AHC: Marquis de Sade as the "Washington" of the ARW

Alkahest

Banned
An only slightly frivolous challenge: Would it be possible to make Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, somehow end up in the role of "Washington" in an alternate American Revolutionary War? That is, could he be a successful general leading a young republic to victory against its European rulers and later said republic's first president/consul/governor/first citizen/whatever they end up calling it? The new country doesn't have to correspond perfectly to the United States of our history, and the war doesn't have to be fought against Britain. The country just has to be an American colony declaring itself independent.

The POD can be any point from 1740 and onward.

A perhaps slightly easier challenge is to make him more of a Jefferson, a philosopher-president known for being a thinker rather than a general-president known for fighting the oppressive colonial overlords et cetera. Bonus points for making him both!
 
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Would that mean no 120 Days of Sodom? :eek:

All I can think of is a USA forming with principles similar to those of the characters in that book. I know de Sade didn't actually support the kind of things that happen in his writing, but I can't think of anything else. It would be one hell of a dystopian timeline. '120 Years of Sodom' or something.
 

Alkahest

Banned
Wouldn't it be easiest to make him a Lafayette?
No doubt about that! But who said that a challenge has to be easy?
Would that mean no 120 Days of Sodom? :eek:
I guess he could find the time to write in his spare time, though unless he published it under a pen name it could set a a very liberal precedent for acceptable presidential hobbies. Which I approve of! :D
All I can think of is a USA forming with principles similar to those of the characters in that book. I know de Sade didn't actually support the kind of things that happen in his writing, but I can't think of anything else. It would be one hell of a dystopian timeline. '120 Years of Sodom' or something.
I think he could go both ways. Sexual sadism seems to be overwhelmingly genetic, so he'd be a big perv in any timeline. However, depending on other factors I think he could become a saintly liberal leader who only engaged in consensual, if kinky, sex, or he could become a proper Caligula and "President for Life". In any case, I think the *US would likely become more secular and even directly anti-religious, and it's entirely possible that sexual freedom would be seen as an important part of *American values.

Now I can only imagine a modern-day presidential campaign where the different candidates accuse each other of not having sex with enough prostitutes.

"I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a Sadist, but you don't need to visit the brothel every Sunday to know there's something wrong in this country when Christians can serve openly in the military but our kids can't learn about autoerotic asphyxiation or engage in triple reversed bestialist sodomy in school. As President, I'll end Obama's war on sexual freedom. And I'll fight against monogamist attacks on our Sadist heritage. Libertinism made America strong. It can make her strong again. I'm Rick Perry and I approve this message."
 
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Hedonism, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created pervert."
 

Alkahest

Banned
Indeed. :p

If a French man being the most important person in a rebellion against the British is too unbelievable, how about Louisiane? The POD is early enough for a different Seven Years War, but do you think Louisiane was too thinly populated for an independence movement to arise?

It would be interesting to see Louisiane become a kind of "Sadist North Korea" - I doubt the heavily slave-dependent new state would be open to abolitionism, so in this scenario the "asshole" interpretation of de Sade could be combined with the unpleasantness of slavery.
 
Would that mean no 120 Days of Sodom? :eek:

Almost any change to that mans early life would have eliminated most of that bit of his writings. If the man had just married a woman with a different mother, he'd have ended up a completely different person. Likely an utterly forgettable one.

I read up on the man a year or so back and found I came to like him in spite of myself. Particularly the way he acquitted himself during the First Republic impressed me. It seems he entered prison a spoiled, childish wastrel, and left it a genuine committed proponent of human freedom.
 
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