Without some MAJOR changes to the world at large, not only the US alone, she's unelectable even if she focuses on preventing the extinction of polar bears
That's simply the hard truth, with a POD in, like, Reconstruction era black woman can be elected President in XX century, but not with 1968 POD
She still can become Veep and President this way, but with what knowledge I have on USA I simply don't see any way for her to win 2 terms on her own, even against someone like Pat Robertson - even if he's nuts, he's still white, and in the eyes of many people(though they would never admit it out loud) that makes him more human than her
That's also the reason why Dems went with Biden and not Harris BTW but then again this is no place to talk about it
A black man who is a Republican War hero, on the other hand, is far more electable, that's why I originally thought that a Powell win would've been both more realistic&more interesting
The Republicans were expected to have a good shot at retaking the Presidency, after 12 years out of power. George McGovern had beat strong conservative Ronald Reagan solidly in 1980, and then beat the far right Jesse Helms in 1984 in a landslide, while McGovern's former VP (after Hubert Humphrey died) Shirley Chisholm had beat the more mainstream conservative Bob Dole with rather smaller margins - many in the Republican party had, reluctantly, at least, accepted the necessity of nominating a moderate in order to have a shot at returning to power. And the Chisholm administration was not hugely unpopular, but tended to have mediocre approval ratings, lower than the McGovern administration at the height of the 80s economic boom. Liberal criminal justice reforms had led to a decent decline in crime rates, but crime was still pretty high, and the liberal reforms had simply never been that popular among some middle of the road voters, giving Republicans a potential issue to attack on with a more tough-on-crime alternative. And while the McGovern and Chisholm economic reforms were pretty popular as a whole, with marked improvements in national conditions even in the poorest of areas, there was a growing sentiment in at least halting new expansions of government for the time being, if not necessarily making more than superficial cutbacks. And the Chisholm carbon tax had caused a sizable amount of backlash, even with the partial rebate it included
The 1970s and 1980s had led to a shift in the American public, with ideological liberalism with influences from the so-called New Left becoming pretty popular, and with conservatism having become somewhat unpopular among the general public. But at the very least, with national conditions as they were, and with "Democrat fatigue" after 12 years of that party holding the Presidency, the idea of electing some sort of Republican from the moderate-to-liberal Rockefeller wing of the party was often positively received by the public, with many polls supporting that idea
But there were a few factors that could, and would, complicate things
First, the campaign of businessman Ross Perot, as an independent. Perot focused his campaign on matters of trade protectionism and reducing the national debt (the debt-to-GDP ratio had risen from a post WWII low of around 20% at one point in the 70s to a whopping 40% during the early 90s recession, though some of that jump was due to temporary stabilizing measures to deal with the early 90s recession and the debt-to-GDP ratio was again on the decline in 1992), as well as other ideas like expanding the war on drugs and implementing electronic direct democracy. Perot's stances and general rhetoric tended to take a moderate lean, and he was on one hand seen as having the potential to turn the 1992 election into a three way race but on the other hand seen as having the potential to siphon moderate-to-liberal Republican votes from the GOP, potentially splitting the party
Second, there was the Republican base. The rise of the religious right left the Republican party in a tricky situation. After an initial surge in the late 70s, the religious right had somewhat stagnated in growth during the early 1980s as it met a ceiling for potential growth due to general contentedness with liberalism among the general public. But despite a lack of mainstream popularity, the religious right had still managed to make up a large chunk of the Republican voter base, and was an influential minority block in the primaries. Bob Dole had to fight to beat the further right of the party in order to win in 1988, and in 1992, party establishment (and a sizable portion of the party) hoped to nominate a Rockefeller Republican, someone even less conservative than Dole, so they certainly had their work cut out for them in regards to preventing an unelectably conservative Republican from getting the nomination and dashing their hopes
It might have all been possible, if a different Rockefeller Republican had initially gained traction and cleared the field from that faction. But instead, Bob Packwood, the moderate Republican Senator from Oregon was the one to gain traction. And by the time that his sexual misconduct scandal went public, and made his campaign completely collapse, Packwood had already consolidated the liberal and mainstream wings of the party (with others having largely dropped out of the primaries by then), and conversely, staunch conservative and representative of the religious right Pat Robertson had already consolidated the right wing of the party. With the outbreak of the scandal, establishment Republicans scrambled to arrange for alternate candidates to enter the race, but the field on that side of the party was now divided, as well as damaged by association with Packwood. Robertson was able to win the nomination with relative ease due to the divided opposition despite winning slightly under 40% of the popular vote in the primaries, and Republicans consigned themselves to another 1984 style landslide loss
What they instead got was far worse than a 1984 style loss
From the sidelines (having since dropped out of the race due to a series of gaffes and scandals), Ross Perot saw an opening. He'd originally planned to re-enter the race, hoping that a couple months out of the race would draw the heat away from him and give him something of a reset, and the imploding of the Republicans had given him hope that he could potentially take the lead, but hypothetical polling still showed him trailing the President. Some other hypothetical polling had caught his attention, however. Former general Colin Powell, a moderate independent who had served across the aisle in the Reagan, McGovern, and Chisholm administrations and who had gained some public acclaim during the intervention against the Apartheid regime in the South African Civil War, had polled very competitively with Chisholm, even more competitively than Perot himself did. One of Perot's advisors suggested a joint ticket, with Powell taking the top of the ticket in return for policy concessions to Perot, perhaps involving a secret agreement for Powell to only run for one term and then switch places. Perot vacillated, unwilling to play second fiddle but also seeing it as his best shot at all - and Vice President was more than what most people ended up achieving, right? Powell, for his part, was very reluctant to run for office at all, but saw some appeal, both for the office itself and for the possibility to present a moderate alternative to a Republican Party that he saw as increasingly shifting towards a disturbing radicalism and embrace of unsavory dog-whistle politics, and he both saw Perot's stances as broadly tolerable and saw the pragmatic political use of allying with the fairly popular and very rich Perot. Even after coming to an agreement, both Perot and Powell had second thoughts, and until (and after) the public announcement of the joint ticket, both candidates considered pulling out, but the public announcement of the Powell-Perot ticket was met with positive acclaim, as well as endorsement by a number of moderate Republicans as well as a handful of moderate Democrats
The Powell-Perot ticket was soon boosted by another factor - the Symms affair. For his running-mate, Pat Robertson chose strongly conservative Governor of Idaho, Steve Symms. This choice further cemented the Republican ticket as overly conservative in the first place, doing nothing to help Robertson's poor and declining polling numbers. Then things got worse. Stories hit the public regarding allegations of Symms' infidelity - he'd potentially engaged in numerous affairs. He strongly denied these claims, but still, the whole thing left the Republican ticket looking very hypocritical, with their calls for strong conservative moral purity contrasted to the alleged infidelity of Symms. Robertson's response didn't help, either. He apparently held high trust in his partner, and refused to believe the media reports on the issue, decrying them as nothing but lies and conspiracy by a lying communist media that was out for the destruction of the American family and country
The affair and Robertson's response severely hurt the Republican ticket. It retained support from the hardcore religious right, which largely managed to rationalize or deny the issue, but the Powell-Perot ticket was able to gain support from Republicans who leaned conservative but were put off by the denialism or hypocrisy from the Republican ticket, and who saw the Powell-Perot ticket as better than a second term for Chisholm. The Powell-Perot ticket also managed to see some additional growth in support from moderate Republicans who initially shifted to Chisholm in repulsion to Robertson but who now increasingly saw the independent ticket as being genuinely competitive rather than just a potential to split the vote
The battle between Chisholm and Powell itself was rather more calm, compared to the tempest from the Republican Party. Chisholm preferred to focus on touting the successes of her own administration and that of the McGovern administration, and Powell preferred to present a positive message rather than focusing on the heavily negative campaigning that doomed the Helms campaign in 1988 and appeared to be hurting the Robertson campaign (even more than it had already been hurt, that is). As the campaign went on, polling showed the two candidates usually virtually tied, and some advisors on both sides suggested their campaign take things more negative in order to try and gain some slight advantage, but neither candidate was particularly willing to do so, with some polling and surveys suggesting the public was not in the mood for a negative campaign, and with Chisholm in particular also seeing some strategic value in letting Republican support shift to the Powell-Perot ticket in the hopes for potentially politically isolating the right wing in the longer term even if it made her own reelection less certain
In the end, Chisholm did manage to win a second term, potentially in no small part due to some new data being published showing that the crime rate had declined somewhat more than initially expected. But Powell made a very strong showing, coming within a couple percentage points of winning and having the strongest independent performance in a federal election since Washington himself. For his part, Robertson had taken the Republican party to never-before-seen depths, even somewhat underperforming his already dismal polling. He'd retained a majority of support from the religious right and self described born agains, according to exit polling, but a large chunk of the Republican Party had instead voted for the Powell-Perot ticket
The 1992 election was seen as the death of the Republican Party's relevance. In the 32 years from 1960 to 1992, Republicans had won just two of the last nine elections, and had taken some severe damage from the eight years combined of the Agnew and Reagan administrations. The Democrats had gone through periods of more or less popularity, and some of their victories (1968, and 1980) were won with just slight majorities of the popular vote, or just a plurality (1960 and 1992), but the public had increasingly come around to accepting the general idea of Democratic liberalism, and had come to be very skeptical of Republican movement conservatism, especially after the prosperity of the 1980s and the quick recovery after the early 1990s recession. Despite losing, Powell and Perot had shown themselves to be the most capable opposition to the Democrats in the past four elections, and had shown themselves able to attain endorsements and support from a range of people and politicians ranging the spectrum from moderate Democrats, independents, Rockefeller Republicans, and even some more conservative leaning Republicans. Perot and Powell would go on to form the "Reform Party", as a big tent coalition to the right of the Democratic Party mainstream but without the radicalism of the GOP and maintaining far more of a moderate orientation
As soon as it was established, the Reform Party saw a number of defections from the Republican Party as well as some from the Democrats, and while the Democrats maintained a majority in both chambers of Congress through the 1993-1994 session, the Reform Party managed to gain a plurality in the House in the 1994 midterms, and took the speakership in a power-sharing agreement with the Democrats (being unwilling to negotiate with the remnant of the Republican Party). In the 1996 elections, Colin Powell won the nomination for the Reform Party, again with Perot as his running-mate, and won a respectable victory over Jim McDermott and his Republicans, while the Republicans cemented their place as a third party that retained a loyal support from staunchly conservative religious right voters and very few else. With the Reform Party having taken its place on the mainstream right of the political spectrum, such as it existed, the Republican Party in future decades was never again able to retain competitiveness, and its continued existence and mid to high single digit support ensured that the Reform Party would need to cling pretty close to the center, generally, in order to be competitive in the generally liberal-leaning USA
Ok, I know I already said I was through with this scenario two or three times before, but now it is REALLY through, done, and finished
I'd initially had some thoughts of continuing my earlier "liberal 1980s with Kennedy and Glenn scenario", continuing the idea of "1980s but liberal rather than conservative" with a "turn to the center and the Democrats lose" sort of thing, but with Ross Perot managing to beat Glenn in 1992, so the turn to the center still didn't actually involve a Republican win, and maybe it would weaken the Republican Party and conservatism a bit more. But I never got around to doing it
I kind of returned to that idea for this "1964 and onward" scenario too, especially with my last post with it, kind of connecting it to a modified version of my first liberal 1980s scenario in order to cement a longer term win for liberalism over conservatism in the US. This is some modification of that idea, with the GOP imploding due to scandals, unfortunate primary wins, and the less conservative parts of the party just losing hope in the GOP after so many losses and shifting to a more centrist/center-right/christian democracy/big tent alternative in order to present an alternative to the Democrats that could house those with some degree of right-leaning political lean (among other sorts of leanings) while remaining competitive in the liberal-leaning America of the TL
Somehow I saw this Steven Universe comic for the first time the other day (how I never saw it when the show was still around I have no idea lol), and my first thought was 'I have to make this in the Wikibox format'.
The Charleston nuclear attack was a nuclear terrorist attack against the city of Charleston, South Carolina. The attack began when the tugboat Liberty May docked at Charleston Harbor on the morning of March 20, 1983. Jim Seaver engaged in a shootout with members of the U.S. Coast Guard only hours after docking, during which time the others on board took four hostages, WPIV news correspondent Steve Leavitt, WPIV news cameraman George Takashima, and two members of the Coast Guard. Dr. Bruce Lyman ordered a line of communication to be made between the tugboat and RBS News. RBS News executives, in coordination with the FBI, established the connection, upon which time the two Coast Guard hostages were released.
The Liberty May had on board an improvised nuclear device, constructed by Dr. David McKeeson using plutonium stolen from the Hanford nuclear site in Washington state. The group on board the Liberty May included Dr. Lyman, a former nuclear researcher turned anti-nuclear activist, Dr. McKeeson, a former nuclear researcher, Diane Silverman, a college acquaintance of Dr. Lyman, Frieda Barton, a radical activist implicated in a bombing attack in New York City in 1970, and Jim Seaver, a felon who became acquainted with Dr. Lyman after his 1979 arrest and detention at Attica State penitentiary in upstate New York. Dr. Lyman, who led the hostage negotiations, demanded the dismantlement of the Charleston area's nuclear detonators, which were to have been loaded in the tugboat and destroyed at sea. Failure to do so by 4:30pm the next day would result in the detonation of the nuclear device on board the ship at 6:00pm EST.
Much controversy has been made over the U.S. government's initial response to the crisis. In the first hours of the crisis, the U.S. government initially believed the nuclear device to be a hoax, however, President Ronald Reagan ordered the evacuation of Charleston, South Carolina regardless. While this action is credited with having saved lives after the device ultimately exploded, many have been critical of the government's initial refusal to confirm the legitimacy of the device for several hours. Criticism has also been directed at RBS News for its role in the crisis, with some considering its initial opening of lines of communication to have been capitulation.
Shortly after the 4:30pm deadline, the White House announced that it would comply with the demands of the hostage takers. However, President Reagan ordered that the tugboat be taken by force, and shortly before 5:00pm, soldiers from the South Carolina National Guard stormed the tugboat, killing all but Frieda Barton and the hostages. NEST teams were quickly dispatched to the tugboat, however, they failed to disarm the bomb, and in fact triggered one of Dr. McKeeson's failsafes, triggering a nuclear explosion less than 20 minutes before the initial 6:00pm deadline.
The nuclear explosion destroyed much of the Charleston area, contaminating the area in nuclear radiation. Thanks to the earlier evacuation order, the number of deaths from the attack were remarkably low, at about 2,000+. Still, the Charleston nuclear attack remains the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the United States. Frieda Barton, who was the only survivor amongst the terrorist group, was tried and convicted for her role in the attack in what was widely dubbed the Trial of the Century. Barton was sentenced to death, and executed at the South Carolina Penitentiary on March 21, 1993, on the tenth anniversary of the attack.
Alt history where Ukraine gets independence in the 21st Century, but also its first president is Ukrainian Justin Trudeau (OTL Prime Minister of Canada)
No real reason for this, I just saw a picture of him and thought he could pass as Ukrainian.
The Charleston nuclear attack was a nuclear terrorist attack against the city of Charleston, South Carolina. The attack began when the tugboat Liberty May docked at Charleston Harbor on the morning of March 20, 1983. Jim Seaver engaged in a shootout with members of the U.S. Coast Guard only hours after docking, during which time the others on board took four hostages, WPIV news correspondent Steve Leavitt, WPIV news cameraman George Takashima, and two members of the Coast Guard. Dr. Bruce Lyman ordered a line of communication to be made between the tugboat and RBS News. RBS News executives, in coordination with the FBI, established the connection, upon which time the two Coast Guard hostages were released.
The Liberty May had on board an improvised nuclear device, constructed by Dr. David McKeeson using plutonium stolen from the Hanford nuclear site in Washington state. The group on board the Liberty May included Dr. Lyman, a former nuclear researcher turned anti-nuclear activist, Dr. McKeeson, a former nuclear researcher, Diane Silverman, a college acquaintance of Dr. Lyman, Frieda Barton, a radical activist implicated in a bombing attack in New York City in 1970, and Jim Seaver, a felon who became acquainted with Dr. Lyman after his 1979 arrest and detention at Attica State penitentiary in upstate New York. Dr. Lyman, who led the hostage negotiations, demanded the dismantlement of the Charleston area's nuclear detonators, which were to have been loaded in the tugboat and destroyed at sea. Failure to do so by 4:30pm the next day would result in the detonation of the nuclear device on board the ship at 6:00pm EST.
Much controversy has been made over the U.S. government's initial response to the crisis. In the first hours of the crisis, the U.S. government initially believed the nuclear device to be a hoax, however, President Ronald Reagan ordered the evacuation of Charleston, South Carolina regardless. While this action is credited with having saved lives after the device ultimately exploded, many have been critical of the government's initial refusal to confirm the legitimacy of the device for several hours. Criticism has also been directed at RBS News for its role in the crisis, with some considering its initial opening of lines of communication to have been capitulation.
Shortly after the 4:30pm deadline, the White House announced that it would comply with the demands of the hostage takers. However, President Reagan ordered that the tugboat be taken by force, and shortly before 5:00pm, soldiers from the South Carolina National Guard stormed the tugboat, killing all but Frieda Barton and the hostages. NEST teams were quickly dispatched to the tugboat, however, they failed to disarm the bomb, and in fact triggered one of Dr. McKeeson's failsafes, triggering a nuclear explosion less than 20 minutes before the initial 6:00pm deadline.
The nuclear explosion destroyed much of the Charleston area, contaminating the area in nuclear radiation. Thanks to the earlier evacuation order, the number of deaths from the attack were remarkably low, at about 2,000+. Still, the Charleston nuclear attack remains the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the United States. Frieda Barton, who was the only survivor amongst the terrorist group, was tried and convicted for her role in the attack in what was widely dubbed the Trial of the Century. Barton was sentenced to death, and executed at the South Carolina Penitentiary on March 21, 1993, on the tenth anniversary of the attack.
(Another modern TWR infobox according to my headcannon)
The mid air collision of far eastern airline flight 29 and All Nippon Airways flight 180 or more commonly known as the udegeyskaya air disaster was the russian republic deadliest plane crash and the world worst mid air collision surprassing the mid air collision between Aeroflot flight 1907 and Saudia flight 763.
The cause of the disaster at first was blamed on the ATC and the snowstorm that was happening during the crash but when investigator examined the wreckage of flight 29 they found that the TCAS was sabotaged and after an exrensive investigation they found that one person was not on the flight who turns out to be a former far eastern airline employee named Vasily Borisov and they found out that borisov was dismissed from the company just prior to the crash which lead the investigator to suspect that borisov sabotaged the TCAS on flight 29.
Their suspicion was confirmed when the landlord of the apartment borisov live in tipped the police that he saw borisov leaving at night wearing meachanic coveralls just night before the crash and this would lead the police to raid borisov apartment just in time to save him from commiting suicide, borisov after recovering from his attempted suicide was then charged with the manslaughter of all 380 people plus the damages in the woods caused by the fire from the plane crash he is sentenced to live imprisonment without the possibility of parole. (Some want him to be executed but execution in the russian republic is reserved for high treason against the state) (i had to chop the wikibox because it is too big)
50 states. 47 states get two senators each, for 94 Senators, while the other three (Cuba, Liberia and the Philippines) are allocated one Senator each for a total of 97 Senate seats.
50 states. 47 states get two senators each, for 94 Senators, while the other three (Cuba, Liberia and the Philippines) are allocated one Senator each for a total of 97 Senate seats.
Reminds me of the novel Caliphate. The US has reorganized into the American Empire and expanded, with the states outside of North America given one senator each and 3/5 representation in the House to keep everything centralized in the old US.
The Saxon political landscape has been dominated by the left-wing Socialist Workers' Party (SAP) and the centre-right Social-Democratic People's Party (SDV) since the 1990s. The SAP was formed after the collapse of the Communist Party at the end of the 30s which sent radical workers rallying to the SPD. The SAP governed until the 70s, during which time they were opposed by a broad front of the ASPD (a conservative splinter of the SPD formed in 1926), the DVP, DDP, and DNVP. The first three merged into the SDV in 1995, while the DNVP remained separate. From the 70s onwards, the SDV and its predecessors embraced Turkish-German immigrants and social justice, while the SAP took a populist and xenophobic outlook along with protectionist trade unions. This only began to reverse in the 2000s as the SAP diversified and renounced its racist policies. The modern two-party system is maintained by an artificially high 8% electoral threshold (minority parties are exempted), implemented by the SAP to damage the right-wing parties before the SDV merger, which has been maintained by both parties since then.
I present for your viewing pleasure Supermac's Super Majority. Censored in places for reasons of current politics. Check the other thread for details, only about 6 boxes affected though.
