A more brighter America.

No as obvious as you might think. For starters, there will be exactly as many people unhappy with the 2000 election, and exactly as much talk about a stolen election. It will be different people unhappy, mind you--but just as many.
Not just as many, probably just Republicans. Democrats and independents were pretty peeved since Gore won the popular vote and they saw Bush as essentially awarded the presidency by a conservative Supreme Court. The fact that Bush's brother was the Governor of Florida and his cousin was the first one who announced his victory on Fox News doesn't help. And since most of the media is "liberal," the media won't give Gore such a hard time and the public will feel better about the result. Fox News will probably be livid though, even though Gore won the popular vote (but reason never got in the way of their goals), and also might blame the Democrats for 9/11 (since Clinton preceded Gore and Gore was VP, this is much easier to do than for Bush; neither administration took Osama seriously before 9/11).[/quote]

And if Gore handles 9/11 badly--say, by appearing to be indecisive in his response--things could be just as bad, only in different ways.

Nightmare Gore-9/11 scenario (which I believe could have been possible, if Gore made some plausible bad choices):

The 9/11 attack goes off pretty much as OTL; it is unlikely that Al Qaeda cared or cares much which party is in the White House. President Gore responds in a way that seems reasonable to progressives: big emphasis on finding alternate energy sources; conciliatory response to Muslims' actual grievances; slow and steady response with much consulting overseas; special emphasis on avoiding threatening American civil liberties; deliberate avoiding of nationalistic rhetoric.

At the same, Gore's cautious approach to taking down Al Qaeda produces less collateral damage than OTL--but also is slower to take the terror networks down (for instance, in this worst case scenario he decides not to invade Afghanistan, and the Taliban government makes many humiliating taunts about the Al Qaeda camps in their country).
Yes, Gore's cautiousness would be a very damaging factor here. However, he did approve of the Gulf War and once the Taliban refused to hand over Osama, probably would have gone the OTL invasion, I think he supported it OTL.

Unfortunately, the American public is VERY upset about 9/11, and President Gore underestimates this upset. His cautious approach looks like weakness to many people. The amount of anti-Muslim attacks in the U.S. are higher than OTL (I believe part of the reason that was very low in OTL is that the Bush administration made it very clear drastic action would be taken). Anti-Muslim rhetoric is vastly worse than OTL. Gore responds very strongly to that, of course, cracking down on anti-Muslim bigotry. Big mistake--much of the American public percieves that President Gore is more concerned about vandalism to mosques than about mass terror attacks on Americans. Race riots spread.
If Gore dithers, anti-Muslim attacks probably will increase a little, but Gore will be sure to make Americans remember that this is radical, not typical Islam and discourage such riots. Anyways, they will peter out in time and after Gore makes sure to take care of Afghanistan. This butterflies away more terrorist attacks, leaving less than OTL (terrorism has been strengthened since Iraq was a good training ground). Gore will probably get more support from Europe since Bush was a turn-off to many Europeans, though his oil policies will make Arab governments less friendly to him. This is counterbalanced by less sheer hatred of the US (OTL for invading Iraq) though it would still be disliked because of Israel. Maybe Gore would try to get a settlement on the Palestinian question to get more cooperation from Arabs, though I'm not to sure about it.

Oh, and there is just as big a "9/11 Truth" movement claiming the attack is a U.S. government plot as OTL--different people in it, but at least as many, and just as bitter.
Yeah, but that's a fraction of America, not the whole thing.

And then in Gore's second term the economy tanks--the green measures Gore started before 9/11, and the efforts to reduce oil imports afterwards, had plenty of justification; but this did not make them cheap or without consequence. Add in the serious disruption caused by the 9/11 attacks themselves, and the constant strain of simmering riots nationwide, and you have an economy doing rather worse than OTL.
I think the riots will be a lot shorter than you do, and they won't drain the economy nearly as much as Iraq did. Afghanistan will be in a much better situation than OTL - probably in 2004 it will be better where Iraq is today since in 2003 the Taliban was practically finished... till Bush turned around and invaded Iraq.

(Hurricane Katrina is probably handled only slightly better--while FEMA is surely better managed in TTL, the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans are just as corrupt and incompetent as in our OTL. However, there is less bitterness about it, since the charge that "Al Gore doesn't care about black people" doesn't sound as plausible. So call this slightly better than OTL.)
I agree with you there, it still would have been a disaster but Gore would have been much more competent in the rescue part (OTL Canadian rescue helicopters arrived 3 days before FEMA if I recall correctly...).

The main benefits is the vast majority of the world doesn't hate America, who would not have tortured any captured terrorists on Guantanamo Bay, would not have invaded Iraq, and not have done many other stupid things by Bush. The economy, Katrina, and Afghanistan would be similar though Afghanistan would be much better IMO. Arabs would be mad about Gore for oil, but since there was no invasion of Iraq it wouldn't be nearly as bad as OTL, though Israel would be a sore point and Gore would probably want to get a settlement on that to increase Arab support.

Iran probably would not have Ahmadinijad as president, world terrorism would be weaker because of no Iraq war. Economy would be bad, but because of no Iraq the US won't have nearly as big a deficit. Health care reform might have been attempted, though probably not before the economy falls and Gore realizes that we need a healthcare system that uses up less money.

Fine,
but the thread is on 1945-1975 years.
Read that right after editing this... aarrgh.

But from then on, definitely less fear of the USSR and thus no Domino Theory which means no Vietnam. Also, if MacArthur had taken Chinese warnings seriously, Korea would be mostly united under the ROK, with a 12-mile North Korean buffer between the PRC and the ROK which would have been annexed by the ROK probably a little after German unification or the fall of the USSR since Deng would like better relations with the West.

I disagree with the Kennedy assassination - a full Kennedy presidency would have been marred by fraud, and without LBJ as president with his legendary legislative skills and the position of being a Southerner, racial progress would have been much more difficult. Kennedy started the buildup in Vietnam but IDK if he would have gone to Johnson's level in OTL had he lived.

Iran set a precedent for overthrowing democratically elected leftist governments, if that is avoid the US will have much better world relations and greater leverage over the USSR.
 
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loughery111

Banned
Let's see... Best way to do this is the following:

1. Tell the French they can go hang, but we aren't letting them touch Indochina again. They bitch and moan but need the Marshall Aid so they can't really do anything about it. This butterflies Vietnam... because at the time Ho Chi Minh was barely a moderate lefty democrat (small d), not a communist. US support keeps them firmly in our axis.

2. Either dissuade Chiang Kai-Shek from attempting to reconquer Manchuria or give him the tools to do it and the assurance that we'll turn the Soviets into paste if they interfere directly. This gets us either a nationalist China with present borders sans Tibet, or one without Manchuria. Either will start booming when the RoK and RoC did IOTL... thus a richer, more democratic, US allied East Asia.

3. Write into the final peace treaty with the Japanese that the US government is taking over final control over their history textbook materials until 2050. If they don't like it, we'll stop giving them aid too. That pretty much solves the East Asian relations issues that currently have everyone hating them. Thus we can get them to cooperate and not have to babysit.

4. Do NOT overthrow the Iranian government to install the Shah. US business interests and the interests of the country are not one and the same. And a lefty democratically elected government can be wooed with development aid. Additionally, when their economic policies prove an abysmal failure, they get thrown out on their ass. If they refuse to abide by the results of that election and go hard left, then we kick them out and install the newly elected government. Result: friendly, or at least not hostile, secular Iran. (Turkey 2.0).

5. As a general rule for dealing with elected governments, use the above; democratically elected is good regardless of leanings, throw as much aid as is practical and keep the democrats in power as long as they don't start rigging elections, go hard left, or kill people.

6. Marshall Plan 2.0: Latin America. Pay attention to the Rio Pact and actually treat it like it matters. Integrate that and NATO into an Atlantic Treaty Organization so you aren't the only country that has obligations to both continents. Throw as much development aid as humanly possible into Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, in particular. Don't treat Central America like conquered territory.

7. Domestically... the things that would make the most difference now were simply not going to happen; it would necessitate foreseeing problems with Social Security and Medicare that aren't even here yet IOTL. Ideally, we would reform them to arrange that each generation pay for itself, as a massive enforced savings program for medical care and retirement. It might be a decent idea to toss in an amendment capping public debt at 60% of GDP, prevent later problems. Maybe even lay out minimal requirements for education, infrastructure, military, and R&D spending (i.e. 10% of the fed. budget on education, etc...)

8. Arrange some competition in the public schooling system. A lot of it, if you can manage. Shorten summer break if at all possible, in exchange for a couple more weeks off or something... get the school year up to 210 days if possible, and make sure that there isn't a huge three month gap there screwing over the poorer kids. Ideally, four weeks in summer, three at Christmas, and one each in fall and for Easter. Weekends and scattered days off aside from that.

9. Deal with Labor-Management relations before the unions take over whole industries as IOTL. The car industry, in particular, would have a lot fewer problems between 1970 and now if its unions were hacked down to size. Education too. Straight-up ban on public sector unionization in education, medical, or emergency response. Or at least, a ban on striking. Enough holding the children hostage, assholes.

10.
 
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