A challendge: The American Civil War, 1961-

Discuss, assuming say 1850 as POD.
(not necessarily North-South, even East-West or strange combinations are welcome)
With world scenery, weapons and societal implications.
An isolated war watched in awe from a distance? Or like Spain, THE defining conflict of its time? The crumbling of a hyperpower by sheer weight or the convulsions of a defeated country? A "gloves on" chivalric war of rules by rifle-and-cannon or beastlike ferocity ruled by spiked clubs, electrified barb wire, chemicals, nukes? Noble causes or naked greed? Red Cross or extermination camps?
 
Border and water conflict between California and Nevada heats up, spreads throughout the South-West in the 1910s. Federal troops forced to intervene when national guard units began fighting each other.
 
Only real scenario I see here is a stronger communist/socialist presence in the USA, then Nixon is elected in 1960 against a left divided between Kennedy and a socialist/communist. Nixon runs McCarthy as his VP in an attempt to unite anti-communist forces and in response to his election communists rebel.
 
2008: Senate McCain know if he doent rig the electon, he will lose. Two day before the electon, GOP pays off a number of electon officers to rigelectons for the White House, Conrgess, and State offices. McCain wins Florida, North Carliona, Viginia, Ohio, and the othe battleground states by a wide margon. Congress comes under GOP control again and most state electons hevely favorite GOP. The Dems and Obama support claim fraud.After every court refusing to hear the case, small groups launches attack on GOP members of the goverment and the party its.

2009:After 2 state govs, and 10 members of Congress have been kill all of them GOP members, Bush in his last weeking in office orders the military to hunt down these groups and put the US into marshall law.The US military begins to crack within a few weeks. A number of units go AWOL and start fighting with the rebals. By June the US is in full blow revolt. VP Sarah Palin is kill by her own sercuty detail. By the end of the year The West Coast, Parts of New England, and Great Lakesare outside Washington Control. fter the number of military units to throw their lot in with the rebals goes up, President McCain stops using military and beings in blackwater to run the opetaions again the rebals. The UN leaves NYC. Many countries support the rebals.
 

Thande

Donor
You people seem to be ignoring an implicit condition of the OP. It's the American Civil War in 1961. So the OTL one must be avoided. Which means you can forget about any recognisable OTL political figures or events existing in 1961.
 
You people seem to be ignoring an implicit condition of the OP. It's the American Civil War in 1961. So the OTL one must be avoided. Which means you can forget about any recognisable OTL political figures or events existing in 1961.

Exactly so.
 
First, then, you have to get rid of the OTL Civil War. I'm assuming, without doing a search, that there are hundreds of discussions on that scattered around this forum. Take your pick of the best one. How about the Republican Party never really comes to a complete agreement, and remains as fractured as the Democratic party in the 1860 election, leading to a long series of very weak presidents.

This leads to no emancipation proclamation. Arguably, slavery is still abolished gradually by around 1900, perhaps through government subsidies to slaveowners who voluntarily free their slaves. However, it continues as a social institution under different terms (African Americans are now "paid", and are free to find other jobs, but social pressures make this all but impossible).

Various riots and rebellions, are used by Southern state governments to justify military enforcement of the status quo. The Federal government simply ignores and tolerates all of this as a side effect of keeping the nation stable.

The U.S. has not industrialized as much as it did in OTL, and is essentially a second-world, if not third-world nation. It remained neutral in both of the *World Wars, and its few expansionist policies generally failed. Meanwhile, Mexico, which fought a war with Spain in the late 1890's which gained it the Phillippines, Cuba and Puerto Rico, is a highly stable, progressive, democratic republic and one of the wealthiest countries on Earth. Due to its dependence on cheap labor and agricultural products arriving from north of the border, it has an interest in keeping the U.S. from destabilizing and essentially supports the status quo.

Finally, political winds change in the late 1950's, and when yet another rebellion occurs in 1960, states throughout the North and West agree to send their National Guard units in to settle the issue for good. Southern States, angry about the interference in their affairs, fight back and try to impeach the administration which supports this, but lack the votes to succeed. They sue, but the Supreme Court is full of northern sympathizers and throws it out of court. Civil War breaks out in 1961 when the National Guards of the Southern States begin taking back areas occupied by the North. There's no secession here: instead, the Southern States initial, primary goal is to simply capture Washington, D.C. and force what they feel is an illegal government to abdicate and replace it with a truly elected government.

Much of the rest of the world is currently locked in a scuffle with Communists in Southern Europe and Eastern and Central Asia. Mexico and Canada and Great Britain, who have important interests in having a stable U.S.A., intervene, but to what end...
 
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