National Brotherhood Week - a Timeline by Gonzo and Oppo

Reader mode
Oppo

Oppo

OkuNb5s.png

Oh, the white folks hate the black folks,
And the black folks hate the white folks.
To hate all but the right folks
Is an old established rule.

But during national brotherhood week, national brotherhood week,
Cassius Clay and Mrs. Wallace are dancing cheek to cheek.
It's fun to eulogize
The people you despise,
As long as you don't let 'em in your school.
-'National Brotherhood Week', Tom Lehrer​

Shoutout to @Gonzo who co-wrote this timeline, along with @Wolfram and @Yes for their help in putting this together.

---


Camera fades in on Oppo, seen wearing an “O’Malley Would Have Won” shirt, and the interviewer.

INTERVIEWER 1: We only have a few minutes, so try to be brief. Okay?

OPPO: I’ll do absolutely anything you say.

INTERVIEWER 1: What made you call the timeline National Brotherhood Week?

OPPO: Because what Tom Lehrer said was true. We only pretend to get along for the sake of insincere politeness, but we've been fighting each other for eternity.

INTERVIEWER 1: Amazing.

INTERVIEWER 2: How did you ever come up with that O’Malley shirt? Why such a fringe shirt?

OPPO: I like my state and the Democratic Party. The easiest way for my state to create the Greater Maryland Empire was for my candidate to enter the White House.

INTERVIEWER 2: What are you going to do next?

OPPO: An autobiography of a fictional politician. It’s like A Prayer for Owen Meany on acid.

INTERVIEWER 2: I’ll bet! What made you come up with making a timeline based on AH tropes?

OPPO: Well, there are plenty of them. It tells the story of this website and this genre. It’s like NDCR on acid.

INTERVIEWER 3: What made you pick Gonzo?

OPPO: I decided that if this timeline where to be written, it should be by an experienced author, who’s work I loved.

INTERVIEWER 3: What did Gonzo do?

OPPO: He knew what not to do is what he did do. We both made sure our lunacies didn’t go too far.

INTERVIEWER 3: What do you think of his politics? How about his Ulster unionism?

OPPO: I’ll tell you later.

INTERVIEWER 3: When are you going to write again?

OPPO: When there is something new to an audience, then I’ll write again. Besides new counterfactuals, when the only thing to explore them is as extended timeline making. That’s what I’ll be doing.....what I’ll have to do to be writing. Do understand what I’m trying to say?

INTERVIEWER 4: We see a lot of variety in alternate history formats these days.

OPPO: I’d like to make a video based timeline. That way the multimedia has a power of itself.

INTERVIEWER 4: I made a video about alternate history myself. Do you want to watch that?

OPPO: Maybe later.

INTERVIEWER 4: What do your timelines mean to you? I mean, you don’t make plausible scenarios, do you?

OPPO: Like all AH authors, I like to take a truth and stretch it into something interesting. That’s where I have failed, by stretching that truth when it has already snapped apart. We have actually made a plausible scenario. In this timeline we turn it into a comedy album.

INTERVIEWER 4: Do you like to make long-term timelines? Like the Thande, the Yes, the CanadianTory?

OPPO: Only when absolutely necessary. In fact, I’d like to show people the timeline in.....my.....head.

INTERVIEWER 4: I got a timeline in my head, you wanna read that?

OPPO: No, but do you have anything to eat?

INTERVIEWER 5: So, what do you think of this shirt?

OPPO: I wish I had one like that.

INTERVIEWER 5: Right, yeah. You know any British jokes?

OPPO: I can’t tell it here.

INTERVIEWER 5: If I gave you $50 right now, what would you do with it?

OPPO: I would get some crabs. I am a Marylander.

INTERVIEWER 6: It’s cold in here, don’t you think? No?..........I don’t think you’re a particularly good writer, but you make timelines. How do you do that?

OPPO: The better an author is at writing, the harder it is to picture their scenario. I like to use my falsehoods to my advantage.

INTERVIEWER 6: Have you ever made a sockpuppet? Or been banned from a forum?

OPPO: I’ll tell you later.

INTERVIEWER 6: What do you think happens when you elect Hunter S. Thompson?

OPPO: I’ll tell you later.

Camera fades out
 
Part I
  • Index
    • Gonzo

    Gonzo

    Part I: The First Part (funnily enough...)

    The resignation of Spiro Agnew was an opportunity for Richard Nixon, like when the rest of your school table is out on the chorus field trip and your teacher lets you sit with your friend; who you know will do the work for you when you start rambling on about grapes having a similar "snap experience" to sausages.

    Nixon had several options to fill the Vice Presidency. The first was Nelson Rockefeller, who in 1960 had presented a hurdle to Nixon at the Republican convention, a bit like those annoying boss battles at the end of certain games such as that dragon in Minecraft. Rockefeller’s appointment would anger conservatives in the party (I mean when aren't they angry...) and would mean that he would move into the Vice President's residence along with his wife Happy, and their children Dopey, Sneezy and Grumpy. Next was Gerald Ford. Now for those of you who don't know who he is (*quickly Googles*) he was the Republican leader in the House of Representatives - y'know that guy? No? Anyone? Okay... Well alright. Basically Ford was your sort of every man, a nice fellow but about as interesting as a French President without a mistress. What more he was from Michigan, and the only things to ever come out of Michigan were people who were lucky enough to escape across the border to Toledo. He could have also named Ronald Reagan. He had been Governor of California since the sixties and had been a leading voice for conservatism in America. However the pinnacle of his career had been starting in the 1951 film Bedtime for Bonzo with a chimpanzee. What more he was the opposite of Nelson Rockefeller, meaning that he would annoy liberal Republicans (yeah they used to be a thing). Rounding out the field was oil executive, Congressman, UN Ambassador, and RNC Chairman George Bush, who Nixon had passed over on in 1968 and 1972. Despite having roots in big money (with his father Prescott being accused of involvement in “The Business Plot”), Nixon grew close with Bush for his loyalty after he gave up his House seat for a run in the Senate.

    CpW0MfnVMAADyob.jpg


    FIG I: "Mr. President, let me show you how deal with this Watergate business..." John Connally's appointment as Vice President was predictable of President Nixon who made it clear that his Texan Treasury Secretary was his ideal pick for the office. Other names touted included Mississippi Senator John Stennis, who months earlier had been mugged, shot and left for dead outside his Washington D.C. residence and was also known for being of increasingly bad hearing. Minority Leader in the House of Representatives Jerry Ford was also another name touted, though he was seen as the compromise pick. California Governor Ronald Reagan was also touted, yet he would lose out to another big character from a big western state in the end.​

    Nixon however settled in the end on John Connally. If one word could describe Connally (no not corruption) that word would be Texas. So if you want a mental image of Connally imagine anything Texan and that's a fair assessment. Now for those of you who don't remember Connally's time as President, he's that guy who all the conspiracy theorists say actually killed JFK (yeah he's the guy in front of him in the car!). If you look at frame 224 on the Zapruder film, you can see Connally move slightly - its during this split millisecond that he swung around and shot JFK (just ignore the fact that its impossible, that's just what the government wants you to think). Despite being the protege of LBJ and growing up in a working class Texan family, Connally went and joined the Nixon cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury and became very close with Nixon. Connally even recommended Bush for a cabinet position, feeling an obligation as if Bush was in one of those ASPCA commercials. Nixon even thought of pushing Agnew off the Nixon lunch table, but despite Agnew staying on (at the kids table and only being brought out to do some tricks, like making bribes magically disappear), Connally remained one of the most high-profile Nixon supporters, being famously described as “viewing problems as a Republican but the solutions to them as a Democrat.” As if becoming a Republican was a story you can only tell if your parents aren’t in the room, Connally waited until after Johnson’s death to officially switch parties. Connally had always wanted to be president, and Nixon had assured him that he would succeed him as the President of the United States (despite Nelson Rockefeller and Ronald Reagan having other ideas). Of course, the ship of the Nixon administration would face rocky seas, like a drugged-up 1970s rock star. Connally even suggested that Rockefeller should be appointed VP, knowing that it would follow his 1976 campaign like a Tomahawk missile (with similar effects).

    Liberal journalist Nicholas von Hoffman was fired from his job as a commentator on the Point-Counterpoint section of CBS's 60 Minutes due to his comments regarding Nixon's Presidency. "The dead mouse on the kitchen floor of America, and the only question now is who's going to pick him up by his tail and throw him in the garbage." You wouldn't have known that from Nixon's day to day business, especially abroad. Nixon continued to jet around the world, visiting Egypt and then later being received in Moscow in July 1974. Perhaps after his political career began to lag in the United States, he was planning to defect. After all there was talk of a potential opening among the leadership in China in the coming years. Back home, congressional Democrats were left with a predicament. On the one hand they could progress with impeachment and potential conviction of the President - yet that would mean President Connally. On the other hand, they would have to keep Nixon as a lame duck President. In the end they decided to send in the Sirica & Jaworski Pest Control & Removal Co.

    Back home the Supreme Court ruled that Nixon would have to overturn his tapes. Nixon had tried to create a compromise where a Senator would listen to the tapes and would write down a transcript. This plan fell through when it emerged that the White House was suggesting Mississippi Democrat John Stennis be the one to do it. Stennis, much like David Lynch’s character in Twin Peaks, was notably hard of hearing. The Supreme Court, ruling 8-0 in United States v. Nixon (Justice William Rehnquist took no part in the decision as he didn’t want to be the odd one out from the rest of the Court.) This ruling is an example of the peer pressure that existed on the Burger Court, with Justices frequently being bullied if they gave a dissenting opinion. And this is why it was no surprise the Court struck down every piece of anti-bullying legislation brought before it.

    Saturday-Night-Massacre-President-Nixon-fires-Cox-Richardson-resigns.jpg


    FIG II: The psychopath, the madman and the General. Nixon's attempts to cling on to the office of the Presidency were finally frustrated by the dual effort of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Chief of Staff Alexander Haig. The two would finally convince the embattled President to leave with what little dignity remained. The two would continue to form a significant core around President Connally until he shuffled them out in favour of a new, more right-wing conservative, cabinet in the summer of 1975. Many would consider Connally appointment of Pat Buchanan as Chief of Staff and Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defence to be premonition of what was to come in the 1980s with the culture wars, the war in Iran and the final unceremonial purging of the last liberal Rockefeller Republican elements from the national party leadership.​

    When White House Staff, lead by Chief of Staff Al Haig and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, finally managed to barge past the chest of drawers blocking the door to the Oval Office, they began to try and get Nixon to leave the White House and the Presidency on his own accord. First they tried leaving a trail of Oreos to Marine One which would take him back to his residence in Yorba Linda - yet Nixon refused to budge. Next they sent Pat Buchanan in to try and dislodge Nixon, now hiding under a settee, with a broom. Buchanan, known for taking his tabby cat into meetings, was unsuccessful and reportedly came back with several scratches and a bruise in the shape of a bust of Winston Churchill. Next they sent Kissinger in alone, they reasoned that the President was unlikely to understand what the Secretary of State was saying through his accent. This however failed. They finally managed to coax Nixon out of the Oval Office after they informed him that if he moved quickly he could get to California and finally achieve his dream of becoming Governor and beating Brown (they didn't tell him it was m o o n b e a m and not Pat). A meeting with Republican stalwart Barry Goldwater along with Congressional leaders also helped to kick out the President like a dad counting down from ten trying to get his kid to go downstairs for dinner.

    Nixon, despite weakly stating that he “was not a crook” like a spouse being accused of having an affair, became the first president to resign the office. John and Nellie Connally would both move into the Oval Office as the nation hoped to move on from scandal. Of course, that wouldn’t be anywhere near accurate.

    hqdefault.jpg


    FIG III: Looking in a different direction. Connally's rise to power would see a shift in several directions for the national GOP that would continue until the present day. Connally struck a strong chord with many in the heartlands with his message of economic nationalism in the realm of trade. Under Connally the US would slap a variety of tariffs on Japanese goods - Japan replacing the US as a major exporting nation greatly irked Connally who would ensure that economic nationalism would remain the calling card of the modern GOP until the modern day when the GOP candidate in 2016 demanded an immediate US withdrawal from the WTO and the CAFTA agreement. Connally's Presidency would also anchor the GOP towards a more culturally conservative outlook, while also shifting it moderately towards the centre on economic matters (compared to Governor Reagan of California), such as welfare. The former Democrat, while still a conservative one at that, still held some of his old-school Democratic beliefs at heart.​
     
  • Index
    • Part II
  • Index
    • Gonzo

    Gonzo

    Part II: The (five o'clock) Shadow of Nixon

    The administration of John Connally was like when you’ve raised your hand in class without really having the answer in your head...and then you’re called on.

    Who was John Connally? How did he get dragged from being the best friend of one bombastic and influential presidents to being the best friend of one of the most bombastic and influential presidents? Why do people think that asking these questions is a good and clever way to open a piece of writing? Well, to answer the first two, Connally was a product of something called the Southern Strategy (I wonder what would have happened if No Southern Strategy had occurred, perhaps someone like Roy Cohn could have become POTUS?), where 1964 Republican nominee Barry Goldwater decided to oppose civil rights by being literally the only person not to use states’ rights as a dog whistle for racism (Insert Lee Atwater quote). Still, the South voted for Goldwater despite the Democratic landslide, and from then on, the one-party state that was the South collapsed. Texas itself was moving, with Republican John Tower elected to the Senate in 1961 and Republican George Bush nearly winning in 1964. Connally was upset that Don Yarborough, a leftist in the Texas Democrats, ran against him in the 1964 gubernatorial primary after he had literally just been shot. Connally then took revenge on Ralph Yarborough, without knowing that they weren’t related.

    There is still a debate over the influence of the Southern Strategy (or if there even was one) given that much of the South can go either way in an election despite the winner taking the state by over 10 points. The American South: the official region of “Canada’s swings are too small for us.” In 1971, Connally took the Treasury Department under Nixon as one of those bipartisan appointments and grew close to the President. When the left-wing George McGovern became the 1972 nominee, Connally led a pro-Nixon group that allowed Nixon to win a landslide. Nixon valued loyalty in his administration, and knowing that Connally was likely going to be president...

    The timing could not have been worse for John Connally, and that was reflected from the first thing he had to deal with as he took office; whether to pardon Nixon. Given that Nixon helped to make Connally’s career, pardoning him would look suspicious. However, a trial would make the nation look like a banana republic, would be betraying Nixon, and would have been a drag on Republican candidates in the midterms. Connally also had to select a Vice President, and we went over most of the people in the last update, but Nelson Rockefeller, Ronald Reagan, Donald Rumsfeld, Howard Baker, Gerald Ford, and a bunch of other people were considered. Connally settled on Reagan, feeling that he would be a threat in 1976.

    president-ronald-reagan-1975_a-G-5147429-8363144.jpg


    One of the few. Ronald Reagan, the messiah of the conservative movement was one of the few in the GOP who decided to remain in support of President Reagan. His appointment as Vice President would have several effects. The first was that California would have a new Governor in the form of John K. Harmer who would serve the five minute lame duck term until it expired in early 1975 before Governor Jerry Brown took over. Reagan's place on the ticket would ensure that Connally's right flank would be safer than it had been - now the main threats from the right would be potential challenges from North Carolina ultra-conservative gadfly Senator Jesse Helms or the Conservative New York Senator James Buckley. This tack to the right would seemingly invigorate the party's left wing, who fell into line behind former New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who tried one last attempt at going for the GOP nomination, now in a party that was even further to the right than it had been in 1964 when he was famously booed by Goldwater delegates at the Cow Palace at that year's RNC.​

    When everything is going crazy, you need to distract the American public like a teacher who gives out lollipops during a test to keep the kids quit. Connally decided he would fight over trade, and unusually for a Republican he took a position against free trade. As Americans took delivery of Honda Civics and Toyota Corollas because of the fuel crisis and poor economy, Connally decided to target the Japanese. There was just one problem; the Japanese companies just built their factories in the United States and American consumers realized that the Chevrolet Chevette wasn’t even safe for highway use. Nothing seemed to work for Connally, and that continued with the milk price scandals. As Connally took office, he was indicted for a scandal where he allegedly profited from a milk price decision. The scandal followed around Connally like a fat Texan bull-rider in a cowboy costume carrying five guns on his back (Wolfram this wasn’t you). Some Democrats even advocated for impeachment or resignation, but were reminded that it would result in more instability and President Bedtime for Bozo. This, Watergate, the recession, a dumb fight with trade, and general incumbency fatigue that comes with the midterms (THE SIX YEAR ITCH WAS MY BAND NAME BACK IN 1985) left the Republican Party destroyed.

    The casualties included Peter Dominick, Bob Dole, Marlow Cook, Jacob Javits, Milton Young, Henry Bellmon, Francis Sargent, Meldrim Thomson, and Malcolm Wilson, some of whom could have be potential presidents and others who have been used as sleeping pills by leading pharmaceutical companies. One particularly noteworthy result was in Colorado, where Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson was elected to the Senate, turning out to be an unlikely hero in the state. The opposite happened in Pennsylvania, where Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo defeated Governor Milton Shapp in a brutal Democratic primary (although he defected to the Republicans the next year). In Texas, the influence of La Raza Unida candidate Ramsey Muniz led to the victory of Republican Clay Smothers (a former Wallace 1972 delegate who re-joined the GOP) over Democratic nominee “Sissy” Farenthold. With Nixonians, Rockefellerites, and Goldwaterites batting to the death, the Republican Party was a battle between very different ideologically beliefs and something that was as disorganized as Larry David being rushed to perform brain surgery. With Connally looking as though he’d lose to whoever the Democratic nominee was in a landslide, former New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller parachuted into the Republican primaries from his art museum or whatever rich person thing he was doing, hoping to be the prince across the water.
    ​
    iRt6eRi.png


    Big babies. The post-Watergate Democratic tsunami would wipe out much of the old GOP and even Democratic establishment in both houses of Congress. The swathes of 'Watergate Babies' - those who had held no federal office before running for Congress, were of varying ages and ideologies. New York, Vermont and Colorado would all have new junior Senators, the former in the form of Irish-born Paul O'Dwyer and the middle in the form of Patrick 'Pat' Leahy, latter in the form of Hunter S. Thompson, each representing a form of liberalism within the Democratic Party. O'Dywer represented a form of old-school New Deal liberalism coupled with his devout Catholic faith, this would contrast with the likes of Leahy, who represented a newer form of liberalism in the post-McGovern Democratic Party. Thompson meanwhile represented a more left-wing 'libertarian' form of 'liberalism' that rejected the compromise and moderation that had existed in years prior within the party. The party itself, while swelling to a size in both houses of Congress not seen since the New Deal era, had a crisis brewing ahead of it. What would it look like ideologically come the DNC in 1976. Would the more conservative pro-labor New Deal liberalism re-exert itself after its bruising in 1972; would the McGovern New Left make it two in a row; or would something else emerge from elsewhere in the party? Perhaps the pro-labor neoconservative Senator from Washington Scoop Jackson or even the Born Again Alabama Governor George Wallace, now confined to a wheelchair and having to appeal to black voters in order to stay alive politically with a rising GOP in the south?​

    Of course, you could quite easily say the Democratic Party was just as chaotic. The two main figures of the post-New Deal era, Hubert Humphrey and Ted Kennedy both declined to run, with Humphrey’s health and Kennedy’s scandals (along with a lack of ambition) getting in the way. The packed field was led by the New Deal hawk Senator Scoop Jackson, reborn Southern populist Governor George Wallace, progressive Senator Birch Bayh, and the witty Congressman Mo Udall.

    The first primaries were the ones that mattered for the legendary media attention. Iowa was taken by Connally by a comfortable margin, and while “Uncommitted” won on the Democratic side, Birch Bayh got more votes than Fred Harris or Jimmy Carter. New Hampshire was then taken by Udall and Rockefeller. Those results were hardly a surprise, but the first shock came in Massachusetts. The deep liberal state had a split field, with Jackson, Udall, Harris, and Shriver (who had family connections from the Kennedys) and the issue of busing was on the political forefront. This allowed for Wallace to win the primary with less than a quarter of the vote. While the other candidates (despite the minor campaign of Jimmy “YOU SEE HE’S NOTABLE IOTL BUT DID YOU KNOW HE WASN’T THAT WELL KNOWN BEFORE 1976” Carter) forfeited the South to Wallace, now he had shown that he could win up in the North. The pattern continued through the rest of the primaries, with Wallace winning a coalition of the Prairie states, Midwest, and the South, while Rockefeller took the North East and Cascadia. Connally had enough delegates to win the nomination, but what Rockefeller knew would be his final bid for the White House had enough of a spook over the embattled president. Meanwhile, the Democrats weren’t finished. Udall and Jackson were fighting over the liberal vote, and the sudden entry of the young, glamorous, Linda Ronstadt-dating, drug using, perfect, zen, freedom-loving, populist, intelligent, left-libertarian, hippie Governor of California, Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown :love:. (Gonzo: Oppo, please, there's a reason Governor Moonbeam brought out that restraining order against you...)

    who took a significant amount of support on the West coast. At the end, there was a brokered convention where Wallace was just short of the delegates needed for the nomination. It was expected that Jackson, Udall, Brown, and Bayh would form a compact with Hubert Humphrey as President and Brown as Vice President, but at the last minute, there was an alternative deal. Jackson agreed to support Wallace (despite being in second), because of his very clear feelings feeling that another Democrat would be soft on communism. Most importantly, Wallace literally offered him the State Department. The general election season kicked off, with the voters deciding whether their commander in chief would be a man constantly saying he wasn't racist or a man constantly saying he wasn't corrupt. At least they weren’t going to vote for the pink ex-Senator from that giant pile of snow that is Minnesota.
    ​
    imrs.php


    Like father, like son? California Governor Jerry Brown cut a drastically different form compared to his conservative predecessor. Known as Governor Moonbeam for his 'far out' beliefs and association with Zen Buddhism, the former wannabe Catholic priest and state Secretary of State was seen as a potential candidate for the 'new' Democratic Party in 1976. The issue of Brown and other 'new left' liberals like him was that the party's left wing was becoming increasingly packed by the time the primary season came around, ensuring that those who entered on the right end of the party would have an easier time in the initial primaries. Still this didn't stop Governor Moonbeam's quixotic campaign from kicking off for 1976 not long into office in 1976.​
     
    Last edited:
  • Index
    • Oppo

    Oppo

    Both candidates seem to provide a continuation of the Nixonian consensus, but how will they sow the crucial electoral votes out of America’s many regions?
     
    Reader mode
    You must log in or register to reply here.
    Top
    Top