While I'm on the subject of movies, I wonder how the Godzilla movies would be affected by the copious use of nuclear weapons ITTL. The Return of Godzilla might be made far darker than IOTL, like Gojira (the original) or worse, to reflect the worsening geopolitical situation.
I think the issue of nuclear warfare would be a more complex one for one reason: George Wallace.
The Kwangsi incident and the CV mania is the ultimate example of the evils of nuclear power: The Lesser Mao and Douglas Coe used nuclear weapons, not on an enemy, but on their own nation to crush
those who rose up against their sick vision.
George Wallace, however, makes the argument about nukes more complicated than "their just evil". He had far worse problems than the Lesser Mao and Douglas did: paralysis, a failed marriage and an uncooperative legislature. But despite his aggravations, he stayed a (mostly) redeemable man, and dropped the bomb to protect the world from Mao's unpredictable wrath. He could have destroyed a major city to take out his aggravations, but he stuck to a military base.
More importantly, he is risking his bad health to save his own homeland from ruin and madness. The former most powerful man is now a defender of the little guy.
Arguably, Harry Truman's reasons for using them are more complex: a mix of geopolitics and a desire to end a war and save Americans lives.
In the "Rummyfall" update, it appeared that some Europeans may very well have their own Lop Nur moment,
A good, intelligent Godzilla story would have this moral: Nuclear weapons maybe bad, but sometimes they may be necessary. Yes, there are those who would abuse nuclear weapons because they see others as ants to be crushed. Mao and Coe are these people. But there are those who will use weapons to protect themselves and their nation: Harry Truman and George Wallace are those people. And again, George Wallace, despite reaching a low point in his life by 1979, still only did what was necessary, and didn't use Chinese towns to vent his anger. The protectors should be able to protect from the abusers.
I wonder how Christians who didn't support the CV party will reconcile themselves to this.
Well, in a
previous update, that I wrote using my old account, I imagined what the Midwest might look like if the CVs go for chemical weapons: one of the characters in this barren wasteland, running a survivalist community, is an old lady who lost everything, family and livelihood because of the Republicans and CVs she once supported.
The old lady, seeing everything fall down around her, learned what really mattered, and that she lost everything by fussing over the wrong things. Now I imagine her parading an old Rumsfeld campaign button as a reminder of how she was seduced by fear and hate.
The conservative American Christians who weren't CV, seeing their nation destroyed and poisoned by a bunch of madmen, will learn that their paternalistic ways were just another tyranny.
A good comparison are today's Conservative Germans: they obviously don't like goth music, immigrants, or same sex couples. But the Nazis, and all their horrors and failures, have taught them that worry about these cultural issues will only open the door to another madness that would destroy what is really precious.
