Miscellaneous >1900 (Alternate) History Thread

FriendlyGhost

FriendlyGhost

DominusNovus said:
This is actually an FH misc question, but we don't have a misc thread for FH, so I'm sticking it here:
I'm looking for two relatively generic names for alternate US political parties. They don't have to be quite as generic as 'Democrat' and 'Republican' but I'm looking for something that isn't nearly as descriptive as is typical for European (or smaller US) parties - for example, you know what the Greens stand for just by their name, you know what the Social Democrats stand for, just by their name, and (in countries where the word still has the same connotations as in the 19th century) you know what the Liberals stand for, just by their name.

At the moment, I have the Continental and Federal (or Continentalist and Federalist) parties.
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First a caveat: I don't know much about USA politics, so some of my suggestions might not fit. With that in mind...

How about the National Party? That could stand for anything the party wants it to. Similarly the Union Party or, combining them, the National Union Party (though I see from from this wikipedia page that there was an N.U.P. in the 19th C and a U.P. in the 1930s, so maybe not.)
Alternatively, some countries have parties named after famous dates, so if that fits with your story you could have the 4th of July Party.
There's also the possibility of naming a party after its founder or someone the party claims as its 'real' founder based on ideology (whether that's true or not), e.g. the Hamilton Party, Roosevelt Party or Reagan Party.
You could also just append New to an old party name, e.g. the New Democratic Party or New Alliance Party, etc.
I assume you want to avoid names like the Freedom Party or People's Party as too descriptive (even though they could actually represent any number of ideologies). That probably applies to Patriot Party too (and a party with that name actually existed, from the 1960s to 1980, too). Though if it works with your story, either it or the Patriotic Union Party might work.
Action Party might work too, as something generic promising almost anything.

That post ended up longer than I thought it would... :rolleyes:
 

silvandv

Reading up about the 1918 influenza, it seems like: a) there were cases detected as early as 1916 during WW1 and b) Central forces were affected by the flu much more than Entente forces were. To add to that the fact that wartime censorship meant that media was not allowed to report on flu outbreaks in warring countries, it got me thinking: what if news of the outbreak spread faster and earlier than OTL?

I think we still have an Entente victory, but any panic created might ironically spread the flu faster and affect war efforts (both directly, and due to lower morale). So we may have a longer WW1, greater anti-war sentiment among civilians (and thus possibly political leadership?). A prolonged conflict might be pretty consequential in the long run e.g., maybe the equivalent of Versailles isn't as brutal for the Germans, maybe the British Empire is left weakened. Thoughts?
 
Zyobot

Zyobot

'WW2 Pacific Beach Landings Remembered More Than D-Day'.

Maybe if Truman refuses to use the atomic bomb for whatever reason and the war drags on for a few more months, culminating in a massive American invasion of the Japanese mainland? The initial push(s) into Japan Proper would be at least as memorable as landing in France, if not more so, I'd think.
 

Arkenfolm

Zyobot said:
'WW2 Pacific Beach Landings Remembered More Than D-Day'.

Maybe if Truman refuses to use the atomic bomb for whatever reason and the war drags on for a few more months, culminating in a massive American invasion of the Japanese mainland? The initial push(s) into Japan Proper would be at least as memorable as landing in France, if not more so, I'd think.
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I think it's because Normandy was such a decisive moment in the history of the war and unparalleled in size and scope (until the planned landings for Operation Downfall) rather than the island hopping in the Pacific where each operation was smaller and there were more of them. There also wasn't really a "better" snapshop than the beaches for their immortality like Iwo Jima with the flag being raised.
 
Zyobot

Zyobot

Arkenfolm said:
I think it's because Normandy was such a decisive moment in the history of the war and unparalleled in size and scope (until the planned landings for Operation Downfall) rather than the island hopping in the Pacific where each operation was smaller and there were more of them. There also wasn't really a "better" snapshop than the beaches for their immortality like Iwo Jima with the flag being raised.
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Which is why I imagine that Operation Downfall, if carried out, would at least be equally remembered by future generations (if not more so). France may have been big, but taking the Japanese mainland from a fanatical enemy determined to fight to the bitter end as much as Imperial Japan could’ve been even bigger. Not that I doubt particularly gung-ho Germans’ dedication to taking out as many Allied forces as they can, mind you.
 

Arkenfolm

They planned to use nuclear weapons to clear the beaches for the invasion of Japan as well as other tactical nuclear strikes. I could see a black and white picture of mushroom clouds over a beach in front of the mountains of Kyushu being emblematic of Operation Downfall. The effects of nuclear fallout were poorly known and they planned to send troops into the fallout 48-72 hours later. Radiation sickness and high rates cancer later in life would cause much misery.

I think Operation Downfall would be remembered closer to World War I or even Vietnam, although lacking the political "what are we fighting for" edge. There'd be too much killing women and children since at least some would do as they were ordered and encouraged to do and try and knife or spear an Allied soldier and that would take a psychological toll. Some would be successful, giving the Japanese a reputation like the Vietcong. There'd be plenty of bodies from both the famine victims and those who killed themselves and their families, in which case you'd have imagery that resembles the Holocaust or occupied USSR. It would devolve into a brutal guerilla war within months. Millions of Purple Hearts were made for the campaign for a reason.
 
Zyobot

Zyobot

‘Anglo/American-German Cold War’.

Preferably with the German Empire dominating the European continent, which would come to be sometime in the twentieth century. Maybe British neutrality helps it really luck out in winning the ensuing Great War, scoring lopsided peace terms for the Central Powers and turning continental Europe into a giant Mittëleuropa (with its allies becoming client states in the process)?

I’m also wondering how France and Russia, also brought into conflict with the Germans, would fare under this arrangement? Presumably, they’d both be beaten back via a successfully executed Schlieffen Plan, with peace terms forcing them to cede territory and pay extensive reparations (leaving both to stew angrily over the next few decades).
 
Mitridates the Great

Mitridates the Great

'Cold War Monarchies vs Republics.'

This would likely involve the United States and a reformed Russian Empire. Or, alternatively, a British Empire that managed not to crumble and a Russian Republic.

Or, why not, a United States-Russian Republic-French Republic vs British Empire-German Empire-Japanese Empire alliance.

(I'm not sure where the Chinese would come in here, but I could see a Chinese Civil War in which the UK, Germany, and Japan support the Qing Empire, while the United States, France, and Russia support the ROC.)

And what about the communists? Someone will say. Simple: depending on the country, they alternate between being legitimate political parties, to being brutally repressed terrorist movements. As for the fascists, they are the same or even worse, since no one likes them.

Given the nature of the conflict, it would likely end when either the British Empire or the United States collapsed, or when both factions tire and decide that it might be a good idea to bury the hatchet and begin collaborating to solve world problems.
 
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Deleted member 6086

No idea if plausible, but random idea: could our John Paul II not have gone into the priesthood, but instead become the leader of Solidarity instead of Walesa?
 

Deleted member 6086

Zyobot said:
Perhaps. Alternatively, Jimmy Carter would be seen as too far-right on abortion and overly friendly to deregulation. It's not like political drift in a specific direction throughout the decades is all that one-sided, really.
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I do have to say that even as a moderate left-winger a lot of the stuff Carter repealed was absolutely ridiculous - the interstate trucking regulations were so stupid I am actually amazed every time I read about them. IIRC the airline restrictions were simular.

There is good regulation (the SEC, the FCC, the EPA, etc.), but there also is very bad regulation that does not improve most people's lives in any way, and in fact actively impedes them. A lot of the Carter deregulation involved the latter, a lot of the later deregulation drives involved the former (for example, essentially anything related to copyright or involving repealing financial system regulation).
 
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Zyobot

Zyobot

Southpaw said:
There is good regulation (the SEC, the FCC, the EPA, etc.), but there also is very bad regulation that does not improve most people's lives in any way, and in fact actively impedes them. A lot of the Carter deregulation involved the latter, a lot of the later deregulation drives involved the former (for example, essentially anything related to copyright or involving repealing financial system regulation).
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I was under the impression that copyright law got more Byzantine over the years (though that could be over a larger time-scale, as opposed to just the Reagan years onward)? By this, I mean legislation like the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, though that could be a (nonetheless influential) outlier overused in IP-critical circles.
 

Deleted member 6086

Zyobot said:
I was under the impression that copyright law got more Byzantine over the years (though that could be over a larger time-scale, as opposed to just the Reagan years onward)? By this, I mean legislation like the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, though that could be a (nonetheless influential) outlier overused in IP-critical circles.
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Hmm, yeah, that is not actually "deregulation", lol! So much for "small government" in the 90s.

I kind of just included it more as an example of "bad regulatory reforms" than anything without thinking it through.
 
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Count of Crisco

Count of Crisco

Maybe a different reconstruction which results in a far more liberal south with less common racism? Black culture is allowed to develop and thrive in the mainstream? Maybe ITTL Martin Luther King becomes the nations first Black president as another wild card.
 
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