The Footprint of Mussolini - TL

[Whiteshore]

Just wondering, but what happened to JFK ITTL as Joseph Kennedy Jr is still alive and is running for President?

 

[Herr Frage]

Forgetting that more than likely, Italo Balbo, someone who would have even more charisma to mobilize the Italians and the Roman Alliance, will be the likely successor of Mussolini... And he's likely to be even MORE energetic and unwavering in their retaliation for the "abject and treacherous attack of the Arab Madmen upon the Chosen Ones of God on their Holy days...."

And in that case leading Italy to victory would certainly solidify his power in the state and the adoration of the Fascist faithful for him.

 

[Drizzt]

Forgetting that more than likely, Italo Balbo, someone who would have even more charisma to mobilize the Italians and the Roman Alliance, will be the likely successor of Mussolini... And he's likely to be even MORE energetic and unwavering in their retaliation for the "abject and treacherous attack of the Arab Madmen upon the Chosen Ones of God on their Holy days...."

Especially since the timing of the thing would raise questions about whether Mussolini was assassinated in preparation for the war.

 

[holyknight]

Knowing things, i can imagine the Jackass of Mussolini in his last breaths, suggesting that they blame his demise upon an already "guilty" Arab, if only to further unify Italy and the Roman Alliance in outrage, make his death as glorious as he perceived his life, and minimize the complaints when the Roman Alliance, the Turks and the Jewish State "settled" things with the Arabs in a rather decisive way......

 

[ghilonif]

Just wondering, but what happened to JFK ITTL as Joseph Kennedy Jr is still alive and is running for President?

I think he was always the plan A for old Joe Kennedy, until he died OTL and the attention got switched to JFK.

 

[Ariosto]

Hew boy, this was an … interesting read.​

The 1954 mid-term elections were a wake-up call for the GOP. They had lost their supermajority in both House and Senate - though still with commanding majorities in both, which only ten years ago would have been unthinkable – and were now faced with a new challenge: the Freedom Party had begun to break out of the ‘Southern Ghetto’ as one historian put it. The Freedom Party had won its first elections in the non-Confederate states of Kansas, Arizona and Pennsylvania - more than making up for minor gains to the States' Rights Party. While still dominated by Republicans, it was proof of what many on the Right of the Republicans feared – that the party was seen as too gung-ho on Civil Rights which was leading to violence that was, ironically, primarily hurting blacks.

It would actually be much worse then that, as you'd have Conservatives primarying incumbents in the House and Senate who were identified as being supporters of the Civil Rights movement. This isn't helped by the now relatively fluid nature of the Party system, with the Republican Party now largely being made up of Republicans and former Democrats; if a Conservative Republican were nominated, Leftists could support the Democratic candidate, if a Liberal Republican were nominated, Rightists could support the … well there has to be a better acronym them Freedomite. One that comes to mind is "Jeffersonian" which I've used on occasion given it's promotion of Limited Government, but it'd still be something of a bastardization of that philosophy.​

In 1954, after Arkansas Governor Cherry used state troopers to block a Little Rock high school from admitting black students, Patton nationalized the guard and told Cherry, “If you ever do something like that again, I’ll send in the tanks.” The anger that greeted this comment in the South rallied support around Cherry, and for segregation in general. The school was under day and night guard to prevent Klan attacks, of which several were averted. By now, the more open Klan of the early fifties was a distant memory, and the Klan had begun to take more improvised methods. Popular among them was the use of the car-bomb - of leaving a car beside a target, exiting, and having the bomb do the work once they were safe out of harms way. Unlike other terrorist organisations like the Irish Republicans, the Klan didn’t call in a bomb threat – the entire purpose was to maximise casualties. Thousands died in these actions. By the end of 1953, some four-thousand deaths could be chalked up to the American Troubles. The effect on society was that, starved of investment, the South remained mired in poverty, white and black. The Freedom Party had successfully burnished their credentials as defenders of the South, keeping the State’s Rights Party a mercifully small fringe. The Freedomites played themselves as the moderates between out of touch northerners like the Republicans and wild bigots like the States’ Rights Party. Despite wildly disproportionate numbers of killings by both number and ratio of fighter-to-civilian casualties, they ran on ‘equally’ opposing the Klan and Black Fascists, who had become the stuff of folk legend among American blacks, the Boogieman of Southern Whites and the increasing concern of Northern Whites.

Okay, first off, car-bombs are not a tactic that would ever become that popular. With the amount of manpower available to the National Guard of the various Southern States, it would be easy enough to lock down roads in "Hot Spots" after the first spurt of usage, and it would be extremely difficult to get near top tier targets (Federal buildings, Black neighborhoods). Most Klansmen even amongst its leadership would have qualms about potentially getting White civilians in the crossfire, and in those actions that do go forward I can easily see one or two in the know stricken with guilt and calling in a warning. With Black neighborhoods, well, there is the problem of "blending in", and militarized communities not protected by the National Guard are liable to inspect every car piloted by a White person going in.

Simply put, there are more dependable methods.​

By 1954, the Black Fascists still had not deviated from their policy of ‘camping’ within black communities to defend against race riots and attacks. But at the same time, it was becoming obvious that the line was increasingly blurred. What if a Klansman was also a sheriff (as was sometimes the case)? What if they knew where the Klan was meeting and didn’t attack them there? Were States’ Rights Party officials targets because they co-operated with the Klan even if they weren’t attacking? Were Pro-Segregation politicians in the Freedom Party off-limits too? What about Northern bigots? Should they come under fire? As such, it was almost miraculous the Black Fascists held out as long as they did from controversial attacks. Finally, Little made the decision to take the fight to the next level – targeted assassination. After co-operating with the Mafia (an arrangement both were uncomfortable with), he discovered that the perpetrator of the Birmingham Church Bombing, J. B. Stoner, was still around in Alabama. The Mafia offered to do the hit for him, but Little insisted that this was between blacks and the Klan alone. As a result, Stoner was abducted from his house on June 4th 1954 and tortured to death. His corpse was left hanging from a tree in the centre of Birmingham – a deliberate motif used by the Black Fascists to evoke lynching – with a placard around his neck reading, “Our hands will avenge our blood”. The saying would be a common calling card of involvement by the Black Fascists, and would strike terror into local whites, interpreting the placard as an incitement to the mass murder of all Southern whites. During a campaign rally in Georgia for the States’ Rights Party, a member of the Black Fascists attempted to assassinate John Kasper, who was a party candidate. It would only wound Kasper, and the attempted assassin bit his cyanide capsule before the mob could fully unleash their violence on him – though they burned his body anyway. Once word came out that an ‘innocent, non-Klansman white’ was attacked, Southern whites had felt there was no line left for the Fascists to cross. This would result in the rumblings of a gigantic race riot in Atlanta on August 6th, but given the increasing militarization of the South, it was stomped on quickly by the US army and declared subdued by August 8th.

This is something that I don't really understand, as this section acts as if the Black Fascists are the only "Guard" group amongst the Black communities, which doesn't make much sense. Over a nation as vast as the United States, you are going to end up with many different groups, and those groups can both be similar and radically different. The idea that there is a singular Black resistance group making up the whole, even just a majority, of the African American Guard is a fantasy, and there will have been assassinations, bombings, and so on with or without Malcolm Little's approval. Rival splinter groups opposed on some matter of ideology, tactics or even simply choice of leadership would complicate matters further, and promote conflict between each other.

That isn't to say that the Klan would be facing its own difficulties given it has been pushed underground, meaning that local voices have immensely more power over their cells then they would have in the past. However in no sense can this possibly be a scenario where you have a clean balance of White militias against Black militias; you are also going to have Black militias against Black militias and vice versa. ​

The US military, far from being dormant following the Chinese War, was now actively engaged in policing the South as multiple congressional reports proved that Southern Law enforcement was hopelessly compromised by direct Klan infiltration, let alone racial bigotry. The US military was quickly showered with revulsion by Southern whites, who considered them occupiers. Blacks rarely treated them with outright scorn, but as the army increasingly attempted to stomp on the Black Fascists, even blacks began resisting. Thus, the cycle of hatred in the South continued to spin out of control.

This is where it gets more complicated. The National Guard in each of the Southern States is liable to have been federalized from the very beginning and deployed throughout there States, but there will obviously be concerns as to those Guardsmen potentially having sympathies with one or more of the Militias that may be active in their area; there is also the concern that Black soldiers would inflame tensions in White communities and vice versa (though the latter case tended to be ignored given the realities of trying to deploy all African-American units into the South). This would mean the deployment of supplemental forces from the National Guard in the North and West, often without their African-American members. The moment the military tries disarming the Black militias however, you are liable to experience full-on riots, not just resistance. It must be remembered that in the scenario you have conjured, a lot of African Americans will have begun to view these militias as their barrier against the Klan, and the removal of that barrier by perception would leave them defenseless.​

In the aftermath of the 1954 elections, many Republicans felt that Patton had pointlessly exacerbated the conflict. There were now more representatives of the States’ Rights Party in the House than the Democrats (6 to 5, though that was more a statement of Democrat loss than the former’s gains, especially given defections). Yet Patton felt he still had one last, great accomplishment left in him. With that, he went to the drawing board and decided on the 1955 Civil Rights Act. It would outlaw discrimination not just on the basis of race, but of religion and sex too. It would legislate the end of all the various ways the South kept the black vote suppressed and end segregation at any level of government. While it was a landmark decision, some blacks were disappointed that the decision was only restricted to the government sphere, as private businesses were allowed to segregate on the condition they forsook subsidies or other government support. However, due to the losses the Republicans experienced in 1954, Patton couldn’t afford to lose the votes of Republicans like Barry Goldwater, who said the business provision was the difference between, “My fighting to the last bullet and walking off the battlefield.” With a massive lobbying campaign, Patton was able to unite the Republicans behind the Civil Rights Act.

I'd argue the Democrats would still have a presence in a number of States, 'specially as there is only so much room in the Republican Party tent and it'd be the natural home for the holdout New-Deal types, but that matters little.​

Thurmond laughed off Patton’s attempts, since he had enough sway in Congress to filibuster the act. Patton did not have the required two-thirds majority to overrule it. Many Republicans also signed themselves up to the bill, expecting it to be a heroic failure when Thurmond would inevitably call the filibuster and end the whole game. But what they did not bet on was the temerity and insanity of General Patton, most of all his overwhelming desire to accomplish the impossible. Thus, when Republicans informed were informed of the plan, many were shocked and tried to talk Patton out of it – but the General would not budge, and in the end, hatred of the Klan and the institution of Jim Crow would keep the Republicans united. Thus, Senator Thurmond was mortified to hear the news: the Republicans were voting to end the filibuster. That ‘that Crazy General’ as Thurmond had taken to calling Patton’ had decided to upend centuries of Congressional practice was both an outrage to him and one he felt he should have expected. Prior court ruling had proven that rule changes in Congress only needed majority change. After outrage from the Freedomites, to say nothing of the States’ Rights Party, the change was signed off. The Southern states threw everything they had at the act, including calling a General Strike across the entire South, which failed due to blacks continuing to work sometimes in twenty four hour shifts to keep the Southern economy going and ensure the segregationists would not succeed. Finally on October 29th, the Civil Rights Act of 1955 was passed. Jackie Robinson’s family stood watching in the overlooking section of the chamber, his wife in tears. T.R.M. Howard and Sam Fuller were there as well, as astonished with the speed of their success as foreign observers were. In the North, black communities rejoiced. In Harlem, public celebrations reminiscent of V.E. Day filled the streets.

No. I understand what you are going for here, but there is no way in hell Patton could have convinced the Senate to eliminate the filibuster, an idea that has never been seriously considered by anyone except in the last decade. What you have set Patton up for would have been far more akin to the Court Packing scheme Franklin Roosevelt tried to force through Congress, and a multitude of Republican Senators who supported the Civil Rights bill would have walked had it come down to it; routinely there were many more votes for a Bill that was being filibustered then there was for cloture of said filibuster, though I'm not sure as to the exact reasoning those Senators had.

Then there is also the problem that any attempt to change the Senate Rules themselves could be subject to a filibuster; depending on which version you prefer to use, it would either require the support of (67) Senators, or it could be filibustered endlessly as a cloture vote was specifically forbidden in such cases from 1949 to 1959.

This couldn't and wouldn't have happened.​

McCarthy’s ignominious fate was contrasted with the triumphant pomp of the Kennedy/Nixon ticket. Kennedy, the first Catholic to lead on the Republican ticket, would face Thurmond himself for the 1956 election. Thurmond, having calculated that he would get a great turnout compared to Connor due to the backlash against Civil Rights in the South, knew that he would appear a strong finisher no matter what happened. The sight of a former Democrat leading the Republicans further stripped the moribund Democrats of any legitimacy they once enjoyed. But the 1956 election, when combined with events going on the Middle East, would be the start of a new direction in American politics that would fundamentally reshape the global order.

Assuming we are going with a Strom Thurmond who has been elected earlier in 1950, his seat would be up in 1956, and so I doubt he would be the nominee of the Freedom Party for President. Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, a Moderate Jeffersonian who likely still would have been leader of the Freedom Party in the Senate (if not nationally) may well have been tapped for the nod; it'd take some convincing, but given the environment being slightly unfavorable to the Republican Party at this point, he may see himself having an outside chance of winning, or setting himself up for a successful run in 1960 against the Republican incumbent.

We would almost certainly see some attempt at putting together a Third-Party Republican ticket in opposition to Kennedy among the more Conservative-minded Republicans, especially as they've been effectively locked out of Washington for the last eight years, and it appears as if that may now be sixteen years (and with a DEMOCRAT at the helm?!). If I were to pick a name out of a hat, I suppose that Indiana Senator William Jenner would be a good bet as for having organized this movement, and heading the ticket should it come to that. In either case, a lot of these voters would eventually drain over to the Freedom Party ticket.​

 

[Darth_Kiryan]

Sad about Dewey, but understandable. Of course, its completely expected that he was really holding the reins there to some degree, being a political mastermind that he was.

That said, Kennedy/Nixon in 56? THis is an interesting ticket.

 

[Sorairo]

Hew boy, this was an … interesting read.​

It would actually be much worse then that, as you'd have Conservatives primarying incumbents in the House and Senate who were identified as being supporters of the Civil Rights movement. This isn't helped by the now relatively fluid nature of the Party system, with the Republican Party now largely being made up of Republicans and former Democrats; if a Conservative Republican were nominated, Leftists could support the Democratic candidate, if a Liberal Republican were nominated, Rightists could support the … well there has to be a better acronym them Freedomite. One that comes to mind is "Jeffersonian" which I've used on occasion given it's promotion of Limited Government, but it'd still be something of a bastardization of that philosophy.​

Okay, first off, car-bombs are not a tactic that would ever become that popular. With the amount of manpower available to the National Guard of the various Southern States, it would be easy enough to lock down roads in "Hot Spots" after the first spurt of usage, and it would be extremely difficult to get near top tier targets (Federal buildings, Black neighborhoods). Most Klansmen even amongst its leadership would have qualms about potentially getting White civilians in the crossfire, and in those actions that do go forward I can easily see one or two in the know stricken with guilt and calling in a warning. With Black neighborhoods, well, there is the problem of "blending in", and militarized communities not protected by the National Guard are liable to inspect every car piloted by a White person going in.

Simply put, there are more dependable methods.​

This is something that I don't really understand, as this section acts as if the Black Fascists are the only "Guard" group amongst the Black communities, which doesn't make much sense. Over a nation as vast as the United States, you are going to end up with many different groups, and those groups can both be similar and radically different. The idea that there is a singular Black resistance group making up the whole, even just a majority, of the African American Guard is a fantasy, and there will have been assassinations, bombings, and so on with or without Malcolm Little's approval. Rival splinter groups opposed on some matter of ideology, tactics or even simply choice of leadership would complicate matters further, and promote conflict between each other.

That isn't to say that the Klan would be facing its own difficulties given it has been pushed underground, meaning that local voices have immensely more power over their cells then they would have in the past. However in no sense can this possibly be a scenario where you have a clean balance of White militias against Black militias; you are also going to have Black militias against Black militias and vice versa. ​

This is where it gets more complicated. The National Guard in each of the Southern States is liable to have been federalized from the very beginning and deployed throughout there States, but there will obviously be concerns as to those Guardsmen potentially having sympathies with one or more of the Militias that may be active in their area; there is also the concern that Black soldiers would inflame tensions in White communities and vice versa (though the latter case tended to be ignored given the realities of trying to deploy all African-American units into the South). This would mean the deployment of supplemental forces from the National Guard in the North and West, often without their African-American members. The moment the military tries disarming the Black militias however, you are liable to experience full-on riots, not just resistance. It must be remembered that in the scenario you have conjured, a lot of African Americans will have begun to view these militias as their barrier against the Klan, and the removal of that barrier by perception would leave them defenseless.​

I'd argue the Democrats would still have a presence in a number of States, 'specially as there is only so much room in the Republican Party tent and it'd be the natural home for the holdout New-Deal types, but that matters little.​

No. I understand what you are going for here, but there is no way in hell Patton could have convinced the Senate to eliminate the filibuster, an idea that has never been seriously considered by anyone except in the last decade. What you have set Patton up for would have been far more akin to the Court Packing scheme Franklin Roosevelt tried to force through Congress, and a multitude of Republican Senators who supported the Civil Rights bill would have walked had it come down to it; routinely there were many more votes for a Bill that was being filibustered then there was for cloture of said filibuster, though I'm not sure as to the exact reasoning those Senators had.

Then there is also the problem that any attempt to change the Senate Rules themselves could be subject to a filibuster; depending on which version you prefer to use, it would either require the support of (67) Senators, or it could be filibustered endlessly as a cloture vote was specifically forbidden in such cases from 1949 to 1959.

This couldn't and wouldn't have happened.​

Assuming we are going with a Strom Thurmond who has been elected earlier in 1950, his seat would be up in 1956, and so I doubt he would be the nominee of the Freedom Party for President. Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, a Moderate Jeffersonian who likely still would have been leader of the Freedom Party in the Senate (if not nationally) may well have been tapped for the nod; it'd take some convincing, but given the environment being slightly unfavorable to the Republican Party at this point, he may see himself having an outside chance of winning, or setting himself up for a successful run in 1960 against the Republican incumbent.

We would almost certainly see some attempt at putting together a Third-Party Republican ticket in opposition to Kennedy among the more Conservative-minded Republicans, especially as they've been effectively locked out of Washington for the last eight years, and it appears as if that may now be sixteen years (and with a DEMOCRAT at the helm?!). If I were to pick a name out of a hat, I suppose that Indiana Senator William Jenner would be a good bet as for having organized this movement, and heading the ticket should it come to that. In either case, a lot of these voters would eventually drain over to the Freedom Party ticket.​

Long reply so I'll try to be brief.

1) Car bombs are mainly at 'collaborationist' stores that cater to or employ blacks/feds - often Italian and Jewish communities as well. They usually go off at night to minimise casualties (though it scares the crap out of people). The Klan does kill white civilians in the crossfire, not that it hurts their support much like in Northern Ireland. IRA killed Catholics in the crossfire. The UVF killed Protestants in the crossfire. Yet neither group suddenly found their support plummeting when these happened. Their supporters just shrugged and said it was a war.

2) The BF's have existed at this point for a year. It's in the process of escalating, and believe me, it will.

3) I will edit the bill passing section to keep the spirit of the entry while keeping with your suggestions.

4) Senators have ran for President in their election years before. I'm unfamiliar with South Carolina Law, but given Thurmond is the figurehead of the party, I doubt the state legislature would be averse to passing a law allowing him to run as both if it is forbidden, given that everyone knows he's going to lose, but at the same time they know he's their best guy to bring the party forward in the elections.

5) Nixon is on the ticket to neutralise Republican concerns about a 'Democrat' being in charge, although by this stage the public only know him as a Republican. Nixon got his red meat credentials after starting the Impeachment proceedings (which is precisely why McCarthy hammered him so hard on the trail in an attempt to neutralise it), and the right of the Republican Party who think Nixon is too left wing are in disaray after their champion in McCarthy fell from grace.

I appreciate the input - this project has taken a life of its own and I'm sometimes scared to write the next chapter since I don't know what to do. I'm grateful I can be set straight sometimes.

 

[Ogrebear]

Fantastic chapter!

I really hope Kennedy makes it to the White House and through his term. He’d be a tempting target for the Klan now.

Slightly surprising there are only 3 GOP candidates, would have thought there be a lot of minor ones throwing their hat in too.

If the Fillibusters gone is the Electoral College next?

Have a great time on your travels.

 

[Sorairo]

Fantastic chapter!

I really hope Kennedy makes it to the White House and through his term. He’d be a tempting target for the Klan now.

Slightly surprising there are only 3 GOP candidates, would have thought there be a lot of minor ones throwing their hat in too.

If the Fillibusters gone is the Electoral College next?

Have a great time on your travels.

There were more than 3 - they were just the big ones. Kennedy had the support of liberal Republicans and Democrat exiles who became prominent and numerous when Civil Rights became a thing. Nixon had the support of the Party establishment and was known across the country. McCarthy had a rabidly loyal following and the destructive capacity to scare minnows out of the fight.

Changed the update in light of suggestions - the filibuster has only been changed down to a 3/5ths rule. Electoral college will only become an issue when someone gets screwed over by it.

 

[Sigfried]

This seems almost suspiciously positive for this TL.

I guess this is due to Americano-Centrism of this forum, Rest of World is allowed to go to shit, but thing in America especially in way of Liberal Democracy and Race relationships has to always turn out fine, i dont know why but it really seems people on this forum are afraid to have American Dystopia even in otherwise Dystopic TL.

 

[novussa]

Yeah when it comes to america it most of the time world out liberal winning or somthing if anyone has example of it not please link.

 

[Sorairo]

This seems almost suspiciously positive for this TL.

I guess this is due to Americano-Centrism of this forum, Rest of World is allowed to go to shit, but thing in America especially in way of Liberal Democracy and Race relationships has to always turn out fine, i dont know why but it really seems people on this forum are afraid to have American Dystopia even in otherwise Dystopic TL.

Earlier Civil Rights came at a gigantic cost. There is now a Troubles situation in the South, except more people died in year one than the whole Irish Troubles.

 

[Sigfried]

Earlier Civil Rights came at a gigantic cost. There is now a Troubles situation in the South, except more people died in year one than the whole Irish Troubles.

6000 People are dead, might sound gigantic in Normal Timeline, but this is timeline which saws Massive Deaths in China, Nuking of Warsaw, Massive shitstorm in Middle east in just few short years. So i think you toned it down too much if you wanted to show Gigantic costs, it honenstly doesnt seem THAT much bigger than number of deaths that were caused during campaigning for Civil Rights in our timeline, it just happened at once here rather than over campaign period.

 

[Gen.Jurten]

I guess this is due to Americano-Centrism of this forum, Rest of World is allowed to go to shit, but thing in America especially in way of Liberal Democracy and Race relationships has to always turn out fine, i dont know why but it really seems people on this forum are afraid to have American Dystopia even in otherwise Dystopic TL.

Yeah when it comes to america it most of the time world out liberal winning or somthing if anyone has example of it not please link.

A Shift in Priorities. Centrals won WW1, America slowly going to shit.
Rumsfeldia. If you want an exemplar of Yankee-screw , this is it
A World of Laughter , A World of Tears . Walt Disney Presidency , and its consecquences
There's also For All Time, but it's more of a global screw than American Screw.

And those are the larger of them

 

[novussa]

Thanks

 

[Sigfried]

A Shift in Priorities. Centrals won WW1, America slowly going to shit.
Rumsfeldia. If you want an exemplar of Yankee-screw , this is it
A World of Laughter , A World of Tears . Walt Disney Presidency , and its consecquences
There's also For All Time, but it's more of a global screw than American Screw.

And those are the larger of them

Thanks, throught as you can see its pretty rare thing, I mean i get it, everyone is biased towards their own country their area being better, And as such it cant happen here, its natural, i just throught this forum Wouldnt be so Americano-centric when its seems pretty well aware and respactable in other areas.

 

[Gen.Jurten]

Thanks, throught as you can see its pretty rare thing, I mean i get it, everyone is biased towards their own country their area being better, And as such it cant happen here, its natural, i just throught this forum Wouldnt be so Americano-centric when its seems pretty well aware and respactable in other areas.

Those are not the only ones, thise are just some of the bigger ones. American-screw are not that rare actually, if you count the ones where America gets tyrannical rather than disintegrated, ASB ones. In fact, many of the most notable TL in this site is this

 

[novussa]

I would like to read a tl where USA loses one of the world wars

 

[Gen.Jurten]

I would like to read a tl where USA loses one of the world wars

A Shift in Priorities has the US technically loses WW1.
There's a ton of Nazi victory TLs if you want, or some with America and Nazi stalemath.