Well, folks, this next Wednesday will be the 129th anniversary of the day that President James G. Blaine was shot by a certain former Confederate in the streets of Indianapolis. Blaine was known for his stances on civil rights for African-Americans and his support for tariffs to protect American workers, and signed several bills supporting civil & economic reform. Unfortunately, though, many of his reforms were reversed under President Cleveland after his win in 1888(granted, the Southerners pushed on him pretty hard, but still!), and it wasn't until the T.R. era when many of the financial reforms finally came back, and not 'till Truman's time when the Civil Rights protections started coming back again(he paid a heavy price; Republican Douglas McArthur won in 1948 thanks to Southern backlash against him.).
If Blaine had survived his assassination attempt, instead of dying on Sept. 26th, 1883, as he did IOTL, or even not been shot at all(like if Garfield had won the nomination instead.), how could things be different? Would there have been two World Wars? Would the Russian Empire have survived beyond 1905 and not given way to the U.S.S.R.(which itself fell apart in 1948)?
Would blacks have enjoyed Civil Rights at an earlier age, instead of the horrors of Southern Apartheid, and the extreme corruption that flourished down there because of it? And could the 'White Terror' of the '50s been avoided as well?
Sorry about the textwalling but I just have so many questions to ask.
