Recent content by LtNOWIS

His son William dying is unlikely; in OTL he died in a plane crash, so that is definitely butterflied away. Especially since the royals in this timeline have had such bad luck with planes... So William probably becomes regent in his late 20s and King around age 30. So in theory he'd have a nice...

So, King George VI and his two daughters both die? The crown goes to Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester. He'd be popular enough given the tragedy, his ties to the Commonwealth, and his military past in the postwar era. But as in OTL he's probably in very poor health by the late 1960s and dead in...

Regarding the end, you would think there would be some "rump states" of constitutional America, in like Hawaii, Puerto Rico, etc., assuming they're not completely ravaged by climate change. It seems like it would be hard for anyone to control the whole of America in a civil war like that, when...

It's pretty funny how both liberals and conservatives in the US, as well as people overseas, thought Huntsman was a moderate Republican, when his stated policy beliefs were actually very conservative.

On the maximum zoom I can see the various partisan leanings of my own county (Fairfax, Southeast of Loudoun). The Northernmost precincts, from Lowes Island to McClean, are more Republican, since it's really rich people in big houses. Clifton has a similar profile, as does the unnamed region...

One reason why it's important to have a write-in option rather than just having the one candidate, is if the candidate does something truly disqualifying before the election. In 1998, Republican Byron Low Tax Looper murdered his electoral opponent, Tennessee state Senator Tommy Burks. People...

A nitpick, but Goldwater didn't defeat Hayden IOTL. Hayden retired, because he was 90 years old and had spent 56 years in Congress. I don't see the events in the timeline changing his decision to retire. But yeah, I'm very interested in seeing where this timeline goes.

War Against Violent Extremists is a great acronym. I kind of like it better than Global War on Terror. Another great update!

Biden wouldn't want to rock the boat, and he'd want someone who could help him out from day one, who was already actively involved in federal politics. So he'd pick someone from the Senate like John Kerry or Dick Durbin, who he knew from his Senate days.

This is nuts. The political effects of 9 Justices appointed by Rumsfeld will resonate for the next half-century.

I don't know why people in this thread are talking about "the war." With an 1871 POD, World War I is by no means inevitable. Yes there will be some fighting in Europe within the next 60 years or so, but it could take any number of different forms, which could easily involve Germany keeping its...

If every Senate-confirmed person in the SecDef line of succession was automatically in the presidential line of succession, most of the cabinet positions would be meaningless for the succession. Even if the law is written that way, I doubt that was the intent. If the attack happened a couple...

I think the buildup of the web was slow enough that you'd see butterflies before you'd see predictable events.

This works well because it's been used before. Also, Wikipedia has this thrilling narrative. From the SMS Nassau article: The fact that a destroyer was able to even survive such an encounter is amazing, let alone inflict damage on a battleship.

A Soviet collapse is by no means assured, given this early of a POD.