Fear, Loathing and Gumbo on the Campaign Trail '72
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So is Rumsfeldia still on for this November? I am going through and re-reading this timeline, and basking in it's awesomeness
Yes, after several months off I've started work on it.
OTL Thatcher had the easy choice of standing-up to an armed intrusion. Not so easy for Mr. Healey.
That would have been one branch, more or less the opposite of OTL. But that didn't seem like enough of a challenge for this TL. But then, since Wallace was no Carter, we can hardly expect Rumsfeld to be a Reagan...just a real sob, as Nixon once put it.
A 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.
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 pin
Wow', I just finished re-reading this timeline, and I appreciate much of what I seemed to gloss over with the 1980 election. 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. This is the guy who with Rove believed they could create a permanent republican hold on the presidency, based on the low turnout affairs of 2000 and '04. Although certain factors dashed that plan, I do think it's not too outlandish that a younger, more ambitious Cheney would attempt to lay the structural groundwork for a repeal of the 22nd Amendment.
You could arguably say that Reagan largely did that IOTL by re-establishing the power of the incumbency of the party in the White House. The Incumbent President/Party has largely been able to secure enough trust with the American Populace to make it extremely difficult for the opposition to mount a significant challenge; Reagan in '84, Bush in '88, Clinton '96, Gore '00, Bush '04 and if Obama is successful in our current election despite the conditions on the ground it would largely say something of the power of Incumbency. '92 and '08 were largely the exceptions and not the rule in OTL.
With being said, laying the groundwork for such a repeal is going to take some time. Rumsfeld and the GOP are going to have (1) to re-define and solidify what remains their base initially. (2) Find a working coalition in Congress in order for them together the most crucial of their legislative package through. (3) Maintain a large swell of popular/party support within at least 35 states to get an Amendment repeal within an extremely tight window.(4) Economic conditions will have to improve at a much slower rate than IOTL as well as National Security tensions remain tense to rationalize the need to keep ol'Rummy in the White House.
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
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. This is the guy who with Rove believed they could create a permanent republican hold on the presidency, based on the low turnout affairs of 2000 and '04. Although certain factors dashed that plan, I do think it's not too outlandish that a younger, more ambitious Cheney would attempt to lay the structural groundwork for a repeal of the 22nd Amendment.
You could arguably say that Reagan largely did that IOTL by re-establishing the power of the incumbency of the party in the White House. The Incumbent President/Party has largely been able to secure enough trust with the American Populace to make it extremely difficult for the opposition to mount a significant challenge; Reagan in '84, Bush in '88, Clinton '96, Gore '00, Bush '04 and if Obama is successful in our current election despite the conditions on the ground it would largely say something of the power of Incumbency. '92 and '08 were largely the exceptions and not the rule in OTL.
With being said, laying the groundwork for such a repeal is going to take some time. Rumsfeld and the GOP are going to have (1) to re-define and solidify what remains their base initially. (2) Find a working coalition in Congress in order for them together the most crucial of their legislative package through. (3) Maintain a large swell of popular/party support within at least 35 states to get an Amendment repeal within an extremely tight window.(4) Economic conditions will have to improve at a much slower rate than IOTL as well as National Security tensions remain tense to rationalize the need to keep ol'Rummy in the White House.
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
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 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
Thanks for the compliments.
I'm hoping to post more toward the end of October -- we'll see how it goes.
There's no question that a changing environment will have a different effect on the actors, and how they are perceived. ITTL Reagan didn't become the breakthrough figure that he was IOTL. Similarly, the Agnew experience has had its effect on Cheney and Rumsfeld. And yes, from their perspective the whole thing seems to have been falling apart, so they see the need for strong measures and to twist the political arena around a little bit. What critics may call fascist they would see as necessary tough management and the needed strength of will to save the nation from itself, and that is entirely in keeping with the public careers of both men OTL, only now they are running the show much earlier and in much more uncertain times.
Yes, it will be a new thread called Rumsfeldia: Fear and Loathing in the Decade of Tears.
Ok. I totally get that part of writing a TL.
With recent news about this IOTL, how is the Catalonian independence movement?
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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.
Thanks for your support Black Belt.
The question is a good one, because it opens an alternative history of its own. In the case of Fear and Loathing John McKeithen’s death just as he was about to become President through a wrench into the works and caused chaos.
John J. McKeithen is an interesting study in a kind of southern politician who was sort of a bridge between the old time Southern segregationists and the new South governors of the Reubin Askew, Jimmy Carter variety. He did use race baiting to win the 1964 Louisiana gubernatorial election in the old tradition, but during his terms in office he broke away from it. He revitalized the Louisiana economy during his two terms in office – along with his successor Edwin Edwards over sixteen years they brought new jobs and industry to Louisiana, McKeithen laid the ground work. Many of his policies were anti-big labour (to the point that a labour activist tried to kill him with a bomb) but through B. B. "Sixty" Rayburn he also kept a channel open to organized labour. Of course, he made the Superdome happen and helped start a process of revitalization of New Orleans as a tourist destination.
There were also rumours about his shady dealings with the mafia, which were investigated, and produced no evidence of wrong doing on his part.
Unlike Jimmy Carter, the new Southern governor who did become President, McKeithen had legislative experience (as a leader) and an public advocate, having been on the Louisiana Public Service Commission. All of that he would have carried into the Presidency. It's too bad no one has written a full biography of the man and his career.
If McKeithen had survived the Fall of 1973, he would have come into office probably at the end of September, or early October – before the Yom Kippur War, which would have been his first big foreign policy challenge. The country would have been spared the trial and removal of Agnew from office, he likely would have had to resign much as he did OTL, and faced criminal charges. McKeithen then would have had the opportunity to choose his own Vice President, quite possibly his running mate Birch Bayh, to build a bridge to the more liberal elements of the Democratic Party. Submitting Bayh (who was a widely respected figure in his own right) to the Senate once again would have allowed him to direct a message at those Southern Senators who had supported Agnew the last time – at least some of whom would likely have been embarrassed by what happened when Agnew became President, and would have changed their vote as peace offering to the new President, and distance themselves from Agnew’s ultimate disgrace. Politically, McKeithen would have been stronger for having corrected that mistake.
The Yom Kippur War would probably have played out under McKeithen as it did under Nixon OTL; U.S. support for Israel and a direct message to the Soviets not to meddle in the Middle East. Unlike Agnew in Fear and Loathing, he wouldn’t have pushed it to the brink of nuclear war, if only because he didn’t want to start a world war just days after taking office. Nonetheless he would have been tough, recognizing this was the first test of the new President’s resolve.
If he worked to restrain Israel, unlike Agnew, the Assad regime wouldn’t have collapsed, and he wouldn’t have faced the problem Gavin did over Syria. That would have spared McKeithen one war.
On Vietnam, the troops were already committed and fighting. He may have sought a way to curtail it, or like Gavin he may have doubled-down to win, or at least give the United States a strong bargaining position and maybe saved South Vietnam as well.
On the economic front he would have faced the oil crisis, and the effects of inflation and a declining dollar brought on by extra war spending and Agnew’s policy of printing money to pay for it. With one war to fight, instead of two, he might have been able to control the economy’s fall a little better than Gavin did, leading to a recession rather than a depression. Given his Louisiana experience he might have been less inclined to match war spending with a tight money policy, thus softening the twofer of spiking oil prices and tight credit in 1974. Of course that would have left him with a greater inflation problem, the same issue that OTL bedeviled Ford and Carter.
This of course would have reduced the amount of capital flight from the dollar and U.S. markets, giving the Heath government in Britain less room to make some short term stimulus investments, and so they may well have lost the 1974 election as they did OTL. It may also have left the outcome of the French Presidential election as OTL – fewer French voters seeing the need for a Socialist to protect France from the bad economic management across the Atlantic.
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). What that would have looked like is hard to say, but Nixon’s 1974 health plan may well have had a parallel under McKeithen.
Cabinet:
When he took office abruptly, McKeithen wouldn’t have fired the entire Cabinet wholesale (many of whom were still Nixon holdovers), especially not if he immediately had to confront a resignation crisis involving an indictment of Agnew and the Yom Kippur War. It would have been a time to extend a call for national unity and ask the existing cabinet to stay on through the crisis.
Given the narrowness of his win, and the fact that McKeithen had to work with Republicans to get himself elected, there would have been a pull for him to have a bi-partisan cabinet, especially if he went ahead and replaced Agnew with a fellow Democrat. I can see pressure for Bush to stay on as Secretary of State, and Schultz at Treasury until things calmed. Over time he would have replaced them with figures more in line with his policies; perhaps Gavin or Symington at Defense, Jimmy Carter as Secretary of the Navy, Cyrus Vane or Henry Jackson at State (or even Fulbright if he wanted to signal a profound change from the past). He was enough of an original thinker to have considered Dellums for HUD, but unlike Wallace, would have supported him. Perhaps Frank Church in a significant role.
His Supreme Court appointment would have been a more traditional figure, probably a more conservative Justice. Not Scalia, but not a liberal either, and probably not a woman (at least not in a first term).
Watergate:
The McKeithen Presidency would take place against the background of the Watergate trials – probably much as depicted in Fear and Loathing. (Unless McKeithen decided to pardon Nixon and his co-conspirators, and there’s reason to believe he might take the hit politically and do this).
In Fear and Loathing, Presidents Gavin and Wallace were largely untouched by the Watergate trials and the revelations of Democratic Party dirty tricks in that election because they weren’t directly involved. (Wallace only tangentially, as a target of both). McKeithen, of course, would be directly involved, and even Vice President Bayh, as the Democratic running mate in 1972, wouldn’t be unscathed, especially if the extent of what the Democrats did to undermine Nixon came to light while their administration was still in office. A trial of Nixon and his cohorts could well expose them (it would be a calculate piece of revenge for Nixon to give out information about Democratic dirty tricks during the course of his trial, and equally to use that point as a bargaining chip – he would have more over McKeithen than he did OTL over Ford). This opens the very real danger of an impeachment of McKeithen at least, leaving a weakened President Bayh in his wake.
A super-Watergate of this magnitude would really cause a national trauma and you would have the unpleasant image of two ex-Presidents both being ruthless crooks and the caretaker who held office between them being indicted and convicted of taking bribes and tax evasion.
As a matter of self-protection McKeithen would probably find it best to pardon Nixon (and likely Halderman, Ehrlichman Dean and Mitchell, perhaps even Hunt and Magruder) to bury as much as possible in a kind of mutual conspiracy of silence, either under a national security blanket or using the same logic OTL Ford used in pardoning Nixon. While it would have political repercussions and Democrats in particular would howl, it might hold-off revelation of what McKeithen’s people did until the 1980’s. It could equally blow-up in his face, creating a Watergate 2.0.
What happens in 1976 depends largely on what of the above comes to pass. Could McKeithen beat Reagan? Could Bayh? Perhaps in a fitting irony, if both were mired in a Watergate 2.0, perhaps George McGovern would win the 1976 Democratic nomination. Would the Republicans nominate Reagan, or would they go for a more centrist figure unconnected to Nixon or Agnew, knowing that they could stand a good chance of winning the Presidency?
If Reagan was elected in 1976, and he became mired in a bad economy and foreign unrest, could Jimmy Carter take him in 1980? (an interesting twist on OTL).
And the band plays on...
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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.
Likely projecting its unveiling in November now, but it is in production and President Rumsfeld gets more than a postscript.
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.
It's all good, Drew! You've taken us this far, and we'll patiently wait for whatever lies in store.
Thande
Donor
Glad to hear you're working on Rumsfeldia, Drew, take your time and do it at your own pace. I also really appreciate the analysis you wrote above for BBJ. As you mentioned before when you said you were debating whether to have Wallace or Reagan win in 1976, this TL could have gone several equally interesting divergent paths. That's one of the good things about it--it doesn't feel forced, there's a general dystopic feeling sometimes but it doesn't feel like you've pushed things down a specific path and ignored factors that go against it, unlike many deliberately written dystopias.
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: