3) I feel like you just turned Kennedy into Carter and jumpstarted the Reagan Revolution 20 years early.
Well, sort of. The "Reagan Revolution" had the long term effects it did largely because the one-two punch of the Vietnam crisis (regarding Nixon being Nixon as part of that) followed by the global stagflation crisis, capstoned by stuff like the OPEC oil squeeze in the wake of the Yom Kippur War and then the Iranian Hostage Crisis (which also came bundled with another oil crisis--the thing about gasoline squeezes is that it hits every typical American consumer every week or so, right in the tight budget, and people so poor they aren't gasoline consumers via car ownership (something like 5-15 percent of USAians) get hit with other spiraling costs in the wake of the hike in basic transport costs) combined with sheer generational distance from the Depression and WWII years led to a major realignment.
JFK just might have broken the Democrats' hegemonic streak (in Congress anyway; obviously Eisenhower broke it at the Presidential level) versus OTL that lasted, in Congress, until 1994. But in turning the revolving door of power away from a perceived liberal momentum in the early '60s, the moderates and conservatives, especially the latter, are setting themselves up to be the ones who reap the whirlwind of the late '60s and early '70s.
Obviously one's predictions depend on one's predilictions, on one's analysis of the basic dynamics at work in society. People who accept some version of the conservative argument would logically suppose that much of the malaise of the later 1960s and '70s (Abbie Hoffmann claimed the Sixties lasted until 1974 or so, in this sense anyway) was due precisely to liberal overreach, and even worse, leftist radicalism releasing a bunch of demons in a basically sound society that would have been happier and stronger if only sensible restraint had forestalled all of that. Therefore, discrediting Kennedy early on and leading to a Goldwater or Nixon '64 victory might mean that this Republican, running for reelection in 1968, will not face any of the massive backlash LBJ did by that year. Conservatives might presume that a "sensible" policy in Vietnam can lead to acceptable victory there, and that if American conscripts are still serving in dangerous roles in Southeast Asia in the fall of 1968, that they patriotically accept it as their duty, and that the hippie movement got properly preempted by locking up these long-hairs for various violations of public decency long before they became a fad, and there was no SDS to radicalize good sober American college youths, and that sensible and quiet solutions to the race problem would be accepted with greater cheer by both "blacks" and "whites" both north and south, and that the economy would roll along with the sort of prosperity Americans had come to take for routine and normal in the 1950s, and either such organizations as OPEC would never dare anger an obviously strong America or strong US leadership would either make them back down or work around the crisis more effectively, and that there would be no wave of Marxist takeovers in Africa and in Nicaragua, etc etc.
And that might look exactly like what Ronald Reagan promised to deliver in 1980, two decades early.
On the other hand, I have a different world view, and don't believe the conservative consensus is either as founded in common sense and the way the world really works, or as widely accepted and loved, as conservatives like to assume. In fact, I think the post-WWII boom period had certain concrete bases which were nearing their limits as the 1960s wore on and the stagflation wave would break with great certainty in the early '70s no matter whether liberals of the tax and spend or any other variety were in power, or if allegedly sensible conservatives were managing tighter government budgets. The basis was deeper than any state policy touched. Meanwhile, discrediting the somewhat more liberal wing of the very centrist Democrats of the later '50s and 1960s might make predictions of an ultra-nanny state future in which the Best and Brightest, the same geniuses who were going to apply American know-how to winning in Vietnam, would lay out semi-planned prosperity for all, even the poor in a corporate friendly welfare state seem quaint and quixotic, and thus make hard-nosed conservatism more fashionable in mainstream dominant culture...but as Abbie Hoffmann also noted, the hippies of the '60s were kids who took the American Dream at its word, and got all their references from that same mainstream society--repurposed. Being drafted to the 'Nam is not going to feel any better because the President cheerleading it is more consistently hard-nosed--and to be fair to Lyndon Johnson, in terms of personality he was quite a match for Nixon's sort of "toughness."
I do think that any sort of policy that strives for more effective and/or glorious victory in Vietnam does skirt the danger of a general global thermonuclear exchange, unless it is carried out with a kind of astute wisdom not at all evident OTL, and it is a speculative long shot such a path for victory exists at all. Certainly by means of quite brutal police state tactics, it is possible in the long run to stabilize the Saigon regime--in fact this was pretty much done OTL. By the time South Vietnam collapsed OTL, its domestic government (though it is a stretch to call it that as it was heavily dependent on Yankee support in various ways) had control of the Southern population, hardly by democratic or peaceful means of course. Where they fell down was gross incompetence of their regular military forces to fight off a conventional Northern invasion, combined of course with the refusal of US politics to allow American intervention against this gross violation of every treaty ever signed relating to the region. However such results are not obtainable during the 1960s--the sort of insurgency eradication that US draftees were sent in to do in that decade would be the only alternative to a "Viet Cong" takeover I think. (I used scare quotes because that term was not what the insurgents called themselves, it meant "Communist Vietnamese" and was made up by Diem). South Vietnamese conscript forces could not be relied on to do it, and the elites who most naturally supported the Saigon regime were neither numerous nor very reliable in a tough spot themselves. I have heard of one US scheme that just possibly might have worked. It involved Marine squads learning Vietnamese, and, deployed to individual villages, lending themselves to all sorts of non-military Peace Corps sort of work to gain trust and confidence, and then drilling up local cadres of villagers to be a self-defensive militia presumably not interested in simply joining the "VC" when the Yankee and Saigon backs were turned; this scheme allegedly worked on a small scale trial basis, but I have to wonder if it could have been undertaken on the necessary mass scale, and suspect its success would hinge on empowering the villagers politically to do stuff like defy their regime-supporting landlords to collect rent, being ad hoc land reform with no compensation for the ruling elites, and wonder if the village militias would be able to get ammunition and other supplies reliably once the Marines moved on, or if they would sell or anyway fail to keep these arsenals from the "National Liberation Front," as they called themselves, insurgents. In the rosiest scenario this approach would amount to turning South Vietnam into a loose confederation of self-governing villages, which might be fine from an idealistic point of view I could share--but not at all the sort of thing either the Saigon elites or the American masterminds was aiming for. More obvious approaches such as invading and conquering North Vietnam might well trigger general Ragnarok. So, much as scorn is poured on the LBJ administration's bizarre notions of controlled combat, it seems to me that a Goldwater or Nixon administration would be facing the same stark MAD constraints the Best and the Brightest did, and they too would go down the same rabbit hole and strive to control the South without invading the North, by sheer devastation of the countryside and terroristic police state in the cities (and "strategic hamlets" the villagers would be relocated to). So it comes down to a choice between a) OTL quagmire; b) Armageddon, or c) ignominious defeat by one prong or another. There is an option D--"a", the quagmire, with ongoing police state terrorism eventually grinding South Vietnam into a nation of sorts, combined with unwavering resolve to cover South Vietnam with whatever degree of US (and SEATO ally; the Australians in particular were present in some numbers for instance) intervention necessary to deter the sort of overt conventional war invasion and conquest the North was eventually able to do OTL. I think it is possible the "twenty year early Reagan Revolution" might lead to such a status quo by the mid-70s.
But my point is, it would not be politically popular--at any rate, it might be possible to get measurable majorities in favor of it on patriotic and other related ideological grounds, but the alienated minority (which might even become a majority) would be deeply embittered by it. They would not be playing nice in 1968. It was not because they were coddled and mollified by misguided liberals that anti-war sentiment grew so pervasive especially among the classes of Americans most likely to be drafted and sent straight to the Big Muddy. A more conservative dominant culture might deny peaceniks social patronage; it would not lower the stakes for the young men of draft age one bit.
As a general thing the sort of right-wing backlash the author portrays in the November 1962 elections might possibly be a short-term flash in the pan, but if it digs in and has enough grass roots to deny Kennedy re-election (I assume his assassination is butterflied away here, at least the OTL Oswald shooting--perhaps quite different gangs in quite different times and places shoot him instead) then indeed, the composition of the backlash will have at its core the motley crew of conservatives who most strongly supported Reagan in the '80s OTL.
Therefore, while in this earlier generation there are quite a lot of "moderate" Republicans who might wish to rein in extremism, the fact is, the far right would have a considerable amount of power within the overall conservative majority coalition--despite the author telegraphing the switch of the Solid South to a bipartisanship that elects Republicans in the very heart of Dixie, I would think in this realignment, southern conservative Democrats would stick with their party label but vote with the rightist Republicans much of the time, so it isn't really a Republican coalition.
This is why I am skeptical, even if one supposes as many do that Nixon for instance was some kind of liberal, that liberal agendas would prevail. A great many things that happened OTL in the 1960s would not.
For what it is worth, I suppose the Republicans at least might try to break Jim Crow; conceivably a Goldwater or Nixon administration might support such cases as Loving versus Virginia and end anti-"miscegenation" laws, perhaps. But I really wonder about even that. Would the OTL amendment forbidding poll taxes have passed? Would Congress pass anything with the power of the OTL Voting Rights Act and would the courts make the same decisions they did OTL?
Fundamentally the respectable wing of American conservatism opposed government activism to combat racial discrimination on the grounds that this was an unwarranted and unworkable interference in private opinion and "taste," and therefore if we suppose say Barry Goldwater was deeply troubled by the sorts of terrorism African Americans in the South suffered under, he would still say that these things cannot be solved by the Federal government. This would of course be welcome words for the outright white supremacists to hear, even if Goldwater were capable, given the nature of the political alliance that elected him, of principled opposition to overt government enforcement of white supremacy--even with a legally colorblind but hands-tied state, private organization of white supremacy would carry the day and maintain the status quo. And quite possibly, in view of the OTL explosions in various American major cities, aspects of the Jim Crow order might be more strongly and even legally imposed far outside of Dixie--as was to a shocking extent pretty much the norm even going into the 1960s OTL. It was impossible when that decade started for a mixed race couple to drive or take a train across the USA from Atlantic to Pacific coast without having to travel through states where their marriage would be illegal.
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I might as well remark here that the TL premise strikes me as very low probability. The author has yet to expound on exactly how and where and why Kennedy is perceived to "blink first" in the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I think the odds are stacked against it. Where Kennedy and Khrushchev were far more likely to err versus the relatively cool OTL outcome was to escalate to open war. I can imagine a naval war breaking out which the USN would likely emerge from clearly victorious--but probably not without the loss of tens of thousands (or more) sailors and a substantial number of capital and smaller ships. Khrushchev would know this of course. Very likely such a blue-water combat would turn sooner or later into strikes at someone or other's lands, and then a general full nuclear exchange would be just about inevitable--if the loss of an aircraft carrier task force or three did not force it prior to that. Both sides had too much fear of replaying the role of Hitler's enemies defeated piecemeal one by one in the early years of the last war to dare be seen backing down.
But anyway, high or low probability, it is the TL premise. Clearly we don't get a Cuban Missile Crisis War right away, and every year of delay of a general exchange makes Soviet striking power rise so rapidly that well before 1968, such an exchange would go from being merely tragic and painful for the USA to something approaching total destruction. The Soviets could not "win" such a war, but the USA can most definitely be destroyed in "winning" it. So I am going to presume the TL will somehow or other avoid such a direct showdown between the blocs, with mutual assured destruction effectively deterring it on both sides. People who vote in a Republican in 1964 might be thinking that this leader will fight that war before Soviet striking power becomes even worse, but they will be disappointed.
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What I think might happen here is that the Goldwaterite conservatives gratified to win the nomination of their standard bearer in 1964 OTL will have a much tougher fight for the Republican nomination in the ATL, because more mainstream Republicans will see it as a race they can win. But the rightists will have the high ground among Republicans rhetorically speaking, and "moderates" will have to anyway broker a deal with them.
I assume Nixon rather than Goldwater will be the most likely nominee, despite his having only just yesterday won a term in California's mid-term cycle Governorship. Frankly I think Nixon would not look back if he thought he could win the Presidency. As for the bad politics of such a move to Californian conservatives--well, it depends on who wins the Lieutenant Governor race. California separates these two races and it is has been quite common for Governor and Lt Gov to be of opposite parties--but in this 1962 backlash election, it would be possible for the Republican candidate for the junior office to win as well. So if Nixon is elected President, he can hand off the running of the state of California to this co-partisan.
However, instead of such a "moderate" as Lodge as Nixon took on in 1960, if Nixon is going to win in 1964 in this ATL, he probably needs to take on a very conservative VP candidate; I don't know if Barry Goldwater is his best choice but certainly a possible one.
The upshot I think is going to be a conservative triumph in the short run, with very different choices and policies being pursued in 1965-1967 that are very gratifying to conservative ideologues but would create a pressure cooker of simmering resentment. One trend of OTL that would perhaps be reversed in the ATL is the broadening and guaranteeing of democratic franchise; the movement to liberalize the polls could be countered by re-assertion of limits on who is allowed to vote, which will allow politicians to write off discontent if it is largely confined to the classes whose access to the polls are cut back. The District of Columbia is not going to be empowered to cast electoral votes (equivalent to those of the smallest state, in practice OTL therefore 3 EV) for instance.
Thus, when Vietnam starts to turn very sour on a massive national scale, it will be the conservatives of Congress and in the White House who will be blamed for it. This might lead to a crisis in which elections are tightly restricted indeed, to guarantee the conservatives can hold office long enough for the less than obvious at this point benefits of their wisdom to play out over more time. If a sufficiently jerry-rigged Congress is willing to pay, and authorities willing to crack down hard on draft dodgers and so forth, I suppose Vietnam can be "won" in a certain sense of the word. But meanwhile the world stagflation crisis will descend like a wet blanket.
We should not forget that a Reagan Revolution 20 years earlier would make victims of people 20 years closer to the Great Depression. More elderly voters than OTL would find it deja vu all over again, remembering the Republicans of the Hoover years, and that their solution was a Democratic standard bearer.
I think it is quite possible that the longer term outcome of such a backlash aborting the OTL liberal '60s would be a more radically social-democratic movement rising like a phoenix from Kennedy's ashes, very much not on likes JFK himself would like. This assumes the nation and world thread their way between the Charybdis of general nuclear war and the Scylla of the reactionaries simply assuming outright and frank dictatorship. And the latter course bears with it the possibility of general civil war which the leftists might emerge decimated but victorious from.