Maybe ITTL Social Democracy remains the name for the revolutionary socialist movement and the 3rd International is associated with Reformism and Revisionism?
The Glowing Dream: A history of Socialist America
- Thread starter Iggies
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Considering the reformists are social patriots who will probably break away over entering wartime government, my assumption is that they won't even bother with an internationale and look more like the post WW2 reformists.
Very cool, so that makes me wonder if Huey will grow up more radicalized than OTL, or if maybe he ends up as a reformer anyways only within an already Socialist America. It'd definitely be neat to see if he still ends up taking over Louisiana as he did OTL
It's blindingly obvious that the Frick administration isn't getting voted out. It's getting removed, just not via another election.
And it's rich for Frick to be pissed off at Carnegie's "betrayal" when he stole Carnegie's company out from under him.
And it's rich for Frick to be pissed off at Carnegie's "betrayal" when he stole Carnegie's company out from under him.
Out of interest what is Lucy Parsons getting up to ITTL? I could see her being a fairly important figure in the SLP and the revolutionary underground.
Since President Frick is going to go full on authoritarian and the US will be consumed by revolution withing a decade or two, I can't help but wonder if Theodore Roosevelt, never to become president, will be one of the leaders of the revolution as part of an uneasy alliance of moderate/reformist capitalists against a plutocratic dictatorship with London and Haywood representing the moderate/far left socialists.
I've been thinking about Jack London. Given that his time in the Klondike OTL negatively impacted his health leading to his death in 1916 at the age of 40, would London even live long enough to see the revolution happen, let alone play an important part in it? Then again, his journey to the Klondike happened after the 1894 PoD so it's possible he never went and as such he's in a much better health than OTL and will live longer.
In that case, maybe he could lead a short-lived progressive government which gets couped by London and Haywood under technically legal means (more like Czechoslovakia in 1948 than the October Revolution).
I think it was mentioned that he did go to tbe klondike ITTL, thought it doesn't sound like he's been having health issues. i think jack will live at least until Frick's death (in fact it would make narrative sense if Jack successfully assassinates Frick)
Yes, I'm sure the Frick administration is going to go swimmingly.
All joking aside, Frick's essentially created a pseudo-fascist ideology almost 20 years ahead of schedule. I mean, Fascism, is, at it's core, a reaction to the left, a hatred of the left. And that's what that is, his entire platform is screwing over the leftist laborers. We have, what, 15 years to go until the Republic either falls or is replaced? Things are going to get real bad, and I have a strong feeling Frick might not be leaving office until then.
All joking aside, Frick's essentially created a pseudo-fascist ideology almost 20 years ahead of schedule. I mean, Fascism, is, at it's core, a reaction to the left, a hatred of the left. And that's what that is, his entire platform is screwing over the leftist laborers. We have, what, 15 years to go until the Republic either falls or is replaced? Things are going to get real bad, and I have a strong feeling Frick might not be leaving office until then.
I wonder if there are any copycat ideologies outside of America, in that case.
I mean given the American influence on the labor movement internationally a certain reactionary counter-influence is pretty likely now you mention it 🤔
If we follow it backward hate comes from anger and anger comes from fear. And the strongest fear there is is the fear of the unknown.
Foreword. What I noticed among RL and fictional Fascists is that they A) IMAX project their failings on everyone not them because they cannot imagine other people being so dissimilar to themselves "so they must be hiding it!", and B) they actually cannot comprehend the inner mental goings of the Left because of completely different synaptic connections created during childhood inside a specific setting (class environment). They really cannot, like "Puny Human mind cannot imagine Edltrich monster" not capable to grox the Left. AKA they are subconsciously scared shitless from the possibility that A) is not actually true and that they are dealing really with something incomprehensible to their world view.
Like in "Color Out of Space" the moment they would grasp it (or even get close to its vicinity) is the moment they would stop being themselves (fascists) and become something Alien. Capital A. Alien. Which results in them going PURGE! PURGE! PURGE! at all cost, at once, everywhere they spot Leftism.
One could argue that the core reason, underlying everything above it, for the existence of Fascism is based in an individual's obsession of defending one's ego's integrity at any cost. Emphasis 'any'.
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I'm not convinced of there being a neurobiological explanation ("synaptic connections created during childhood") for being fascists.
This reminds me of the debate conducted in the late 1940s / 1950s / into the 1960s in sociology, with the group around Adorno and Frekel-Brunswik arguing for the existence of an "Authoritarian Personality", attributed to experiences of a violent and abusive upbringing, while the mainstream of both sociologists and psychologists have remained skeptical of the theory.
I do believe all political ideologies - and religions, too, and a number of other all-encompassing mental frames, too - have underpinnings in / connections to individual psychology, but individual psychology in turn is always a product of its social context. I think it is a dangerous and not very fruitful path to single out any of these ideologies and pathologise them on all possible levels.
Yes, adherents of fascism may have had, on average, a lower probability for high "tolerance of ambiguity". But they also had a higher probability of coming from middle class backgrounds, of having lived through WW1 etc. Fascism is as much a historical phenomenon as it is a class phenomenon and one that has to do with culture and psychology.
As much as I despise fascism, I don't think it's wise to pathologise its adherents. (Especially when we don't have an agreeable "therapy" or "prophylaxis" at hand.)
Anyways, what countries do you think would be good breeding grounds for copycat movements regarding Frick?
No, that's a good explanation.
The social underpinnings of the rise of fascism shouldn't be ignored as easily as saying that there is an easy neurobiological explanation for an "authoritarian mind" that can be "cured".
But moving on...
You create and reinforce the strength of synaptic connections via upbringing, via living in a specific environment, via going to one type of school, being part of a social stratum (class) of people you frequently associate and talk with, going or not going to certain social places frequently, and so on. Though with aging, this capability to create connections in our brains is slowly lost over the decades. So I do not see where we fundamentally disagree with each other.
Well, yes, that's technically right, and put like in this statement, I think everybody will agree with you. Of course, mental states have corresponding neurobiological states.
I may have overinterpreted your posting and read into it some sort of hard-wired determinism. Sorry for that.
Either way - this is a debate that's very tangential to this excellent thread, so I think it's best if we let the matter rest and turn our attention back to the TL itself.
Speaking of which...
If we assume a violent corporatist proto-fascist system imposing itself on the US for more than a decade, I think we'll have to face the possibility that all we know about socialist parties and their adherents and leaders, both from OTL and from TTL, is going to become a thing of the past very soon, and when the revolution comes, very different structures and people might come to the fore, almost like on a blank slate.
