Blue Skies in Camelot: An Alternate 60's and Beyond

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Roger Redux

Roger Redux

President_Lincoln said:
Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: War! What is it Good For?
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Absolutely nothin'! Say it again! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh WAR!
HUH! Good God ya'll!

Great update as always! I echo my fellow readers in saying it was nice to see the issues with being the 'first of his faith' in office, and how well he dealt with them.

I'm not old enough to remember Cronkite, but his reputation tells me we need more journalists like that now.
 

BP Booker

Banned
Nights are growing very lonely, days are very long;
I'm a-growing weary only, list'ning for your song…

So far George Romney´s presidency seems like as “steady as we go” administration: Not much in the way of radical New Deal/Next Frontier type changes to society and government but rather more like implementing “common sense” polices using the already stablished Roosevelt era bureaucracy as a launching pad and building on the Civil Rights laws of the previous administrations. So pretty much a standard Liberal consensus Conservative, don’t roll back anything people actually depend on, but trim out the fat and don’t waste money. Even I, a committed Liberal, would not despair under Romney

Foreign Policy wise he’s much more aggressive than Kennedy but thankfully he seems grounded enough that he wont just throw men and money at the problem (A badly fought war is a great way to destabilize the country’s social cohesion and drain the treasury). I sincerely hope there’s a happy ending in Cambodia (as much as there can truly be one at this point)

President_Lincoln said:
“Why yes, Walter, I can easily do that for you. During the tenure of President George Albert Smith, who presided over our Church from 1945 to 1951, we fought vigorously against the influence of the Ku Klux Klan and other such hate groups in American politics, a stance that has continued since.
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I thought Romeny was going to get really nasty there and use that fact to deflect to Robert Byrd or the sordid history of the Democratic Party – Yes, I know Robert Byrd apologized for his role in the KKK when he was young and was a stalwart supporter of rights for African Americans, believe me I’ve had to defend him

And, Mormon God is clearly preparing for the 1972 Presidential Election already
 

President Earl Warren

President_Lincoln said:
Thank you, Aero! :) Glad you enjoyed the update. Unfortunately, a shooting still takes place at Kent State :( Though the Romney Administration's reaction will certainly be different from Nixon's IOTL.
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I'm guessing instead of calling them abunch of rioting bums, Romney is going to go full bore into investigations and call up the victims and their families. Also Great update, just one question about it: isn't it a little early for major demonstrations which will lead to shootings just yet, i mean the war has only just begun and wouldn't really imprint on the American conscieus just yet.
 
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President_Lincoln

President_Lincoln

President Earl Warren said:
I'm guessing instead of calling them abunch of rioting bums, Romney is going to go full bore into investigations and call up the victims and their families. Great update, just one question about it: isn't it a little early for major demonstrations which will lead to shootings just yet, i mean the war has only just begun and wouldn't really imprint on the American conscieus just yet.
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A fair point Mr. President, the ground war in Cambodia has only been going on for a year, but there has been near constant military action in Southeast Asia ITTL since the early 50's. Besides the brief window of complete American withdrawal from July, 1967 to the beginning of the air campaign against the Khmer Rouge in October, 1968, Americans have been at pseudo-war for far longer. The anti-war movement is so angry due to what it sees as an expansion of a war that it had just been promised was nearly over. President Kennedy had been on his way to total peace, no Americans in the region, and Senator Humphrey was committed to continuing that plan, but Romney is seeming to go back in the other direction, thus the protests.
 

President Earl Warren

President_Lincoln said:
omney is seeming to go back in the other direction, thus the protests
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Yeah but angry enough to get to rioting (Nixon had a small point when he said the protestors were abunch of rioting anarchists in that they were firmly on the way to getting into a nasty riot (not that it justifies what the troops did, they should of used tear gas and other non lethal measures not go straghit for their guns)) would they have been angry enough to start trying to destroy stuff at the university?
 
Alpha-King98760

Alpha-King98760

I wonder how the protesters view the Khmer Rouge? Actually they probably don’t anything about them other than that are fighting against the Khmer Republic and the USA.
 
President_Lincoln

President_Lincoln

President Earl Warren said:
Yeah but angry enough to get to rioting (Nixon had a small point when he said the protestors were abunch of rioting anarchists in that they were firmly on the way to getting into a nasty riot (not that it justifies what the troops did, they should of used tear gas and other non lethal measures not go straghit for their guns)) would they have been angry enough to start trying to destroy stuff at the university?
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Exactly. The Kent State situation will be different itself ITTL as well, with the Government response differing accordingly.

Alpha-King98760 said:
I wonder how the protesters view the Khmer Rouge? Actually they probably don’t anything about them other than that are fighting against the Khmer Republic and the USA.
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This largely depends on the protesters themselves. Many see the Khmer Rouge like freedom fighters, as they did the Vietcong, though this is largely due to being uninformed of just how bad Pol Pot and his followers can be. If reports of their atrocities are made public, expect these parts of the hippie movement to turn on them hard, fast.

The rest of the anti-war movement are anti Khmer Rouge as well, they just don't see it being America's place to deal with them with military force.
 
Laxault2020

Laxault2020

Fun timeline. PS If you want a good read on Romney's ideology here's his announcement speech otl in 1968.


I don't remember if you had it already, but Romney, while a liberal, would probably be a welfare reformist. OTL He hated Nixon's family assistance plan when in his cabinet as he thought it would discourage people from working and was against his "strong mormon work ethic" (later I'll get the book where I found that. Its a cool story of Nixon's 1st four years from 1972 I found in a used bookstore).

In addition, expect a strong dollar. Romney and other Rockefeller Republicans, unlike Humphrey and liberal dems, did not like inflation (Humphrey, Johnson, and the like thought a weaker dollar and relatively higher inflation meant higher employment). While Romney was a liberal, he was a pro-business liberal, and business hated inflation.
 
Laxault2020

Laxault2020

In the 50's and 60's the belief was that there was a direct link between inflation and employment. The more inflation you had, the more employment. The key was not to have TOO much inflation.

Today, economists across the political spectrum know that this belief is bunk.
 
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