Reagan Revolution in 1976 instead of 1980

Beautiful sentiments, and I certainly agreed with you at the time as I read of all this in 1975's Reader's Digest's. "Murder of a Gentle Land" as a condensed book was coming out in that magazine years before "The Killing Fields".
How about this potential POD: Nixon is politically embarrassed by the whole awful and unnecessary Bengali genocide in 1971?

Maybe just by good luck if nothing else, it receives more press attention. And maybe an administration official makes a tacky or tawdry statement. And as bad as the actual events are, it's almost like the justification is worse.

So, by the time Cambodia rolls around, Nixon decides he can't take this risk again.

He has to at least be able to say he played his best football so to speak. That he did his best to win over Republican and conservative Democratic support in Congress, that he skillfully did his best to win over the British and other allies. Maybe he even underplays the hand a little at times, at other times making the full sales pitch, and I have read that he was a good poker player in the Navy.

Now, this could perhaps happen in the Ford Administration as part of institutional memory. But I'm kind of liking the universe in which Watergate is never discovered and Dick Nixon is a reasonably popular two-term president.
 
How about this potential POD: Nixon is politically embarrassed by the whole awful and unnecessary Bengali genocide in 1971?

Maybe just by good luck if nothing else, it receives more press attention. And maybe an administration official makes a tacky or tawdry statement. And as bad as the actual events are, it's almost like the justification is worse.

So, by the time Cambodia rolls around, Nixon decides he can't take this risk again.

He has to at least be able to say he played his best football so to speak. That he did his best to win over Republican and conservative Democratic support in Congress, that he skillfully did his best to win over the British and other allies. Maybe he even underplays the hand a little at times, at other times making the full sales pitch, and I have read that he was a good poker player in the Navy.

Now, this could perhaps happen in the Ford Administration as part of institutional memory. But I'm kind of liking the universe in which Watergate is never discovered and Dick Nixon is a reasonably popular two-term president.

The brutal ugly (in terms of inhumanity) truth is that without a large scale Bengali or Cambodian population sub-group within the United States the USA is doing squat. Does anyone here believe that if the USA had been settled by the Chinese that we would give a good goddam about the State of Israel? Would Israel even have survived its War of Independence? OTOH, would Japan have ever dared to invade China when facing the prospect of a possible (Sino-)American Intervention?:eek:
 
You're right. People typically only give a fuck when it's something which affects them personally. But occasionally, people do give a fuck even when it doesn't affect them personally. And often this turns on small, glitchy little details of psychology and presentation.

For example, maybe if a U.S. Senator had said, it's beginning to look like genocide. Or, this is what the early states of genocide look like. So, you're not presenting a completed project. You're letting people learn with you along the way. And that may be the better leadership and sales approach.
 
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You're right. People typically only give a fuck when it's something which affects them personally. But occasionally, people do give a fuck even when it doesn't affect them personally. And often this turns on small, glitchy little details of psychology and presentation.

For example, maybe if a U.S. Senator had said, it's beginning to look like genocide. Or, this is what the early states of genocide look like. So, you're not presenting a completed project. You're letting people learn with you along the way. And that may be better leadership and sales approach.

I can tell you this: The KR, like the Nazis (Godfrey fits here), weren't advertising, and by the time it was becoming obvious Vietnam had already launched its counter-invasion.
 
And, in poker terms, you might take a stab at the pot.

For example, the Khmer Rouge might welcome a doctors' group. No one likes getting cholera. If the prisoners are getting sick, the guards might get sick, too. And maybe a doctor who believes in the direct approach shows an unofficial teenage leader the result of an atrocity. Teenagers are mercurial. This might lead to a change of heart. Shades of Ashoka in India. The teenager might say this is not what we're all about. This teen and other teen leaders might argue with an older official, who's suddenly confronted with angry and emphatic teenagers with guns, still only arguing but the undertone is definitely there. Perhaps 'class enemy' gets defined narrowly rather than broadly, but that makes all the difference in the world.

Maybe only 1 chance out of 10 of this working. And yes, the doctor might get shot for the effort. But if the doctor believes in this approach, believes it's worth taking the chance, that in itself slightly increases the odds.

By the way, this would make terrible fiction because it's too easy.
 
And yes, go ahead and have a good chuckle at the idealistic approach. I will laugh along with you.

But I'll also challenge you, come up with two, three, four idealistic approaches which have some outside chance of working.
 
And, in poker terms, you might take a stab at the pot.

For example, the Khmer Rouge might welcome a doctors' group. No one likes getting cholera. If the prisoners are getting sick, the guards might get sick, too. And maybe a doctor who believes in the direct approach shows an unofficial teenage leader the result of an atrocity. Teenagers are mercurial. This might lead to a change of heart. Shades of Ashoka in India. The teenager might say this is not what we're all about. This teen and other teen leaders might argue with an older official, who's suddenly confronted with angry and emphatic teenagers with guns, still only arguing but the undertone is definitely there. Perhaps 'class enemy' gets defined narrowly rather than broadly, but that makes all the difference in the world.

Maybe only 1 chance out of 10 of this working. And yes, the doctor might get shot for the effort. But if the doctor believes in this approach, believes it's worth taking the chance, that in itself slightly increases the odds.

By the way, this would make terrible fiction because it's too easy.

The KR were so insane they were shooting their own guards AND their officers too.:eek: NO ONE was safe. Pol Pot was taking his plays directly from the Stalin Playbook, on the worst day of Stalin's life, and to the Nth degree.
 
OK, so there will probably not be intervention in the Cambodian Genocide under full two-term Nixon.

The Republicans still have support amongst the voters after ending the Vietnam War and most likely South Vietnam does not fall without Watergate distracting the government, as they will get plenty of aid from the US. The war ends in a stalemate.

In 1976, Reagan is nominated by the Republicans and beats whoever the Democrats nominate by a slim margin.
 
Rockefeller was very unpopular with Democrats and Independents by this time. Ford knew what he was doing in making Rocky the last VP not to be kept on the ticket in the next election.

Actually, he did that solely because people like Bo Callaway convinced him that otherwise Reagan would defeat him in the primaries. Democrats and independents had nothing to do with it. (If Ford's main goal in selecting a running mate was to reach out to Democrats and Independents, he would not have chosen Bob Dole, who was seen as very partisan.)
 
The US--under both Carter and Reagan--backed Pol Pot's regime keeping Cambodia's UN seat long after the genocide had become well-known. The notion of the US intervening against the KR is pure fantasy.
 
The US--under both Carter and Reagan--backed Pol Pot's regime keeping Cambodia's UN seat long after the genocide had become well-known. The notion of the US intervening against the KR is pure fantasy.

One of the most horrific cases of "realpolitik" in all of US history. No argument. A lot of people people in both the Chinese and the US governments will have to answer for this in the next world.:mad:x1,000,000 dead victims.:mad:
 
Ronnie Reagan was awful on human rights, because he had an artist-type personality focused on his issues of anti-communism and the hell with everything else. For example, at one point in the '80s, he said the president of Guatemala was getting a bum rap regarding human rights. That might be barely defendable as part of a carrot-and-stick approach where we make public statements of support as well as doing such things as suspending military aid for nine weeks. But as far as I've read, we didn't do the stick approach of suspending military aid!

Full '70s wank: Ford met with Brezhnev in Vladivostok in Nov. 1974. In an ATL universe where Watergate isn't discovered (and where we get lucky and things go well), Nixon is better able to get Congressional approval of SALT II. In addition, Brezhnev realizes he doesn't actual need to reach nuclear parity with the U.S. during the '70s, it's enough that he's within reaching distance. That it, sometimes it's better to flash the ace than play it. Better yet, let the other player perceive the ace whether you have it or not.

With peace between the superpowers, competition shifts to human rights and economic development. Some academics and prominent members of Congress begin using the language of human rights, which Reagan likes and begins picking up. And regarding our allies who are less than fully democratic shall we say, the carrot-and-stick approach appeals to the side of Reagan where he likes to think of himself as pragmatic.

On the economic development front, there is more journalism and more public attention regarding the conduct of large corporations abroad. Things go much better for poor countries, who start becoming not so poor!

PS I still want to prevent the Camdodian genocide early to mid. And I ask you -- Yes, You! --- for your help in achieving this challenging goal.
 
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