And there's really nothing that could create some sort of nuclear taboo, so in the future, you could see nuclear bombs being acceptable weaponry in wars.
The Ruins of an American Party System, Part Two: Collision
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And there's really nothing that could create some sort of nuclear taboo, so in the future, you could see nuclear bombs being acceptable weaponry in wars.
Bulldoggus
Banned
I've always said much of the opposition to nukes is because we've seen Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now that we know how bad they are, nobody wants to get into a situation where they could be used. But TTL, we'll get to a point where everyone has 'em, and the only ones who know the true devastation they'll cause are scientists.
There will likely be a war where they are used in a modest amount (think Timeline 191 WW2 type)
Not even the scientists would fully know the devastation they'd cause.
The best-case scenario, I think, when they'd be used, is if a nuclear power goes to war with a smaller nation and uses nukes in a conventional way, and the sheer devastation could be learned that way.
Yes, though they support a variety of left-wing causes in order to ingratiate themselves with the Radical Progressives.
That's twice the voteshare the Socialists have nationally.
I can see that. Sadly, there aren't any centrist-wanks
I remember Realpolitik had an idea for a centrist-wank based on a random thought Nixon once had, where Nixon would split off the moderates and mainstream of the GOP, leaving it the Reagan-Goldwater far-right party, and then split off the conservative Democrats and centrist Democrats leaving them the McGovernite far-left party, and then he would lead a centrist party.
I think it's less that this TL is Utopian, and more that OTL Europe in the 1930s and 1940s was literally dystopian.
The Soviets could be close, if not for the fact that their military and civilian research departments are not cooperating whatsoever because of the Tukhachevsky-Troika divide.
Bulldoggus
Banned
That would be a good world.
Yeah. We've had so much terrible stuff happen, it can be hard to remember that if the multiverse is real, there likely are more pleasant timelines (although in those, we may not exist).
That would be insane.
Though, from what I remember, wasn't his big plan to use the hard-right members of his party as useful idiots to push his agenda while attracting moderates and even a few liberals with negative income tax and his universal healthcare plan, and to create a coalition around all of that?
Only Nixon could think something like that. Though knowing him it might have worked...
And it's less of a stretch than the New Deal Coalition integrating both racist Southerners and black voters.
I think it may have worked, even if the moderate part would likely be prone to fraying.
I think it was mostly him fantasizing about ways to run with John Connally as his running mate.
I'd say they both represent different Dixiecrats. The "Americans" represent the fiscally conservative Dixiecrats while the Commonwealth represents the fiscally populist Dixiecrats.
Plus the Americans have a significant Northern Wing that likely has much more moderate views on civil rights while the Commonwealth is basically reserved to the south
But it sounds like it'll be more of the libertarian argument of "enforcing civil rights of minorities is statist" will come out of the mouths of Wherry types.
Indeed, but in the Senate they're led by Lyndon B. Johnson who IOTL was willing to shatter the New Deal Coalition and did so in the name of civil rights.
So, I think it's much more complex than what you're stating. It seems to me that a fair bit of nuance exists, and I can easily see the Johnson-types turn Commonwealth into a party with more rational populist views, while I can see the "Americans" become the party of the backlash, though that's not quite set in stone. Really, there are a number of ways the system can evolve at this point.
OK, so the Communist Party has some mainstream credibility, if only as a lobbying group for the Soviets. What about the other various far left parties of the era? Trotskyists like James P. Cannon, Max Shachtman, and their various followings; Anarchists like Emma Goldman; older left-wing parties like the Socialist Labor Party? Granted, safe assumption most of them carry on in relative obscurity, but it'd be interesting if any of them broke through to the (relative) mainstream.
Trotskyists and members of the Communist Party who resisted the Troika's control were generally arrested under the Internal Security Act by the Olson Administration for plotting against the government of the United States.
Emma Goldman was allowed to return to the United States by Olson to mess with conservatives.
The Socialist Labor Party is basically a minor third party, getting less than 1% of the vote.
But does that include Max Shactman? I believe he renounced his Trotskyism and became an aide to George Meany of all people.
I'd like to see some snapshots of the Socialist and American campaign rallies
Trotskyists getting arrested by Huey Long for not being sufficiently deferential to the USSR. What an upside-down world this is.
Not at all shocking, though Daniel De Leon deserves more love.
Yeah, but not until much later, in the '50s I think. At this point in OTL he had already made a break with mainline Trotskyism in favor of a Third Camp approach. While regular Trotskyism is highly critical of the post-Lenin Soviet Union, it still holds it to have been a Worker's State, albeit a "degenerated" one, and thus deserved the support of Marxists over the Western capitalist powers. Third Camp was much more condemning of the Soviets, holding that Stalin turned the USSR into just another imperialist power, dividing the world into two imperialist camps (hence why they called themselves Third Camp).
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