AH Challenge: The Eternal 50s

Even with no Vietnam war, I suspect all the young people with money and leisure time and an educational system which constantly reminds them that they are the generation which will bring about The Glorious Future will raise a fuss about _something_: the civil rights issue, which certainly mobilized a lot of people OTL, or the whole "older generation saddled us with the threat of nuclear annihilation" thing, which isn't going away. There will be a "youth culture", driven by marketing if nothing else, and it won't look like the 50's: could end up rather different from our 60's, though.

Bruce
 
Even with no Vietnam war, I suspect all the young people with money and leisure time and an educational system which constantly reminds them that they are the generation which will bring about The Glorious Future will raise a fuss about _something_: the civil rights issue, which certainly mobilized a lot of people OTL, or the whole "older generation saddled us with the threat of nuclear annihilation" thing, which isn't going away. There will be a "youth culture", driven by marketing if nothing else, and it won't look like the 50's: could end up rather different from our 60's, though.

Bruce

Maybe such a culture will turn out like our post-Hippie Generation X at a certain point: A bunch of whiny, emo, commercialized little buggers who, unlike the Baby Boomers and Hippies of the OTL, don't have any real goals or struggles to change the world and just sit on their butts all day talking about pop culture.

I mean, I'm certain the obvious struggles such as civil rights and protest of government incompetence would have movements and a counter culture with a heart, but anything radical without any purpose other than to be against something just to be against something -and not even get off your butt to do anything about it- would be pretty much like Generation X.
 
The availability of birth control and TV might have effects, but they needn't have the effects they did in OTL.

No Vietnam War means no war on the TVs to radicalize the people, after all. Birth control might affect people's sexual habits, but that doesn't necessarily mean "free love" is the result.

These things need to be thought about in more detail.

Could a surviving JFK butterfly away the worst of the 1960s?

Actually I was thinking Nixon being elected in 1960 or the Nationalists winning the Chinese Civil War, stopping the communists in Vietnam in their tracks.
 
The POD for this TL

December 9th 1945
Neckarstadt, American Occupation Zone-Germany

General George Smith Patton was talking to his Chief of Staff Major General Gay. The two had been going out to hunt pheasents for the day. As he sat in his 1938 Cadillac Model 75 the driver of the automobile PFC Woodring shouted out "Sir, a truck's about to crash into us!" Patton and Gay leaped out of the car along with Woodring. The truck crashed into the car, damaging it a bit. Patton muttered "Goddamnit,who the hell was the driver?" as he dusted himself and stormed toward the car.
 
1946: A Year in Review

The United States;
In the United States the postwar era began. As peace returned demobilization of the US armies began. The Republicans managed to gain 53 House seats and 13 Senate seats. Notable new House members included Richard Nixon and John F Kennedy. George S Patton meanwhile was made the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
 
Chinese Civil War 1946-1948-With negotiations by George Marshall failing the Chinese Civil War resumed on June 11th 1946. General Patton vigorously lobbied the US Congress for more aid to the Nationalists. Ultimately on March 28th 1947 a Marshall Plan for China was approved. This aid gave the Nationalists in China a much-needed boost in addition to military supplies. The Nationalists won great victories capturing Harbin and retaking most of Manchuria. Mao Zedong and other surviving Communists eventually fled to the Soviet Union and the Chinese Civil War was over except for some intermittent guerrilla fighting.
 
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