TLIAW: Against the Grain

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Deleted member 81475

Enigma-Conundrum said:
This statistic was often cited by Democratic groups like the centrist Democratic Study Group as proof that the Democratic Party needed to meaningfully differentiate itself from the left as well as the right if it was to win.
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"We'd have only gotten 49.5% of the vote against an incumbent fresh off military victory" is a pretty braindead reason for changing course, but I guess that shows how weak the "Centrist" Dems are at this point. Not a convincing argument when there aren't enough Liddy Dems to hit 55% or 60%.

Liddy's reign is Nixon on steroids, with all the rat-fucking, murderous imperialism, and residual New Deal sentiment that makes his environmental stance to the left of the most liberal Republican in our Congress. He just never got caught like the prick deserved. Brilliant update - I hated every second of it.
 

Kermode

See, I knew it was too good to last. "Unite the right" pushing out the moderate conservatives; an administration staffed by every infamous right-winger of the 70s and 80s; mass privatization; war games between the Americans and Soviets; meddling and/or coups in Latin America; Yukio Mishima having a successful political career (though, I guess the silver lining there is that Japan has a left-wing government now).

Dubya as an astronaut is funny, totally possible outcome if his air force career went differently. Schmoke channeling Kanye is great. And don't think I don't see what you did by having a Gorsuch nominated to a fiercely-desired SCOTUS seat ahead of an election…
 

8bitninja

Holy moly, that was an intense presidency! Seems to answer to my speculation about whether D'Alessandro's death would be seen as the better path not taken may have been correct...

'Nixon on steroids' is a good summary of Liddy. Shades of Thatcher too - the exorcism quote reminds me of people celebrating that 'the witch' had died. Going back to 1988 though, the centre-left is definitely in with a shot if they can get their act together. Hopefully no sabotage from the Conservatives this time! If the Dems and Citizens merge then we could end up with a political alignment which is - at least superficially - similar to OTL.

Also, if my maths is correct Tony Benn was British Prime Minister for a looooong time. I did not expect that, predicting 1968 and other crises would blow up in his face. Keith Joseph is a good choice as a right-wing, free-market reaction to the Benn era.
 

wwbgdiaslt

8bitninja said:
Also, if my maths is correct Tony Benn was British Prime Minister for a looooong time. I did not expect that, predicting 1968 and other crises would blow up in his face. Keith Joseph is a good choice as a right-wing, free-market reaction to the Benn era.
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1966 to some point after 1976 but before 1983. Thatcher was PM for 11 years and Blair could have probably held on longer than his ten years if he had really wanted to do so.

I think the more impressive thing might be the implications that Labour have been in power for over twenty years, since 1959 until potentially 1982
 
Steve Brinson

Steve Brinson

wwbgdiaslt said:
1966 to some point after 1976 but before 1983. Thatcher was PM for 11 years and Blair could have probably held on longer than his ten years if he had really wanted to do so.

I think the more impressive thing might be the implications that Labour have been in power for over twenty years, since 1959 until potentially 1982
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Well, we don’t know that that was continuous - there could have been a couple years of Tory government in there, with Benn staying on in opposition before returning to government.
 
Oppo

Oppo

Everyone talking about Benn but just wait until one of us makes Bryan Ferry the Prime Minister... 🤷‍♂️
 
galileo-034

galileo-034

'Nixon on steroid' indeed, but also potential 'watergate on steroids' too. If, or when, the truth behind his 1984 shenanigans against Democrats are revealed, the scandal would be 'EPIC'; not only political espionnage, but political sabotage...
 
Yankeewolf

Yankeewolf

Charcolt said:
"We'd have only gotten 49.5% of the vote against an incumbent fresh off military victory" is a pretty braindead reason for changing course, but I guess that shows how weak the "Centrist" Dems are at this point. Not a convincing argument when there aren't enough Liddy Dems to hit 55% or 60%.

Liddy's reign is Nixon on steroids, with all the rat-fucking, murderous imperialism, and residual New Deal sentiment that makes his environmental stance to the left of the most liberal Republican in our Congress. He just never got caught like the prick deserved. Brilliant update - I hated every second of it.
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"Truly, the only decent Post-War president."

dapper.jpg
 
Enigma-Conundrum

Enigma-Conundrum

Charcolt said:
"We'd have only gotten 49.5% of the vote against an incumbent fresh off military victory" is a pretty braindead reason for changing course, but I guess that shows how weak the "Centrist" Dems are at this point. Not a convincing argument when there aren't enough Liddy Dems to hit 55% or 60%.
Click to expand...
The argument is just as emotional as it is logical, but the actual complexities of it go something along the lines of “that was a 20-point blowout in the NPV margin. We thought Tom Hayden could pull the left back into the fray, but clearly the Citizens’ Party’s floor is much higher than we thought it was. Their voteshare dropped ~4%, with the vast majority of those going to us since Moscone-Liddy voters sound like a fever dream, but Hayden lost a little ground relative to 1980. This means that Humphrey-Liddy voters clearly exist and make up ~5% of the voting public for 1980 and 1984, and if we want to actually come out ahead in the NPV we need to start tearing into that Conservative voteshare and keeping the Citizens’ Party no higher than 25% instead of trying to reunify a voting bloc that doesn’t want us back.” Of course, reunification could theoretically be possible, but the Democratic right is kind of in the “FINE I DIDN’T WANT YOU ANYWAYS” phase of their breakup with the labor left and think that they can get to a like, 41-39-20 NPV situation with the right effort towards Liddy voters. A two-and-a-half party situation gets weird in the electoral college though…

Kermode said:
Dubya as an astronaut is funny, totally possible outcome if his air force career went differently. Schmoke channeling Kanye is great. And don't think I don't see what you did by having a Gorsuch nominated to a fiercely-desired SCOTUS seat ahead of an election…
Click to expand...
All it took was one draft and now America’s still launching chimps into space…

8bitninja said:
Also, if my maths is correct Tony Benn was British Prime Minister for a looooong time. I did not expect that, predicting 1968 and other crises would blow up in his face. Keith Joseph is a good choice as a right-wing, free-market reaction to the Benn era.
Click to expand...
He could have totally pulled a Harold Wilson, but that’s not for me to say now ;)
 
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