Thoughts on US annexation of the CS after WW2?

[PsychoNeo]

As we all know in Timeline-191, the US annexes the CS after WW2. There have been understandable criticisms of this concept, because to be frank, damn. Even if the US and CS are very much related countries, with similar forms of government (until Featherston of course), same languages, same ancestors who fought for independence from the British, same ancestors participated in centuries-long genocide of the Native Americans, they are both hostile countries with their populations hating each other for obvious, various reasons.

With that last part, forceful re-unification on paper sounds like a recipe for revolts and authoriation crackdowns. On the other hand, the very existence of the CSA is a clear national security threat to the US, who is tired of being at war with a country they rightfully consider a threat. On top of that, almost the entire CSA population would probably be dead by the time the war ended, because of their own genocide of the blacks (estimated at 30%) and all the bombing raids and invasions the US does that would certainly kill off the CSA's already small population.

Simply put, when the US annexes the CS, the CS should in theory literally be depopulated and fucked for generations. So fucked that in a hypothetical 2023 in TL-191, the electoral votes for each Confederate State with the exception of maybe Texas (they shouldn't even be independent) and Florida would probably be around 3 to 6 electoral votes, basically like Montana and Wyoming in our timeline. Let's be real, barely anyone is gonna settle in the Confederate shithole after WW2, especially since most of the Confederates would be dead. The only way I see US sending settlers en masse is if there turns out to be a shit ton of Confederate citizens that need to be dealt with asap.

So that's my view of the idea of the US annexing the CS after WW2. What are your ideas on how successful or miserable it would go?

 

[Lalli]

USA probably indeed would try to annex CSA since it feels any independent CSA being security threat even if they try to make that as weak as possible. It would be still pretty hostile.

But remaining population (not any idea how badly CSA would be devastated by GW2 beside almost whole black population being genocided and probably millions southern whites being killed) would be extremely hostile to US occupiers even they who weren't supporters of Featherston and his Freedom Party. CSA has been independent already over 80 years and developed its own identitet so it would be really hard to annex and make southerners yankees. So I would expect Southern states being Northern Ireland in steroids. There would be guerilla wars and terrorist attacks against American soldiers, officials, northern civilians who dare to move to former CSA and southern collaboratists. Actually IMO DbE made on his TL whole occupation and re-annexation far too easy and smooth.

So at end either US government manage to crush southerners after decades lasting terror attacks and occassional guerilla attacks with pure force and ruthless methods which make one certain Mid-Eastern country looking like soft. Or then US government and population decides that enough is enough and sit down to negotiate with Southerners (neo-Freedomites and other racist groups certainly are excluded) and there would be mini-CSA which would be made really weak and only just US puppet. But even for that would take some decades and not certainly before mid-1970's and even that owuld be pretty optimistic.

 

[PsychoNeo]

So at end either US government manage to crush southerners after decades lasting terror attacks and occassional guerilla attacks with pure force and ruthless methods which make one certain Mid-Eastern country looking like soft. Or then US government and population decides that enough is enough and sit down to negotiate with Southerners (neo-Freedomites and other racist groups certainly are excluded) and there would be mini-CSA which would be made really weak and only just US puppet. But even for that would take some decades and not certainly before mid-1970's and even that owuld be pretty optimistic.

I could see that, or perhaps the US could try to turn the states of Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina into "independent" countries that economically rely on the US. An economic connection so strong those states will probably willingly vote to join the US in the 70s or 80s. Because let's be real, there's a reason why we are a United States instead of our continental map looking like Europe.

Best case scenario for the US is taking more pieces of cake at the moment, and eating up the remaining few decades later when it's in their economic interest for the remainders to join willingly.

On the other hand, the US can do to the Southern insurrectionists what President Grant did to the Ku Klux Klan in our timeline. Speaking of, the KKK could exist in this timeline, with the difference being that they pop up post-WW2 instead of our timeline's post-Civil War. Anyway, the US will for sure invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act against Southern opposition, and I'd be all for it.

 

[Polish Eagle]

There is a complicating factor here: forcible relocation. The US, after all, is no stranger to the practice--the Trail of Tears predates the PoD--and the TL-191 US government is quite ready to dust it off to deal with the Mormon threat (relocating the majority of Utah's population to somewhere else).

It's also a strategy practiced by the USSR, which, on a meta level, the TTL US is parallel to.

It's entirely possible that the US, in the 1950s, just starts forcibly deporting Southerners to remote parts of the continent--like Canada, or the upper Midwest. Or maybe even Utah.

Dilute the national identity by atomizing them, scattering a thin leaven of Rebels in a sea of Yankees.

This is, of course, a somewhat extreme possibility...but not one beyond OTL. It'll be many years before constitutional rights are extended to unreconstructed Rebs.