I like that Humphrey in particular is respected for his achievements
Kind of really uplifts a guy that didn't have a chance in OTL.
In TTL, he's certainly remembered as one of the best presidents in US history, alongside Washington, Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt.
Wow. I just got done finishing reading all the posts of this timeline and i must say bravo, you've done a good job at this.
Thanks!
Interesting to read about the cultural image of the POTUSes. Given what you've revealed, Lincoln would probably be seen as a borderline national martyr by most of US society during the 1990s.
Lincoln has quite the biopic in TTL.
I have a few questions regarding politics in this TL as well :
1. How is Austria-Hungary organized ? I am certain that it is a constitutional monarchy since at least the interwar period. But is it now (1990s) a federal monarchy, with its nationalities having their own member states in both halves of the monarchy ?
The Austro-Hungarian empires is organized something along the lines of the proposed
United States of Greater Austria from our world (though not precisely along the lines of our world's proposal).
How are these potential MS represented, how does voting and everyday politics go in practice ? What are some of the political parties and factions of the monarchy ?
Austria-Hungary's main political parties include the
Social Democratic Party, the
Hungarian Social Democratic Party, the Agricultural Union (a peasant party that is analogous to our the ideology and scope of our world's
Bulgarian Agrarian People's Union), the
Czech Progressive Party, and smaller Bosniak, Croat, Jewish, Polish, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, and Ukrainian-launguage parties: some are conservative, while some minority groups are aligned with the different Social Democratic parties (for example, Austria-Hungary's Jews are generally represented either by the
Mizrachi Party (representing the Jews sympathetic to TTL's Mizrachi movement),
World Agudath Israel (which represents the empire's Hasidic and Orthodox Jews), and the
Jewish Social Democratic Association Bund, a social-democratic, Yiddish-language party.
There is also an Austro-Hungarian Ecological Party.
Is the royal family liked, are they proactive in charity, etc. ? And, of course : Is Austria-Hungary politically stable beyond a surface assessment, averting the fate of the currently balkanizing Ottoman Empire ?
The Austro-Hungarian royal family are generally very popular, particularly as symbols of national unity. Austria-Hungary does have problems, but they are not headed for a collapse in TTL: they managed to resolve their most critical issues in the first half of the twentieth century in TTL, particularly the issues relating to languages, education, and political representation.
2. More or less the same questions about internal German politics, though I'm not awaiting an answer as detailed as with Austria-Hungary.
The dominant political parties in the German Empire are the Social Democratic Party and the Conservative Party. There is is also a growing Ecological Party of Germany that has emerged since the 1980s.
3. Isn't the sheer size of the US ITTL going to cause various political and societal problems later on ? The US has become a continent-spanning meganation (or, rather, like a huge collection of nations) - won't this cause some culture clashes later in the 21st century ? (I.e. Canadians and Caribbeans feeling "under the yoke of the Union's culture, which is erasing their own".)
Not too much in the way of political problems, given how taboo regionalism (much less secessionist sentiment) is in the United States in TTL.
4. Does the post-SGW TL 191 world have a popular craze for urban legends or conspiracy theories postulating that the Featherston regime had links to super-advanced tech or occult magic powers, analogous to the mythicizing treatment the Nazis received in the decades after WWII ? I'm really curious about this.
Yes, except that they're not aired on TTL's equivalent of the History Channel.
I'd be too - it certainly FEELS like it would exist, considering he was the first to actually use a nuke, much less managing to make one in the first place (and even in-universe, I'm sure historians and the public both would be amazed he managed to almost pull one out of his ass).
American historians have still not reached a consensus on how some of the Confederacy's more
implausible successes came about.
That's somewhat linked to a question I have about this excellent TL.
Every time there's a war or unrest someplace, we read about how "X million people will emigrate over the next Y years" from the effected regions and their destinations are nearly always the US and Brazil. Here's an example from the last update:
SNIP
There simply has to be some nasty side effects of such large scale population transfers. There's no way those numbers can even begin to be marginally assimilated during the time periods involved. Brazil and the US must be dotted with hundreds of ethnic enclaves full of people who don't speak the majority languages, who don't have marketable skills, and who have brought with them most of the sectarian bullshit they originally meant to flee. As with France's banlieues and for most of the same reasons, the shit should be hitting the fan in those many enclaves routinely.
Your points about the problems regarding this wave of immigration to Brazil and the United States are well taken. I have edited the time scale, and will go back and edit the total numbers of people involved.
Out of the two nations, it's Brazil that has the closest TTL analogue to the
banilieues, although the United States has its own issues regarding immigration.
The US and Brazil aren't the only ones who get hammered in this manner either. Hokkaido, an island slightly smaller than Ireland, somehow manages to accept another two (!!!) million deportees in three years from the JWR in the aftermath of the power struggle there.
The huge and seemingly trouble free population transfers in this TL are quite a poser.
A well-founded critique.
I will edit the section about Hokkaido, and try to cover the other issues stemming from immigration in TTL in the next update.
That being said, the cultural aspects really make this time line stand out from the pack.
Thanks. I have found that they're perhaps the most enjoyable aspects to write in this ATL.
So did Curtis LeMay ever show up TTL? Having him as head of SAC's analog might have been interesting.
I could be wrong, but I believe Terry DeFrancis (from the
Return Engagement series was meant to the TTL's analogue to LeMay.
