AHC: North Korean style America

Vexacus

Banned
The alternate history challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to have the US become a North Korean style dictatorship.
 
Some victorious CSA (which somehow industrialises and maintains stability)/British Empire alliance manages to force the USA into militarism, dictatorship (or at least a very authoritarian 'democracy') and an extreme Monroe Doctrine to keep its enemies in check? I don't think it's that plausible, but it's the first idea that came to mind.
 

Vexacus

Banned
Some victorious CSA (which somehow industrialises and maintains stability)/British Empire alliance manages to force the USA into militarism, dictatorship (or at least a very authoritarian 'democracy') and an extreme Monroe Doctrine to keep its enemies in check? I don't think it's that plausible, but it's the first idea that came to mind.

What about the CSA still loosing the war which ends with a more bloody victory for the Union and as a result, the Southern States are placed under military rule. This eventually expands to the rest of the Union
 
The alternate history challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to have the US become a North Korean style dictatorship.

Well, since this is after 1900, here's a hypothetical scenario: there's a more successful Klan and/or pro-fascist(think: Charles Coughlin, Gerald L.K. Smith, William Pelley) during the interwar years, first off. Then, perhaps the Allies lose World War II, and some President(not FDR) blames the USSR for the loss, and a Cold War more heated than IOTL begins to take shape.

Nazi Germany implodes some 15 years later thanks to near constant revolts, economic collapse, and just plain incompetence. Both the Soviets and the Americans rush in to try to take advantage of the collapse, and, eventually, at some point in that same decade, the 3rd World War breaks out over some crisis, which may directly or indirectly related to the collapse of Germany. Nukes fly, and both countries are devastated. The U.S. government is decapitated, and slowly, over the next decade, the country collapses(as does Soviet Russia) until the country finally just stops existing in it's old form as the Seventies come to a close.

Several new nations are formed, but the rump government claiming to be the true successor to the old U.S., re-coalesces, in the South, of all places, or at least portions of it(for the purposes of this scenario, though, really only southern Ark., northern La., Ala., Miss., Ga., far northern Fla., S.C., central and eastern N.C., and parts of Va. adjacent to N.C.). Tragically, it ends up turning into a complete hellhole, as it is not just basically run by a revived Klan and White Citizens' Council, but has also attracted hardcore racist & other reactionary elements from elsewhere in the former U.S.A.; many more moderate and liberal whites either flee or are forced into labor camps, and the state attempts to indoctrinate their children. Minorities have it even worse, as many are shipped off to farms to work almost to death for virtually nothing. And the military becomes ubiquitous; in many places, they are judge, jury and executioner. And even many whites in general are dirt poor and have to work for shit wages but the government always cheers them up with racialist propaganda and hate fests a la Orwell's "1984", amongst other things.[1]

In general, this rump U.S.A. genuinely horrifies and outright disgusts the other American polities, but as with the real world North Korea, this situation could last a while, potentially until they actively provoke a shooting war with somebody.

I realize this is far from the most likely scenario, but it does match the criteria, I think.

[1]Just after I finished writing this, it struck me that I may have been subconsciously influenced, in some ways, by the story of some of the neo-Confederate enclaves that developed after the bombs fell in 1983: Doomsday.

Edit: here's a link- http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/Taccoa,_CSA_(1983:_Doomsday)
 
The 48 states as in OTL? Man, that's GOTTA be ASB in a country with this kind of culture, history, and society. Like, really lol. I hope. :(

An "enclave" type scenario like CaliBoy mentioned? Ah, well that's another story. Someone laid out a lovely scenario for this happening in Utah during "The Falcon Cannot Hear" 2nd American Civil War:

Hnau said:
Look, I know this may be hard to grok for some readers, but at this time in American history, most Utahn Mormons owe almost all of their loyalties to the Mormon Church. The theocratic tendencies which are well and active in the state today were even more powerful a couple generations ago, during the 1930s. Mormons are culturally very patriotic Americans, but they are only supposed to honor the original US Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the ideas of the Founding Fathers. Furthermore, in the 1930s many will still have living memories of the persecution they felt from the US government during the polygamy era and may shirk any US government overly aggressive to Mormonism. Plus political conservatism is popular in the state... Mormons still don't fully accept blacks at this point and are beginning to become very anti-Communist.

I see why the Utah state government would align itself with MacArthur right now at the beginning of the civil war. That's a good call, and for this reason: most Utahn Mormon statesmen would probably think MacArthur is correct, that America is in the grip of Communists and liberals are simply a front for communism. But ultimately many Utahn Mormons, outside of the state government, may feel more in common with Huey Long's faction, in restoring cultural conservatism while retaining democracy and protecting the Union from a military take-over. Many would also likely sympathize with General Moseley, who sees Long's faction as the "least un-American". If MacArthur can't keep the Utahn legislature in power, Utahn Mormons out in the towns and farmland may fight for control of the state to bring its allegiance to Long. Even more complicatedly, many Utahn Mormons may also see the appeal behind the Continental Congress, which may fit their narrative better about what it means to be a patriotic American than Long's interpretation.

However, if the shit goes down, I mean goes really down, and, say, it becomes known that Long is doing some terrible stuff like killing the nomadic poor or decriminalizing lynchings, and if it becomes known that the Continental Congress isn't exactly what Utahns want, I have a good idea what might happen. Mormons will break down to their most base allegiance and that is to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, what they see as the earthly expression of the literal Kingdom of God. If the Church wants to stay out of it and see which government wins the fight, or even claim independence until the right side wins, almost all Utahns at this point will probably do what it decides. To make this worse, the whole onset of such clusterfuck conditions would make Utahn Mormons think its the end times and that Jesus is about to return, and that it's time to declare the independence of the Kingdom of Zion. I mean, there's a real North Korea kind of threat here... if you let even a small portion of the Mormon hierarchy suck others into their crazy millenarian vision of the world, they'll declare a theodemocratic kingdom in the mountains to wait for the return of Christ and may even try to "purify" the populace. And if things returned to normalcy, that might hurt the theodemocracy's legitimacy, but such actions in the war may amount to something. It may require drastic action as well by nearby actors.
 
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