I've reread the entire TL so far and I had a blast.
The Virgin "Hereditary Reactionary" vs The Chad "Psychological Capitalist".
The North Star is Red: a Wallace Presidency, KMT Victory, Alternate Cold War TL
- Thread starter TastySpam
- Start date
That was unexpected but another one bites the dust at least. Hopefully the Soviets just destroyed themselves eventually.
Wouldn't it be better for the Soviets to legitimately democratize?
Me too. I don't think I've ever seen that done in a TL.
Plenty of TL's have Russia or the USSR liberalise, but very few Westernise. Liberalise =/= Westernize
Its better than destroying themselves completely.
Chapter 191 - The Democratic National Convention of 1964
The Democratic National Convention of 1964
The Democrats were to be prepared. The 1964 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, California was not to repeat the mistakes of the Republican convention in Baltimore. The Kennedy administration has generously provided enough firepower for Mayor Sam Yorty of Los Angeles to essentially militarize the Los Angeles Police Department. In many cases, planned antiwar protestors were arrested at the airport or at Union Station (the convention was held at the nearby Los Angeles Sports Arena in Exposition Park near USC - which was itself placed under de facto martial law, so did the mayor fear student protestors).
Although it was clear that Ribicoff did not have the numbers to actually prevail, his supporters flocked to Los Angeles in hopes of extracting concessions from the general party. President Kennedy, himself, was friends with both Jackson and Ribicoff and hoped to strike a compromise bargain. His goal was to simply see them both on the ballot and have the unity ticket steamroll to victory in 1964. He famously called both men to meet a few days before the DNC, hoping to strike up a bargain. Coincidentally, it was in those same days that President Kennedy had received news of Laventry Beria's death, which he indeed celebrated with a raucous party with leading members of the DNC and both candidates.
The exact proceedings of the party have sparked perhaps the most popular and enduring conspiracy theory in American politics - because the party was ended by the death of the President. Coroners listed the cause of death as cardiac arrest, which immediately seemed very sketchy to much of the American public, which saw a healthy 47-year old President die in a literal cigar-smoke filled room. Interestingly, this was not a surprise to much of the actual Democratic political class, which was aware of both Kennedy's poor health (arising from methamphetamine abuse, alcohol abuse, and notorious overwork). Regardless, the story set a fire under many of Ribicoff's supporters.
Vice President Jackson was now President Jackson - and he was now running for re-election. Ribicoff openly conceded the race, which caused even left-wing politicians to rally behind Jackson, but he ferociously lambasted the security measures at the 1964 DNC. Confrontations with student protestors from USC was common, although unlike the RNC, none of them were able to force their way into the building. However, although the Democrats had cleanly prevented an incident at the DNC itself, the city government had made a crucial mistake.
With the vast majority of LAPD resources deployed in Exposition Park near USC, this left the rest of the city rather underpoliced. On the first day of the DNC, in the Watts neighborhood, an LAPD officer entered a physical confrontation with a driver, which he placed under arrest after beating him. The spectacle drew a crowd and the officer panicked when he was surrounded and was told by the LAPD that reinforcements would not be coming because of the DNC. He fled into his car and drove away, ramming through the crowd, which sparked a furious outrage in the local neighborhood, which responded by violently destroying police buildings and cars. In many ways, the 1963 oil shock had hit black America the hardest, by hammering manufacturing jobs that were often the black path to a middle-class. Although the popular image of the recession focused on rust belt manufacturing workers, black workers were probably the group most overrepresented in this crash, especially those in Los Angeles's ailing industries. Much of Los Angeles's black population had moved to LA in order to take jobs in World War II-era industry, and now those jobs were being shed en masse. Although many older blacks appreciated the progress on civil rights, a younger generation of downwardly economically mobile blacks were more radical and militant.
Police Chief William Parker, backed up by Mayor Yorty, declared that they were "fighting the Congolais Rouge at home." For their part, some young African-American men participating in anti-police violence openly donned flags resembling that of the Red Congolese forces in the Congo, primarily identifying with the image of an indigenous African group resisting "White" imperialism. The LAPD, amped up with military equipment received from the Department of Defense, responded with force. Gunfights immediately broke out in the Watts neighborhood between police forces and rioters. Governor Pat Brown immediately requested that President Jackson deploy the National Guard, but Jackson infamously dithered. Unwilling to suffer the optics of deploying troops to quell a city that was literally nominating him for President, Jackson didn't answer affirmatively or negatively to the request.
Although he thought deploying the National Guard would only incite more violence, he was wrong. The National Guard would have probably been more restrained than the LAPD was, as it was under the control of Parker and Yorty, who distinctly wanted to send a message. The LAPD was outright ordered to use live ammunition against "Afro-Communist guerillas", an order so extreme that many LAPD officers refused to actually comply. However, most did comply. Whereas the Democrats wanted the Democratic National Convention to highlight the successes of the Kennedy Administration "defeating Communism and Jim Crow", the image displayed to the country was gunfights in the streets of Los Angeles, burned down buildings, improvised bombs, and untold deaths. Later studies of the Watts revolt found that most of the initial rioters weren't involved for political reasons at all - they just took advantage of the crash in public order. However, the exceptionally harsh response by the LA City Government sparked universal local outrage and allowed more militant activists to organize these individuals into hierarchies that did act in an organized fashion.
The DNC itself was relatively a low-drama affair, with Jackson dutifully nominated, with Lyndon B. Johnson as his Vice President (his crucial endorsement in the South was seen as helping Jackson sweep the election). In the end, Jackson did call in the National Guard after the DNC ended. However, this wouldn't end the violence immediately. Many militant groups had organized - and they were just waiting for the National Guard to arrive before attacking. After one more weeks of sporadic gunfights, peace returned to the street. Over 30,000 individuals had been arrested (presumably most not actually involved), with almost a thousand dead. The Watts neighborhood had been almost been completely torched, with the fighting ending largely because black community leaders, while outraged by the LAPD, almost universally concluded that the violence was too much to stomach. This caused militant organizers to decry their elders, often fleeing the city of Los Angeles entirely. President Jackson quickly hailed the National Guard (leaving out the LAPD), announcing that an economic program would be announced to help the neighborhood rebuild.
In the end, polling found that most Americans had supported the actions of the LAPD - with 63% of Americans (29 against) supporting the acts of the Parker and Yorty. In contrast, Jackson's attempt to thread the line had only resulted in scorn. The numbers were almost reversed for Jackson, with 31% supporting and 60% opposing (albeit split between those who thought he was too harsh and those who thought he was not harsh enough). The Republican ticket...took the interesting approach of not even addressing the racial question, describing the revolt as "the tragic outcome of the failed economic policies of this administration." This was largely because the Republican Party itself was split between those that thought Jackson had been too harsh or not harsh enough. Regardless, the race had narrowed. One poll found that a significant minority of Ribicoff voters were ready to vote Republican, despite Ribicoff's endorsement of Jackson (who he thought of as a bulwark against the likes of Yorty).
In the first Gallup poll after both national conventions, the Jackson-Johnson ticket led the Siler-McCarthy ticket 52-36.
Really great to see this timeline back, @TastySpam! Now the question is... who killed Kennedy?
A shitload of drugs and alcohol. This is who killed him probably
Well, after all it was you and me. Pleased to meet you, won’t you guess my name? (credit Mick and Keith) 😎
ric350
I know, I was just being facetious given that this is a classic murder-mystery setup, which when combined with all the Kennedy conspiracy theories from OTL makes for a lot of wackiness in TTL with regards to this issue.....