. It kicked off a conservative backlash rather than anything that could be properly termed 'authoritarian' or 'reactionary' though, and was even pretty unpopular with the blacks (regardless of social class) themselves.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
I think that's literally just what happened with busing. A lot of the liberal figures pushing it, like Ted Kennedy and George McGovern, sent their own kids to private schools rather than condescend to letting them be bused into the same schools as the ghetto kids as you say. It kicked off a conservative backlash rather than anything that could be properly termed 'authoritarian' or 'reactionary' though, and was even pretty unpopular with the blacks (regardless of social class) themselves.

Well, FWIW, one could say that trying to dictate national policy through the judiciary is semi-authoritarian in a way:


Though of course Raoul Berger was critical of the original Brown decision as well, not just forced busing. He opposed school segregation on moral grounds but didn't actually believe that the US federal judiciary actually had the power to abolish it.

But of course liberals aren't the only ones who can use the judiciary to shape national policy. For instance, conservatives support preventing US states from imposing restrictions on gun rights and they support using the judiciary as their instrument for doing this.
 

Earl

Well-known member
The typical left-wing narrative usually leaves out that Allende ruled by decree, ignored the Constitution, had set up paramilitary death squads, and was about to forcibly dissolve the parliament which had issued a resolution ordering him to cease his abuses.
Any Reputable Sources on this? I’ve heard it before but haven’t seen much evidence.


Anyway... have an equivalent to Allende arise in the USA, using the same means, subverting the Constitution to the same degree, and ignoring the resolutions of Congress in the same way... and then you can easily see Congress and the Supreme Court explicitly requisting the military to take action to defend the Constitution and the lawful rule that derives therefrom.
Personally the figure I’d see doing this would have to be Huey Long. Man was an authoritarian Little tyrant who appealed to all sorts of people and could of Theoretically got elected in the absence of FDR (not that FDR saved the nation, more that he kept his coalition out of the hands of people like Long). Cue him being a banana tyrant in the making, cue MacArthur or somebody deciding now is the time to stop him and save the Country. Mac won’t be the dictator openly, but he will damn well push around the new president. Also expect lots and lots of riots, with resulting counter strikes and the establishment reacting with Mass Murder… now just have good ole J Edgar codify it, and you get a very repressive US state, although still probably at least pretending to be a democracy.
Edit:
the Holocaust was committed in response to the horrors of Communism
Im sorry,No.The Holocaust was committed because of centuries of built up anti semitism, culminating in the sickness of Nazism, whose mania about the Jews was central to their ideology. Also the Jews were only the first part see the entirety of General Plan Ost. Now the Nazis certainly got into Power because of the Soviets being right there, but there evil was not in any way the impetus behind the Holocaust save for the Anti Semitic canard of communists being Jews and the like, while of course also believing in Judeo capitalism
 
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Skallagrim

Well-known member
Any Reputable Sources on this? I’ve heard it before but haven’t seen much evidence.
A definitive source on the background events for all this is Edgardo Boeninger. He was a friend and compatriot of Eduardo Frei (Allende's Christian Democratic predecessor). He can directly quote a whole slew of centrist moderates who were directly involved, and thus attest that they condemned Allende and supported the request to the military to remove him from power. (There is a Dutch academic translation of Boeninger's Democracia en Chile, but I'm not aware of an English translation.)

Key detail here is that Boeninger, Frei, and many of their alllies subsequently became opponents of Pinochet as well. They're not apoloists for his clear abuses. They just set the record straight, dispelling the socialist myth of Allende-the-hero-of-democracy.

Anyway, the facts are clear. On 26 May 1973, the Supreme Court of Chile unanimously denounced the Allende government's disruption of the rule of law. This included a slew of violations of the Constitution, and a continual refusal to permit police execution of judicial decisions contrary to the government's measures or interests. The Supreme Court called upon the military to uphold the Constitution, as per the military's oath.

At the end of July, there was a general strike that included the copper miners of El Teniente. This strike was illegally and violently suppressed, making it clear even to many moderate supporters that Allende's talk of standing up for the common man was pure fabrication.

On 22 August, the Chamber of Deputies passed a resolution condemning Allende's many crimes and abuses. The text of the Chamber of Deputies' resolution is literally on wiki. This passed 81 to 47, I think. So a clear Democratic majority was opposed to Allende's abuses, nor was it purely the right wing that wanted him gone. As to the main points.... The Chamber of Deputies accused the government of:


-- unconstitutionally refusing to enact constitutional amendments, already approved by the Chamber, which would have prevented his government from continuing its massive (and illegal) nationalisation plan

-- seeking to "conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of subjecting all citizens to the strictest political and economic control by the State... [with] the goal of establishing... a totalitarian system"

-- violating the constitution not just incidentally, but as "a permanent system of conduct"

-- utter disregard for the separation of powers

-- ruling by decree, thus subverting the legislative branch altogether

-- refusing to enforce judicial decisions against left-wing terrorists, and generally just not carrying out sentences and judicial resolutions that went against Alende's objectives

-- illegally ignoring the decrees of the independent General Comptroller's Office

-- usurping the National Television Network for propaganda purposes, violating the neutrality of the state media that was decreed by law

-- applying illegal economic pressure against privately-owned media organisations that were not unconditional supporters of the government

-- forming socialist paramilitary units that were "headed towards a confrontation with the armed forces"

-- generally allowing socialist activists to freely carry arms, while depriving right-wing activists of arms

-- attempts to co-opt the police and military via "notorious attempts to use the armed and police forces for partisan ends, destroy their institutional hierarchy, and politically infiltrate their ranks"

-- fostering the illegal seizure of over 1500 farms

-- illegally and violently suppressing the El Teniente miners' strike

-- illegally putting restrictions on emigration, thus keeping the population trapped, East Germany style


The resolution instructed Allende to put an immediate end to these breaches of the Constitutios, "with the goal of redirecting government activity toward the path of law and ensuring the Constitutional order of our Nation, and the essential underpinnings of democratic co-existence among Chileans". Furthermore, the Chamber of Deputies joined in the earlier plea by the Supreme Court for the military to uphold its oath to the Constitution -- and to remove from power any government that persists in subverting it. (It is crucial to note that this would not be a coup, but a constitutional duty. Pinochet, contrary to left-wing agitation, was never at fault for removing Allende. He was at fault for not subsequently relinquishing power himself.)


Personally the figure I’d see doing this would have to be Huey Long. Man was an authoritarian Little tyrant who appealed to all sorts of people and could of Theoretically got elected in the absence of FDR (not that FDR saved the nation, more that he kept his coalition out of the hands of people like Long). Cue him being a banana tyrant in the making, cue MacArthur or somebody deciding now is the time to stop him and save the Country. Mac won’t be the dictator openly, but he will damn well push around the new president. Also expect lots and lots of riots, with resulting counter strikes and the establishment reacting with Mass Murder… now just have good ole J Edgar codify it, and you get a very repressive US state, although still probably at least pretending to be a democracy.
Yup. No FDR and someone like Long seizing power would probably do the trick.

Im sorry,No.The Holocaust was committed because of centuries of built up anti semitism, culminating in the sickness of Nazism, whose mania about the Jews was central to their ideology. Also the Jews were only the first part see the entirety of General Plan Ost. Now the Nazis certainly got into Power because of the Soviets being right there, but there evil was not in any way the impetus behind the Holocaust save for the Anti Semitic canard of communists being Jews and the like, while of course also believing in Judeo capitalism
True.

I think what @WolfBear did indeed mean to convey that the Nazis only ever came into power because Germany was a basket-case teetering on the edge of communist revolution for a while there. Loads of people only supported the Nazis because they saw the communists to be the greater evil. (Indeed, the expected the Nazis to be like the Italian fascists, who were near-universally considered a far lesser evil than the USSR throughout the 1920.)
 

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
Any Reputable Sources on this? I’ve heard it before but haven’t seen much evidence.

Seconded and answered!

A definitive source on the background events for all this is Edgardo Boeninger. He was a friend and compatriot of Eduardo Frei (Allende's Christian Democratic predecessor). He can directly quote a whole slew of centrist moderates who were directly involved, and thus attest that they condemned Allende and supported the request to the military to remove him from power. (There is a Dutch academic translation of Boeninger's Democracia en Chile, but I'm not aware of an English translation.)

Key detail here is that Boeninger, Frei, and many of their alllies subsequently became opponents of Pinochet as well. They're not apoloists for his clear abuses. They just set the record straight, dispelling the socialist myth of Allende-the-hero-of-democracy.

Anyway, the facts are clear. On 26 May 1973, the Supreme Court of Chile unanimously denounced the Allende government's disruption of the rule of law. This included a slew of violations of the Constitution, and a continual refusal to permit police execution of judicial decisions contrary to the government's measures or interests. The Supreme Court called upon the military to uphold the Constitution, as per the military's oath.

At the end of July, there was a general strike that included the copper miners of El Teniente. This strike was illegally and violently suppressed, making it clear even to many moderate supporters that Allende's talk of standing up for the common man was pure fabrication.

On 22 August, the Chamber of Deputies passed a resolution condemning Allende's many crimes and abuses. The text of the Chamber of Deputies' resolution is literally on wiki. This passed 81 to 47, I think. So a clear Democratic majority was opposed to Allende's abuses, nor was it purely the right wing that wanted him gone.

Thanks for the tip-off.

It definitely contradicts pretty much everything I've searched (and been taught) over the years, save for vague mention of a failing socialist economy and the cherry-picked highlight of Allende being "democratically elected". Not doubting there's more to the story off-hand, but considering all the "inconvenient" little facts that have been memory-holed over the years (i.e. a young Hitler being sympathetic to communism before swinging the other way altogether), it's helpful to have specific references to point to here. (And I'm glad you've done so.)
 

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
'ATL Presidential Election: Barry Goldwater Wins By Reaganite Margins'.

Note that it doesn't have to be in 1964 (which is probably ASB, anyway). You can, however, tweak events leading up to whatever election year is most favorable to Goldwater and prognosticate accordingly.
 

Circle of Willis

Well-known member
'ATL Presidential Election: Barry Goldwater Wins By Reaganite Margins'.

Note that it doesn't have to be in 1964 (which is probably ASB, anyway). You can, however, tweak events leading up to whatever election year is most favorable to Goldwater and prognosticate accordingly.
Goldwater loses the 1964 GOP nomination to Rockefeller, who then proceeds to get annihilated by similar margins to OTL Goldwater in the general. Come 1968, with the liberal Republicans severely discredited by the back-to-back defeats of Nixon & Rockefeller, the ascendant conservatives finally succeed in propelling Goldwater's candidacy to victory and he picks fellow Senator Jacob Javits of New York, a liberal and ally of Rockefeller's, to reconcile with the moderates somewhat and balance the ticket both geographically & ideologically. Their message: conservatism to be sure, but above all a restoration of national honor following the scandals & unpopularity of Johnson, and an iron-clad law & order against which the tides of anarchy and liberalism will shatter like a wave against an immovable boulder.

The 1968 election proves to be even more chaotic than IOTL, with Johnson insisting on running to the finish line and consequently more intense DNC riots not only threatening to consume all of Chicago, but spilling out into the suburbs - seemingly vindicating Goldwater's message. Following RFK's assassination, his supporters & delegates bury the hatchet with Eugene McCarthy's faction and rally to him instead of splitting the vote with latecomer George McGovern in hopes of defeating LBJ, with McCarthy promising to take McGovern on as his running mate in exchange. They succeed amid the fracas, but the unbalanced ticket of progressive Midwestern peaceniks McCarthy & McGovern proves a bridge too far for too many moderate and even liberal Democrats to swallow in the wake of the riots of '68 (including but not limited to the aforementioned riot at the DNC).

The Goldwater/Javits ticket proceeds to bury McCarthy/McGovern (who are dragged even further down by Wallace splitting and running with LeMay as per OTL) and sweeps the nation, save for McCarthy's native Minnesota and ever-faithfully-blue Massachusetts, DC and Rhode Island. That leaves McCarthy with 31 electoral votes, Wallace with his 46 and Goldwater a whopping 461 IIRC.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
Im sorry,No.The Holocaust was committed because of centuries of built up anti semitism, culminating in the sickness of Nazism, whose mania about the Jews was central to their ideology. Also the Jews were only the first part see the entirety of General Plan Ost. Now the Nazis certainly got into Power because of the Soviets being right there, but there evil was not in any way the impetus behind the Holocaust save for the Anti Semitic canard of communists being Jews and the like, while of course also believing in Judeo capitalism

The thing is, though, that any country that was allegedly (in Nazi eyes) dominated by Jewish capitalists was nowhere near as brutal and totalitarian as the allegedly (in Nazi eyes) Judeo-Bolshevik regime in the Soviet Union was. So, there was logic in Nazis hating Jewish Communists even more than they hated Jewish capitalists, though you're obviously correct that they hated both of them and viewed both of them as tools in a global Jewish conspiracy to undermine gentiles and gentile society.
 

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
The Goldwater/Javits ticket proceeds to bury McCarthy/McGovern (who are dragged even further down by Wallace splitting and running with LeMay as per OTL) and sweeps the nation, save for McCarthy's native Minnesota and ever-faithfully-blue Massachusetts, DC and Rhode Island. That leaves McCarthy with 31 electoral votes, Wallace with his 46 and Goldwater a whopping 461 IIRC.

Oof. Now that's a wipe-out electoral map, right there.

Although, even if he hung on by a thread through primary season, I get the feeling Goldwater would've trounced Johnson in a truly 1980-esque landslide. In which case, that's some real doubly irony we've got going, though I'm wondering if you could be more specific about the scandals to LBJ's name, beyond him escalating the Vietnam War and being a vulgar, repugnant bully on a personal level? (I also know about the infamous Daisy Ad he smeared Goldwater with, but still.)
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
I think what @WolfBear did indeed mean to convey that the Nazis only ever came into power because Germany was a basket-case teetering on the edge of communist revolution for a while there. Loads of people only supported the Nazis because they saw the communists to be the greater evil. (Indeed, the expected the Nazis to be like the Italian fascists, who were near-universally considered a far lesser evil than the USSR throughout the 1920.)

What I actually meant to convey was that "Judeo-Bolshevism" was probably more threatening to the Nazis than "Judeo-capitalism" ever was due to the fact that the former created a much more brutal and totalitarian system than the latter ever could. Just compare the Soviet Union to the US, for instance. The US never had tyranny and mass murder on the scale that the Soviets had, or forced famines, or extremely massive purges, or anything like that. From a statistical perspective, even Jim Crow pales in comparison. The number of people killed in Stalin's purges were likely 100 or more times than the number of people who were lynched in the US under Jim Crow, for instance.
 

Circle of Willis

Well-known member
Oof. Now that's a wipe-out electoral map, right there.

Although, even if he hung on by a thread through primary season, I get the feeling Goldwater would've trounced Johnson in a truly 1980-esque landslide. In which case, that's some real doubly irony we've got going, though I'm wondering if you could be more specific about the scandals to LBJ's name, beyond him escalating the Vietnam War and being a vulgar, repugnant bully on a personal level? (I also know about the infamous Daisy Ad he smeared Goldwater with, but still.)
I was thinking the Bobby Baker scandal finally coming into the public eye, and/or the FBI's wiretapping of MLK coming out shortly after his death. Hopefully that'll prove to be enough to really implode the Democratic coalition, pour gas on the fires of civil unrest and give Goldwater the big W you're looking for.
 

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
I was thinking the Bobby Baker scandal finally coming into the public eye, and/or the FBI's wiretapping of MLK coming out shortly after his death. Hopefully that'll prove to be enough to really implode the Democratic coalition, pour gas on the fires of civil unrest and give Goldwater the big W you're looking for.

Have heard about those, yeah. In which case, I suppose LBJ will leave office with the scandal-mired reputation of OTL Richard Nixon, with the double-whammy of losing in a landslide to the same guy he would've crushed four years earlier, had Goldwater gotten the nomination then.

I am, however, wondering what a Goldwater presidency would actually look like? "Reagan come early" probably oversimplifies it too much, given both the New Dealer sensibilities of the time and Goldwater's own distaste for the Religious Right that Reagan trumpeted.
 

Skallagrim

Well-known member
'ATL Presidential Election: Barry Goldwater Wins By Reaganite Margins'.

Note that it doesn't have to be in 1964 (which is probably ASB, anyway). You can, however, tweak events leading up to whatever election year is most favorable to Goldwater and prognosticate accordingly.
Taking a completely different approach:

I think we'd be able to craft a pretty wild scenario where FDR dies earlier, producing President Henry Wallace, followed by President Robert Taft. Both would be loved by the left and right, respectively, but both would be controversial, too. Afterwards, things swing back to more centrist candidates for both parties, but both parties now have these far more defined 'hard-line' wings. The hard-left Democrats gravitate towards full-blown "democratic socialism" and want rapprochement with the USSR. The hard-right Republicans embrace the domestic ideas of the Old Right, and preach taking a hard line against communism everywhere.

By the 60s, as matters in Vietnam become ever more intense, both these more radical wings enjoy a resurgence at the same time. Goldwater becomes the Republican candidate. We may assume his Democratic opponent represents the hard-left within the Democratic party. Various moderates consider a third-party run. But then, several members of the Democratic Party's left wing (including key members of their candidate's team) are unmasked as either former or current Soviet spies. (Somewhat along the lines of Anthony Blunt in the UK, for instance, who was discovered around that same time.)

The Democratic campaign collapses, as their candidate is irrevocably tainted by these associations. Moderates flock to Goldwater in droves. Moderate Democrats suddenly decline to run, wanting their party purged of these infiltrators first, lest they become associated with treason as well. When John F. Kennedy (not President and not shot in this TL) states his intent to vote for his friend Goldwater ("who, despite our differences, is a man I know to be a patriot"), it's the death-knell for the Democratic campaign.

Goldwater wins every single state, with only a few faithless electors voting for various moderate politicians.
 
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WolfBear

Well-known member
Taking a completely different approach:

I think we'd be able to craft a pretty wild scenario where FDR dies earlier, producing President Henry Wallace, followed by President Robert Taft. Both would be loved by the left and right, respectively, but both would be controversial, too. Afterwards, things swing back to more centrist candidates for both parties, but both parties now have these far more defined 'hard-line' wings. The hard-left Democrats gravitate towards full-blown "democratic socialism" and want rapprochement with the USSR. The hard-right Republicans embrace the domestic ideas of the Old Right, and preach taking a hard line against communism everywhere.

By the 60s, as matters in Vietnam become ever more intense, both these more radical wings enjoy a resurgence at the same time. Goldwater becomes the Republican candidate. We may assume his Democratic opponent represents the hard-left within the Democratic party. Various moderates consider a third-party run. But then, several members of the Democratic Party's left wing (including key members of their candidate's team) are unmasked as either former or current Soviet spies. (Somewhat along the lines of Anthony Blunt in the UK, for instance, who was discovered around that same time.)

The Democratic campaign collapses, as their candidate is irrevocably tainted by these associations. Moderates flock to Goldwater in droves. Moderate Democrats suddenly decline to run, wanting their party purged of these infiltrators first, lest they become associated with treason as well. When John F. Kennedy (not President and not shot in this TL) states his intent to vote for his friend Goldwater ("who, despite our differences, is a man I know to be a patriot"), it's the death-knell for the Democratic campaign.

Goldwater wins every single state, with only a few faithless electors voting for various moderate politicians.

Off-topic, but if Taft wins in 1948, do we still see NATO? AFAIK, Taft supported a US declaration that it will protect Western Europe from Soviet aggression in place of a formal NATO alliance.
 

Skallagrim

Well-known member
Off-topic, but if Taft wins in 1948, do we still see NATO? AFAIK, Taft supported a US declaration that it will protect Western Europe from Soviet aggression in place of a formal NATO alliance.
Depends on what Congress does, I suppose. But there's a decent chance that his victory allows him to push his own idea through.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
Depends on what Congress does, I suppose. But there's a decent chance that his victory allows him to push his own idea through.

His own idea could, of course, be more easily abandoned by a future US President than NATO would have been, no? But then again, fear of Communism in the US was rather high back then, so I'm not sure that any US Administration would actually feel comfortable throwing Western Europe to the Communist menace.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
'Ronald Reagan Develops Ron Paul's Political Beliefs'.

Have him become very close friends with someone who has very similar political views to those of the Koch Brothers?

'AHC: Largest possible realistic Russian Empire, but without any Western Hemisphere territories'
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
@Chiron: I've got two alternate history questions for you:

1. Just how inevitable do you believe that the eventual partition of India was with a PoD of January 1, 1914 or later?
2. Just how inevitable do you believe that the eventual French exit from Algeria was with a PoD of January 1, 1914 or later?
 

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