Need a Good PoD

Wilson stays healthy and runs for a third term?

Even IOTL, you already have Prohibition which resulted in massive expansion of the federal police state which is by definition more totalitarian. Wilson was racist (fired all black federal employees), and a lot of the Progressive movement was eugenicist (Hitler hadn't shown us the dangers of that thinking yet) and anti-Catholic. Keep them in charge longer and you set all the precedents needed for a more totalitarian US going forward.

Other POD might be Huey Long lives and successfully primaries FDR.
 
And there some intresting PODs which hasn't used very often:

- Nicholas II dies from typhoid fever on 1900.
- Alfonso XIII of Spain is assassinated on 1906.
- Charles of Portugali is not assassinated or his oldest son survives.
- Fanny Kaplan succesfully kills Lenin.
- Someone else as Stalin or Trotsky succeeds Lenin.
- Lenin lives ten years longer.
- Warren G. Harding not die from heart attack.
- Someone else than Franco as leader of fascist Spain.
- No Cuban Missile Crisis.
- Martin Luther King is not assassinated.
- No coup '73 in Chile.
 
The potential chaos from the Kennedy assassination are unused PODs: Johnson assassinated or Johnson refusing to run in 1964, Goldwater refusing to run in 1964 giving way to a Rockefeller no one wants as the result of his divorce, whom the Conservatives hate, and whom the moderates have left behind, McCormack and Hayden stepping aside thus giving the presidency to Dean Rusk, Goldwater having the door to run in 1968 or potentially Reagan, and so forth.

On the whole, the early 1960s were also a period for a lot of chaos if you're going with a dystopian mindset. Coming off of the U2 Incident, Khrushchev was very aggressive, and you had a government/military apparatus in the United States that was outdated in a nuclear age, with field commanders given carte blanche on nuclear weapons, an insanely hawkish JCS (which Kennedy could not remove, lest he be seen as the naive president undermining Eisenhower's legacy), and a plan of total nuclear exchange over any military incident with the Soviets until Kennedy reformed those operations. We avoided wars in Laos, Cuba and other areas of the world that could easily have exploded.


So those are my two personal focuses: the potential chaos of the Kennedy assassination aftermath, which while not necessarily dystopian, could have been far more uncertain and is a ripe and unused area for all the major and different changes that it allows depending on the writer. And secondly, the geopolitical world left after Eisenhower that eventually lead to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
 
Wilson stays healthy and runs for a third term?

Even IOTL, you already have Prohibition which resulted in massive expansion of the federal police state which is by definition more totalitarian. Wilson was racist (fired all black federal employees), and a lot of the Progressive movement was eugenicist (Hitler hadn't shown us the dangers of that thinking yet) and anti-Catholic. Keep them in charge longer and you set all the precedents needed for a more totalitarian US going forward.

Other POD might be Huey Long lives and successfully primaries FDR.
I like the idea of a prolonged Wilson administration. Any ideas that might help me develop the progress to full right-wing authoritarianism?
 
Thomas Midgley Jr. doesn't take a vacation. He begins to suffer increasing mental impairment from tetraethyl lead poisoning, until one day he goes on a violent workplace shooting rampage and is sent to a facility for the criminally insane.

No leaded gasoline (after the sensational newspaper coverage of his trial, most states outlaw tetraethyl lead). No freon. No teflon (it is eventually discovered by nuclear engineers, but remains a classified secret).

So, fewer cars, no Interstates, the South remains a sweaty backwater, and WWII was a lot bloodier (avgas in short supply, A-bomb not available until postwar). Iron Curtain extends to Calais.

Bonus greyness: one of the shooting victims was an intern named Russell Marker, so prednisone and birth control pills delayed until late 70s.
 
The 1918 influenza does not happen and the strain establishes in pigs only. A still serious, but much milder influenza based on H2N1 sequences strikes the World in 1924 igniting interest in virology research. Work on porcine influenza leads to the isolation of a 1918 like strain from pigs in 1928 and hopes that vaccines can be designed soars (as indeed was the characteristic of the first swine flu isolated in 1930 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/342616)). Unfortunately, principles of influenza viruses are unknown and the porcine 1928 virus recombines with the prevailing H2N1 leading to an almost fully lethal infleunza strain emerging in 1929 coinciding with world-wide economic collapse.
It is well documented that the strain emerged from a US based science lab and the US, the government and populace will never trust free science again, and certainly the rest of the World will condemn US recklessness. Butterflies are a slowly declining knowledge position in the US, government control of publications in the US and abroad, but worst in the US. Something like Otto Hahns discovery of Uranium fission never gets published and the Germans are sitting on it. Wider socio-economic collapse caused by the large capitalist democracy leads to earlier nazi take-over (1932) and increased Worldwide support for the communist utopia as preached from Moscow (except in Germany).
Have a nice TL!
 
Ooooooh, I really want to see the Greco-Turkish War one. An accepted Treaty of Sèvres, or an alternate peace? Either way, Turkey's gonna be furious, and it could potentially be the powder keg for the next world war!

Bonus points if you can save the Armenians, but that's really difficult given their geographic position
 
I like the idea of a prolonged Wilson administration. Any ideas that might help me develop the progress to full right-wing authoritarianism?

Makes most sense in the context of horseshoe theory (instead of a left-right political spectrum, you have it bent down so that the two extremes are almost touching).

However, there are a few different ways the authoritarians can become right wing.

First, changing standards. 100 years ago, eugenics was considered progressive. The "enlightened" view was that society would control reproduction so "superior" people would be born and "inferior" people would take their defective genes to the grave. That would be considered extreme right today.

Drug and alcohol prohibition were supported by some progressives, in coalition with religious conservatives. Have to protect people from themselves, as well as the evil greedy businesses that sell those products. Wilson didn't want to enact Prohibition but supported its enforcement after the 18th Amendment. We would just need a more aggressive police state at an earlier point instead of a change in policy.

Wilson was racist even for his time, and the 1920s saw a resurgence of the KKK. Having a friend in the White House might result in more Tulsas and Rosewoods, as well as federal laws restricting civil rights.

Authoritarians often (not always) pursue an interventionist foreign policy, and Wilson fit the bill in his second term.

Assuming the Depression still happens, you need a New Deal, or even better, Share the Wealth. After President Long dies, his underlings engage in rampant corruption. The Louisiana Hayride on a national scale. With the government even more economically powerful than OTL, crooked deals become the best way to get rich quick. Authoritarian regimes tend to be kleptocracies.

Most plausible sequence might be to have the GOP win in 1924 with Wilson retiring after three terms, in which federal police power is dramatically expanded and federal laws are passed in support of eugenics and white supremacy. The 1929 stock market crash happens in the summer of 1928 instead of the fall of 1929, so the Democrats paint the Depression as what happens when you give Republicans the keys. A Wilson style prog from the border south or Midwest beats Al Smith for the nomination and goes back to the fascist policies. Huey Long primaries the incumbent in 1932 and implements Share the Wealth. He cuts a deal with Japan to sell them oil, thus butterflying away Pearl Harbor and out involvement in WW2. Which in turn means black veterans don't have the argument that they spilled their blood for a country that treats them as second class citizens. Long serves three terms and retires in 1945.

Russia takes a bigger chunk of western Europe after WW2, making the communist threat more serious and denying us the ability to get rich off the Marshall Plan, so we need a tighter security state. No GI bill to help create a prosperous middle class, so you end up with Long's successors selling out to the likes of Standard Oil. (Crony capitalism is a key feature of fascism.)

I'm sure there are more experienced members who could improve on that, but it's a starting point.

ETA: A Huey Long presidency also creates an obscure but very important butterfly effect. IOTL, the fallen Kingfish was a hero to a young Minnesota liberal named Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey moved to Baton Rouge in 1939. He was appalled by Jim Crow and eventually became the leading civil rights advocate in Congress. With a Long presidency, he moves to DC instead and doesn't give the great speech at the 1948 convention (which in turn triggered the Dixiecrat walkout).

So we have the following differences from OTL:

Stronger tradition of centralized power

Much weaker civil rights movement

No Democrat schism

No anti-Hitler propaganda to remind us of our own faults

The Holocaust is either unknown to us or Germany and the USSR are blaming each other, so Nazi racial theory hasn't discredited eugenics

Virtual one party system

Without us trying to beat Hitler to the A-bomb, the USSR might get there first.

Stronger and more threatening Soviet Union (I had them take all of Hitler's occupied territory to maximize the threat, as the OP was looking for a more authoritarian US during the Cold War. With no US reinforcements, the WAllies might also have had to lay low and allow Hitler to devote more resources to the eastern front and force a stalemate, but that would make the Cold War less intense.)
 
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Thailand becomes far more involved in WWI. OTL, it actually tried to contribute to the war, and even occupied a town in the Rhineland after Versailles. Somehow get it to contribute even more (joins 1914?), and, even better, get it to gain territory after the war, though I am not sure where (England and France abandon spheres of influence in Thailand? Thailand gets handed some rebellious chunk of Tanzania?)
 
Campbell-Bannerman wins the 1900 election (say Salisbury goes for tariffs and loses the Liberal Unionists). Puts the UK's only radical PM in power six years early.
 
Makes most sense in the context of horseshoe theory (instead of a left-right political spectrum, you have it bent down so that the two extremes are almost touching).

However, there are a few different ways the authoritarians can become right wing.

First, changing standards. 100 years ago, eugenics was considered progressive. The "enlightened" view was that society would control reproduction so "superior" people would be born and "inferior" people would take their defective genes to the grave. That would be considered extreme right today.

Drug and alcohol prohibition were supported by some progressives, in coalition with religious conservatives. Have to protect people from themselves, as well as the evil greedy businesses that sell those products. Wilson didn't want to enact Prohibition but supported its enforcement after the 18th Amendment. We would just need a more aggressive police state at an earlier point instead of a change in policy.

Wilson was racist even for his time, and the 1920s saw a resurgence of the KKK. Having a friend in the White House might result in more Tulsas and Rosewoods, as well as federal laws restricting civil rights.

Authoritarians often (not always) pursue an interventionist foreign policy, and Wilson fit the bill in his second term.

Assuming the Depression still happens, you need a New Deal, or even better, Share the Wealth. After President Long dies, his underlings engage in rampant corruption. The Louisiana Hayride on a national scale. With the government even more economically powerful than OTL, crooked deals become the best way to get rich quick. Authoritarian regimes tend to be kleptocracies.

Most plausible sequence might be to have the GOP win in 1924 with Wilson retiring after three terms, in which federal police power is dramatically expanded and federal laws are passed in support of eugenics and white supremacy. The 1929 stock market crash happens in the summer of 1928 instead of the fall of 1929, so the Democrats paint the Depression as what happens when you give Republicans the keys. A Wilson style prog from the border south or Midwest beats Al Smith for the nomination and goes back to the fascist policies. Huey Long primaries the incumbent in 1932 and implements Share the Wealth. He cuts a deal with Japan to sell them oil, thus butterflying away Pearl Harbor and out involvement in WW2. Which in turn means black veterans don't have the argument that they spilled their blood for a country that treats them as second class citizens. Long serves three terms and retires in 1945.

Russia takes a bigger chunk of western Europe after WW2, making the communist threat more serious and denying us the ability to get rich off the Marshall Plan, so we need a tighter security state. No GI bill to help create a prosperous middle class, so you end up with Long's successors selling out to the likes of Standard Oil. (Crony capitalism is a key feature of fascism.)

I'm sure there are more experienced members who could improve on that, but it's a starting point.

ETA: A Huey Long presidency also creates an obscure but very important butterfly effect. IOTL, the fallen Kingfish was a hero to a young Minnesota liberal named Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey moved to Baton Rouge in 1939. He was appalled by Jim Crow and eventually became the leading civil rights advocate in Congress. With a Long presidency, he moves to DC instead and doesn't give the great speech at the 1948 convention (which in turn triggered the Dixiecrat walkout).

So we have the following differences from OTL:

Stronger tradition of centralized power

Much weaker civil rights movement

No Democrat schism

No anti-Hitler propaganda to remind us of our own faults

The Holocaust is either unknown to us or Germany and the USSR are blaming each other, so Nazi racial theory hasn't discredited eugenics

Virtual one party system

Without us trying to beat Hitler to the A-bomb, the USSR might get there first.

Stronger and more threatening Soviet Union (I had them take all of Hitler's occupied territory to maximize the threat, as the OP was looking for a more authoritarian US during the Cold War. With no US reinforcements, the WAllies might also have had to lay low and allow Hitler to devote more resources to the eastern front and force a stalemate, but that would make the Cold War less intense.)
This actually sounds amazing, I hope you don't mind if I use this. I'm going to see if I can maybe combine this with the Greek victory in the Greco-Turkish War, because maybe a more interventionist United States would intervene? All I have to do is figure out where the more advanced tech comes in. Obviously the eugenics come into play, but perhaps the field-effect transistor of 1926 is taken more seriously, thereby making electronics develop faster? I might also be able to work in the swine-flu PoD that someone else suggested earlier.

All-in-all, these are very good ideas, and I hope I can make something out of it! Thank you guys very much! If you have any other suggestions for this timeline, please let me know, because I think I'm going with this one!
 
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A good one maybe?

WI the Mensheviks and SRs challenged the Bolsheviks acquisition of power in the Second All Russian Congress of Soviets (the night of the October Revolution) instead of just walking out? Could make for an interesting POD
 
This actually sounds amazing, I hope you don't mind if I use this. I'm going to see if I can maybe combine with with the Greek victory in the Greco-Turkish War, because maybe a more interventionist United States would intervene? All I have to do is figure out where the more advanced tech comes in. Obviously the eugenics come into play, but perhaps the field-effect transistor of 1926 is taken more seriously, thereby making electronics develop faster? I might also be able to work in the swine-flu PoD that someone else suggested earlier.

All-in-all, these are very good ideas, and I hope I can make something out of it! Thank you guys very much! If you have any other suggestions for this timeline, please let me know, because I think I'm going with this one!

You can definitely use it if you want.

One important point: Huey was one of the few Southern demagogues who never demonized black people for political gain. Not that it did much for civil rights, but remembering that would make the TL more realistic.
 
Apollo 11 ends in disaster - astronauts are stranded on the Moon.

Sergei Korolev lives until 1970s.

Khrushchev wasn't overthrown in 1964.

Brezhnev was killed during World War II, 1961, 1969.

Bay of Pigs Invasion succeeds.

1979 - two embassies (American and Soviet) are seized in Teheran.

Gerald Ford wins second term.

Earlier Trump presidency.
 
You can definitely use it if you want.

One important point: Huey was one of the few Southern demagogues who never demonized black people for political gain. Not that it did much for civil rights, but remembering that would make the TL more realistic.
Okay, here's an outline.

I was thinking of maybe having a neutral United States in World War I, thus allowing the Central Powers to emerge victorious. Wilson doesn't have his stroke and is reelected due to keeping the US out of war. Later on (whether during the Wilson administration or after), tensions increase between the US, UK, and Japan over the US's neutrality in WWI and Japan's holding of German colonies in the Pacific despite the latter still laying claim to the colonies. This culminates in an encounter between the Americans and Japanese near the Philippines, drawing them into the war (the UK enters with Japan, and both Germany and Italy join against the UK to seize colonial holdings). This is either a continuation of WWI or just an outright WWII. The US wins and annexes Canada and Allied colonies in the Caribbean. A cold war later develops between the US and Germany as the former becomes more authoritarian and the latter becomes more liberal.

So now we have a Second World War that is likely the cause of the 1928 economic collapse, an earlier-developing Cold War allowing for the earlier development of technologies and an already much bigger US. I'm not sure how plausible adding a communist power is to make a three-way Cold War, but then again I'm not sure how plausible my entire scenario is anyways.

How does it sound to you?
 
Apollo 11 ends in disaster - astronauts are stranded on the Moon.

Sergei Korolev lives until 1970s.

Khrushchev wasn't overthrown in 1964.

Brezhnev was killed during World War II, 1961, 1969.

Bay of Pigs Invasion succeeds.

1979 - two embassies (American and Soviet) are seized in Teheran.

Gerald Ford wins second term.

Earlier Trump presidency.
I really like the Apollo 11 PoD, I don't think I've heard or seen anything with it before. It's definitely interesting.
 
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