AH challenge:more liberal america

[PM Nixon]

Hmmm....I sincerly hope this doesn't lead to a flame war.

But I do think that liberal tactics must be changed in order to get a bigger share of the electorate. As it was said earlier, the Democrats can't act as though they have black votes in their pockets. A few more years, and it is quite possible the GOP will get more black votes due to Democratic incompetence at the top. (Terry McAuliffe, I'm looking at you. ) I really hope my generation can change this chain of thinking in the Democratic Party.

As for Straha's POD, let's look at 1988. If Dukakis answers a particular question about the death penalty, then maybe things are different. Basically, the question revolved around using the death penalty to punish a criminal who had done something to his wife. This hypothetical question's answer from Dukakis, some political scientists believe, was lackluster, without passion, and cost him the election.

Also, I think if a few more liberals thought about saying some things differently during the Cold War, especially about defense spending, taxes, and Vietnam, it is quite possible the US would have a few more liberal presidents.

One more POD I thought about today: What if Teddy Roosevelt wins in 1912? That probably leads to a permanent split in the Republican Party, gives America a progressive, viable third party and gives future liberals a future home. I think more moderates will shift to the Democratic Party, and the Conservatives will make a shift to the Republican Party. With President Roosevelt as a member of the Bull Moose Party, that gives them some real credibility for future American politics.

About crime: I'm pro-death penalty, but I agree that the government must look into how to really reform the system overall. Also, as one poster said earlier, schools should get some of the resources that prisons get, such as good computers and nice libraries.

 

[David Howery]

hmm... Ian's big post noted that too many Americans think that immigrants are bad for the country and that violence is ok when you are frustrated. I'd point out that Ian is an immigrant (a refugee from impoverished backward Canada), thus he's bad for the US, which is frustrating. By that logic, then, we should beat him up to feel better

 

[Straha]

I kinda hoped the rest of the world would invade the USA after bush violated the UN resolutions. Canada with new england,the pacific northwest,baja,nevada,alaska,hawai,wisconsin,michigan and bermuda would be paradise

 

[PM Nixon]

hmm... Ian's big post noted that too many Americans think that immigrants are bad for the country and that violence is ok when you are frustrated. I'd point out that Ian is an immigrant (a refugee from impoverished backward Canada), thus he's bad for the US, which is frustrating. By that logic, then, we should beat him up to feel better

You've been quite the American nationalist this week, haven't you David?

 

[NapoleonXIV]

Is it possible that all this discussion of trends is to put the cart before the horse? Take note of the fact that almost all the examples you cite manifest themselves in ways which have to do with people losing freedom or the guarantees of freedom. And by freedom I mean the ability to actually do something I would logically choose to do, like use the Internet as I choose or express myself as I see fit without directly hurting someone else. I do not mean the freedom to discriminate against someone else, or to force my belief upon them, or the "freedom to fail."

The proximate actual cause of increased conservatism in the 90's was the election of the '94 Congress by a method which at the time was widely criticised and which has never been applied so thoroughly before or since, that is, the running of essentially local elections on a national basis. This one stroke of political genius simultaneously put the Far Right in control of both the House of Congress and the Republican Party, after which they quite quickly passed dozens of sweeping changes to a 200 year old institution all aimed at making their position permanent. The only other significant thing they did was to try to actually unseat an elected president essentially because they disagreed with him. Cooler heads in the Senate prevailed or they would have done so and in 1996 the American people elected a Democratic Centrist who had made the country prosperous. In 2000 we again did the same BUT...

So, in 1994 we have a new type of election followed by sweeping congressional rules engineered by a politician who, (politically ONLY mind you, otherwise he was a decent guy, I don't want a flame war over this, my personal opinion ENTIRELY, and I mean it in a good way), resembles Adolf Hitler more than any other US politician I ever saw. They do their best to insulate themselves from the consequences of any more elections and then try their best to unseat an elected sitting President. Then in 2000 we have another election in which machinations worthy of Justinian combine with obscure rules passed 200 years ago to result in the guy who got 500,000 LESS votes winning.

THAT'S a disturbing trend to me. A small and vociferous elite who don't represent the majority and know it very well have captured the country and are succeeding in making it their own. People will try to take our freedoms, that's not a trend, its been a sad fact forever.

Oh and uh...right AH The POD is 1992, Newt Gingrich proposes the 1994 campaign to certain colleagues but some actually tell certain Republican Senators. Horrified, a bipartisan majority passes campaign reform specifically aimed at making it hard for national orgs to steamroller local candidates. Gingrich later becomes a perennial candidate for President and writes a series of AH WWII bestsellers upon retirement in 2004.

 

[PM Nixon]

Interesting Napoleon. I had thought that the results of the 1994 elections, could not be averted without some sort of POD from the 70s or 80s. That really cemented Conservatism into American thought as it is today, giving a push from Reagan's administration and the tax revolts of the late 1970s.

 

[Paul Spring]

I think this (and the great hostility of Americans to antipoverty programs) is ultimately due to racism. The US has a large, poor, and thus disproportionately violence-prone black minority.

Ian, I honestly wonder if you're just unlucky in the people you have met, or whether you had a hostile opinion of the US to begin with and deliberately ignore Americans you meet who don't conform to that opinion. I hate to rain on your parade, but the fact is that most people in the US just don't particularly like people who do things like murder and rape, regardless of whether they're white, black, or whatever shade of color.

 

[Straha]

*ahem* get back on topic

 

[Xen]

I think this (and the great hostility of Americans to antipoverty programs) is ultimately due to racism. The US has a large, poor, and thus disproportionately violence-prone black minority.

Ian, I honestly wonder if you're just unlucky in the people you have met, or whether you had a hostile opinion of the US to begin with and deliberately ignore Americans you meet who don't conform to that opinion. I hate to rain on your parade, but the fact is that most people in the US just don't particularly like people who do things like murder and rape, regardless of whether they're white, black, or whatever shade of color.

Ian was just quoting stats from a book he read, there is a certain percentage of error, and I would like to know the basis of polls taken to come to these conclusions. But thats beside the point, I dont think he meant anything by it.

But back on topic, if you want the truth the US is more liberal now than ever before, its just compared to the rest of the western world were more conservative, but then again most of the rest of the western world had to play catch up in that department. They didn't start getting that way until after world war II and even then had a very strong socialist element. The US had no socialist element, you can blame the Cold War and McCarthyism for that.

 

[Paul Spring]

If you mean "liberal" in the sense of having a more socialized economy, with stronger government regulation, higher taxes, more social engineering, etc, then I just don't see it happening. The New Deal/Great Society kind of liberalism was such a turn away from the ideas of individualism that were traditionally strong in the US that a backlash against them was inevitable, especially when it became more and more obvious that they couldn't deliver on their promises and were actually having the opposite effect to what was intended.

If you mean "liberal" in the sense of a more laid back and permissive society, that's a lot more likely. Ironically, one way to do this might be to have many of the "mainstream" protestant churches in the US remain more conservative for a longer period of time. In OTL, some churches had moved so far in a liberal direction by the 1960s that millions of people began to desert them, and moved to churches that had a fundamentalist bent to them. This helped lay the groundwork for what would later be called the "Christian Right". In the same vein, if you removed or lessened the impact of some of the more traumatic events of the 20th century - Great Depression, WWII, Cold War, the turbulence of the 60s - you might get actually get a more permissive society now, because you wouldn't have strong conservative "backlashes" against liberal trends.

 

[Straha]

have the CSA out of the country and youu could get both

 

[David Howery]

PM> it's all in fun. I don't think anyone takes me seriously. I don't think I've really offended any of the non-Americans on the list. If I have, well then we should invade their country and send them all to the salt mines for having no sense of humor

 

[PM Nixon]

PM> it's all in fun. I don't think anyone takes me seriously. I don't think I've really offended any of the non-Americans on the list. If I have, well then we should invade their country and send them all to the salt mines for having no sense of humor

LOL!!!

As for the thread itself, I sense a flamewar coming on. Countdown in ten responses.

 

[Straha]

goddamit all I want is some F&%#ing AH scenario ideas and all I get is a F^$*ing flamewar

 

[PM Nixon]

goddamit all I want is some F&%#ing AH scenario ideas and all I get is a F^$*ing flamewar

On behalf of the other board members, I must apologize. I agree, we MUST get on topic. The scary thing is that no one's warmed up for battle yet.

As for AH, this might be of interest to you: what if the Socialists take off in the USA? I think the best chance for this is in the early 20th century, maybe with a larger, more intense labor movement. Or, maybe the lack of a New Deal and Great Society could lead to a liberal America TODAY. If America's more conservative early on, thanks to no Great Depression or lack of a strong Civil Rights movement, then you could have a backlash against Conservatism, and the beginnings of a large scale liberal movement.

 

[Straha]

in a world where the CSA is independent the socialists would take off. THey'd probably be able ot disassociate thmeselves enoguh from communims so that soem of the strongest red-bashers would be socialists

 

[PM Nixon]

in a world where the CSA is independent the socialists would take off. THey'd probably be able ot disassociate thmeselves enoguh from communims so that soem of the strongest red-bashers would be socialists

You're probably right. But, I'd like to see America be more liberal without losing the South. Maybe some sort of Populist movement comes about in the South, like the one in the late 19th century. Or, Reconstruction goes alot better and the South, somehow, becomes more tolerant.

Hmm....this just popped into my head. Maybe avoiding the Civil War makes the nation more liberal. Lincoln loses in 1860, war is averted, no Reconstruction, no permanent bad feelings between North and South....maybe the lack of rapidly diverging political views?

 

[Straha]

how about a reconstruction thats actually sucessful?

 

[Beck Reilly]

So you want a Populist movement in the South...

Huey Long, a known populist Democrat, wins the election of 1924 and becomes Governor of Louisiana four years early. In OTL, he lost this election. But, we have a younger more idealistic Huey Long as the governor. His entire political career is accelerated by four years. His reforms leave Louisiana in better shape than the rest of the nation when the Great Depression hits in 1928. Our younger Huey Long never becomes quite as authoritarian as he became in OTL. With the arrival of the stock market crash, Huey Long is seen as somewhat of a 'prophet' for building the structure to handle the crisis in Louisiana. He is nominated by the Democrats in 1932 over Franklin Roosevelt, who the public sees as a 'rich boy' and, thus, he is assured the election (no Republican was going to win that election no matter who the Democrats ran). He is in office in early 1933 and begins the same reforms he began in Louisiana throughout the entire nation, including desegregation by the mid-1940s. He handles WW2 well and is reelected repeatedly before deciding to end his Presidency in 1948...

voila, a more liberal America

 

[PM Nixon]

So you want a Populist movement in the South...

Huey Long, a known populist Democrat, wins the election of 1924 and becomes Governor of Louisiana four years early. In OTL, he lost this election. But, we have a younger more idealistic Huey Long as the governor. His entire political career is accelerated by four years. His reforms leave Louisiana in better shape than the rest of the nation when the Great Depression hits in 1928. Our younger Huey Long never becomes quite as authoritarian as he became in OTL. With the arrival of the stock market crash, Huey Long is seen as somewhat of a 'prophet' for building the structure to handle the crisis in Louisiana. He is nominated by the Democrats in 1932 over Franklin Roosevelt, who the public sees as a 'rich boy' and, thus, he is assured the election (no Republican was going to win that election no matter who the Democrats ran). He is in office in early 1933 and begins the same reforms he began in Louisiana throughout the entire nation, including desegregation by the mid-1940s. He handles WW2 well and is reelected repeatedly before deciding to end his Presidency in 1948...

voila, a more liberal America

Fascinating!! I briefly thought of Huey Long when I was typing about the South, but I didn't know about the 1924 defeat. But, do you think a Conservative backlash is possible still? Or are his programs just that successful?