I mean this is still the 1980s, otl there were Deep South conservatives including former segregationists until the mid 90s, and upper south conservatives until the 2010s. There are still a handful left in the house and senate in the present day.
Bicentennial Man: Ford '76 and Beyond
- Thread starter KingSweden24
- Start date
Especially with foreign policy, Henry Jackson as Secretary of Defense is super consequential. You keep Pipes(maybe), Wolfawitz, Kirkpatrick, and Condi.
elliot abrams and Madeleine Albright are probably in this administration too so it’s warhawks galore
Jesus, this administration is low-key a nightmare for anyone in the Middle East and probably South America.
Bru, South America is already going trough this TL's version of the Arab Spring. Unless the US drops a couple of nukes on the subcontinent, I really don't see how Washington can mae the situation even worse.
Thank you! I would definitely be curious to see an ATL written by a TTL author which does not resemble OTL in the least, because I think the events of the Ford Presidency would probably lead them to draw different conclusions about how things would go.Amazing timeline, keep it coming. I have a feeling that the 1976 election will be popular with alternate historians of TTL. Carter's loss will be seen as a fumble for the ages and most people will assume that he easily would have won if not for his Playboy interview. I imagine on whatever equivalent of AH.com exists there are quite a few timelines where Carter sans interview (or a different Democrat) trounces Ford only to get slammed by the crises of the late 70s and lose to Reagan in 1980.
Fun fact, Carey/Askew was also the 1980 Democratic ticket in Fear, Loathing, and Gumbo. Luckily he's turned out much better here
Huh, I had no idea. I never made it to 1980 in the Gumboverse because I found it such a bleak (but very well written and well-researched) endeavor. That being said I read "Death of Russia" in a week so what do I know about assessing things as bleak haha
Indeed
Thank you! That is very kind
All the above, certainly.
Was Abrams a Scoop guy initially?
Yeah South America is already deep, deep in the hole as it is. The 1980-82 Latin American debt crisis is about to make it even worse.
I kinda like how this TL is kinda opposite to Cinco de Mayo, at least in the Americas:
US is slightly (probably) better-off, compared to CDM where it loses the Civil War;
Brazil has a soft wank instead of a soft screw;
Argentina is screwed instead of wanked;
Mexico is screwed instead of wanked.
Maybe you could say that Chile is a bit screwed in both (because Pinochet has a boost) but it does defeat Argentina ITTL so that gotta count for something
US is slightly (probably) better-off, compared to CDM where it loses the Civil War;
Brazil has a soft wank instead of a soft screw;
Argentina is screwed instead of wanked;
Mexico is screwed instead of wanked.
Maybe you could say that Chile is a bit screwed in both (because Pinochet has a boost) but it does defeat Argentina ITTL so that gotta count for something
He was on scoop’s 1976 presidential campaign staff and was Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s chief of staff from 1976-1979. Albright was in muskie’s staff in the late 70s and was recruited by Brzezinski to work in the West Wing as a National Security Council's congressional liaison. Also Larry Kudlow and Condoleezza Rice stay democrats in this scenario. kudlow (switched to republican in 1981)worked on Moynihan’s 1976 campaign and Rice switched in 1982 because she didn’t like Carter’s foreign policy. Albright’s father was actually a mentor to Rice too.
If Askew takes office, he’ll definitely go to war somewhere. The administration is going to be a hawks nest.
The Carey administration is pragmatic liberals on the economic end and bloodthirsty warhawks on the foreign policy end
That’s sort of the idea, though not that one for one haha
Chile still has all the economic problems of Pinochet’s Chicago Boys mid-debt crisis soon to come home to roost, of course
Huh, the more you know
I mean Carey did performatively kick the New Left in the nuts as hard as possible stylistically after the Nixon-Ford years so this perhaps shouldn’t be surprising
From what i can re-read there really isn’t really anything written about the dialogue of the dnc race in terms of how the candidates reacted/attacked each other or how the different wings of the party reacted to each other, there was more detail about those kinds of things with the Republican convention unless i’ve missed things. Seems like the 1980 dnc primary was a pretty calm primary and not much interpersonal
It was definitely a very “chill” primary - Carey’s anti-New Left stance can be seen as more symbolic (and moreso than that, aesthetic) that ideological or political
Lol that may not be how Carey sees it but with Scoop as SecDef that’s a practical outcome
The Hama massacre has got to be a direct parallel to the catastrophe in Gaza right now, no? A branch of the Muslim Brotherhood takes over a city and their attacks on the country controlling that city provoke an extreme response that kills tens of thousands of civilians and is labeled a genocide by some.
The Hama Massacre was in fact a real atrocity carried out by Hafez and Rifaat Assad in 1982.
1982 Hama massacre - Wikipedia
Most of what I wrote in said update is simply tweaked to fit into the context of TTL, including the lack of Iraq-Iran War and Osirak not having been hit yet.