Bicentennial Man: Ford '76 and Beyond

Yessir! With the locks opened/blown and everything

This is gonna end badly and I doubt the New Right will be able to capitalize on this as much as they think they can, given how once the rage wears off, most people are gonna blame them for basically being the ones who got them into Panama. It’s an even worse position to defend than Panama.

Like, when the backlash occurs on the right, it’s gonna be ugly
 
This is gonna end badly and I doubt the New Right will be able to capitalize on this as much as they think they can, given how once the rage wears off, most people are gonna blame them for basically being the ones who got them into Panama. It’s an even worse position to defend than Panama.

Like, when the backlash occurs on the right, it’s gonna be ugly
1978 and 1980 are going to be fun! Will be interesting which Republican bites the bullet as the nominee in that dreaded year. Unless they think they actually have a chance. Really the best chance for the Republicans is a Reagan vs. Ted Kennedy race, but even then Ted would probably win.
 
From 1971 to 2002 my grandfather served in the Marine Corps. In Vietnam he was a member of Force Recon. ITTL, would he be sent to Panama?

Quite possibly. The Marines are the tip of the spear in Operation Big Stick - them and the 101st Airborne, which had to seize the airfields.
 
1978 and 1980 are going to be fun! Will be interesting which Republican bites the bullet as the nominee in that dreaded year. Unless they think they actually have a chance. Really the best chance for the Republicans is a Reagan vs. Ted Kennedy race, but even then Ted would probably win.

It's been 12 years of Republican. Not even Reagan could save the party there. Ted or another strong leftie could win.
 
Well the situation in panama is heating up huh i wonder what is the response from the columbians and the costa rican seeing this
 
Hey everyone! Been mostly working on Cinco de Mayo rather than this TL, per usual, and also trying to plan out the rest of 1978, especially the Panama War and the brewing crisis in Iran. Events recently (today specifically, but I won’t touch the Current Politics third rail) have curbed my appetite for writing about mass chaos and such things so this will go on a brief hiatus.

Regards,

KS
 
Pointing Fingers
"...the almost slapstick response by the US forces in Panama allowing the Canal Zone to be overrun and Huele a Quemado to go into effect was a national scandal, particularly in tandem with the economic shocks that came with it. The general feeling was, is this how far the US Army has fallen since Vietnam? We can't even hold off fucking Panama? The President was adamant that his team would present a united front but the leaks to the Washington Post and New York Times were fast and furious; the Rumsfeld-Carlucci faction at the Pentagon and Langley preferred to disseminate via Bob Woodward, of all fucking people, at the Post, while Bush, Baker and, surprisingly, Cheney leaked to the Times. Effectively, it became a question of who was to blame for the Panama Crisis; was it the diplomacy leading up to Torrijos pulling out of talks, which was on Bush? Or was it the demobilization and exhaustion of the American military as a fighting force, as overseen by Rumsfeld? My take? It was a bit of both, plus a CIA that was really afraid of another Church Committee and Carl [Bernstein]'s big expose on their practices..."

- Ben Bradlee, Interview, 2002

"...on the Hill, an inquiry into how the US military was so unprepared for the operations in Panama - which by early April had secured much of the country, but now at the price of tipping neighboring states into destabilization - was also viewed as a way for various Democratic and Republican contenders for higher office to flex their muscles. As the steam for Congressional commtitees to investigate the matter gained, Secretary of State Bush's son, George W., was defeated in a landslide primary defeat by conservative Odessa Mayor Jim Reese [1], with Panama - and the candidate's father - a central matter in the race. As the GOP devolved into pro-Ford and anti-Ford factions, with the President already plainly a lame duck even before the looming midterms, Democrats were mostly coalesced around "fact finding," an amorphous term that meant one thing to Scoop Jackson, who was already lining up support for a Presidential run in 1980 as a serious, sober foreign policy specialist, and the cadre of young liberals elected in 1974 who were seeking their own champion and who detested Jackson. Before any committees could be put together, both sides needed to sort out their internecine squabbles..."

- The 70s: A Time of Crisis


[1] OTL, Bush narrowly won the primary over Reagan-backed Reese but would lose to Kent Hance in the general, the only loss of his political career. Here, his first race is a pasting, his dad is increasingly becoming PNG'd by the Reaganites as a "squish" when it comes to Panama and too much of a Ford man, and Dubya is essentially remanded to a historical footnote. Our first Presidential casualty of the butterflies from Ford's reelection!
 
The People's Temple
"...by April of 1978, the controversy surrounding Jim Jones' People's Temple was consuming San Francisco politics, with the erratic leader now holed up with nearly a thousand followers in Guyana and influential politicians being questioned about their ties to him. Both Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Milk defended him as best they could on purely technical grounds, but the matter was complex for both, especially in the fractious and hot-tempered politics of post-Castro Street Riot San Francisco. Passions were high and anger was considerable at Moscone's handling of the reports of severe physical and psychological abuse, and before long even Milk began to think that avoiding the controversy was best for his future prospects..."

- Jonestown at 25: A Retrospective (2003)

"...I was determined, both due to the concerns of my constituents and the increasing focus on this in the media, that we were going to get to the bottom of this. Jim Jones was no longer a force for good in the Bay. His time was up, and he had a lot to answer for..."

- Interview with Congressman Leo Ryan, 1993
 
Probably because not many in the US army think it’s worth this. But yeah, I wonder who can run for the 1980 election. Ted may still be tainted from his accident and not sure who could be a strong enough lefty to deal with Scoop Jackson (who has establishment backing but the charisma of soggy newspaper).

Maybe the grand return of George McGoveron or Hubert Humphrey? XD or a dark horse candidate
 
Probably because not many in the US army think it’s worth this. But yeah, I wonder who can run for the 1980 election. Ted may still be tainted from his accident and not sure who could be a strong enough lefty to deal with Scoop Jackson (who has establishment backing but the charisma of soggy newspaper).

Maybe the grand return of George McGoveron or Hubert Humphrey? XD or a dark horse candidate

Humphrey such an unstoppable force, and the GOP in such tatters by 1980, that he manages to win despite having been dead since January of 1978 ;)
 
Humphrey such an unstoppable force, and the GOP in such tatters by 1980, that he manages to win despite having been dead since January of 1978 ;)

A corpse would do better than Ford or Reagan by this point. Besides, he did die of bladder cancer, which could’ve been butterflies away ITTL XD

Glad to see you working on this time line again
 
A corpse would do better than Ford or Reagan by this point. Besides, he did die of bladder cancer, which could’ve been butterflies away ITTL XD

Glad to see you working on this time line again

Thanks! It was time to get back to it. Still my secondary focus after Cinco de Mayo but I'm going to try to update this more regularly (and maybe move the TL along a bit more, too).
 
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