TL-191: Filling the Gaps

[bguy]

Not necessary. People may see the GOP as able to win in their state, but a wasted vote on the presidential stage dominated by Socs and Dems.

Maybe, but if the Republicans can't overcome the presumption that they are a wasted presidential vote in 1936 then it's hard to imagine a time when they would ever be able to do so.

Farmers in Southern Illinois are outweighed by urban workers in Chicago and other cities.

Yes, but like I said, the Republicans should have some appeal to socially conservative or hawkish urban workers, especially when the Socialists are still being blamed for the Crash.

Don't get so hung up about canon, we can just declare it a mistake and strike it out.

That kind of goes against the whole point of this thread though. It has never been about rewriting TL-191; its always been about trying to explain away the seeming mistakes.

They won it in 1936 according to my map. What are you talking about?

Your map only had the Republicans winning Kansas. We were talking about Indiana.

However, people are used to the GOP being "unable to win" the presidential election. That is difficult to overcome.

Agreed, but 1936 was the Republicans best chance to overcome that perception. The Socialist's last president crashed the economy and was losing the Pacific War. The Democrat's last president failed to improve the economy, and didn't exactly win a resounding victory over Japan either. If the Republicans can't make serious gains under these conditions, they are pretty much hopeless as a party.

Why do you assume neglecting the presidential election will hurt them down-ballot?

Because most people are more interested in the presidential race than in down-ballot races, and as such a weak effort in the presidential race will likely depress your party's vote turnout across the board. (It's why OTL, the Democrats were so furious at Carter for conceding so early in 1980, since it was widely believed that his doing so caused Democrat voters in the west coast states to stay home.)

 

[Tiro]

Well, no one has even touched Ireland so I'm good.

My dear Hurley, I have high hopes that your work will be even better than that!

Good analysis on the state of the Democrats and Socialists in the Depression era. Any thoughts on the Republicans in that same time period?

Thank you very kindly for the compliment Mister B!

Now I believe that my own views on the subject of the Republicans in this time period are that they are likely to do very well given the misfortunes afflicting both the Democrats and the Socialists but that it may well take time for them to be in a position to fully exploit that good luck - as Ms Blue points out, they've been a third wheel for so long that it seems likely their National network will have become somewhat attenuated outside their heartland.

One point I would like to stress is that I do not think that while the Republican position in Congress is likely to improve as a result, I seriously doubt that this will significantly improve their polling in a Presidential Election - given the National Misfortunes which followed the election of the first two Republican Presidents, I suspect that the Electorate may take many years more of persuasion before it will vote in the third (if it ever does).

Finally I would like to suggest that the strongest possible platform for the Republicans in the wake of the Great Reunification War would be to stand as the Party of Reconciliation; both the Democrats and the Socialists are, as ruling parties, somewhat enslaved to the ongoing occupation of Canada, Utah and now the ruins of the Southern Confederacy - if only as the vessels for echoes of the Remembrance Ideology.

The Republicans are therefore ideally placed to be the Party that renounces Remembrance whole-heartedly and begins to advocate for an Undivided United States with Liberty and Justice for all - the Party that says "It doesn't matter if you were born in a foreign country or an occupied territory or a United State, the time has come for us to be recognised as Americans one and all, so let's start living the American Dream together!" or something to that effect.

This is a message which will require exquisite timing so far as it's proclamation goes, but I think that it is one the Democrats and Socialists will be unable to seriously contest - The Democrats because they need to keep waving Canadian & Confederate Perfidy in the face of the Electorate as their justification for an emphasis on the Military/Industrial Complex (not to mention so they can wave the bloody shirt in Socialist faces), the Socialists because they need to prove that they WON'T be fooled again as they were when they composed the Richmond Agreement (and so it is therefore much harder for the Democrats to paint them as the party of naifs).

Don't get so hung up about canon, we can just declare it a mistake and strike it out.

But if we didn't get hung up on Timeline-191 we probably wouldn't be here and we certainly wouldn't have half as much to talk about!


Ms. Blue, I would also like to note that Mister B is not actually saying that the Republicans actually WON in the states of Illinois, Michigan and Iowa - only that they were making a strong showing and giving the local Socialist & Democrat parties trouble.

As I generally think it a lot more fun to treat such peculiarities as a feature, rather than a bug - it is generally more fun to come up with some little Human drama explaining how such an unlikely state of affairs came to pass than to simply start over again - I would like to suggest a possible explanation; perhaps the Republicans are making the states of Michigan, Iowa and Illinois the test-bed for their expansion outward from the purely Farm Belt states? (since all three states seem to be in reasonably close proximity to the GOP heartlands).

They would of course do better in some states than others because Democratic and Socialist politicians would do a better job of running some states than others - I'd bet that Republicans do best where they can point to representatives from BOTH dominant parties as a far less attractive option.

I don't have any detailed thoughts beyond that, so I'll leave things there and hope you fellows come up with even better ideas.

Stay Well all.

 

[Tiro]

Agreed, but 1936 was the Republicans best chance to overcome that perception. The Socialist's last president crashed the economy and was losing the Pacific War. The Democrat's last president failed to improve the economy, and didn't exactly win a resounding victory over Japan either. If the Republicans can't make serious gains under these conditions, they are pretty much hopeless as a party.

Mister B, it is possible that the Republicans DID make serious gains, but that they were still not QUITE able to convert those gains into a serious push on the White House; given that in the Year '36 the Confederate States are increasingly the hot-button political issue, it is perhaps unsurprising that the Political Party with the worst record when it comes to dealing effectively with the Confederacy were less lucky at the Presidential Elections than one might expect under the circumstances.

"Better the Socialists than a second Blaine or Lincoln!" would likely be the chorus ringing in the ears of many Democrat voters who can see that it isn't going to be a Democratic Year.

 

[08hurley]

My dear Hurley, I have high hopes that your work will be even better than that!

Lol, thank you.

Anyway, okay, so I concede that the Republicans are still a force of sorts, but still taking those farm states in '44 is hardly a grand comeback. There certainly is potential for it to be if they can solidify a base there, but the Socialists can easily bounce back. All they really need to do is hit harder there next time - running on a platform similar to the Republicans with the added bonus that they are a larger party that can get it done more efficiently.

Now, I think it is very likely that the farm states basically become sort of swing states for both parties, possibly even all three, a sort of bloc that if won can push a particular party into an advantage position. But there really is no solid evidence to suggest that the Republicans have them in the bag, at least not all of them.

 

[Turquoise Blue]

Now, I think it is very likely that the farm states basically become sort of swing states for both parties, possibly even all three, a sort of bloc that if won can push a particular party into an advantage position. But there really is no solid evidence to suggest that the Republicans have them in the bag, at least not all of them.

Not really likely. The Republicans' base is explicitly in the Plains and farm states. Their drift away from solely agrarianism won't push the farmers away.

 

[08hurley]

But sure those states also voted socialist like three times! There's nothing really to suggest that they can't get then back or at least give the Reps a damn good bet for their money.

 

[Turquoise Blue]

But sure those states also voted socialist like three times! There's nothing really to suggest that they can't get then back or at least give the Reps a damn good bet for their money.

We are talking about the Plains states, right?

 

[Joshua Ben Ari]

Given the importance of Mrs Flora Blackford to Timeline-191 and my wish to help flesh out the likes of Saul Goldman that little bit more, I myself would be very glad to see your articles on the Jewish People as they developed in the course of Timeline-191 Mr Ben Ari and keen to put the information in such an article to good use.

Speaking of a certain Southern Samuel Goldwyn, I saw this image while looking through pictures of Sir Ben Kingsley in clothing from the appropriate era and thought it fitted my image of Goldman quite neatly - a thinking man quite clearly doing business with Thugs and just possibly wondering if he ought to regret that.^

Haha, well thank you Hopefully I can do the thread justice with my article. And Blackford will have a substantial role in the article, I can assure you. Like what you wrote, I also imagined Goldman as foreign-born (also in Poland), and immigrated to Charleston (though New Orleans would be a good second choice).

It may just be me, but I always imagined that while Featherston may have had no particular sense of antisemitism (or just didn't care enough about them because there was so few of them), Jews in the South would be seen as "unwelcome" and would be subject to acts of violence or discrimination. Don't forget, Leo Frank was falsely accused, sentenced, kidnapped from prison, and lynched in 1915. The people who lynched him called it "just desserts", were never arrested, and people called them heroes. And the Frank case was devastating to Southern (and specifically Georgia) Jewry. Half of Georgia's Jewish population fled the state. Southern Jews did away with anything that drew attention.

And I can definitely imagine Sir Ben Kingsley as Goldman. And he does look like he has doubts about working with Jake the Snake.

 

[President Mahan]

Well, no one has even touched Ireland so I'm good.

I touched on it a few times in my most recent Lodge article (1912-1916). I killed Eamon De Valera in the Easter uprising. I am going to go briefly touch when I talk about the peace process in the next Lodge article and the Northern Irish uprisings in the article after that. If you put something out first as per Craigos rules I will adjust accordingly. Next Lodge article will be out by the end of the month.

 

[President Mahan]

Also Zoidberg any chance you could update the wikia u started? Or is it opened to others to post on it so we can make it easier to see if other articles have touched on subjects we would like to write about?

I am going to update the timeline input up last year, with edits for all the new additions. If people have suggestions for things that happened that year I will add it.

 

[President Mahan]

What if it is better than Turtledove's assessment? Like not having Michael Collins winning Easter 1916 because that didn't happen and is nonsense lol. At least that is what it says in the Turtledove wiki. Not sure if that's what happened in the book itself. Haven't gotten that far yet...

I missed this post. I think the spirit of the thread is you honor First Mr. Turtledoves work, than Craigos and then anyone who came before you. The fun is building a collaborative history together. The Turtledove wikia is not reliable. I am rereading the American Empire series and I catch mistakes in the Wikia all the time.

Here is what we know of ireland from the books. Ireland is in a state of rebellion by summer of 1916, by where it is mentioned in A walk in Hell. It stays in outright rebellion. There is a comment in 1917 that Britain will starve, save the part of Ireland in revolt. Meaning that is the only part of the British Isles that has enough food.

In my most recent Lodge post: Henry Cabot Lodge Part VII (1913-1917).

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=10984157&postcount=1382

I said there was an Easter Uprising and the Brits executed Eamon De Velara. He was only saved from execution in OTL because he was an American Citizen. That would not have saved him in TL 191. I then say the entire nation quickly breaks out into rebellion after that.

 

[08hurley]

I missed this post. I think the spirit of the thread is you honor First Mr. Turtledoves work, than Craigos and then anyone who came before you. The fun is building a collaborative history together. The Turtledove wikia is not reliable. I am rereading the American Empire series and I catch mistakes in the Wikia all the time.

Here is what we know of ireland from the books. Ireland is in a state of rebellion by summer of 1916, by where it is mentioned in A walk in Hell. It stays in outright rebellion. There is a comment in 1917 that Britain will starve, save the part of Ireland in revolt. Meaning that is the only part of the British Isles that has enough food.

In my most recent Lodge post: Henry Cabot Lodge Part VII (1913-1917).

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=10984157&postcount=1382

I said there was an Easter Uprising and the Brits executed Eamon De Velara. He was only saved from execution in OTL because he was an American Citizen. That would not have saved him in TL 191. I then say the entire nation quickly breaks out into rebellion after that.

Sorry, I didn't even think to look in the Henry Lodge sections for stuff on Ireland. I was simply going off of the nations page and no Ireland was listed.

So, wait if Eamonn was killed, then I take it the 1916 Easter Rising still failed in this narrative still? Ah man! I was going to do a whole thing on Patrick Pearse as president and the like and how he realized after the Irish Civil War that Ireland has to industrialize and modernize. Oh, well. I guess I could just make Michael Collins dictator.

 

[President Mahan]

I figured the Brits had enough people to at least crush the Dublin portion and then it quickly becomes a national uprising. I wanted to butterfly it a little and kill Eamon De Valer. I think yours can still work, maybe he gets out i wasnt clear it failed. i didnt put much thought into it beyond that. What do you think?

We also know from the American Empire: Blood and Iron book, that In Summer 1919 the Ulster uprising begins. Michael Collins is commander of the Irish Republican forces trying to crush the rebellion. Ireland is getting help from the US Navy with planes from USS Remembrance and its guns bombing and shelling Belfast. Destruction of Belfast will blow a gapng whole in Irelands industrial capacity.

 

[08hurley]

I figured the Brits had enough people to at least crush the Dublin portion and then it quickly becomes a national uprising. I wanted to butterfly it a little and kill Eamon De Valer. I think yours can still work, maybe he gets out i wasnt clear it failed. i didnt put much thought into it beyond that. What do you think?

We also know from the American Empire: Blood and Iron book, that In Summer 1919 the Ulster uprising begins. Michael Collins is commander of the Irish Republican forces trying to crush the rebellion. Ireland is getting help from the US Navy with planes from USS Remembrance and its guns bombing and shelling Belfast. Destruction of Belfast will blow a gapng whole in Irelands industrial capacity.

Well, I'll find away to marry it in. I think just having the Dublin Leaders live and start their government should be butterfly enough. Eamonn could be killed later in another fashion, maybe when the British arm up their counterinvasion.

Yeah, in my head canon, Michael Collins performed exceptionally well in the countryside campaign of the War and Pearse, as a result, appoints him general-in-chief during the Northern War.

 

[Tiro]

Mr President, Hurley, If I might offer a plausible sequence of events that might permit some of the ringleaders of the Easter Rising to escape their Fate (as inflicted upon them in Our Own Timeline) even as Mr De Valera is shot to death by a firing squad - Since I think we can safely say that the resources available to the rebels in this incarnation of the Easter Rising would be far greater, owing to the full support of the United States (as opposed to the Irish Lobby therein), it is not unreasonable to presume that the forces deployed in the course of the Rising would be somewhat larger.

If the forces available are rather larger, then it is just possible that while the British are still able to thoroughly hammer the Rebels, they are not able to encircle and besiege them to the same degree of thoroughness - leaving gaps in the lines just sufficient to allow a certain number of the Volunteers to mount an escape and take the leadership with them.

Which still leaves the likes of De Valera to be seized and then executed, but which is still a rather better result than was achieved by the Uprising in our own timeline.

Does this sound at least half-plausible?

Anyway, okay, so I concede that the Republicans are still a force of sorts, but still taking those farm states in '44 is hardly a grand comeback. There certainly is potential for it to be if they can solidify a base there, but the Socialists can easily bounce back. All they really need to do is hit harder there next time - running on a platform similar to the Republicans with the added bonus that they are a larger party that can get it done more efficiently.

I suspect that States like Illinois or Ohio or Michigan aren't going to be voting Socialist again in a hurry (given that they were on the front-line when the Army of Kentucky went for a tour through the North; it seems hard to imagine that Chicago or Detroit didn't take a pasting from Confederate Bombers because the Socialists failed to remember the age-old parable of the Scorpion and the Frog … ).

I do agree that your version of events is the most likely, but I suspect that the Socialists will take a long time to 'bounce back' to where they were before the Great Reunification War - and if the Republicans are VERY canny then they can take advantage of the fact that as a Third Party they can stand for principles and policies that challenge the Status Quo in a way that neither the Socialists or the Democrats can afford to (since it was they themselves who CREATED the Status Quo).

 

[Turquoise Blue]

This was my prediction of the next few elections. Me and DBE agrees with ya, Tiro.

1944

1948

1952

1956

1960

So it takes 16 years for the Socialists to win again.

 

[Tiro]

Like what you wrote, I also imagined Goldman as foreign-born (also in Poland), and immigrated to Charleston (though New Orleans would be a good second choice).

Thank you very kindly Mr Ben Ari; I'm glad that my conception of the character does not fall down at the first major hurdle!

In fact I rather deliberately chose to make Mr Goldman a native of a settlement where a local pogrom was suppressed by Government Troops and did my best to ensure that Saul Goldman would have been old enough for this to have been one of his earliest formative experiences; it seemed too useful an opportunity to begin the formation of Goldman's 'render unto Caesar' mindset.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picture_City,_Florida

One element I intend to add to Saul Goldman's background is an integral involvement with the Picture City project - essentially an attempt to build a Floridan Hollywood that faltered in the face of an Act of God - which in my view of Timeline-191 was probably revived by Goldman after he secured the full backing of the Freedom Party after a certain amount of persuasion* and built up to new heights (while Picture City certainly wasn't Hollywood, within a few years it was at least as powerful as any individual Hollywood Studio and still growing).

I'll bet it did a particularly fine line of Pirate Movies ...

*One anecdote I'd probably throw in to illustrate the self-serving nature of Willie Knight's racism would be the fact that he threw around a certain amount of Anti-Semitic rhetoric during his early career (mostly as he was tinkering with Redemption League party line to appeal to the widest possible audience, without becoming shackled to the lowest common denominator), but became Saul Goldman's best buddy once the latter had secured the power to make or break a politicians public image across the Confederacy.

Although in all fairness Knight was also keen to support Goldman's plans to build up a 'Hillbilly Hollywood' (Northern Press was not always kind to Picture City … or accurate) because (A) he genuinely loved Glitz and Glamour in all its forms, especially the Talkies (B) MOVIE STARS! (also Starlets).

It may just be me, but I always imagined that while Featherston may have had no particular sense of antisemitism (or just didn't care enough about them because there was so few of them), Jews in the South would be seen as "unwelcome" and would be subject to acts of violence or discrimination.

I agree that the attitude towards Jews in the South would not be a uniformly civilised one (much less enlightened), but I would suggest that on the whole thoroughly-assimilated Jews are 'Whites' by Confederate standards of Race (probably a little higher than Hispanics and Poor Whites on the totem pole of the Southern Racial Hierarchy).

My guess is that precise attitudes towards the Jewish People would vary across the Confederacy, but that they would be friendliest amongst the monied classes (who can point to the example of Mr Judah P. Benjamin and afford some lordly condescension to the Children of Israel) and harshest amongst the most hardscrabble sections of the Confederate Population (who are likely to lay the blame for their economic miseries against Jews in the accustomed fashion, by pointing to them as the epitome of Usury et al in the usual manner of the ill-mannered bigot with a chip on his shoulder).

One imagines that Anti-Semitism in the Confederacy grew far stronger after the Red Rising and to almost terrifying levels of potency after The Crash as Poor Whites (A) associated Jews with Socialism, owing to the likes of Karl Marx and Flora Hamburger - hence with the Red Rebels (B) blamed the nearest Jew for their economic miseries, as per usual (God Save us from the desperate and the ignorant).

Given that 'Poor Whites' basically describes the core Freedom Party constituency, it's not hard to imagine that a major reason no actual pogroms broke out in the Confederacy would be Featherston's own attitudes to Jewish People - "They didn't stab ME in the back so I'm okay with them" - which is something of an irony so deep as to be fathomless, given his inspiration.

Although it does amuse me to imagine The Snake and The 'Stache meeting up in Hell to compare notes, then half-killing one another because they just can't see eye-to-eye over the Jews!

And I can definitely imagine Sir Ben Kingsley as Goldman. And he does look like he has doubts about working with Jake the Snake.

Basically my conception of Saul Goldman is as a man who wants to make himself powerful and respected enough to squash any attempts to submit himself and his People FLAT (and his chosen method of accomplishing this is to exploit the media to shape people's opinions - also he REALLY wants to make Movies); the problem is that while he's a staunch champion of the Jewish People* he has a truly monstrous blind spot when it comes to seeing the sufferings of any other (to the point where he would willingly use Negro extras, pay them well and treat them with propriety, then send them into the Population Reduction system).

"Better their people than Our People" is his mantra; Goldman becomes a monster not necessarily through his own actions, but through a cultivated indifference to the Fate of others (at least in my view of things).


*I really am fond of the mental image that he tried to get in touch with Mrs Flora Blackford at some point with a view to doing some good for the Chosen People, but found relations rather frosting over as The Conscience of Congress got a chance to take a long, HARD look at the Freedom Party and what Goldman was willing to do for it.

 

[Tiro]

Me and DBE agrees with ya, Tiro.

It's nice to be agreed with!

(Now please excuse me while I go and weep for the Unkind Fate of Canada in Timeline-191 AGAIN).

 

[Turquoise Blue]

Although, yes, Illinois and Michigan are probably hurt by the War, but who are they going to turn to?

The Democrats, the party backing the War, which hurt Illinois? Would they back a warmongering party over the naive party?

The Republicans, the party that lost the first two wars with the people who bombed Chicago and Detroit? And a fringe third party that never wins any elections?

The Socialists: Winning those states due to being the "best" of a bad bunch.

And as the war goes away, the people impoverished by the war damage will need strong support. Which party is the party of the urban poor?

That's why those states will stay red.

Now, Ohio was the main brunt of Featherston's onslaught, so it won't vote Socialist for 20 years after that.

 

[bguy]

Although, yes, Illinois and Michigan are probably hurt by the War, but who are they going to turn to?

I think you are overestimating how liberal Illinois and Michigan were in the 1940s.

OTL, Michigan voted for Wilkie in 1940 and Dewey in 1948. (Meaning that Michigan voted Republican just a year after Taft-Hartley was enacted, so obviously the power of labor in the state was not that decisive at that point.) And while Michigan did go Roosevelt in 1944, Dewey got 49.18% of the vote there that year, well above his national average.)

OTL Illinois was slightly more liberal than Michigan as it did vote Democrat in all three of those elections. However, in both the 1940 and 1944 campaigns, the Republican candidate got over 48% of the vote, and in 1948 Dewey got over 49% of the vote there. So it was clearly a battleground state at the time.

I don't see any reason to believe progressive forces would be any stronger in Michigan and Illinois in TL-191 than they were OTL. (Especially post-SGW since the Socialists have now in the last 20 years presided over a major economic crash, and then nearly got the entire country overrun by a genocidal madman). Thus the Democrats should have an excellent chance of carrying both states for the foreseeable future after the SGW.

The Democrats, the party backing the War, which hurt Illinois? Would they back a warmongering party over the naive party?

Yes, because the Democrats have a pretty compelling argument that if there had been no Richmond Agreement, Confederate forces would never have gotten anywhere near Illinois. Also, it's pretty typical after a country has been attacked for its voters to want to bring in the "strong party" that will make sure such an attack can never happen again. And its not like Democrat warmongering is what caused Featherston to attack the United States. The attack on the US happened after the US pretty much gave Featherston everything he could reasonably ask for, so trying to paint the Democrats as warmongers will just make the Socialists look ridiculous.

The Socialists: Winning those states due to being the "best" of a bad bunch.

What makes them the best of a bad bunch though? Remember OTL Dewey was pretty pro-labor himself. Sidney Hillman called him "a true friend of the workingman" and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union was one of the biggest contributors to his 1937 campaign for D.A. Likewise when he was Governor, New York had the best record during the war for time lost to strikes. (Governor Dewey during that time doubled strike mediation funds, established a State School of Labor and Industrial Relations at Cornell, added 400,000 workers to those covered by the minimum wage laws, and pushed a big investigation into doctors and lawyers that were cheating the workmen's compensation system.) If TL-191 Dewey pursued similar policies to his OTL counterpart then he should be able to do well with working class voters.

I also suspect that the fact that the Democrats are running men like Dewey and Truman on their national ticket means that the party is moving to the left on domestic issues. A more progressive domestic policy, coupled with a hard-line stance on the Confederates/Canadians/Mormon, and a strong military should play well in the TL-191 Mid-West.

And as the war goes away, the people impoverished by the war damage will need strong support. Which party is the party of the urban poor?

That's why those states will stay red.

If Dewey does nothing to help those states then yes that would give the Socialists an opening. That seems rather unlikely though. Dewey is not a Calvin Coolidge or even a Herbert Hoover. OTL he was an energetic governor, and he certainly is going to understand how important it is to quickly rebuild the Mid-West (both for the good of the country and for his own reelection chances), so I would expect he will pump a lot of resources into rebuilding those states.