Recent content by SlideAway

This risks getting this thread tossed into "current politics," but I honestly think it's perfectly plausible changing nothing else but Putin coming to power. Yes, there were major structural reasons why Putinism came to be. The Soviet collapse, the economic crises, the '98 Financial Crisis...

I know the CW is that Watergate helped produce Carter, but I'm always been somewhat skeptical that really was a major factor. I know that Carter's campaign stressed his honesty and outsider status, and that he benefited from disillusionment with Washington. But why would congressional...

The question is what would have happened if Tymoshenko had won instead of Yanukovich? Tymoshenko in that candidate represented the pro-Orange Revolution, pro-western camp. But throughout Yuschenko's term she had quarreled with him, had nearly allied with Yanukovych in a "Grand Alliance," and...

I'm not sure how valid this is - I'd be curious to get a good critique of this from someone better versed in the period's economics - but historian Heather Cox Richardson argues that the panic was at least partly triggered by Wall St fears of a looser Democratic monetary regime, and exacerbated...

Humphrey's major cause in his final years was the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act. Today it's mostly known for providing the Fed's "dual mandate" (employment rate in addition to inflation). But initial versions also called for a robust public works program with the government as an employer...

In the months following the fall of the Wall, most expected any reunification to gradual. The SPD in the west and many of Kohl's intraparty rivals in the CDU did not favor a rapid or complete reunification. After the surge of East Germans into West Germany, many - including Oscar Lafontaine and...

I think it was just literally to avoid excessive runoffs, or runoffs where both candidates finished with something like 48-49% of the vote. I do wonder whether the prospect of a 40% runoff might have shifted the results in 1992. Most likely not, but *maybe* Perot gets a larger share and keeps...

I think beyond the fact that Russia had plenty of lands in the east and the south that could be settled, I'm fairly certain I've read that the Russian Empire banned or restricted emigration for most Russians. At least according to the US Library of Congress:

I do think a best case scenario is one in which relations between India and Pakistan are normal. Not saying it needs to be an EU France/Germany relationship, but just a normal relationship. I don't think is out of the question. One of the ironies is that relations between India and Pakistan...

Quayle also had quite a bit of support with the Christian Right. Quayle OTL did form an exploratory committee but backed out early, partly for health reasons (he suffered a pulmonary embolism in the fall of 94) but also because of fundraising challenges. If Dole were out of the picture though...

Realistically, Dole not running probably induces some other potential candidates to run. Several considered but passed including Dan Quayle, James Baker, Bill Bennett, and Dick Cheney, and Jack Kemp. Hard to say if any of them -- or which one -- would have drawn more establishment support and...

'76 probably. But truth be told I have a hard time seeing any of these working out unless the Chappaquiddick incident doesn't occur.

There also really was not a lot of heartburn over Alsace-Lorraine in Germany. The big German revanchist claims in the interwar period were in Poland. (FWIW, even the Sudeten lands and Austria were not a major focus, those were very much Nazi and pan-Germanist preoccupations. Much of the old...

I mean the truth is every part of the animal does get used. If it doesn't get sold as is, it ends up going into processed foods, animal feeds, or industrial uses.

The other big potential POD here is that the Iranian Revolution doesn't happen, or is cut short, perhaps by a military coup in late 1978. It's easy to talk about Iran, the Hostage Crisis, the economy, and the Volcker shot shock as separate things but they are all linked. Carter's approval...