AHC: America less nationalistic

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samcster94

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OTL United States, ironically most pronounced in the Southern States, is known for its intense nationalism especially among its right wing compared to other industrialized democracies. My goal is to have the U.S., in the 20th century, do something horrible that shames its population and is toned down some. A good idea for this would be for the U.S. to fight a war, but resort to open genocide{imagine a Congo conflict that makes Vietnam look tame, and a certain ethnic group is seen as worthy of death for being communists{and are compared to monkeys}} and lose said war(it cannot lead to a situation where the U.S. denies said genocide). Bonus points if there are laws demonizing genocide denial:including a much harder Civil Rights Movement that makes teaching the Lost Cause punishable at the federal level by a fine or a year in prison, and the flag is taboo to show). What I mean by nationalistic is saying "We are the best in the world" and all the flag flying, which is not acceptable in TTL.
 
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Define what you mean by nationalistic. Jingoistic nationalism could be avoided if isolationism remains a political force in American politics, as was the case before the World Wars, where isolationist sentiments were common across the right and left wings of the political spectrum. These days the idea that America shouldn't be a global military superpower with a say in all major global affairs is considered extreme nonsense, whilst authorising bombing campaigns in non-combatant countries is just what any sensible moderate politician would do. Of course stronger isolationism isn't necessarily un-nationalistic.

You cite Austria as an example of what you are looking for, but they only recently narrowly avoided electing a far-right nationalist as President, so maybe not the best example.
 
OTL United States, ironically most pronounced in the Southern States, is known for its intense nationalism especially among its right wing compared to other industrialized democracies. My goal is to have the U.S., in the 20th century, do something horrible that shames its population and is toned down some. A good model of what I am looking for is Austria, which Denazified, but not as well as Germany and still has an authoritarian right which occasionally gets into trouble. Bonus points if there are laws demonizing genocide denial:including a much harder Civil Rights Movement that makes teaching the Lost Cause punishable at the federal level by a fine or a year in prison, and the flag is taboo to show).

The South always made its identity based on being "true Americans" unlike corrupt Yankees. To destroy the South, you need the North not to make a compromise with the South in the 1870s and to be fully committed to destroying the South and northernising it. That would take one hell of an effort on the part of the government. So much has been said about Reconstruction, and it's obvious it would be very, very difficult to actually accomplish. But it would suppress the Lost Cause ideology in that it would be strangled in the cradle.

The South was very fucked up. They replaced the fucked up slavery ideology with something slightly less fucked up. Something where abusing random people (as long as you were white and they were black) was acceptable. And then you have the North where they made their own crap with their own racial laws. I suppose you'd have to make Jim Crow even worse and spread it nationwide. That seems the most likely. I suppose there's other suggestions which verge on comically evil, like genociding all Native Americans and Asians (Nazi style), but that goes against even 19th century policy toward those people.

You can make the Confederate flag truly bad if you treat it less as a symbol of rebellion and the South but if you treat it as an unpatriotic, anti-American symbol. But it's unfortunate that the Confederacy and the people defending them in the Reconstruction era (and before) portrayed themselves as the ultimate Americans trying to save America from itself. Americans--especially Southern Americans--need to treat the Confederacy and their symbols as failures and anti-Americans. "Violence and rebellion isn't the way real Americans solve things." Or something.

One other answer aside from looking back on the Civil War, slavery, and its aftermaths is to look at World War II and Japan. Can the United States invade Japan, kill tens of millions of Japanese in various ways (nukes, chemical warfare, conventional warfare), and still be a good nation? I'm basing things off the Decisive Darkness timeline here. After all, Admiral Halsey's quote "Before we're through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell" was a thing.
 
Vietnam was this, until Reagan undercut it. That is, in part, the thesis in "The Invisible Bridge": the idea that the American public was actually maturing because Vietnam and Watergate obliterated convictions of simplistic American exceptionalism, moral certainty, the full faith in government and leaders, and the idea that America was always right and always did the right thing, and forced an evolution and a period of growing up, which Reagan undercut with simple platitudes and reasserted that America was the city on the hill ordained by God which was better by simply being America and which was always right.
 
. . . said war(it cannot lead to a situation where the U.S. denies said genocide). . .
Or, just not talked about at all.

We supported proxy genocide in East Timor following 1975. Our cold war ally Indonesia invaded East Timor on Dec. 7, 1975, and basically fuck it, they were our ally, that's the only thing which mattered. And yes, in a sad irony, the invasion took place on Pearl Harbor Day, but even that wasn't enough to get people's attention. East Timor was, and now newly independent is, a small country. Estimates are that between 100,000 and 200,000 persons were killed, which was between 1/6 and 1/3 of the country's population.

And both Carter and Reagan supported the Khmer Rouge post-genocide, at least I hope largely post-genocide. Vietnam invaded Cambodia on Christmas Day 1978 because Khmer Rouge military units were coming across the border and attacking Vietnamese villages and killing Vietnamese citizens and they had every right to defend themselves. Now, Vietnam went overboard and drove all the way to the capital city Phnom Penh and put in their own puppet government. But, the Vietnamese stopped the Khmer Rouge genocide, and actually should have gotten credit for doing what larger, more responsible governments should have done earlier. Anyway, we decide we're still against the Vietnamese and screw everything else.

Maybe, if left and right radio stations really battled in the late '70s where the corporate media felt they had to compete and ended up doing some actual journalism? ? ?
 
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samcster94

Banned
The South always made its identity based on being "true Americans" unlike corrupt Yankees. To destroy the South, you need the North not to make a compromise with the South in the 1870s and to be fully committed to destroying the South and northernising it. That would take one hell of an effort on the part of the government. So much has been said about Reconstruction, and it's obvious it would be very, very difficult to actually accomplish. But it would suppress the Lost Cause ideology in that it would be strangled in the cradle.

The South was very fucked up. They replaced the fucked up slavery ideology with something slightly less fucked up. Something where abusing random people (as long as you were white and they were black) was acceptable. And then you have the North where they made their own crap with their own racial laws. I suppose you'd have to make Jim Crow even worse and spread it nationwide. That seems the most likely. I suppose there's other suggestions which verge on comically evil, like genociding all Native Americans and Asians (Nazi style), but that goes against even 19th century policy toward those people.

You can make the Confederate flag truly bad if you treat it less as a symbol of rebellion and the South but if you treat it as an unpatriotic, anti-American symbol. But it's unfortunate that the Confederacy and the people defending them in the Reconstruction era (and before) portrayed themselves as the ultimate Americans trying to save America from itself. Americans--especially Southern Americans--need to treat the Confederacy and their symbols as failures and anti-Americans. "Violence and rebellion isn't the way real Americans solve things." Or something.

One other answer aside from looking back on the Civil War, slavery, and its aftermaths is to look at World War II and Japan. Can the United States invade Japan, kill tens of millions of Japanese in various ways (nukes, chemical warfare, conventional warfare), and still be a good nation? I'm basing things off the Decisive Darkness timeline here. After all, Admiral Halsey's quote "Before we're through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell" was a thing.
I like the idea of a Confederacy that is seen as un-patriotic, especially if the flag is not used at all. It was already forgotten pre 1948, and if a different racist symbol unrelated to the Confederacy was used, that would be a non issue. Also, the idea of an apartheid-esque Jim Crow that is national is genuinely chilling as would an extremely anti-Japanese occupation that is genocidal. This U.S. would definitely be seen negatively for what it has done, and unlike Belgium OTL, the fact the genocide was towards an industrialized nation would tarnish this U.S. badly.
 
I like the idea of a Confederacy that is seen as un-patriotic, especially if the flag is not used at all. It was already forgotten pre 1948, and if a different racist symbol unrelated to the Confederacy was used, that would be a non issue. Also, the idea of an apartheid-esque Jim Crow that is national is genuinely chilling as would an extremely anti-Japanese occupation that is genocidal. This U.S. would definitely be seen negatively for what it has done, and unlike Belgium OTL, the fact the genocide was towards an industrialized nation would tarnish this U.S. badly.
Combine this with a Morgenthau plan and it could lead to some interesting repercussions. Not sure if either would end with a less nationalistic United States.
 
Maybe not intervention in WW1 and a shorter one who butterfly either one, that would make US a little less nationalistic(xenophobe and racist are other issues)
 
OTL United States, ironically most pronounced in the Southern States, is known for its intense nationalism especially among its right wing compared to other industrialized democracies. My goal is to have the U.S., in the 20th century, do something horrible that shames its population and is toned down some. A good idea for this would be for the U.S. to fight a war, but resort to open genocide{imagine a Congo conflict that makes Vietnam look tame, and a certain ethnic group is seen as worthy of death for being communists{and are compared to monkeys}} and lose said war(it cannot lead to a situation where the U.S. denies said genocide). Bonus points if there are laws demonizing genocide denial:including a much harder Civil Rights Movement that makes teaching the Lost Cause punishable at the federal level by a fine or a year in prison, and the flag is taboo to show). What I mean by nationalistic is saying "We are the best in the world" and all the flag flying, which is not acceptable in TTL.
There are other ways to post-nationalism other than national guilt. Adding the guidelines that America has to have hate speech laws (again, not necessary for being less nationalist) and and been involved in genocide not only limits the options but makes me question whether you've got an axe to grind.
 
There are other ways to post-nationalism other than national guilt. Adding the guidelines that America has to have hate speech laws (again, not necessary for being less nationalist) and and been involved in genocide not only limits the options but makes me question whether you've got an axe to grind.

Nationalism isn't something that can be easily measured, and the OP doesn't really bother with trying, so you have to wonder if it's actually exceptional by any standards besides those of Western Europe.
 

CalBear

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OTL United States, ironically most pronounced in the Southern States, is known for its intense nationalism especially among its right wing compared to other industrialized democracies. My goal is to have the U.S., in the 20th century, do something horrible that shames its population and is toned down some. A good idea for this would be for the U.S. to fight a war, but resort to open genocide{imagine a Congo conflict that makes Vietnam look tame, and a certain ethnic group is seen as worthy of death for being communists{and are compared to monkeys}} and lose said war(it cannot lead to a situation where the U.S. denies said genocide). Bonus points if there are laws demonizing genocide denial:including a much harder Civil Rights Movement that makes teaching the Lost Cause punishable at the federal level by a fine or a year in prison, and the flag is taboo to show). What I mean by nationalistic is saying "We are the best in the world" and all the flag flying, which is not acceptable in TTL.
Please do NOT post thinly disguised current politics outside of Chat

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