The Poarter
Banned
But seriously pickle is there anything else you decide to forgo beside it seemed ridiculous at the time? Anything at all? Because now everything is coming true.
A Giant Sucking Sound: a President Perot TL
- Thread starter MaskedPickle
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Let's not go as far as crying 'Nostradamus'. Here happens that in a time of 'madness', reality and fiction have just collided.
I wonder how the US military is structured. Similar to OTL? How has military culture been affected by the existence of the Freedom party? I can't help but wonder if the "noble soldier" mentality that OTL has exists or not. I don't think it would.
The people bemoaning the loss of Pokemon lack perspective. I see it more as a vacuum of pop culture something else may fill, perhaps something greater? Like Pokemon conceptually was emergent, if not Pokemon something else may well have tried to achieve that niche. Who knows what the events of a TL like this may inspire in terms of new IPs or what sort of games get popular.
For instance James Cameron's box office Humiliation may cause butterflies in Sci-fi as his style of Sci-fi doesn't get reinforced by Avatar which is not going to happen with Titanic being a Disaster. Or at least it won't bother with the romantic plot or hell, he may decide to go full risk and go full blown with the alien world thing (he had Barlowe working for him). Or he just eschews the concept entirely for something else that never came to light OTL, or he just retires and new talent comes to prime in the 2000's instead of the nostalgia trap that modern pop culture is. Given the more turbulent environment cultural shifts seem like they'd happen more common.
The jokes about California being communist ITTL will be so much more common than OTL.
Also Jeb Bush trying to subvert China sounds like a way to start WW3. Jeb Bush starting WW3 would be such a great way to conclude TTL in my mind. It starts with Bush, it ends with Bush.
It's a party whose mantra is "fuck the establishment"
So having a mixed bag of contradicting ideologies maxes sense, ideological purity isn't a priority like it can be with the GOP or the Democrats.
In practice that means they basically are the party of demagogues.
The people bemoaning the loss of Pokemon lack perspective. I see it more as a vacuum of pop culture something else may fill, perhaps something greater? Like Pokemon conceptually was emergent, if not Pokemon something else may well have tried to achieve that niche. Who knows what the events of a TL like this may inspire in terms of new IPs or what sort of games get popular.
For instance James Cameron's box office Humiliation may cause butterflies in Sci-fi as his style of Sci-fi doesn't get reinforced by Avatar which is not going to happen with Titanic being a Disaster. Or at least it won't bother with the romantic plot or hell, he may decide to go full risk and go full blown with the alien world thing (he had Barlowe working for him). Or he just eschews the concept entirely for something else that never came to light OTL, or he just retires and new talent comes to prime in the 2000's instead of the nostalgia trap that modern pop culture is. Given the more turbulent environment cultural shifts seem like they'd happen more common.
The jokes about California being communist ITTL will be so much more common than OTL.
Also Jeb Bush trying to subvert China sounds like a way to start WW3. Jeb Bush starting WW3 would be such a great way to conclude TTL in my mind. It starts with Bush, it ends with Bush.
It's a party whose mantra is "fuck the establishment"
So having a mixed bag of contradicting ideologies maxes sense, ideological purity isn't a priority like it can be with the GOP or the Democrats.
In practice that means they basically are the party of demagogues.
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Actually, Taijiri had been working on Pokemon since 1990. So, while he might die, various concept art and notes relating to it might still be laying around, and might be recovered by the other Game Freak employees, who might make it in his memory. If not OTL Pokemon, something very close to it.
The big unknown is if the nuclear attack would cause a extreme cultural shift that goes as far as to make a game like Pokemon not desirable in 1996. Like the cultural impact of 9/11 is well known, here there's been three such events by the year 2000 and even more after that. The nuclear attack was caused by their own citizens who wanted a self-fulfilling apocalypse (the best kind! Just ask hezbollah) and would by far be the greatest act of domestic terrorism in human history. Where the blame goes is where this gets interesting- is it viewed as a moral failure on part of the people, viewed as a freak incident or as the product of foreign infiltration? Either way the Rum Shirikyo's ideology and beliefs would be much less obscure than in OTL. I think you would see very interesting media from Japan to say the least instead of the stagnation of OTL. That can to be honest be said about pretty much every part of the world. Japan especially since Russia being resurgent is not a totally shocking concept to Americans (and so military shooters involving Russia as the big bad probably don't go out of style ITTL as they almost did OTL.)
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bookmark95
Banned
On the plus side, Russ Feingold could still become president in 2020. Yes, he lost the Senate race, but Richard Nixon also recovered from political setbacks too.
I'd love to see Feingold elected governor or even President, but I'm worried that his political career is dead now.
U.S. defense spending probably wasn't reduced as much as in OTL during TTL's 1990s due to the interventions in Rwanda and Iraq and the need to confront Zhirinovsky's Russia. So the military is probably larger as a result. The GOP is probably still the most popular political party among members of the military, but I could see the Freedom Party being popular to an extent given Perot's military successes during his presidency and his respect for the armed forces (from his work trying to free POWs stranded in Vietnam, to his appointment of generals like Colin Powell and James Stockdale to his administration).
The U.S. military may have more of an emphasis on asymmetric warfare given the experiences in Rwanda and other theaters. So there might be increased use of special forces, light infantry, etc. Heavy conventional forces would still be needed, of course, to deal with Russia and China.
The last time I 'resurrected' a TL, it resulted in its closure, so I hope this one won't.
Because, I got things to say.
First, I've just finished reading the entire 68-pages thread in one go (Madness some will say) and... what can I say? This Timeline ranks directly into my "Top 10 AH Forum Timelines" right from the beginning.
But second, and most importantly - and I am saying it in French because words are lacking: Cette uchronie me touche.
You experienced what every AH user willing to write/doing TLs could face: depression, burn-out and then desinterest. This Timeline was big by all means, maybe too big for one person to handle, covering such a gigantic time period (1992 - 2012ish), and seeing this gradual descent and desinterest, updates after updates, was both painful and understandable for me: painful because it is always difficult to watch, after all you've written and done, someone stopping a TL because the will isn't there anymore. And understadable, because I am facing the same problem behind the scenes: I, too, want to write a TL on this Forum. To leave a mark. But more I write and write about a subject, the more I am losing the interest of continuing this Timeline, leaving me in an odd state of mind.
The lack of messages between 2013 to 2015, led me to believe that AH.com literally wrecked you, but your answer from that period was a beam of sunlight in the dark sky, and seeing that you were 'finally' at peace with what you had done, deeply... moved me. You ended that chapter of your life, and began a brighter one, with new departures. Et je t'envie ça.
Parce que je ne sais pas si, par hasard j'écris un jour ma propre uchronie, je serai capable de surmonter de tels obstacles, comme toi tu l'as fait, il y a 3-4 ans de ça.
Please, note that you have all my respect and admiration for this TL.
Je te souhaite le meilleur. Et si tu tombes un jour sur ce commentaire d'un étudiant de LLCE Anglais en manque d'inspiration et de sommeil... une petite réponse, ferait le plus grand bien.
Because, I got things to say.
First, I've just finished reading the entire 68-pages thread in one go (Madness some will say) and... what can I say? This Timeline ranks directly into my "Top 10 AH Forum Timelines" right from the beginning.
But second, and most importantly - and I am saying it in French because words are lacking: Cette uchronie me touche.
You experienced what every AH user willing to write/doing TLs could face: depression, burn-out and then desinterest. This Timeline was big by all means, maybe too big for one person to handle, covering such a gigantic time period (1992 - 2012ish), and seeing this gradual descent and desinterest, updates after updates, was both painful and understandable for me: painful because it is always difficult to watch, after all you've written and done, someone stopping a TL because the will isn't there anymore. And understadable, because I am facing the same problem behind the scenes: I, too, want to write a TL on this Forum. To leave a mark. But more I write and write about a subject, the more I am losing the interest of continuing this Timeline, leaving me in an odd state of mind.
The lack of messages between 2013 to 2015, led me to believe that AH.com literally wrecked you, but your answer from that period was a beam of sunlight in the dark sky, and seeing that you were 'finally' at peace with what you had done, deeply... moved me. You ended that chapter of your life, and began a brighter one, with new departures. Et je t'envie ça.
Parce que je ne sais pas si, par hasard j'écris un jour ma propre uchronie, je serai capable de surmonter de tels obstacles, comme toi tu l'as fait, il y a 3-4 ans de ça.
Please, note that you have all my respect and admiration for this TL.
Je te souhaite le meilleur. Et si tu tombes un jour sur ce commentaire d'un étudiant de LLCE Anglais en manque d'inspiration et de sommeil... une petite réponse, ferait le plus grand bien.
Nice sig.The last time I 'resurrected' a TL, it resulted in its closure, so I hope this one won't.
Because, I got things to say.
First, I've just finished reading the entire 68-pages thread in one go (Madness some will say) and... what can I say? This Timeline ranks directly into my "Top 10 AH Forum Timelines" right from the beginning.
But second, and most importantly - and I am saying it in French because words are lacking: Cette uchronie me touche.
You experienced what every AH user willing to write/doing TLs could face: depression, burn-out and then desinterest. This Timeline was big by all means, maybe too big for one person to handle, covering such a gigantic time period (1992 - 2012ish), and seeing this gradual descent and desinterest, updates after updates, was both painful and understandable for me: painful because it is always difficult to watch, after all you've written and done, someone stopping a TL because the will isn't there anymore. And understadable, because I am facing the same problem behind the scenes: I, too, want to write a TL on this Forum. To leave a mark. But more I write and write about a subject, the more I am losing the interest of continuing this Timeline, leaving me in an odd state of mind.
The lack of messages between 2013 to 2015, led me to believe that AH.com literally wrecked you, but your answer from that period was a beam of sunlight in the dark sky, and seeing that you were 'finally' at peace with what you had done, deeply... moved me. You ended that chapter of your life, and began a brighter one, with new departures. Et je t'envie ça.
Parce que je ne sais pas si, par hasard j'écris un jour ma propre uchronie, je serai capable de surmonter de tels obstacles, comme toi tu l'as fait, il y a 3-4 ans de ça.
Please, note that you have all my respect and admiration for this TL.
Je te souhaite le meilleur. Et si tu tombes un jour sur ce commentaire d'un étudiant de LLCE Anglais en manque d'inspiration et de sommeil... une petite réponse, ferait le plus grand bien.
Does anyone have any speculation on what the 2008 and 2012 U.S. presidential elections might have looked like? We know that Russ Feingold was elected in 2008, but was defeated for reelection by Jeb Bush in 2012. Who could the Republicans have nominated in 2008? Who could the Freedomites have nominated in 2008 and 2012? I have a feeling that the Freedom Party would be pulverized in 2008 due to the fallout from Trump's presidency.
Furthermore, with the United States having settled into a three-party system, I think there would be increased support for electoral reforms. Both the Democrats and the Republicans were "screwed" out of the presidency in recent years because of vote-splitting (Bill Clinton won the popular vote in 1992 but lost the EC, Jeb Bush won the popular vote in 2000 but lost the EC). No doubt there have been similar effects in congressional, state, and local elections. There was also one election (2004) where no candidate won a majority in the Electoral College and Congress had to elect the President and VP. I think there would be more popular support for abolishing the Electoral College and instituting something like ranked-choice voting (which Maine recently introduced in OTL because they usually have multiple candidates in their gubernatorial elections) or a runoff system (which some states already use, such as California and Louisiana). If reforms such as these were implemented, then I could see further fracturing of the party system as smaller parties become more competitive. The Democratic and Republican parties would remain largely intact, but the Freedom Party might see its libertarian and socialist wings split off, leaving behind the centrist core of the original party.
I would guess that voter turnout in American elections is higher than in OTL because there are more than two parties to vote for, thus presenting more options on the ballot.
Furthermore, with the United States having settled into a three-party system, I think there would be increased support for electoral reforms. Both the Democrats and the Republicans were "screwed" out of the presidency in recent years because of vote-splitting (Bill Clinton won the popular vote in 1992 but lost the EC, Jeb Bush won the popular vote in 2000 but lost the EC). No doubt there have been similar effects in congressional, state, and local elections. There was also one election (2004) where no candidate won a majority in the Electoral College and Congress had to elect the President and VP. I think there would be more popular support for abolishing the Electoral College and instituting something like ranked-choice voting (which Maine recently introduced in OTL because they usually have multiple candidates in their gubernatorial elections) or a runoff system (which some states already use, such as California and Louisiana). If reforms such as these were implemented, then I could see further fracturing of the party system as smaller parties become more competitive. The Democratic and Republican parties would remain largely intact, but the Freedom Party might see its libertarian and socialist wings split off, leaving behind the centrist core of the original party.
I would guess that voter turnout in American elections is higher than in OTL because there are more than two parties to vote for, thus presenting more options on the ballot.
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