Wonder if you're much older considering a decade ago I was a teen
Honestly? RelatableEdit: yeah I was being an edgelord and was just trying to make a ridiculously ridiculous level of ridiculousness for the Raj
What is a common thing or trope that always seem to happen?
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I mean it’s very important for understanding the development of race relations and political development in the current most powerful country in the world. Think it might just be a cut above the Ragamuffin Rebellion or whatever.
LMAO.
TBF I honestly do think if literally anybody else had been in charge of Germany during WW2 other than Mustache Man and his fan club(Doesn’t really matter Von Scheliher, Thalmann, My pet rabbit, Kaiser Willies half rotting corpse) , than Uncle Joe would have been fucking toast.
My scenario supposed a Superpower Brazil, so no it isnt
And if we were to slap the US in the same position Brazil currently possesses the Civil War would likewise be seen as nothing more than a pathetic racist insurrection
Fair! Fair amigo! I was just explaining why the American Civil War is such a popular target for Alternate History TL’s on here in this particular universe.
Since it has mentioned the Confederate thread (thanks @JohnBull ), I've continued reading it and another trope that I've seen very often has been mentioned in it... and that is very annoying and a backward projection of modern trends.
I think I've talked about this trope before, which for lack of a better name I could call "the cowardly, lying leader."
I suppose you all remember that almost all of the Confederate leaders during the war (that is, the guys who would be in charge in a Victorious Confederacy if such a thing happened) were firmly committed to the cause of slavery, right?
And that Confederate leaders were not committed to slavery simply because they made economic profits, but because it fit with their vision of the world built around racial and social hierarchies, ordained by God himself, in which they are at the top, right?
This trope posits that this is just the mask they hide behind. That this commitment to slavery and white supremacy is just all fanfare and spectacle, bread and circuses, smoke and mirrors to hide their true intentions and beliefs.
A show intended solely for the consumption of the masses and which the Confederate leaders themselves do not take seriously... other than to mock "for the love of God, how can those commoners be so stupid as to believe all this nonsense."
The reality, always according to this trope, would be that Confederate leaders know FULL WELL that white supremacy is stupid, CSAS slavery is absolutely evil and immoral, the Union was the right side in every way in the American Civil War, and Confederate leaders possibily could not be more fractally wrong in their professed beliefs.
Plus, of course, NONE of them believes in ANYTHING they profess.
Which, of course, raises the interesting question of "If Confederate leaders are so sure that everything they profess to believe is wrong, why the fuck do they keep up this masquerade?"
The answer, of course, is the same one that is repeatedly repeated when it comes to analyzing why supposedly educated and politically literate populations of the 20th and 21st centuries support dictators of all stripes:
"the leader is desperately spouting lie after lie, attempting to distract the population to avoid them questioning the sanity of leadership' economic decisions. This is because the leader knows full well that the outbreak of a revolution against his government is imminent. And that will happen as soon as the population begins to question what their leaders are doing."
This is the main, but not the only, point that demonstrates that attributing this idea to Confederate leaders is only a backward projection of the analysis of modern dictators.
Always according to the analysis made by the trope, the sole purpose of white supremacy would not only be to keep Africans exploited as slave labor... but to distract white people so that they stop questioning their very low standard of living and thus prevent them from organizing a red revolution.
Because of course the assumption here is the Confederate leaders were, in reality, shitting themselves out of fear that the (white) population would decide to lynch them instead of African Americans.
This, of course, requires assuming that Confederate whites ALSO believed the entire system was a huge piece of nonsense full of BS and lies. Just as they were boiling with rage beneath the surface and eager to find an excuse, no matter how small, to take to the streets waving red flags and seeking to hang all the members of the Confederate elite from the nearest lamppost before they began. to beg the Union to please annex the former Confederation in order to save their wounded economy.
All of which, although as a story it could be very good, is still a pure fantasy based on projections and economism that requires assuming that people from the 19th century would follow the same thought processes as someone from the 21st century despite lacking the context of the 21st century.
I think I've talked about this trope before, which for lack of a better name I could call "the cowardly, lying leader."
I suppose you all remember that almost all of the Confederate leaders during the war (that is, the guys who would be in charge in a Victorious Confederacy if such a thing happened) were firmly committed to the cause of slavery, right?
And that Confederate leaders were not committed to slavery simply because they made economic profits, but because it fit with their vision of the world built around racial and social hierarchies, ordained by God himself, in which they are at the top, right?
This trope posits that this is just the mask they hide behind. That this commitment to slavery and white supremacy is just all fanfare and spectacle, bread and circuses, smoke and mirrors to hide their true intentions and beliefs.
A show intended solely for the consumption of the masses and which the Confederate leaders themselves do not take seriously... other than to mock "for the love of God, how can those commoners be so stupid as to believe all this nonsense."
The reality, always according to this trope, would be that Confederate leaders know FULL WELL that white supremacy is stupid, CSAS slavery is absolutely evil and immoral, the Union was the right side in every way in the American Civil War, and Confederate leaders possibily could not be more fractally wrong in their professed beliefs.
Plus, of course, NONE of them believes in ANYTHING they profess.
Which, of course, raises the interesting question of "If Confederate leaders are so sure that everything they profess to believe is wrong, why the fuck do they keep up this masquerade?"
The answer, of course, is the same one that is repeatedly repeated when it comes to analyzing why supposedly educated and politically literate populations of the 20th and 21st centuries support dictators of all stripes:
"the leader is desperately spouting lie after lie, attempting to distract the population to avoid them questioning the sanity of leadership' economic decisions. This is because the leader knows full well that the outbreak of a revolution against his government is imminent. And that will happen as soon as the population begins to question what their leaders are doing."
This is the main, but not the only, point that demonstrates that attributing this idea to Confederate leaders is only a backward projection of the analysis of modern dictators.
Always according to the analysis made by the trope, the sole purpose of white supremacy would not only be to keep Africans exploited as slave labor... but to distract white people so that they stop questioning their very low standard of living and thus prevent them from organizing a red revolution.
Because of course the assumption here is the Confederate leaders were, in reality, shitting themselves out of fear that the (white) population would decide to lynch them instead of African Americans.
This, of course, requires assuming that Confederate whites ALSO believed the entire system was a huge piece of nonsense full of BS and lies. Just as they were boiling with rage beneath the surface and eager to find an excuse, no matter how small, to take to the streets waving red flags and seeking to hang all the members of the Confederate elite from the nearest lamppost before they began. to beg the Union to please annex the former Confederation in order to save their wounded economy.
All of which, although as a story it could be very good, is still a pure fantasy based on projections and economism that requires assuming that people from the 19th century would follow the same thought processes as someone from the 21st century despite lacking the context of the 21st century.
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By the way, got a odd trope I've started noticing that I think was created by kaiserreich? Central Asia in 1918 manages to break away from the Russian empire easily. You might say this is also a bit of explanation for why Central Asia remained apart of the USSR than break away in the chaos of the Russian civil war.
Now I don't mean to deny it's impossible, but recent events have not been good to the region , the 1916 rebellions despite how weak the Empire was at the time were crushed harshly killing hundreds of thousands at least, in 1917 October the local Bolshevik party made up nearly entirely of colonists took power even before November revolution. They rapidly decided to forbid Muslims locals from having any government positions in a move beyond even the Tzarist empire that was opposed by the Kokand autonomy who was crushed in February 1918 when said colonialists alongside some workers, ex army soldiers and Armenian Dashnaks massacred fourteen thousand people in a couple of days. The general chaos and food grabbing of this soviet soon caused a famine that may have killed nearly a million people and caused hundreds of thousands to flee into China and Afghanistan.
Note, it's a bit hard to get a accurate death toll, given how events tend to be overlapped together or not counted and so minimised example the 1916 revolts is sometimes counted as part of the deaths in 1917 and things like the Basmachi movement conflict who joined the whites at times from 1917 onwards is sometimes counted but it is known the Kyrgyz for example lost 40% of their population before 1920.
My point is that the local colonists and Russian army had a vote and will of their own and the result was horrific violence on a scale that still scars some of the people of Central Asia to this day. I don't think it's possible for a client/independent state to happen easily given by March 1918 a large chunk of the local population was broken into submission, dead or displaced two years after large scale conflict began in 1916 unless events are changed and even then would expect it more a brutal slog given for a lot of reasons the Russian empire avoided having Central Asians as part of it's military, exempting the Muslims there from conscription till 1916.
That also in itself is part of the reason when the ''actual''' Soviets showed up they find a surprisingly large audience willing to listen to them despite all the bloodshed that occurred. The previous local leadership relied on the Russian army to keep them in power and protect them from their own people as while they enabled the colonisation of their land so when a stronger, less racist Soviet Union gave a offer many of the intellectual reforms known as the Jadid movement who were fighting defected as well many others in part because of cautious hope and desire to live.
I think a good comparison for this trope is Balkanised India, as in the Russian empire fragments into loads of states that's map pointed.
That said a trope can be be well used and I think Central Asia does have a interesting history during this period and portraying a white/red and various powers struggle for influence would be fascinating.
Now I don't mean to deny it's impossible, but recent events have not been good to the region , the 1916 rebellions despite how weak the Empire was at the time were crushed harshly killing hundreds of thousands at least, in 1917 October the local Bolshevik party made up nearly entirely of colonists took power even before November revolution. They rapidly decided to forbid Muslims locals from having any government positions in a move beyond even the Tzarist empire that was opposed by the Kokand autonomy who was crushed in February 1918 when said colonialists alongside some workers, ex army soldiers and Armenian Dashnaks massacred fourteen thousand people in a couple of days. The general chaos and food grabbing of this soviet soon caused a famine that may have killed nearly a million people and caused hundreds of thousands to flee into China and Afghanistan.
Note, it's a bit hard to get a accurate death toll, given how events tend to be overlapped together or not counted and so minimised example the 1916 revolts is sometimes counted as part of the deaths in 1917 and things like the Basmachi movement conflict who joined the whites at times from 1917 onwards is sometimes counted but it is known the Kyrgyz for example lost 40% of their population before 1920.
My point is that the local colonists and Russian army had a vote and will of their own and the result was horrific violence on a scale that still scars some of the people of Central Asia to this day. I don't think it's possible for a client/independent state to happen easily given by March 1918 a large chunk of the local population was broken into submission, dead or displaced two years after large scale conflict began in 1916 unless events are changed and even then would expect it more a brutal slog given for a lot of reasons the Russian empire avoided having Central Asians as part of it's military, exempting the Muslims there from conscription till 1916.
That also in itself is part of the reason when the ''actual''' Soviets showed up they find a surprisingly large audience willing to listen to them despite all the bloodshed that occurred. The previous local leadership relied on the Russian army to keep them in power and protect them from their own people as while they enabled the colonisation of their land so when a stronger, less racist Soviet Union gave a offer many of the intellectual reforms known as the Jadid movement who were fighting defected as well many others in part because of cautious hope and desire to live.
I think a good comparison for this trope is Balkanised India, as in the Russian empire fragments into loads of states that's map pointed.
That said a trope can be be well used and I think Central Asia does have a interesting history during this period and portraying a white/red and various powers struggle for influence would be fascinating.
Popular amongst Americans and people with specific interest on American history (like I have regarding the British). Other than that, people really don't care or know anything about it.
Male Rising has an interesting take on this trope. On one hand, a stronger Ottoman Empire and less internal divisions among the locals result in the creation of a united Turkistan
On the other hand, said country exists because the post-tsarist government in Moscow is mostly peaceful and focused on its internal issues. Indeed the Central Asian state is more or less in personal union with Russia in order to avoid a possible invasion
It's the god-like elite. That's obviously an absurd as the elite is human and as human they can indulge themselves on all kinds of fantasies, prejudicies and self-destructive behaviours. It's so weird as something so obvious for anyone past childhood/adolescence but we always see that coming.
You see things that I never do and I'm starting to wonder if it's because you have a fundamentally different way of analyzing everything you observe in your life or if I'm not reading quite as much on this website as I think I do (and this website is all that I read when time allows it).
Another trope I think is worth commenting on also relates to the failure of the Confederacy.
As was mentioned before, a popular theory is that the Confederacy would eventually implode in a Bolshevik-style revolution that causes the collapse of the entire rotten Confederate structure and the rise of an anti-imperialist, anti-racist and progressive regime in every sense.
In addition, of course, to the fact that the main priority of this new regime would be unconditional diplomatic, economic and political alignment with the United States.
That is if they do not ask the USA to please annex them to "correct the error of 1861."
Also, the United States would watch this development eating popcorn and celebrating. This is, of course, if USA is not emptying its own arsenals to give the revolutionaries all the modern weapons they need to overthrow the Confederate authorities...
Yes, this part in bold is simply NOT happening.
In reality, it is much more likely that the United States of America, far from passively observing this spectacle, will decide to intervene... in favor of the Confederacy and against the revolutionaries.
The reasons for this are simple and would make perfect sense to the very wealthy members of the DC elites who will lobby to support this intervention:
1) This is the United States of the Guilded Age, so in the minds of the American elite there is the very real threat that the Dixie Revolution will end up spilling over into their own country and causing a parallel revolution in the USA. (The domino theory was very popular at that time).
2) Americans of this era are sure to remain immensely racist, so the idea of blacks and poor whites allying against rich whites will seem simply intolerable to them and will bias them against revolutionaries.
3) American elites will correctly assume that a revolutionary Confederate government will stand between them and the riches they have planned to gain by imposing trade agreements more typical of a banana republic on the Confederacy.
4) A weak Confederate Government propped up by the bayonets of the USMC will be much more manipulable and exploitable than any government that emerges from the revolution.
So what will undoubtedly happen is that the United States will begin general mobilization to launch what they will call a "military intervention to restore peace" whose objective will be to invade the Confedeation, crush the Red revolutionaries and restore the power of the Confederacy at gunpoint...in the form of officials known to be sympathetic to Americans and very willing to do whatever they are told from DC.
The United States will be emptying its own arsenals, yes... but to give the Confederate army all the weapons they need to subdue the revolutionaries in the most brutal way.
Naturally, this will end up being a shit show where the actions of the American troops will have much more in common with the actions of Imperial Germany in Belgium and Russia than anything else, since in their eyes they are invading a country run by "traitorouss and subhuman hordes, barely better than the Filipinos, against whom it is good to be brutal".
Of course, the American population will be savagely bombarded by their elites with very aggressive propaganda about how "this is the most just war ever fought, the war between freedom and barbarism, and we are freedom."
Also, there will be brutally racist propaganda about how revolutionaries are actually a savage horde of ignorant brutes who only want to murder as many white people as possible because they envy their racial superiority... well, you can imagine the kind of shit that American elites would say.
As well as insisting that anyone who opposes this intervention is not necessarily a true American, but rather a disgusting coward who hates the USA, supports its enemies, and longs for the revolutionaries to win so he can do the same in the USA.
Yeah, that surely will be a huge mess.
As was mentioned before, a popular theory is that the Confederacy would eventually implode in a Bolshevik-style revolution that causes the collapse of the entire rotten Confederate structure and the rise of an anti-imperialist, anti-racist and progressive regime in every sense.
In addition, of course, to the fact that the main priority of this new regime would be unconditional diplomatic, economic and political alignment with the United States.
That is if they do not ask the USA to please annex them to "correct the error of 1861."
Also, the United States would watch this development eating popcorn and celebrating. This is, of course, if USA is not emptying its own arsenals to give the revolutionaries all the modern weapons they need to overthrow the Confederate authorities...
Yes, this part in bold is simply NOT happening.
In reality, it is much more likely that the United States of America, far from passively observing this spectacle, will decide to intervene... in favor of the Confederacy and against the revolutionaries.
The reasons for this are simple and would make perfect sense to the very wealthy members of the DC elites who will lobby to support this intervention:
1) This is the United States of the Guilded Age, so in the minds of the American elite there is the very real threat that the Dixie Revolution will end up spilling over into their own country and causing a parallel revolution in the USA. (The domino theory was very popular at that time).
2) Americans of this era are sure to remain immensely racist, so the idea of blacks and poor whites allying against rich whites will seem simply intolerable to them and will bias them against revolutionaries.
3) American elites will correctly assume that a revolutionary Confederate government will stand between them and the riches they have planned to gain by imposing trade agreements more typical of a banana republic on the Confederacy.
4) A weak Confederate Government propped up by the bayonets of the USMC will be much more manipulable and exploitable than any government that emerges from the revolution.
So what will undoubtedly happen is that the United States will begin general mobilization to launch what they will call a "military intervention to restore peace" whose objective will be to invade the Confedeation, crush the Red revolutionaries and restore the power of the Confederacy at gunpoint...in the form of officials known to be sympathetic to Americans and very willing to do whatever they are told from DC.
The United States will be emptying its own arsenals, yes... but to give the Confederate army all the weapons they need to subdue the revolutionaries in the most brutal way.
Naturally, this will end up being a shit show where the actions of the American troops will have much more in common with the actions of Imperial Germany in Belgium and Russia than anything else, since in their eyes they are invading a country run by "traitorouss and subhuman hordes, barely better than the Filipinos, against whom it is good to be brutal".
Of course, the American population will be savagely bombarded by their elites with very aggressive propaganda about how "this is the most just war ever fought, the war between freedom and barbarism, and we are freedom."
Also, there will be brutally racist propaganda about how revolutionaries are actually a savage horde of ignorant brutes who only want to murder as many white people as possible because they envy their racial superiority... well, you can imagine the kind of shit that American elites would say.
As well as insisting that anyone who opposes this intervention is not necessarily a true American, but rather a disgusting coward who hates the USA, supports its enemies, and longs for the revolutionaries to win so he can do the same in the USA.
Yeah, that surely will be a huge mess.
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People demanding that certain historical or pop-culture figures are either 1. spared from death and go on to have wildly successful lives or 2. Suffer endlessly for injustices committed iotl, even if those injustices haven’t happened yet atl, or might not happen iotl due to wildly different circumstances.
Yes, plus this tends to remove all agency from people of the period and assume that they are simple cartoon antagonists whose only motivations are "I'm evil because of evulz"... while ignoring the fact that people who commit horrible or stupid acts usually do them because they believes they make sense in his very distorted view of the world.
My own guess is that is just I simply try to look beyond and contrast the assumptions that are stated as true with what I observe in the real and historical behavior of the people we are talking about.