WI: American "Years of Lead"

What if throughout the 1960s-1980s America had a "Years of Lead" similar to the Italian one, where far-left and far-right terror organizations fight against the US government and each other, and commit terrible acts of terror? How would it affect America in the years to come?
 
In a drunken stupor, Nixon declares martial law to keep himself in office instead of resigning. But that's pretty far fetched, the fact is social divisions in the 1960s and 70s USA were bad but not on the level of what Italg went through at the same time.
 
Maybe had the Businessmen's Plot been reality?

Sinclair outlined a somewhat different scenario in 'In it Can't Happen Here'. The end result was a stagnant & unimaginative military dictatorship unable to find a way back to Democracy, or even a Republic of the wealthy.
 
I think it would have gone racial quick, with Black Panthers and similar Afro-American groups turning (more) violent on one side, and the KKK and other white supremacists doubling down. But for the latter, that probably requires them to view the American government and Constitution as illegitimate in a way that does not fit with mainstream white supremacism of OTL at the time.
 
More paranoia, earlier call to militarize the hell out of the police. I doubt it impacts the functioning of the US government according to constitutional norms but we'd see law & order style conservative politics remain popular, Nixon could maybe even survive Watergate if left and right wing terrorists are blowing stuff up.

Basically imagine having the kind of paranoid security theater we built in the US post-9/11 30 years sooner.
 
More paranoia, earlier call to militarize the hell out of the police. I doubt it impacts the functioning of the US government according to constitutional norms but we'd see law & order style conservative politics remain popular, Nixon could maybe even survive Watergate if left and right wing terrorists are blowing stuff up.

Basically imagine having the kind of paranoid security theater we built in the US post-9/11 30 years sooner.
Uh there were terrorists blowing things up, from 1971-1972 there were over 2500 domestic bombings in the US over an 18 month period, about 5 a day, this was peak but they were still going on even after Nixon left office
 
Uh there were terrorists blowing things up, from 1971-1972 there were over 2500 domestic bombings in the US over an 18 month period, about 5 a day, this was peak but they were still going on even after Nixon left office

Wow, that many? Mind you I wasn't alive for any of this but I took the OP to ask if it were really bad with large scale terrorist attacks kind of like what you see in Iraq or Afghanistan today. If 80-150 people are getting killed in market place bombings wouldn't that promote a different reaction than smaller mail bomb like incidents that kill one or two targeted persons?
 
Uh, there were terrorists blowing things up, from 1971-1972 there were over 2,500 domestic bombings in the US over an 18 month period, about 5 a day, this was peak but they were still going on even after Nixon left office.
You've also got aircraft hijackings, apparently from 1968 to 1973 there was nearly one commercial flight hijacked per week on average.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
I think this could be done with a longer and bloodier Vietnam War in which the Communists still win, followed by the Iranian Hostage Crisis ending with all the hostages killed and America invading Iran.
 
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