Why do I get the feeling that in regards to these Argentine students, everything that can go wrong for Britain will go wrong?
OTL Thatcher had the easy choice of standing-up to an armed intrusion. Not so easy for Mr. Healey.
Why do I get the feeling that in regards to these Argentine students, everything that can go wrong for Britain will go wrong?
The in-universe reason is that We The People and other 3rd parties took votes away from Carey in New York, in addition to the mess with NYC. Likewise, the Libertarians and other right-wing 3rd parties took votes away from Rumsfeld, enabling Carey to win states that otherwise would have gone Republican, like the Deep South and western states. It's also why Rumsfeld ended up with less than 40% of the popular vote, resulting in him "not really having a constituency," as one of the secret memos points out.
The real reason is that Rumsfeld had to win, for narrative reasons. Otherwise Carey winning New York would have thrown the election back to the House, and we'd be having 1972 all over again. Unless Carey won another state besides NY (like Minnesota or Massachusetts) and therefore got 270+ EV.
Which is a shame, IMHO. I for one would have been interested to see a Democrat president functioning in these alternate 1980s.
There's little reason at this point to believe Rumsfeld will be re-elected. He's not acting much like "our" Rumsfeld, but then, he's had a different and difficult last eight years...
Agnew wanted to make (or better yet, create) history...hopefully it won't be the same. If I were in the world of Rumsfeldia/Fear and Loathing, I think I would already be putting on a Gavin in '84 pinA man with a vision in need of a constituency. The Agnew experience and his success as Governor of Illinois have made him a neo-con a littler earlier than OTL -- and his victory has given him a taste for making history.
When were Gavin's memoirs published? The way he refers to Cheney makes it seem like it was before 1980, but he mentions Agnew's October World War III shenanigans, which are still unknown in 1980.
I think the most fascinating thing you have done with your run up to the Rumsfeld administration is to shift the personalities of some of the principal actors in the TL but in a reasonable way given the drastic change of events of the last decade. For example
Dick Cheney's memo although would seem pretty outlandish and borderline fascist in OTL. ITTL, i would have to argue that such stability is needed, much for the reasons listed(bring the presidency back in to repute etc). Suggesting such a long term plan, was very much in Dick's line of thinking. ... repeal of the 22nd Amendment.....
In short, I think it's a pretty tall order; but the Rumsfeld/Cheney bunch are just crafty enough that they can probably get it done. How they accomplish such a auspicious goal, is what I eagerly await in your roll out of the continuing chapter of this great series
As always, Keep it Comming
Just to be clear, the story will be continued in a new thread, correct?
One of the problems of developing a TL over this extended period is that sometimes ideas change, and the documents created at one time may not blend effectively with a later change. I would say Gavin published his memoirs sometime during the Wallace Administration and omitted the specific references to Agnew then because in an old school tradition he didn't think anything would be helped by commenting on Agnew's World War III episode.
A second, revised edition, might well have come out after his death in 1992, much as Gerald Ford's "Tell it when I'm Gone" interview adds material that wasn't in his original memoir, because he didn't think certain things should be made public until decades after the fact.
I would love to see some sort of epilogue dealing with the major players and find out what happened to Rumsfeld and Cheney after serving with Agnew. I am sure they never again served in government and probably could not get elected dogcatcher elsewhere!
Just reading through this TL again, and I caught this 'round page thirteen.
Needless to say, I lol'd.
Drew, I realize the last hundred thirt-something pages have been filled with equal praise, but I have to say, this was my first ever Alternate History timeline, and it is by far my definite favorite. I can't wait for Rumsfeldia; Fear, Loathing and Gumbo reads like the best Arthur Miller plays, with the same amount of gripping tension and sympathetic pity that you can get from the best Rod Serling-written Twilight Zone episodes.
I have to wonder, though: while in retrospect, it might not have made for a nearly as interesting story, but what if the election and all its Congressional skull-fuckery had gone differently? What if John Julian McKeithen booked another flight? I know after all this, it seems like it matters little now, but I'd honestly love to hear about how a McKeithen presidency would go. How does he handle America's dwindling role in Vietnam? Does he combat or incite the recession and energy crises that followed? Who are his cabinet choices?
Once again, fantastic, epic timeline, and I can't wait for its successor.
For those waiting anxiously for the first chapter of Rumsfeldia - I am working on it, however it is taking me a little longer than I thought it might - funny thing about work and life getting in the way
Likely projecting its unveiling in November now, but it is in production and President Rumsfeld gets more than a postscript.
Peculiar anecdote I came across while researching my own TL: by some definitions, Louisiana was actually home to the oldest state healthcare institutions in the Americas, which were instituted under the French colonial administration, and bizarrely were funded chiefly by fines charged to slaveholders who had been convicted of abusing their slaves.Drew said:Unlike Wallace, McKeithen would have built bridges to the liberal side of the Democratic Party, perhaps even working with Ted Kennedy and Bayh on some sort of health care plan (this based on Louisiana where the charity hospitals provided a kind of quasi health care of sorts, and where access to medicine by farmers and rural residents had been an issue since the 1930’s when Huey Long put it on the agenda).
Having become a huge disco fan lately, now all I can think of is the effects of no disco prominence in your alt-70s. Would disco have gone mainstream in the mid-70s if McKeithen had taken a different flight?