The Golden Age: An Alternate History

If you don't mind me asking, how did that come about?

All right, let me explain.

Irish independence was achieved in 1921, 20 years before the POD.

But, in 1940, the British

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_Ireland#British_offer_of_unity_in_1940 said:
made a qualified offer of Irish unity in June 1940 [after the French surrender], without reference to those living in Northern Ireland. The revised final terms were signed by Neville Chamberlain on 28 June 1940 and sent to Éamon de Valera. On their rejection, neither the London or Dublin governments publicised the matter.

Ireland would effectively join the allies against Germany by allowing British ships to use its ports, arresting Germans and Italians, setting up a joint defence council and allowing overflights.

In return, arms would be provided to Éire and British forces would cooperate on a German invasion. London would declare that it accepted 'the principle of a United Ireland' in the form of an undertaking 'that the Union is to become at an early date an accomplished fact from which there shall be no turning back.'

Clause ii of the offer promised a Joint Body to work out the practical and constitutional details, 'the purpose of the work being to establish at as early a date as possible the whole machinery of government of the Union.'

So, if I understand this correctly, the UK would have ended the partition if Ireland had joined the Allies. IOTL, this plan was refused by de Valera, but ITTL, he accepts it. However, it takes him a while (2 years) to make the decision, but the British leave the offer open.

That's how it comes to be.
 
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Ok, so god knows it's poorly done, but here's a world map for TGA, in 1950:

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Extra 2: From the Los Angeles Times-Tribune, Part 1

OPINION/EDITORIAL (June 7th, 1985)

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They Were Americans, by George Takei: In this day and age, where civil rights are a reality, and democracy is commonplace, it is easy to forget those times when that was not true. We Americans have often considered our nation is exceptional, a city on a hill. But this has often not been a reality. Even during the 20th century's greatest triumph, the Allied victory in the Second World War, there was oppression. I refer to the internment of Japanese-Americans in the early years of the war. This event is often ignored, swept up in the tides of history, which sees only progressivism in the war. But it was real, I know, because I lived through it.

From early 1942 to 1948, we were kept in camps in the deserts of California, Arizona, Utah, and Idaho. This act has not been recognized by federal government as the atrocity it was. Henry Wallace is still the Butcher to me, but for a different reason. I would like to refer now to an exchange that Vice President Daniel Inouye (under Yeager, from 1984-1988) conducted with former President Henry Wallace. (For chronological note, the interview takes place in 1961, 4 years before President Wallace’s death. I draw the exchange from Inouye’s biography, A Soldier’s Legacy)

INOUYE: It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. President.

WALLACE: Hm. Yes, thank you.

I: I only have one thing to ask you. Were you aware of the imprisonment of so many Japanese-Americans during the Second World War?

W: What do you mean?

I: Tens of thousands were forced to wrongfully leave their lives for 6 years, for utterly no reason. There were no fifth columnists. It was inhuman. Therefore, I ask you: were you aware of this?

W: Well, Senator, it was war! I suppose, in retrospect, it might have been wrong, but we had no way of knowing at the time!

I: So, you were aware of it, and you supported it. Thank you for your time, Mr. President.

This last phrase of Wallace’s is key. For nearly 40 years, the government has barely acknowledged this, and when they have, they give defensive shouts of “But it was war!” It was not war. The Japanese Empire had been defeated for three years before we were released. Was that just? We were at war with the Germans longer; why did we not imprison those of German ancestry in America? Oh, yes. They were the majority, while we the minority. This is the true tenor of the dark heart of the American dream. The minority is punished wrongly for the sins it never did commit.

(The American government officially apologized for the Japanese internment camps in 1987, during the Yeager presidency.

OOC: Just reminding you that even (and especially) ITTL, America's not always right, even in the Second World War.
 
I will take a wild guess that Japanese-Americans and the state of Hawaii became solidly Republican.

Well, not to be pedantic, but as of the moment, there isn't a state of Hawaii.

I don't think they'll turn republican. Internment camps are OTL, as is Hawaii being placed under martial law, but they're still very democratic. Maybe they'll be more of a swing state ITTL.
 
X. Stability (1950-1951)

X. Stability (1950-1951)

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General George C. Marshall meets with Mao.

To Save the Kingdom: By 1950, the world was fairly stable. The massive turbulence of the past decade, the 40s (often demarcated by historians as being from 1939-1947, at which point the 50s began, at least culturally, if not chronologically)was over, and now the world got back to rebuilding. First, in the SSSR, the communist Siberian rump state, the "Doctrine of Eternal Resistance" was canonized by Premier Mikoyan, exiled from his native Armenia. This was, to put it bluntly, a policy of enforced isolation, unto death [1]; it seems as if Mikoyan would further the revolution in his own nation unto death.

Meanwhile, in Manchuria, the nation began to stabilize, and establish its own identity following the removal of the Japanese overlords. The shrine to Amaterasu, which was originally in Puyi's own palace, was taken out, and placed in the Chinese History Museum, in the capital of Hsinking. (It should be noted that Puyi, and his heir, the present emperor, Puxin, have never referred to the nation as "Manchuria." To them, it is and was always China.) The Reforms of 1950 also formalized Puyi's powers, and turned the new empire into a monarchial republic, like the UK or Muscovy.

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The flag of the Federal Empire of China, or Manchuria. (The old banner, with its fascist overtones, was abolished during the Reforms.)

Finally, in the republic of China, the civil war which had for so long divided the Nationalists and the Communists was still brewing. Wallace, with the support of much of his cabinet, sent General George C. Marshall to China in this year. Currently, the Nationalists, while they would never admit it, were in slow decline, losing land to the Maoist forces. Marshall's mission was to establish a compromise between Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-Shek. At first, negotiations were tough, for neither side truly wished to go. But Marshall insisted, and when that failed, he threatened American force; even the use of the l-bomb if they did not cooperate. (Marshall actually had no clearance to use thermonuclear weapons in the Chinese Expedition, but the bluff worked.) By late 1950, a consensus had been agreed upon, and the Republic of China was no longer at war.


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The flag of the Republic of China. While the nation was never exactly fond of the existence of a Qing remnant above them, they had little ability to destroy it.

A Guerra Justa: In Brazil, though, the Resoex insurgency kept moving west into Brazil proper. The weak government had little ability to act on it, and President Wallace seemed disinterested. By 1950, the insurgency controlled the latter portion of the state of Santa Catarina, which they renamed to Revolução. However, Resoex grew stronger and stronger as it advanced.

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Perhaps the most notable event of the year 1950 in Resoex was the death of its founder, Astrojildo Pereiera, in combat. He, by all impartial accounts, was truthfully not a bad man by any means, but his second in command, Luís Carlos Preste, was. A sly, cruel opportunist, and a military man to boot, he was the best possible leader for the insurgency.

A Limit to Power: Up north, in Washington, D.C, President Henry A. Wallace continued his reforms. He proposed a Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution, which would forbid anyone from serving as president for more than two terms. Originally codified in 1947, the amendment was passed in 1951, by which point Wallace had served for six years. He declined to run for reelection in 1952, citing the fact that he had done enough for his country, and that he was content.

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President Wallace signing the 22nd Amendment.

Meanwhile, the Equality Act, passed two years before, was still being implemented for the first time in some southern states. Thurmond vs. People of the United States, in which the senator sued, seeking to destroy the Equality Act, went extraordinarily poorly for Thurmond. It actually served to further discredit him, and national guard troops were sent to enforce the decision. President Wallace authorized busing, in which disadvantaged black students unable to go to desegregated schools were taken there by bus.

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National Guardsmen protecting a school bus.

STELLA!: Probably the most notable film of 1951 was A Streetcar Named Desire. Based on a Tennessee Williams play of the same name, it also won Marlon Brando, its leading man, a best actor Oscar. In more detail:

Academy Awards:

Outstanding Picture: Quo Vadis - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Best Director: John Huston – The African Queen
Best Actor: Marlon Brando - A Streetcar Named Desire
Best Actress: Katharine Hepburn – The African Queen
Best Supporting Actor: Kevin McCarthy – Death of a Salesman
Best Supporting Actress: Kim Hunter - A Streetcar Named Desire

For whatever reason, though, Quo Vadis, a portentous film about the trials and tribulations of the early Christians during the reign of Nero, won Outstanding Picture. In light of fact, the 50s were not the most logical time for the Oscars. Other notable films of this year are Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, a murder mystery set in medieval Japan which tells the story of the crime through many different perspectives, and The Day the Earth Stood Still, a seminal SF classic.

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Footnotes:
1. This ideology (and Presteism) are TTL's Maoism.
 
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Would the Chinese compromise permit and necessitate a multi-party democracy?

Yes, with Chiang's Kuomintang and Mao's CCP being the two major parties. Democracy is a bit marginal here, though. It'll be kind of oligarchical, and somewhat unstable, but better for China.
 
How has J Edgar Hoover fared in the Wallace administration?

He's still in power; he doesn't do much to destabilize Wallace's policies, and so Wallace lets him alone. However, no-one likes Hoover's tendency towards authoritarianism. Ultimately, he'll be forced out in 1973 by the Morris Udall administration.
 
XI. The Ballad of Wild Bill, or Changes (1952)

XI. The Ballad of Wild Bill, or Changes (1952)

From a 1952 recording of Douglas Edwards' CBS Nightly News[1]:

EDWARDS: We have just asked this, uh, computer-the UNIVAC-what it predicts the outcome of this election to be. And here we are, the engineers have been putting in cards and rolls of punch paper. And here we are! And it says...

[He examines the paper, shows it to the screen]

DOUGLAS DEFEATS WARREN, eh? That's not what the polls say, but I have a feeling that Univac is right.

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The Univac I computer, in 1954. Its prediction was correct; many in the field of technological history have cited this as the first civilian usage of what would become a ubiquitous technology.

One Last Hurrah: The Wallace presidency had been mostly devoted to winning the Second World War and setting up the new postbellum world into a world well made for democracy. After this, he had fostered the Equality Act of 1949, turning it into a viable piece of legislation, which passed. Since then, he had been pursuing women's rights, and he had expanded Social Security into something very similar to a socialist safety net. He had also passed the Union Aid Act, which provided a number of additional powers to unions.

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The emblem of the IWW, one of the main unions benefited by the Union Aid Act.

However, by 1951, Wallace's term was nearly over, and the elections began.

The Election War: In 1951, President Henry A. Wallace, beloved by many, especially minorities, announced his intention to not run for office again. While, strictly speaking, he could have, he, in the vein of Washington, declined it. His party, the Progressives, had been strengthened by virtue of their man being in the White House, were still an upstart group. At their convention, they nominated Congressman Vito Marcantonio of New York for President. The runner-up, Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois, was chosen as his VP. Marcantonio was extremely liberal, tending towards socialism even more so than Wallace, but the Butcher endorsed Marcantonio.

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From top to bottom, presidential candidate Vito Marcantonio and his running mate Paul Douglas.

Meanwhile, the Republican party, still reeling from the defeat of the MacArthur campaign, decided to pursue a different tactic. They nominated Robert A. Taft, a sort of intellectual conservative, with an Oregon republican, Wayne Morse, as his VP. One of the bright and rising stars of the convention was a California republican by name Richard M. Nixon, who would later become President Warren's VP. However, Morse was chosen instead, as he had more experience.

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Above, Robert A. Taft and his running mate, Wayne Morse.

Finally, on the Democratic front, the chosen nominee was a bit strange. William O. Douglas, they picked, best known for being an accomplished justice of the Supreme Court. Noted for his civil libertarian policies, Douglas was known as "Wild Bill" on account of his independent stances and western affectations (Douglas was from Minnesota, in light of fact.) For his Vice-President, they chose Harry S. Truman of Missouri.

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William O. Douglas and Harry S. Truman (The 'S' stood for nothing.)

Ultimately, the Progressives had very little chance in the election. Marcantino became a sort of whipping boy for both sides, each chastising him for his communist sympathies, but, more commonly, for his leading role in the American Peace Mobilization, a society which opposed entry into the Second World War. [2] While Marcantonio was certainly not a Nazi sympathizer by any description, he (not exactly the most competent of men) was hard-pressed to deny those allegations smoothly. Remarkably, though, the Progressive campaign carried Marcantonio's home state of New York. The state would prove to be a liberal stronghold. The Taft-Morse campaign did quite well in the Republican stronghold of the midwest, and the south, now polarized against any liberal regimes, largely because of the opposition to civil rights, voted staunchly Republican. Ultimately, the election was a Democratic victory, and President William O. Douglas was sworn in to the office of President of the United States of America on January 20th, 1953.

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Times and Troubles: 1952 was a sad year for the Commonwealth of Nations, for their king, George VI, perished this year. He was not an old man, only 56 years old; the War took a massive toll on him. He was buried in state, and in June 1953, Queen Elizabeth II was coronated. In attendance was Vice President Truman, as a representative of the United States, Tsar Vladimir I of Muscovy, and his wife, the queen's sister, as well as the Emperor of China, Puyi. The queen still rules the Commonwealth.

Meanwhile, in the world of film, a number of outstanding works were being put out. This is exemplified with a description of the Oscars of that year:

Outstanding Picture: High Noon- United Artists
Best Director: John Ford - The Quiet Man
Best Actor: Kirk Douglas – The Bad and the Beautiful
Best Actress: Julie Harris – The Member of the Wedding
Best Supporting Actor: Richard Burton – My Cousin Rachel
Best Supporting Actress: Jean Hagen – Singin' in the Rain

Thankfully, High Noon, a well-made and cerebral Western, won Outstanding Picture rather than the awful circus comedy The Greatest Show on Earth, with Betty Hutton. [3] The other main film of 1952 was Singin' in the Rain, an excellent musical which sadly only won a single Oscar.

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Footnotes:
1. OTL, Douglas Edwards with the News.
2. This is OTL.
3. Unfortunately, said awful film won.
 
Hey, I'm taking an indefinite hiatus from this TL. It's been a great place to start, but I'm not satisfied with the way it's turned out. I'll revisit it at some point, but for the moment, it's done.

Thanks to everyone who read it. I hope you'll check out my other projects. I'll be doing a more film-centric reboot in the future.
 
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