A Chip off the Old Block: A More UK-Like USA.

OK... I'm planning on a more UK-Like USA, if you haven't figured it out.

I'm planning on making all this seem somewhat possible...

I'm also retconning a few things. For one, the Keir Hardie analogue is now Terence Powderly, but you'll find that out after a lot more updates...
 
How do you mean more UK-like, a stronger labour movement, complete with a political party, a two and half party system, regional separatism, constitutional monarchy, parliamentary supremacy?
 
How do you mean more UK-like, a stronger labour movement, complete with a political party, a two and half party system, regional separatism, constitutional monarchy, parliamentary supremacy?
Yep, yep, yep, yep, no, probably. And writing the first update now. Its called "The Prodigal Son Returns."
 

Abhakhazia

Banned
Make the Republicans the Liberal-analogues, combine them woth another party (maybe one that calls it self Liberal, to get the Liberal Republicans).

The Democrats should be the Conservative-analogue, maybe they could actually change their name to Conservative under Cleveland.

A Labor Party's pretty easy to accomplish; if Wilson doesn't go on his Socialist witchunt, and the Commies in Russia don't be so...obnoxious, a Labor Party will gradually appear.

Let's see, a USIP could form from Democrats opposed to NAFTA.

Regionalist Parties would probably only spark up in New England, the South and maybe New York. As for analogs, possibly Scotland, Wales and Cornwall for those three?

No clue about Northern Ireland anylog.
 
Actually, this Point of Divergence goes way back, all the way to the Revolution. And Northern Ireland/Ireland is the South by the way.
 
OK. The PoD is his father, William Franklin, switches sides in the Revolution...

Read on, dear viewer, and discover a very different USA...

A Chip off the Old Block: A More UK-Like USA.
Chapter One: An American Revolution.
Part One: The Prodigal Son Returns, and also general update.

William Franklin, illegitimate son of the famous American philosopher Benjamin Franklin, and father of an illegitimate son himself, William Temple Franklin, was in a tight position. Should he keep to his Loyalist beliefs and abandon his family? Even his son, quite young as he is, has shown that he supports the Rebels over the British. And why should he support the British, a nation an ocean away from us, over his friends and family? Benjamin sent letters to try to convince his son one last time, believing that he could see the light, and found in his son's reply a doubt of his Loyalist stance. Seizing the opportunity, Benjamin sent back letters that is now known as the "Prodigal Letters" for they convinced a "prodigal son", in this case William Franklin, to side with the Patriots.

The defection of William Franklin, siding with the Patriots rather then the Loyalists, ensured New Jersey became Patriot, albeit with a lot of Loyalists objecting, but the new-found New Jersey Militia ensured they didn't object too much. William Franklin was always suspected by the Congress to be a spy sent by the British and their Loyalist lackeys to sabotage the Cause, the Revolution. Everywhere he received glares and rumors ran wild about his loyalties. His father, Benjamin, always defended him and tried his best to debunk those arguments, and William himself often argued about his loyalties with skeptical Congressmen. William Temple Franklin, which would ultimately become a very important person in the American story, was mostly looked after safely by his adopted grandmother, his father's adopted mother, his grandfather's common-law wife, Deborah Read.

Meanwhile, elsewhere... The Continental Army was ready, and General Washington was chosen to lead them. Their first aim was New York, as it has been occupied by the "British" with the help of the "traitorous" governor, Andrew Elliot. Reports of massacres, albeit widely exaggerated, was taken seriously by the Americans, and New York was the first city that was planned to be liberated. The troops were sent there, under General Washington, and even though it took a lot of dead men and a wounded General, the city was "liberated". Only then did Americans discover what has had really been happening... The British troops ransacked American homes for supplies and treated the city like an supply outpost. Anti-British feelings rose high in that city, and many volunteered to be militiamen and serve under Washington.

Meanwhile, back in the Home Islands, the Prime Minister Frederick North, Lord North, was struggling to convince Parliament that more troops should be send to quell the rebellion in the American colonies, as there were three other rebellions, one in Ireland, one in Hanover and one in India, all three seen as more valuable then the American colonies. North failed in his struggle and the extra troops were sent to Ireland, Hanover and India, instead of America. Three rebellions were quelled, but one still remained, and it was defiantly strong, that of the American one. North believed this to be a bad idea... This ensured the stability of the Empire for the long run, but ended up with the British dithering around whatever to send more troops to the colonies. France started to believe that the Americans could win...
 

Titus_Pullo

Banned
OK... I'm planning on a more UK-Like USA, if you haven't figured it out.

I'm planning on making all this seem somewhat possible...

I'm also retconning a few things. For one, the Keir Hardie analogue is now Terence Powderly, but you'll find that out after a lot more updates...



Doable If there was no South. If the South had been allowed to secede then the US today (with no South and southern style conservatism for Union politicians to pander to), would probably be more "UK-like", or precisely more like Canada in terms of being a social democracy with a European style national health service system.
 
Doable If there was no South. If the South had been allowed to secede then the US today (with no South and southern style conservatism for Union politicians to pander to), would probably be more "UK-like", or precisely more like Canada in terms of being a social democracy with a European style national health service system.
I'm keeping the south. Its America's Ireland. More blacks, an earlier Southern Strategy results in them voting socialist.
 

Titus_Pullo

Banned
I'm keeping the south. Its America's Ireland. More blacks, an earlier Southern Strategy results in them voting socialist.


What about the White southerners would they be joining the blacks and voting socialist too? The thing is, I just can't see the US with the Southern baggage becoming more UK-like as that would entail having a strong class consciousness that supercedes racial identity. Hard enough for the north, but nearly impossible to do in the south. In America race trumps everything including class.
 
I have to agree with Titus_Pullo considering America's racial "issues" I think you can only really get a class based society where there are no minorities, i.e. Vermont. Also at 10% of the population there are too few blacks to support a viable party in a 2-party system.
 
Indeed. That is why the main parties (one socialist, one conservative) will take sides in the South. The South will be an absolute mess, worse then OTL.
 
So in a segregated/Jim Crow style South, either the regional branch of the labor party or a separate Southern-based socialist party will take the integration stance, and the Southern conservatives, whether party of the national conservative party or no, will take the anti-integration stance? And separatist politics are going to become a catch-all dog-whistle for this regional conflict?
 
Well chaos and disaster are much more interesting to read about than "everyone was happy and danced through fields of daffodils while music played". :)
 
So in a segregated/Jim Crow style South, either the regional branch of the labor party or a separate Southern-based socialist party will take the integration stance, and the Southern conservatives, whether party of the national conservative party or no, will take the anti-integration stance? And separatist politics are going to become a catch-all dog-whistle for this regional conflict?
Yep, that's what I'm planning. Ideologies will of course be important, but not as important as the stance on race. progressive-thinking whites and most blacks vote socialist, the racists and would-be dixiecrats vote conservative.

And correct. Separatist politics will take root with many whites, and when the whole war is over with, the whole thing will be a Southern Fried Mess, unable to vote until 1940, due to racial tensions being far worse then OTL (Read blacks actually lynching whites, race wars in many cities, bombing of buildings. No peaceful MLK here, its outright war.) And after 1940, the whites is in control, and oppresses the blacks worse then Jim Crow did. The whole thing will explode in the 1960s, with federal troops occupying the South, yet again... It will be the equivalent of Ireland, I told you...
 
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This looks fun, always love a good US is worse off then OTL TL (and outright screws) Will New England be the US's Scotland (oh god a New English Salmond almost makes me not want to see an independent NE)?
 
This looks fun, always love a good US is worse off then OTL TL (and outright screws) Will New England be the US's Scotland (oh god a New English Salmond almost makes me not want to see an independent NE)?
No. That's the West. Western nationalism will arise. They have more of an argument for it.
 
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