CH: US Has As Much Terrorism as the UK

Just a thought, but some sort of more dystopian USA in which the labor movement was aborted and progressives kept by and large from power, so you have very few of the fair labor laws or safety requirements in place. Would make the States a much more ripe place for a communist/socialist insurgency which could keep up a low intensity campaign against the government.

Something with a POD similar the book The Iron Heel by Jack London, pretty ASB but that could be largely toned down. Also the book is a good read if you've never (and interestingly, a future history work when published, now it's an alt history work).
 
That could work, except that it's more likely such a movement would use things like strikes more often. It certainly wouldn't get to the level of the IRA and stuff which happened to the UK, not when there are non-violent methods available, and more importantly, widely spread.
 
With pre-1900 PODs, the most likely candidates IMO would be:

1. More Confederate die-hards engaging in guerrilla warfare (perhaps Lee doesn't shoot down the ideas of those who advocated dispersing the Confederate Armies to engage in partisan warfare) & the blow-back from that.

2. Blowback from the more extreme forms of Radical Reconstruction being engaged in, particularly if it it includes prosecuting ex-Confederates (not just the political & military leaders but the rank & file) to the fullest extent of the law & finding some legal pretext to seize their property & disenfranchise them, instead of basically giving them a free pass on treason for reasons of practical politics.

3. The original version of the KKK & their terror campaign on steroids- would dovetail nicely into scenarios 1 & 2 as well.

4. Things associated with the early labor movement get much nastier than they did OTL, though this would likely require additional post-1900 PODs to create a lasting terrorism issue, as well as making a potential fascist or communist takeover post-1900 more likely.

There's a couple more ideas that seem less likely, or wouldn't be likely to last as an ongoing issue- one is that that the slavery issue somehow drags on without provoking a civil war or unopposed secession yet becomes more extreme & polarized, leading to more John Browns & Bleeding Kansas type things, but my gut is that would ultimately fail a plausibility test. Then there's a scenario where southern blacks decide to fight fire with fire when it comes to things like the KKK or Jim Crow, but I'm hard-pressed to see how that could last as an ongoing conflict & not get stomped hard by state or federal authorities.
 
With the last, the Black Panthers in the 1960s, and perhaps earlier, represent that.

With labor, I don't find that likely, because, when there are many non-violent, and more importantly, more effective, methods available, like striking, than terrorism, you'll choose the former. It may be more expensive at times in monetary terms, but it's a lot easier to convince people to do, and doesn't have nearly as much negative political blowback.

The first two could work, but the problem I have isn't wouldn't the Federal Government eventually just crackdown so hard that the movement gets violently forced underground? To be fair, the IRA showed otherwise, so there's that.
 
Well, remember that the wise non-violent strikes and what not were often crushed with brutal and bloody methods early in the labor movements days. If you consider how easily communism spread amongst oppressed peasant classes in poorer nations, it is easy to imagine a similar ideology spreading amongst the working class in the States (and this is the class communism actually imagined would overthrow their capitalist oppressors, not some peasant farmers). If the US government and business fails to reform some of their major abuses, you set the nation up for an insurgency or even a possible revolution attempt by working classes.

It's admittedly a very long shot, and to get to a really long term insurgent level, I think you'd have to have a government that is completely controlled by the monopolies of the early industrial age, that destroys or simply manages to ignore many of the protections created in the US Constitution. Basically if the government can become so corrupted and dominated by those big businesses, the lower classes may feel they have no choice left but violent resistance.
 
While this is true, it actually shows how powerful strikes are, because some of them still succeeded despite attempts to violently crush them.

But, to be fair, non-violent measures require the populace is aware of them to work, so there's that.
 
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