I think that the enormous difference in population size between the Mormons and the Confederates makes that a logistical impossibility. The regions the Germans were expelled from were not the most highly populated parts of the country, and the US could use those resources far more efficiently to simply occupy the south instead of spending them on a costly ethnic cleansing campaign that strips them of the moral high ground both at home and abroad.
Timeline 191 – Possible Postwar Intrigues, Scandals, and Conflicts?
- Thread starter Cire
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Well, if you aren't interested in having a conversation about politics, then don't start one. BTW, do you honestly have any thoughts inside your head that aren't leftist slogans? If you think I'm going to be shamed for not buy into the Progressive narrative, then you'd better think again.
Furthermore, I started this thread in order to hear ideas from others regarding possible political scandals occurring in the postwar 191 timeline, not to hear about how wonderful socialism has been in our own timeline. If you want to be an evangelist for the socialist cause, then maybe you should consider starting own thread, instead of trying to disingenuously pass off your Neo-Marxist ideals here in this thread. Also, it is because of people exactly like you that I'm no longer a liberal.
Your the one who started the discussion on politics. All I've done is point out the difference between Socialism and Social Democracy and how you can't seem to not strawman either. I haven't said anything about what I personally think of either, that's all been from you.
Anyways, onto the main event;
The Second Blackford Presidency (Part I: Introduction)
From its inception, the Socialist Party has had its fair share of charismatic standard bearers guiding the party forwards. From the days of Lincoln to Halberg's tumultuous reforms, even to today, as the race to find Kerry's challenger comes to a close, many central figures have sought to guide the party and the nation towards their vision. This is perhaps most true for one of the most impactful and controversial leaders in modern American history; Joshua Blackford. At once an All-American farm boy and an inner city Jew, born on Christmas Day, Blackford remains one of the most fascinating figures in modern political life. Having achieved massive success and avenged previous defeats, yet having thrown it all away for what he saw as right, Blackford's legacy is complicated and interwoven with that of his party and the America of his day.
Born on Christmas Day 1925, Blackford's upbringing was privileged yet humble. The failure of his father Hosea's (1863-1937) Presidency, combined with his mother Flora's (1888-1993) instilling of socialist values from a young age set him up for a life of civil service. Described as a bright yet lax student in his youth, he jumped at the opportunity to serve in the army when he was drafted at age 17 in 1943. Sustaining an injury to his left hand during the war leaving him without his middle finger, Blackford's sense of patriotism swelled, and his mother for a time feared he would turn to the Democrats like her brother David had. Alas, the young Blackford stayed true to the party of his parents, perhaps out of loyalty rather than anything else.
Receiving early leave from the army to pursue higher education, he was accepted into Harvard, where he met his future wife, the daughter of General (and later President) Irving Morrell, Mildred (1925-2018). The two grew close during their time at Harvard, and would marry almost immediately after graduating in 1951. They had two children, Benjamin and May, twins born in 1953. After his graduation, Blackford pursued a career in Union defence, winning several high profile cases in Philadelphia, before being approached by the Socialist Party to run in Pennsylvania's second congressional district in 1958, after the Democratic landslide of 1956 had given the seat to the Democrats off the back of Morrell's election to the Presidency. Blackford accepted.
Though 1958 was hardly a stellar year for the Socialists, Blackford won the seat, and was given a seat on the Foreign Affairs committee. Making himself known as a hawk and hardliner against Japan especially, he was noted as being even more aggressive than most Democrats on foreign policy, consistently voting for interventions and strengthening the Compact of Democratic States.
A rising star in the party, he gave a keynote speech at the 1960 Socialist convention, endorsing and voting for California Governor Chester Martin over his own father-in-law, He stressed the need for strength at home and abroad in his speech, gaining the ire of moderates in the party but making himself a star among the hardliners and gaining the cautious respect of the Browderists. Though Martin lost the election to Morrell, Blackford won his seat again by an even greater margin, and was now seen as an up-and-coming star in the party.
Declining to run for re-election in 1962, he instead chose to seek the governorship of Pennsylvania, which he won in the Socialist wave of that year that gave red majorities in both houses for the first time since 1942. Now seen as a potential future President, Blackford set about implementing an ambitious reform platform in his home state, culminating in the introduction of Penncare, the first single-payer health care system in the nation's history, that would serve as the model for Humphrey's Medicare system. Audaciously, Blackford moved the Governor's residence to the vacated Powel House, indicating very clearly his Presidential ambitions.
Riding off the success of Penncare and his time as Governor, Blackford entered the 1964 election as a dark horse candidate. With only two years experience as Governor, many party leaders were not confident in Blackford's ability to lead the party to victory, and though he won an upset victory in the Primaries, the Party brass selected Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey instead. Blackford, having not expected to do as well as he had, graciously supported Humphrey in the general election, where the Socialists were swept back into power.
Seen as a key figure and main inspiration for Humphrey's reforms, Blackford gained the respect of the party bosses, and became Humphrey's unofficial successor-in-waiting. Present at the President's signing of Medicare, Blackford was seen simply smiling as his vision of universal healthcare was brought in on a national scale. It was in the aftermath of the signing that the President visited Philadelphia, officially on a goodwill trip, but unofficially to campaign for the 1966 Midterms, where the Socialists were already predicted to win big. Riding in an open top car with the Governor at his side, waving to the crowd.
Fate was not kind to Hubert Humphrey that day.
The assassin was caught within the hour, discovered to be a Kempeitai agent acting on rogue orders. President Warren Magnuson was quick to issue demands, but the people, including Governor Blackford, wanted blood. As the elections passed and the Socialists achieved what was up to that point their largest vote share, Magnuson stalled. The compensation he got from the Japanese government was far less than what was demanded, and the public was outraged. Blackford, spiteful towards the Japanese and a personal friend of Humphrey, announced he would challenge Magnuson for the Socialist nomination in 1968. Humiliated and having no chance of victory, Magnuson stepped aside, and Blackford achieved an easy nomination against Humphrey's successor in the senate, Browderist Arvo Halberg. Facing Massachusetts Senator Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. in the General Election, Blackford benefited from disassociation from Magnuson and his own reputation as a hawk, and Kennedy was defeated, though perhaps in a closer race than Blackford would have liked.
Interestingly, Blackford swept many recently integrated Southern states, a sign of his appeal to those who wanted to seem a part of the new America...
Contiued in Part 2...
(If anyone wants to bother calculating electoral vote totals I'll edit them in later)
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Congratulations on posting the most ho-hum and completely predictable synopsis ever posted in this forum. Can't anyone associated with your fantasy Socialist Party USA be involved in some sort of a scandal, or are they all simply too pure of heart to engage in any sort of wrong doing whatsoever? Remember, I asked for inputs on possible scandals, conflicts, and controversies. Just curious, but given the fact that Socialists in the 191 universe were responsible for the plebiscite which gave away two states, why would the Socialists have any type of a future in the US following the end of the Second Great War? Oh wait a minute, I already know the answer, you're personally in love with the idea of socialism, so what you're really describing is how you wish the world really was, and not necessarily how it would have turned out after the end of In at the Death. - Stick a fork in me, I'm done!
I think by that point the most Americans don't give a crap about "The Moral High Ground" or assume they will implicitly have it no matter what. I think they'll be very very burned on trying to integrate former White Confederates into the US after their experiences interwar and their enormous troubles with both former Canadians and Mormons. The idea of actually policing the entire CSA or trying to actually bring the former CSA states back into the US while still full of White Confederates is going to be a hell of a lot less palatable for them then "just" removing the Confederates from at least some of the states. You'll be looking at something along the lines of a cross between the Nakhba/ the expulsion of Misrahi Jews post 1948, the expulsion of Ethnic Germans across Eastern Europe post WW2 (including entirely ethnically cleansing them from former German East Prussia), and the forcing of various American Indian tribes onto reservations in the late 1800's.
Basically the remnant Confederate State/states will be something like a much larger version of the modern Gaza Strip/West Bank.
I can possibly see something like that happening near the border but it’s simply too big of an undertaking for the US that would ruin their international reputation at a time they’ll be seeking to build alliances abroad to counter Japan. The CSA has at least 20 million people left, in all likelihood more. That’s nearly a fifth of the core US population itself. Moving almost all of them simply isn’t really feasible or economical.
But attempts to "Yankee-ise" the border states could begin soon- ie, directing immigrants/refugees to Virginia and Kentucky, while moving Confederates down to the Deep South. The Natives left in Sequoyah could either be dispersed or crammed into a small reservation, opening the way for more Yankee settlers (IIRC, this had already begun in the interwar years). Heck, we could even see attempts to promote a more French identity in Louisiana, making the residents of that state feel like they've got less in common with people from Mississippi and Alabama.
In the border states it’s a possibility, but not in the CSA as a whole. Dividing the CSA itself on cultural lines is definitely possible as well, even if the US will want to keep the CSA occupied.
The USSR did roughly similar efforts to "relocate" millions of members of various ethnic groups Stalin thought were "Disloyal". While the US of post SGW isn't as bad as Stalins USSR it's still a hell of a lot more brutal and brutalized then the OTL. This is a country that's been waging a brutal COIN campaign in Canada for decades (In which among other things a consistent policy for the killing of American citizens and servicemen has been the taking and execution of random hostages chosen from the civilian Canadian policy. If I remember correctly the number was either twenty or one hundred random innocent Canadian civilians were executed for every dead American. This is a US that has had four brutal wars with the CSA and has lost millions to their most recent attempted war of conquest. At the absolute least I'd say you'll see the near complete ethnic cleansing of the border states (Virginia, Tennesee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Arkansas) with Confederate white civilians being expelled en masse. That's pretty much the minimum I'd argue that can be expected from this version of the US in this situation. Their not going to let the CSA reform and they've gotten burnt by trying to integrate former Confederate White civilians back into the US.
The US still isn’t Stalinist Russia. It does have a degree of accountability and a citizenry with a sense of justice and the ability to make their voice heard. Even discounting the backlash, ethnically cleansing over 20 million people simply is not economically feasible without wrecking the US economy. Even Stalin didn’t try deportations on that scale, especially not in any short time frame. Reintegrating CS states has been very painful, but completely ethnically cleansing the border states just isn’t a practical alternative.
The Blackford Cabinet (1969)
President: Joshua Blackford
Vice President: Edmund Muskie
Secretary of State: Henry M. Jackson
Secretary of the Treasury: Michael Harrington
Secretary of Defence: Curtis LeMay
Attorney-General: Arvo Halberg
Secretary of the Interior: Glen H. Taylor
Secretary of Agriculture: Orville Freeman
Secretary of Commerce and Labor: W. Willard Wirtz
Secretary of Health: Wilbur J. Cohen
Director of the National Combined Intelligence Agency: Cassius Madison
President: Joshua Blackford
Vice President: Edmund Muskie
Secretary of State: Henry M. Jackson
Secretary of the Treasury: Michael Harrington
Secretary of Defence: Curtis LeMay
Attorney-General: Arvo Halberg
Secretary of the Interior: Glen H. Taylor
Secretary of Agriculture: Orville Freeman
Secretary of Commerce and Labor: W. Willard Wirtz
Secretary of Health: Wilbur J. Cohen
Director of the National Combined Intelligence Agency: Cassius Madison
1948: Thomas Dewey (D) vs Henry Wallace (S) vs Harold Stassen (R)
1952: Harry Truman (D) vs Charles LaFollette (S) vs Harold Stassen (R)
1956: Irving Morrell (D) vs Chester Martin (S) vs Harold Stassen (R)
1960: Irving Morrell (D) vs Chester Martin (S) vs Harold Stassen (R)
1964: Richard Nixon (D) vs Hubert Humphrey (S) vs Harold Stassen (R)
1968: Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. (D) vs Joshua Blackford (S) vs Earl Warren (R)
1972: Barry Goldwater (D) vs Joshua Blackford (S) vs Eugene McCarthy (R)
1976: Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. (D) vs Henry M. Jackson (S) vs Eugene McCarthy (R)
1980: Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. (D) vs Edmund Muskie (S) vs Eugene McCarthy (R)
1984: George Bush Sr. (D) vs Arvo Halberg (S) vs Eugene McCarthy (R)
1988: George Bush Sr. (D) vs Arvo Halberg (S) vs Eugene McCarthy (R)
1992: Bob Dole (D) vs Carl Martin (S) vs Eugene McCarthy (R)
1996: Joseph R. Biden (D) vs Carl Martin (S) vs Hillary Rodham (R)
2000: Joseph R. Biden (D) vs Ralph Nader (S) vs Hillary Rodham (R)
2004: Joseph R. Biden (D) vs Sam Webb (S) vs Howard Dean (R)
2008: Joseph Lieberman (D) vs Bernard Sanders (S) vs Howard Dean (R)
2012: Jerry Brown (D) vs Bernard Sanders (S) vs Howard Dean (R)
2016: John Kerry (D) vs Ed Markey (S) vs Donald Trump (R)
2020: John Kerry (D) vs Gloria La Riva (S) vs Donald Trump (R)
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I assume Bill Clinton's career was stillborn... come to think of it, he might've been butterflied away entirely.