AHC: USA civil war in the 60's

Alright what exactly triggers it and along what lines. What would need to change in the buildup (perhaps in the 40s post war). Would it be racial, north vs south, urban vs rural, conservative vs liberal. What would be the fallout of a potential civil war also.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
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Alright what exactly triggers it and along what lines. What would need to change in the buildup (perhaps in the 40s post war). Would it be racial, north vs south, urban vs rural, conservative vs liberal. What would be the fallout of a potential civil war also.
We probably need a early PoD for it, things need time to escalate so badly that people start shooting each other.
 
We probably need a early PoD for it, things need time to escalate so badly that people start shooting each other.

True. Only way get civil war on 20th century is even more severe Great Depression and even that is quet unlikely. Probably we would need POD during OTL ACW.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
True. Only way get civil war on 20th century is even more severe Great Depression and even that is quet unlikely. Probably we would need POD during OTL ACW.
Yup, America can't be a economic and military super power, leading one of the two big alliances of the world in this scenario.
 
I'll give it a try....

Eisenhower gets struck by lightning while out on the golf course early on in his first administration. Nixon takes over and so none of the modest civil rights advances take place.

Come the 1960s, you have even more call for the draft - maybe dealing with an insurgency in Cuba as well as the war in Vietnam. Disaffected young white folks join up with African Americans for peaceful change. When that doesn't happen, you have more an intergenerational civil war.
 
Nixon wouldn't be less supportive of civil rights than Eisenhower. Only way I can see a much less responsive political class reaction to civil rights happen is if WWII goes much worse for the Soviets and they don't get past their 1940 borders.
 
In order to build up to true civil war and not just rioting, something would have to unite the causes of everyone who’s mad at the government. Civil rights marchers would have to give up on non-violent protest and follow someone more firebrand like Malcolm X en masse. Young people would have to be a lot more worked up about Vietnam - say, if lots more people were sent there and either were butchered or forced to butcher and the young knew full well it was happening. Women would have to be even more angry than the bra-burning stereotypes and become militant.

One possibility: Nixon beats JFK but by the narrowest of margins, and it turns into something like Bush v Gore and leads to violent protests. The aftermath of the decision, one that puts Nixon in the White House, makes him the paranoid power-seeker that we know from OTL. He handles Cuba masterfully in the 1960s and is re-elected resoundingly, escalating Vietnamcat the same time (thus dampening Oswald’s motivation to shoot him.)

He takes a hard line on civil rights (the 1960 riots change his mind and lead him to oppose the movement.) This galvanizes the movement into a paramilitary organization. People back from Vietnam join. People who don’t want to go to Vietnam join. “Peace and love” becomes a bunch of pissed-off people with guns.

Meanwhile, Nixon is untouchable. It’s even been suggested that he should run for a third term despite the Constitution limiting him to two. Nixon hasn’t suggested at this point that he’s down for running in 1968 and daring the Supreme Court to stop him, but polls indicate he would win a third term handily.

Meanwhile, a Supreme Court case on marriage equality is delayed, and before it can be undertaken, Mildred Loving is found dead.

Sounds like a dystopian TL.
 
Wait, but this is OTL—

Oh. You meant the 1960s.

Well, I think a combination of the above suggestions about Nixon and the near-repeat of Southern secession from The Selma Massacre would just about do it.
 
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