Gorbachev simply tried to do too much too quickly with too little buy in from a number of key Soviet elites, in the end, but yes
Bicentennial Man: Ford '76 and Beyond
- Thread starter KingSweden24
- Start date
Well, less pressure would mean more time so he doesn’t act as quickly. Once done with the economy, then focus on leadership.
Not sure if the USSR can be saved, but at the least, Russia can avoid becoming a crapshoot
Yeah there’s a lot of ways to get a smoother landing. Yeltsin tripping and falling down his apartment stairs would be a great start lol
Watergate, Stagflation, Industrial decline, and energy crisis would be 100% pinned on Ford and the GOP during 1976-1980, because they were the incumbents.
The 8 years preceding the TL were under Nixon not LBJ. Voila, party fatigue would have been huge by 1980. We are talking about 12 straight years of Republican rule that would have ended up in stagflation by 1980.
This would have damaged Ford and the GOP as well, as they would be blamed for everything happened between 1976 and 1980. They are right here right now, unlike LBJ who was a decade ago.
"This was only after the successes of FDR and Truman, who the public credited for economic recovery form the lows of the depression. To achieve the same, Carey has to first implement popular policies before Americans can associate them with prosperity, assuming he is so lucky."
Well, of course Carey would implement them as soon as he wins the election.
His second term and his successor's first term in 1988 would have been a free ride as the economy recovers.
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Yeah, alot of people tend to forget abot the party fatigue aspect of the GOP if Ford would've won, including people who would menton it in other situations.
Like yeah, there was alot eroded trust... but who did it happen under exactly?
I wonder if Carey will overachieve in Western states If Reagan like irl goes against farm subsidies in the 1980 election. Also @KingSweden24 I think you might have forgotten about Utah's senate election in 1978
Utah is not a Class 2 state. They had elections in 1976 and 1980, but not 1978
Ah, my bad. Also is the country in a widely recognized recession in 1980? I know the story has talked about burns upping the tight monetary policy but the numeric details of what the economy looks like in 1980 doesn't seem to be there
I wonder if some of the more moderate republicans of the Phil Crane, stamp, may rest in the shade of the Great Communicator's victory.
Not sure if moderate republicans would retire since they possibly could in a way run against Reagan but the house could be ugly for the republicans in 1980 if Reagan isn't able to pull of his charms effectively. Even in the 1980 senate elections where democrats have to defend a lot of seats it doesn't look good for republicans .
The republicans aren't going to win the narrow southern victories they got irl and the dem seats they won from more northern states I don't see them taking with exception of south dakota and alaska. Pennsylvania and NY are definitely swinging dem, Goldwater despite 1980 being a conservative year won his seat by 1.48% so he's definitely gone too. which by my estimation leads to a net +1 for dems in 1980. Given the amount of dem senate seats up for election and they are still able to net gain seats would be beyond embarrassing for republicans.
Far from unbelievable to happen, I want to say Maryland too but Charles Mathias beat his opponent so badly irl in the 1980 election by 30% that I'm not even sure if it's possible to makeup that kind of margin ITTL. I don't know anything about Maryland politics so perhaps Mathias will get a more prominent opponent (he for sure won't win by the overwhelming margin he did irl). John Glenn will probably get over 80% of the popular vote in Ohio lol.
Charles Mathias was a liberal Republican so that’s something to consider here.
Saudia 770
Saudia 770
The attention of the British public in the summer of 1980 lay firmly on the engagement of Prince Charles to Amanda Knatchbull, the granddaughter of Lord Mountbatten. [1] The marriage being kept "in the family," so to speak, generated a great deal of media attention but was overall approved by the public and the establishment alike. The mania around "Charlie and Mandy" distracted somewhat from the Healy government's early efforts to find its sea legs and overshadowed a great deal of print speculation around Whitehall that he and his Chancellor, the autarkic and lefty Peter Shore, were already feuding over how exactly to spend the "North Sea Dividend" of oil revenues that began trickling in at higher clip and would become a veritable flow of cash and oil as early as 1981, just in time for Shore's first formal budget.
The summer of love and royal speculation crowding out every other public matter end dramatically in early August, though, when the Ikhwan terrorist organization blew up Saudia 770, flying a route from Riyadh to London. The 747 was carrying 383 passengers and twenty crew, all of whom died; about a hundred of the passenger manifest were British nationals, including thirty children on holiday to see family in the Middle East. It was the deadliest air disaster in British history. The plane went down in the eastern Mediterranean about two hours into its flight approximately halfway between Israel and Cyprus, and the Royal Navy was deployed from Malta along with some Turkish boats to assist in the rescue operation. Healy, teary-eyed, addressed the Commons on August 10, declaring, "The incidences of political violence by radicals has reached its most horrific crescendo this summer after a decade of escalations that last captured the public's attention with Munich, and if my government has anything to say about it, the next decade will see such violence snuffed out to a whimper!" A number of Labour backbenchers were visibly uncomfortable but the Commons mostly supported Healy's push to provide intelligence and security support to the Saudi government in cracking down on the Ikhwan, and Middle Eastern terror loomed large in the British public and military consciousness for the first time after the chaotic events in Iran in 1978-79 and now the horrific slaughter of hundreds of people by the Ikhwan.
In Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, 770 badly damaged the government's reputation. Several junior members of the royal family and civilian Saudi Aramco officials had been in the first class cabin of the flight en route to London to meet with British Petroleum executives before heading to an OPEC conference in Geneva; questions began to fly around Riyadh of who, exactly, might have known about their public movements all at once (rather than try to assassinate some of these relatively low-level targets individually, which was seen as much easier). The bombing spurred twin debacles executed by King Khalid - an aggressive search through his own security services to root out potential Ikhwan moles that bordered on a purge, and then a crackdown on the public that went above and beyond the measures put in place after the Mosque Siege. The temperatures in the Arabian desert were certainly not being lowered...
[1] Two things here - Mountbatten not assassinated by the IRA due to butterflies, and hat tip to @Nazi Space Spy for giving me the idea for Charles marrying somebody other than Diana
Nazi Space Spy
Banned
I think the idea of Charles marrying Amanda Knatchbull is a neat but small difference that adds a lot of flavor to the backdrop of this ATL.
Thanks! I agree. It also probably saves Diana from a very, VERY miserable public life she was definitely not mentally prepared for at her age which certainly is a nice angle, too.
Charles marrying Mountbatten's granddaughter makes a lot of sense! A quick note, with Mountbatten not murdered and made into a martyr, I wonder if his legacy will be more complex than in OTL. There are certain allegations of sexual abuse that might tarnish his reputation and that of the Prince of Wales. Just something to consider, if you have not already.
Saudi Arabia certainly seems like in a make or break point. This could either be Healy's Falklands or his Suez Canal, it's on a knife's edge either way.
Saudi Arabia certainly seems like in a make or break point. This could either be Healy's Falklands or his Suez Canal, it's on a knife's edge either way.
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It also probably saves Charles from a very unhappy marriage with a very inappropriate woman. The only real loser will be the British tabloids.