WI: a SR Russia and Long America - The Century of the Common Man

[Shevek23]

I just came over an episode of Santo Domingo history I didn't know of, the Parsley Massacre of 1937, and in 1938, an ethnic cleansing effort launched by local dictator Rafael Trujillo against local ethnic Haitians living in the border regions, with estimates of the death toll between 15,000 and 35,000.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsley_massacre

I come to speak of these massacres because in the context of the TL, it may be the first occasion for Huey Long to flex his muscles on foreign policy into his first year.
Since the ripples of the TL aren't going to significantly impact the Americas except for underlying trends, I presume the events in Haiti and the Dominican Republic will unfold similarily to OTL. But while IOTL, we got FDR in charge by 1937, here we got Huey Long.
In his stance on foreign policy, Huey Long was known to oppose US imperialism on ground of its subserviance to corporate interests. Still, I think he might be enticed to intervene in the island.
Ideologically, Trujillo is pretty much likely to become a bête noire for Huey Long, as Trujillo's OTL anticommunist stance and its equivalent may drive him closer to American conservatives, especially in regard of Trujillo's racial views. Politically, removing Trujillo may serve the purpose for Long to make a show of force at home against the far right and especially his conservative Democrat and corporate opponents, while appeasing his northern farmer-labor and progressive allies by relieving the Haitian people threatened by the ethnic cleansing, a way of affirming an implicit friendly stance on civil rights (by proxy of the Haitians) while keeping from doing anything concrete in this sense at home to preserve his popularity in the Deep South. In that context, the humanitarian pretext for an intervention would be very convenient, even if to replace a dictator with another more sympathetic to Huey Long's views.

Is that possible or event plausible?

OTL when the USA entered the Great War, Smedley Butler was stuck in Haiti as commander of US military forces there, being in effect the proconsul of US interests in conjunction with the ambassador. He ought to have quite a lot of insight, since 1917 was hardly the first year he'd been busily engaged enforcing US interests on that island, in that nation. He'd have some knowledge of the Dominican Republic also I suppose.

 

[galileo-034]

Now the armchair reasoning usually omits to consider the possibility of a scissors-paper-rock situation whereby in particular regions, the races do boil down to two parties but the mix of dominant two varies. I don't just mean by large geographic region--South versus Midwest versus Northeast versus Great Basin inland west versus Pacific Coast--but subregions--big urban areas within each geographic one versus countryside, stuff like that. With your three parties, we could have lefty dominant regions, extreme ones that are safe seats for Progressives, more competitive ones where it is Prog versus Republican with the Democrats squeezed into a lunatic fringe; some supermoderate Republican safe seat zones, onward to more conservative-moderate zones where it is a revolving door between Republicans and Democrats and the Progressives look on from the sidelines as the regional outcasts, on to Democratic safe seats. And maybe conditions might even exist where certain regions are highly polarized battlegrounds between closely balanced Progressives versus Democrats and the Republican appeal to "moderation" is contemptuously rejected by both sides of the split electorate as dead armadillos in the middle of the road. Thus each party has its strongholds, flanked by regions where they tend to win more often than not but are in serious competition, and regions that shift all over the spectrum, the outcome being a roughly even split of each party getting about a third of House and Senate and each around a third of the states at any given time--I daresay that would fluctuate dramatically with periods where any of the three plummet to a nadir of 15-25 percent holdouts in strongholds while the other two ride higher.

That was also my thinking that at local an regional level, the apparent three party system would be actually a classical two party system between two out of the three being actual contestants.
So, by this system, the local and state levels elections would keep any of the three party from falling into irrelevance at national level.
But in the long run, owing to the FPTP voting system, this enduring three party system and the multiplication of spoiled races will make the call for an electoral reform all the more pressing.
Though PR may be enticing, I think that a more moderate version such as instant-runoff or even two-round voting, depending on the state laws, may be politically more acceptable and less radical in the transition, keeping in mind that by the time this reform happens, we would have probably been out of the Depression enough time for the political atmosphere being more prone to moderate choices.
That's on local and statewide races. But speaking of presidential elections, I think we would be probably ending up with an ATL version of the Bayh-Celler amendment, probably 10 to 15 years earlier than IOTL.

Else, on the matter of coalition, the alliance of convenience between Republicans and Democrats against Long, especially during the 1940 election, would provide the precedent for such a system, and we could end up with Progressive-Republican coalitions at some point.

Should the market fall upon hard times, with the moderate sized fortunes of small owners being blighted and the sources of national income payout drying up, in the crisis will voters meekly shake their heads and conclude the great experiment was doomed to fail just as the conservatives warned, or will they rather double down and refuse to see their incomes dried up and themselves thrown back on the mercy of a handful of oligarchs as they were before?

That would depend on what are actually proposing the Republicans and Democrats. If the most reactionary conservatives would probably advocate rolling back some of the popular reforms, I think that Dewey and Landon liberal Republican would endorse them while returning a "return to normalcy", basically a "these were good reforms, but they are enough, so let's move on".

But speaking of the reforms, SOW as radical, but it seems to me it was more a show of intent. I think Long believed in these proposals, but I don't think he actually thought he could implement them all (he was not naive as a politician).
In a matter of practicality, as I said before, SOW would be confronted to the limitations and barriers of the system, between the Supreme Court and the division of its own camp.
The Farmer-Labor and the ex Republican La Follette Progressives were essentially social-democrats, and Huey Long (and by extension the Long Democrats) wasn't yet a democratic-socialist but still a social-democrat even though he was quite radical in intent (I've not digged deep into his actual reforms and policies in Louisiana but I don't think they were yet leaning towards democratic-socialism, and I see them fitting more a radical social-democrat direction). The only component of the Progressives to be actually democratic-socialist would be the Socialists themselves (especially since the absence of a communist split would prevent it from drifting too much towards social-democracy as IOTL).
Due to the early "big tent" reality of the Progressive party, not everyone is on the same line. They all agree major reforms are needed, but would probably diverge on the ways to do it. That reality would prevent Huey Long from becoming the "tyrant" he was accused of being. The whole party would be probably amenable to some radical measure to get agenda passed, such as packing the Supreme Court, but subverting the Constitution to implement far raching socialist policies would be probably too much for social-democrats.
I think we would be still ending with a package of reforms much more radical than the most radical parts of the New Deal, but not quite overthrowing the bases of the system; I like to think of it like passing 75 years of OTL social reforms in less than 8. Basic income, minimum wage, insurances, healthcare, pensions ... not counting infrastructure projects, the whole financed by heavy taxation on wealth through graduated income tax and corporate taxes ... (radical by the standards of the 1930s, but that would have been implemented at some point IOTL in democratic countries though not necessarily in the US)
That would be a corporate hostile atmosphere, but as there's always ways ofund to circumvent, I don't doubt there would be corporations to circumvent these regulations and still make a profit. Outside the US, Russia is still under SR's grip, and though Western Europe may be more friendly than Huey Long, the UK are hard on Keynesian policies under the Liberals and France is swinging more and more towards the left at every election (OTL second Lefts Cartel in 1932 and Popular Front in 1936, with a probable populist wave in 1940 if not for ww2).

Ultimately, the volume of reforms would be limited by the voters' fatigue and the return of good economic conditions (no doubt TTL Progressive policies would be very good at stimulating consumers demand through basic income and massive infrastructure federal projects, and indirectly bring factories and whole industries back to life) that would encourage them to look for a return to moderation, more in phase with Dewey/Landon Republican message which offers the convenience of keeping most of the previous reforms intact (along with an overall lowering of taxes).
My estimate is that the Progressives' domination could last till 1948, three terms for Long, but hardly more before a liberal Republican is elected to the White House

OTL when the USA entered the Great War, Smedley Butler was stuck in Haiti as commander of US military forces there, being in effect the proconsul of US interests in conjunction with the ambassador. He ought to have quite a lot of insight, since 1917 was hardly the first year he'd been busily engaged enforcing US interests on that island, in that nation. He'd have some knowledge of the Dominican Republic also I suppose.

Even better as it provides Long with a figure to shield him from being too much associated personally with any eventual intervention in the Dominican Republic.

 

[galileo-034]

I've come across this nice historical oddity that is the historical episode of Boris Skossyreff, King of Andorra for one week in July 1934.

The man was an adventurer who fled Russia in 1917, ending up in Andorra by 1934 after making quite some troubles across Europe. He proposed to the poor people of Andorra, hit hard by the Depression, to transform their state on lines of Monaco and Liechtenstein, making it a tax and gambling heaven to attract investment. He received enthusiastic support as he was voted almost unanimously as King of Andorra (almost because short of only one vote out of 24). The reign lasted over a single week before the Guardia Civil, spanish police, arrested him and deported him. At the same time, France had declared non-intervention, claiming to be ready to aknowledge the new monarchy if it could last.
Now, I have no much intel about the exact story of Boris' kingship and the circumstances of his arrest by Spanish police, but I'd like to explore the possibilities of having the Kingdom of Andorra surviving.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Skossyreff

EDIT: To precise, I just found out that the single vote against the monarchy proposal was from a partisan of the Bishop of Urgell, Mossen Cinto, that then came to inform the said Bishop, leading up to the arrest. Maybe Cinto could be removed from the picture and/or the move against Boris by the Bishop be delayed enough so that King Boris has time to establish his government and constitution, gaining official recognition from France, dashing any plan from the Bishop to reestablish his rule.
Perhaps different events in Spain could add more distractions to keep eyes away from Andorra to ensure that; as of now, the only leads are a possible pro fascist right wing government by Gil Robles following the elections of 1933 leading to a more serious attempt at secession of Catalonia in 1934 (with more support from the very left wing Spanish military officers that IOTL put down the October secession).

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/José_María_Gil-Robles_y_Quiñones
  
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_State_(1934)

 

[judaspaladin]

I've come across this nice historical oddity that is the historical episode of Boris Skossyreff, King of Andorra for one week in July 1934.

This is one of those things that reminds you of how strange OTL is in a lot of ways. An adventurer becoming the monarch of European microstate sounds like something from a comic book or an adventure serial. Just on those grounds alone, I'd say find some way to make Boris's monarchy permanent.

Perhaps different events in Spain could add more distractions to keep eyes away from Andorra to ensure that; as of now, the only leads are a possible pro fascist right wing government by Gil Robles following the elections of 1933 leading to a more serious attempt at secession of Catalonia in 1934 (with more support from the very left wing Spanish military officers that IOTL put down the October secession).

I had been wondering how things in Spain would play out, Catalonia making a serious effort at breaking away earlier certainly opens up a lot of interesting possibilities. What are the odds of them actually being able to succeed?

 

[galileo-034]

I had been wondering how things in Spain would play out, Catalonia making a serious effort at breaking away earlier certainly opens up a lot of interesting possibilities. What are the odds of them actually being able to succeed?

A serious attempt at secession, there was already a serious one back in the 17th century. But back to 1934, even if the local Spanish garrison don't intervene to nip the secession in the bud as Batet did IOTL, that wouldn't prevent an intervention from troops outside of Catalonia, with the same result but with more victims.
If I was to find a way a Gil Robles government happening, that would probably lead up to a civil war but one started with a Left wing uprising this time, and I can imagine the Catalan secession/uprising would be the catalyst (the OTL secession happened as it was hoped to take advantage of the aborted revolution of 1934 to get away from Spain I suppose).

Contrary to the developments in central Europe, Spain and Portugal would probably follow the same course as IOTL for the 1920s, as they were staying away from the European scene, but that doesn't exclude underneath changes that would perhaps produce significant changes in the 1930s as for the USA.
So far, the first possibility for a significant departure from OTL for Spain is the coming to power of Gil Robles, and if I've been toying with that idea to have a non Franco Spain joining the Fascist bloc, I know not enough to Spanish politics of the time to find a plausible, "natural", way of this happening within the TL context; the CEDA is still only a plurality in the Cortes but quite not a majority, and president Alcala-Zamora consistently acted to avoid the CEDA forming a government, going as far as dissolving the Cortes in 1936, to the point the Left would use this opportune pretext to remove and replace him with Azaña. Meanwhile, Gil Robles never bothered to take the power in extralegal ways even though he could have I think.
So, I'm still a long way from having this fixed in the stone of the TL.

 

[galileo-034]

I wondered on the political leanings of Alaska ITTL.

With the Republicans being more a moderate urban dominated party, I supposed that Alaska would be contested between Progressives, rural populists with a strong proto-libertarian wing, and the Democrats, ITTL a mostly rural conservative party with renewed emphasis on states' rights and minimal government.
That's more or less an example on the base of all these states in the Rockies that are OTL today strongly Repubicans, but with some story of populist and progressive movements early between the civil war and the 30s.
What do you think?

 

[galileo-034]

Back on the Coup Attempt of 1938, I found that actually, the lame duck session of the congress to happen after the election, into November and December, may be the right time and fit the story build up.
During the lame duck session, the newly acquired majority of the Progressives threatens to enable Long to pack the Supreme Court as they can now pass a law to do so and after the failure of the impeachment in the last session, the last hope is a coup.

Basically, the army arrests the president and the vice president to make them "incapable" of carrying off the duties of their office.
Then following a reading of a 1905 constitutional theory paper of Charles Hamlin about the Succession Act of 1886 , the Congress passes a law to set up a special presidential election that is theoretically, still according to the paper, not unconstitutional. There, either the coup plotters arrest enough Progressive congressmen to get a veto-proof majority to pass it, but that the Congress sees infighting within itself rather than directed against the executive branch alone could shake many not part of the plot and potentially foil the plan, or find a member of the cabinet ready to sign the bill, to betray Long (perhaps because that one feels he has been going too far with the supreme court packing scheme, or just because of more greedy motives or rivalry, feud...), so the plotters just have to arrest all the people before him in the line of succession.
Then of course, Butler breaks out and leads the counter-coup.
Finding people who could get into Long's cabinet but later oppose his packing scheme would not be hard, I already saw some names flying (mostly out of OTL allies turned opponents of FDR), but finding someone willing to betray and get involved in a coup, a Judas, is a different matter since principled men such as in the first case would also be likely to oppose the coup and be complicit.
Is there anyone you would imagine in that role?

There is also the possibility of arresting the entire cabinet, but I don't know what to do with that as I think the conspirators would likely launch a coup with at least some measure of legal justification, but decapitating the entire succession line, with no congressional leader in it since the version is that of 1886 act, leaves shaky, unprecedented ground.
So far, my reasoning of a possible plan here is : provided executive authority is de facto exerted by the military, but that with the president and the entire line of succession is incapacitated, the Congress can passes a bill, wait ten days (sundays excepted) as per Article 1, section 7 of the US Constitution, and do as if the president had virtually failed to return the bill within the delay, thus considering the bill passed as a law.

Which one of these options do you think is more likely to be carried out?

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_veto#United_States
• https://www.jstor.org/stable/1323239?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents (1905 paper of Hamlin)

 

[galileo-034]

Would it interest anyone if I started an election game in Shared Worlds inspired by this thread?

That would be the election of 2000. I already handwaved a background scenario spanning between Long presidency and 2000, including a list of presidents and vice president and the results of 1994, 1996 and 1998 Senate elections, the Supreme Court justicesand, and also a few profiles and particular details on the Senate racesof 1998.
Since it's handwaved, I've used lot of figures without changing much in their bio and blatantly ignoring butterflies, but that's just about a game.

EDIT: For the game purpose, I would also consider the electoral college still existing, though I think that in the TL, it would have likely disappeared a while ago.

**********************************************************************************
List of Presidents and Vice Presidents
​

1913-1919 : (D-NJ) Woodrow Wilson* / (D-IN) Thomas Marshall *: Death from stroke
1919-1921 : (D-IN) Thomas Marshall / vacant
1921-1925 : (R-OH) Warren Harding / (R-MA) Calvin Coolidge
1925-1929 : (R-MA) Calvin Coolidge / (R-CA) Herbert Hoover
1929-1933 : (R-CA) Herbert Hoover / (R-KS) Charles Curtis
1933-1937 : (D-NY) Alfred Smith / (D-TX) John N Garner
1937-1949 : (P-LA) Huey Long / (P-PA) Smedley Butler** _ 1937-1940 **: Death from cancer
/ (P-IA) Henry Wallace _ 1941-1949
1949-1957 : (R-NY) Thomas Dewey / (R-CA) Richard Nixon
1957-1961 : (R-NY) Nelson Rockefeller / (R-WI) Joseph McCarthy
1961-1965 : (D-FL) George Smathers / (D-IN) Roger D Branigin
1965-1973 : (P-AL) George Wallace / (P-WI) William Proxmire
1973-1981 : (D-CA) Ronald Reagan / (D-VT) Roger MacBride
1981-1982 : (P-CA) Gerald Brown** / (D-GA) James Carter ***: assassinated
1982-1985 : (P-GA) James Carter / (P-IL) Jesse Jackson
1985-1993 : (R-CT) George H W Bush / (R-PA) Alexander Haig
1993-2001 : (R-KS) Nancy Landon / (R-NY) Jack F Kemp

Huey Long's presidency has been marked by the establishment of an extensive welfare and healthcare system, with some notorious reforms such as Basic Income, free college education, public pension, free and universal healthcare coverage, funded through a significant increase in taxation levels and deficit spending.
Economic recovery coming, discontent over taxation and the polarized political atmosphere since the Coup attempt of December 1938, leads to the election of Thomas Dewey on a Republican liberal platform. Afterwards, Huey Long returns to his US Senate seat where he will sit until his death at age 103 in early 1997.
The determinedly liberal policies of Dewey and Rockefeller administrations (still in contrast to social-democrat progressive policies and conservative Democrats positions) drives a wedge within the GOP establishment, especially as the Supreme Court, full of Long's appointees start to strike down fundamental segregationist laws, some even suspecting Long's hand in it, and force Republicans to engage head on the civil rights issue. This begins a trend seeing the most conservative wing of the GOP switching to the Democratic party, which comes to an apex in 1960 with the election of Florida US Senator George Smathers.
Smathers' conservative presidency in turns alienates what's left of the liberal wing of the Democratic party, driving the so called Kennedy Democrats into the GOP. At the same time, Smathers' stand on the matter of civil right stirs up violence and causes a stand off with the Congress and the Supreme Court which leaves much of the Democratic legislative agenda stalled.
Comes George Wallace, protegee of Long and rising star of the southern Progressives. By this moment, Long and the southern Progressives have "nominally" embraced the civil rights' cause by opposition to the Democratic party (where Long's presidency had taken a passive and more indirect approach to improve African-Americans' condition). So, in 1964, the Progressives return to the White House. Wallace's presidency, except for pushing on civil rights and launching a space program, largely continues Long's policies with a more urban emphasis this time, solidly anchoring Progressive hold over minorities' electorate, lower and lower middle classes and blue collar workers and rural farmers across Deep South and Upper Great Plains.
Still, the conservative backlash against progressive to liberal policies, not just in socio-cultural policies, remains on the rise despite the misstep of Smathers' presidency, they make a strong resurgence into Wallace's second term embodied by Ronald Reagan, Governor of California, who brings the Democrats back towards the center and a more moderate, palatable version of conservatism, sending him into the White House. This time, though Reagan goes through a second term, the Democrats' undoing proves to be the social strife over deregulation and free trade policies.
Comes Jerry Brown who breaks the tradition established of the Progressive party of having the ticket being from Deep South and Midwest by being the first westerner on it, sweeping the primaries as Huey Long, the deemed Eternal Senator of Louisiana, grows older and older and sees his influence over the Progressive party begins to fade away. In that perspective, Jerry Brown is the representative of the new generation of post Long era Progressives. Jerry Brown is swept into the Oval Office, but is assassinated in 1982.
Another moment of history is written by Carter when he nominates Secretary of Education Jesse Jackson for vice president.
Eventually, the Progressives get beaten in try to play a more social liberal game against Republican candidate George Bush from Connecticut.
In 1992, Kansas US Senator Nancy Landon wins Republican nomination for president against vice president Haig whose habits have alienated him establishment support. Helped by the most important of economic growth since the 1940s, and the absence of a credible opponent, Nancy Landon becomes the first woman president.
The honeymoon falters apart into her second term as world news hit the country with their consequences.

After mass protests and a military coup in Germany, the Fascist bloc crumbles at last, while in Russia, an electoral defeat puts an end to almost eight decades of domination by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and that in China, a velvet revolution leads to the end of KMT monopoly on power, leaving such hypermilitarist nations such as Nationalist Turkey and Japan under autarcic regimes (in the North Korean style). Meanwhile, the Indian Confederation has launched a full scale invasion of Afghanistan to suppress the Taliban regime which is supplying islamic fundamentalist and separatist terrorists and insurgents in the Northwest frontier in what's called the Second Emergency (the first being a low level insurgency fought through the 1940s against the establishment of the confederation leaving India independent without partition by the British), putting pressure on the global stage through retaliation by oil producers of the Persian Gulf. Not far, the chaos left in the wake of Italian withdrawal from East Africa has led to explosion of piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, leading up to an international intervention, to which the United States have contributed in the form of a naval force.
On the economic stage, the geopolitical upheavals have caused or entertained a global recession.

1998 Elections​

Back in the United States, this translates into a severe losses in the midterms, 8 seats in the Senate and 25 in the House, down from 47 Senators and 187 Representatives.
If the Democrats have scored the most gains in the Senate with 5 seats, the Progressives are the big winner in the House with a 20 gain up from 154.
As the race to 2000 begins, even the Republicans have taken a bad hit, the race is far from being decided with each side evenly matched.

US Senate as of January 1999

Senate elections from 1994 to 1998

1998 election
Senate changes

Pennsylvania ----- R > P , previously taken by Republicans in 1980 from Progressives
Ohio -------------- R > D , held by Republicans since 1962
Illinois ------------ R > P , held by Reps since 1974
Florida ------------ R > D , captured from Progressives in 1992 who took it from Dems in 1980
Alaska ------------ P > D , held by Progs since statehood
Nevada ----------- R > P , held by Reps since 1962
Washington ------ R > P , held by Reps since 1962
Oregon ----------- R > D , held by Reps since 1980
Arizona ----------- R > D , held by Reps since 1980
​

1996 election
Senate changes

New Jersey -------P > R , captured by Progs in 1990, Reps in 1984, Dems in 1972
Nebraska -------- D > P , held by Dems since 1972
Colorado --------- P > R , held by Progs since 1991, held by Dems between 1973 and 1991
New Mexico ------ D > R , held by Dems since 1972
​

1994 election
Senate changes

Washington ----- R > P , held by Reps since 1970
Montana -------- D > P , held by Dems since 1970
Michigan -------- R > P , held by Reps since 1976
Ohio ------------ R > D , held by Reps since 1982
Arizona --------- R > D , held by Reps since 1982​

List of Supreme Court Justices
​

Donald L Hollowell ----- Associate Justice, appointed by Wallace in 1965, liberal
William R Clark -------- Associate Justice, appointed by Wallace in 1969, liberal
Robert Bork ------------ Associate Justice, appointed by Reagan in 1979, conservative
Harris Wofford --------- Chief Justice, appointed by Brown in 1981, liberal
Bernard Sanders ------- Associate Justice, appointed by Brown in 1981, liberal
Ruth Bader Ginsberg -- Associate Justice, appointed by Carter in 1983, liberal
James P Hoffa --------- Associate Justice, appointed by Carter in 1984, liberal
Sandra Day O'Connor - Associate Justice, appointed by Bush in 1989, conservative
Theodore B Olson ----- Associate Justice, appointed by Landon in 1995, moderate

Due to the resignation of the conservative Four Horsemen in the wake of the coup attempt of 1938, Long had been able to pack all the Supreme Court with his nominees. He deliberately appointed jurists still relatively young with the objective of ensuring a liberal Supreme Court for the decades to come that would protect his achievements.
Dewey, Rockefeller, Bush and Landon were able to appoint each only one of the Justices, while Long maneuvered to have them waiting a future Progressive presidency to retire and leave their spot to another progressive liberal. By the end of the 20th century, this utter politicization of the Supreme Court remains the most enduring legacy of Huey Long, half a century after he left the White House.

Particular profiles

US Senate

(P-CA) Harvey Milk ------------ elected in 1998 to succeed George Moscone, 1st openly gay US senator
(R-VA) John McCain ----------- first elected in 1984, Senate Majority Whip in 1992 and Senate Majority Leader since the election
(D-VA) Marion G Robertson --- first elected in 1970, Democratic presidential candidate in 1992 (with landslide loss to Reps and Progs)
(P-PA) Edward Rendell --------- elected in 1998 against three terms incumbent Senate Majority Leader Arlen Specter
(R-PA) William Scranton III ---- first elected in 1988
(R-NY) George Pataki ----------- appointed in 1991, won special election in 1992, won a full term in 1994
(R-NY) Geraldine Ferraro ------- first elected in 1992, reelected by close margin in 1998​

House

(P-PA) William H Gray III ------- House Progressive Minority Leader returns to Speaker's chair (first time in 1991-1993, second in 1995-1997)​

Governors

(P-CA) George Moscone --------- US senator for California from 1975 to 1999, vice presidential candidate in 1988, elected governor of California in 1998​

**********************************************************************************​

 

[galileo-034]

Should I start such a game?

 

[Shevek23]

Should I start such a game?

I don't play games so I have zero interest in it, if you are asking me. Others might like it. You'd have to use judgement about how the outcome of a game would reasonably map onto TL events as you conceive them!

I don't much like getting into the heads of the plotters either so I am not much use trying to figure out who does what to whom in the era. I'd be pretty sure Henry Ford would be on the black hat side somehow or other, but would he be canny enough to wriggle off the hook when the coup attempt goes south? I dunno! Who else would I name? Is Hearst still alive at this point? Naming the names most likely to be involved would probably have their modern day heirs and assigns unhappy with you for slandering them, no matter how much evidence you could marshal to show they really would do it--and indeed the clearest evidence of such intents would have been muddied up at the time after all. We could make up fake millionaires and doctrinaires to cover the reputations of the really guilty OTL I suppose.

 

[galileo-034]

That was just to know if there is people to play, ie if it's worth starting it.

 

[SomeFollowTheStars]

Should I start such a game?

I've never heard of Shared Worlds before. I don't know if I'd be interested or not.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

I've hard a few times about Shared Worlds, but never dwelled too much in its depths. Perhaps its time to change that.

 

[galileo-034]

As we go into the TL, we're heading towards a situation where we have three major nuclear powers being direct neighbours, strategic centers and cities of France, the UK and Germany being less than a few hundred kilometers apart from each other.
In case of a nuclear attack, that would practically mean a point blank firing of missiles with hits within minutes, instead of OTL where USSR and the US were distant enough from each other for a delay to allow government to react and rush to shelter.
I imagine that ITTL, this would make the situation all the more tense, so what could we see in terms of alternate nuclear strategic and related military doctrines?

 

[galileo-034]

I've not been very productive here lately, so there a little exploration of TTL sports history.

While looking into history of some sports, especially that of rugby union (hey, my favorite one actually ), I took some interest in the practice of that sport in the US.

Long story short, despite experiencing a brief resurge after the 1905-1906 football crisis, rugby was overwhelmed by (American) football in popularity across the US.
Still, rugby union retained some strength on the West Coast, centered around the University of Stanford, to a point the US national team in international contests would often be dubbed "the Californians".

These Californians would kinda play the swan song of US rugby union when they carried surprise wins and gold medals at both 1920 and 1924 summer olympics.
In 1920 in Antwerp, Belgium, the US team came to battle a hastily raised French team (the only two other contestants, Romania and Czechoslovakia, had dropped out, while the British and southern Pacific contestants boycotted over calendar divergences) and pursuing a game strategy suited to the terrain soaked and muddy ground (while the French strategy seemed unadapted to it), won 8-0.

In 1924, a curious situation I read, most of the players of the US rugby union team had come from football and knew little to nothing of rugby before their first gathering in San Francisco on the eve of their trip to France. Still, they spent the entire duration of their almost 10,000 kms travel performing an intensive training. Meanwhile, the French team is said to have grown so confident of their superiority they barely bothered to practice (actually, after the 1920 Olympics, the US team embarked on a tour of regional contests in France, dominating every one excepted for the last, national, one that was a rematch of the Olympic match that ended in a 14-5 French win); plus, the French team had lost probably its finest player, René Crabos (a talented strategist and theoretician nicknamed "the genius of rugby"), who broke his leg a short time before.
After both teams trouned Romania (61-3 by the French and 37-0 by the Americans), they finally met on May 18th.
By far, the US team was the best prepared and trained, but also the one with the heavyweights on its side. Through the match, it would maintain a constant superiority in speed, strength and agility, eventually winning 17-3.
However, this success story ends almost right there.

This same 1924 finale came to be infamously known for its violence, not on the game, but around it.
Excited by feverish annoucements of French triumph, the crowd that came to the game was utterly disappointed by the French performance, and misunderstanding some actions, instead got mad at the US team and the whole affair degenerated into violence, to a point the US team had to be escorted out of the stadium, I read, by 250 policemen.
Although in the immediate aftermath, the French press made an extensive act of contrition in the aftermath and praise of the US team performance, the damage was done.
After this terrible display, and with de Coubertin (its main supporter) retiring, the Olympic Committee wouldn't reschedule rugby union at summer olympics for 1928 games and wouldn't again include this sport until 2016 (even though it was rugby sevens then).
Back to the story of rugby union in the United States, without further demonstrations of American prowesses and successes to capitalize upon such as these two gold medals of 1920 and 1924 summer olympics, the yet not dead US rugby union eventually faded away after this swan song, never to return to light before another 50 years.


At this point, my infos on the history of rugby in this area is rather piecemeal, so I can only make a few guesses. And here, I'd like to see how far I can bring rugby union in the US, or rather how long. I know rugby overcoming football would be ASB, and that's not at all what I looking at; rather, I want to see if and how it can stay popular a sport on the West Coast, to keep "the Californians" going around for a longer time (but I'm not intending to force the fate so if I see there is no plausible way without heavy "TL author 'divine' intervention" to escape doom, I'll keep myself from doing so).
Since I excluded for this TL any divergence prior to the official september 1918 POD (a self-restriction that also prevented me from altering the patterns of Spanish flu though I very much wanted to), I couldn't go back in time enough to make ruby mainstream or completely stave off its decline. That left me only with the 1920 and 1924 gold medals, and with the 1924 game, I may hold the way to frame this into the TL.


My idea is to butterfly the broken leg of René Crabos and keep him on the field.
Being a tactical mastermind and a talented leader, I have no doubt he would be somewhat capable of finding a better way to come around the physical strengths of the US team than the French did IOTL, though I don't think that will be enough to make up for all OTL French lackings. The important result is not so about getting a French victory, but a better French performance, make the encounter less one-sided and as a result, make the crowd of spectators less angry (still, I don't mean peaceful, but only 'under control').
A second point I'm way less sure of but which seems not implausible, is to have George Clemenceau attending the game.
A quick reminder, ITTL, after the resignation of Deschanel in late 1920, Clemenceau got elected President of the Republic (post 26 and post 112). Being pro-American, he could well attend the game in his official capacity as head of state, especially as it happens within the context of the Olympic Games. What's more, the game happens to take place right midway between two rounds (May 11th and May 25th) of a legislative election that IOTL and ITTL would see left parties winning a majority in the lower house of the Parliament; that could also be the occasion for Clemenceau to take a break away from the political arena, especially when we consider the winners of the elections happen to be on unfriendly terms with Clemenceau (more distrust than hostility as it happened ITTL with Millerand). The presence of Clemenceau, the man being who he is, would for sure, be a moral force powerful enough to impose a cooler attitude to the public (Clemenceau was a revered figure since the war). If we go the Clemenceau way, we could even foresee a better welcome of the US team upon their arrival in France unlike IOTL and a less hostile discourse in the press before the match.

The result of the whole is to get a, if not calm, at least not violent ending, and another rugby union contest in the next Summer Olympics in 1928, and perhaps in the following olympiads (considering there was a serious attempt at reintroducing rugby union for the 1936 olympic summer games).
Back in the US, or back in California shall I say, it could keep interest up in this sport. By that point, if the Anglo-Saxons keep boycotting the games as they did in 1920 and 1924, that will essentially come down to France, the US and whatever country from central Europe joins in, so in effect, it would be ensured to be a great time of visibility for the US rugby team on the international (and domestic by extension) scene.
Following France's exclusion from the Five Nations Championship in 1931 (I'm not seeing yet reason to butterfly this) and its efforts together with Germany, Italy and Romania to create an alternative at the Olympic Games (that aborted after its first contest because of French reintegration into the Five Nations and the war thereafter), I guess the continued presence of the US "Californian" team would improve the chances at consolidating the standing of rugby union as an Olympic sport with German and Italian teams joining the fray (even though that's in the context of a cold war, Charlie Doe, one of the American players who lived up to 106 and died in 1995, later said: "our success in 1924 was even greater than the victory of our young hockey players of 1980 over the great team of the Soviet union" [approximate translation of a French translation of the original quote, so there is for sure differences, yet it's the best I can for now]).

One thought I just had over this and what it could mean in a TTL present day, is about international players. As I watch rugby games in France, the statistics of foreign players hired by French clubs shows that most of them are either from the British Isles or the southern hemisphere with a notable exception for Georgia. I don't know what's up in other countries about this repartition or have a sufficient knowledge to conclude, but ITTL, I'd see international players from the US (from California) recruited into European teams.

• https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_à_XV_aux_Jeux_olympiques_de_1920 (available in English, but the French version of the article is more complete)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_union_at_the_1924_Summer_Olympics
• https://www.midi-olympique.fr/article/18565-1924-mauvaise-education (that article in also in French, but provides with better understanding of the circumstances of the match, before and after)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_FIRA_Tournament
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Doe
• https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/René_Crabos

 

[Salvador79]

Oh, this is back? That's absolutely awesome!

 

[galileo-034]

It had never really left

 

[Salvador79]

It had never really left

Good to know! We're working on somewhat similar TL projects, and since I appreciated your feedback on my TL a lot, here are some of my thoughts for yours. I'll keep it limited to Russia, not only because the global consequences really depend a lot on how you'd flesh out Russia and the US IF you decide to flesh it out (if you keep it in this format, that's cool, too, since it provides for more speed and scope; so if you've decided you're never going to transform this into a TL you would no longer label a "draft", let me know, and I'll start commenting on China, Germany etc., too), but also because on some places I really am not quite as knowledgeable yet, or at least I haven't spent so much time thinking about possible alternative developments.

As for SR Russia, your association with PRI Mexico is one I find utterly convincing - following from there, I'll comment on a number of developments you sketched (and some which you didn't):

1. Utter dominance of one party, but not a one-party state: I find this very plausible (and indeed it's been inspiring me to name my own timeline "A Red-and-Green Russia", hinting that SRs are going to remain dominant over a significant period of time). Let's consider HOW and WHY they're so dominant because just basing oneself on the CA election results isn't going to lead us anywhere, THAT could change greatly at the next election. Also, constructing it as a sort of "soft" parallel to OTL Soviet one-party dictatorship isn't going to lead us anywhere, either, for Bolshevik/Communist dictatorship was based on the network of terror knit by the secret polices (Cheka, then GPU, then NKVD, KGB etc.) and involving mass internments (Gulag) and executions. A "soft" version of this could be a still-strong, but not all-powerful SR Cheka, less widespread internments, which are more precisely targeted on politically "dangerous" parliamentarians, journalists, union leaders etc. if they overstep certain boundaries. This is possible - basically it's what Putin's regime in OTL's present looks like - but I'm not sure this is what you're going for, since the rejection of such neo-Okhrana, neo-Siberian exile practices was what pushed many on the left wing of the Whites into resistance against Lenin's dictatorship in the first place, so if you have them win, maybe they won't go for that. So, what else could give the SRs perpetual power? In my TL, it's the outcome of agrarian, economic and financial reforms, which confer a LOT of power (much more power than any political party in a Western-style capitalist democracy can ever amass) to recallable politicians (the peasants' and workers' soviets): the soviets allot the land, they allot loans, they manage social security, they decide where roads and rails are built and who is compensated how much for it etc. etc. - and since most of Russia is agrarian by the time of the emergence of this system, it's the party which has its strongholds in the countryside who's starting strong and never giving away that advantage. On a local level, I imagine SRs at first being the kind of half-educated smallholders, with a few teachers and never-graduates theological seminary students thrown in, who also bathe in the glory of having led the local militia during the Revolution, who are morphing into a mixture of almost-unquestionable village authorities and utterly corrupt distributors of economic goodies (who always keep enough for themselves, too). Against such a cartelised party, the rest would stand no chance, even though other parties might win positions of mayors in big cities or even parliamentarians for certain regions, they'd never break the monopoly of the PRI-like SRs. But for that to happen in your TL, you'd need to change the parameters of your economic system from "moderate social democracy" to something significantly more socialist (though not quite the Gosplan of OTL). Any other idea on how and why the SRs remain in power for ever?
2. Given that the powerbase of the SRs is always the Russian countryside (in the above scenario even more, but in any scenario really, I suppose), I absolutely agree on your views regarding education / literacy campaigns - how they look provides you with a lot of leeway, I'm very interested in that aspect, too, and the 1920s are an exciting time in that domain. Where I am not so sure is with regards to social liberalism, e.g. the decriminalisation of abortion and homosexuality. I imagine that, after the first enthusiastic years, the SRs are mostly going to take on a rather culturally conservative outlook.. after all, they are an agrarian party, and any agrarian party I know is mostly culturally conservative, although there's often an interesting interaction with progressive-populist proponents. Either way, I can imagine the post-RSDLP parties (Mensheviks, any new formations, and if they're not utterly crushed and outlawed, Bolsheviks, too) propagating both of the above reforms, but I'd see the position of the SRs as mostly opposed to them.
3. Have you given any thought as to the development of Christian Orthodoxy in your Russia? The first revolutionary years were an exciting phase in this domain, too - and since I, for one, don't see the SRs either following the policies of OTL's Bolsheviks, nor the rabid anti-clericalism of Mexico's Plutarco Elias Calles, I think this is a topic well worth exploring... with far-reaching implications.

 

[Salvador79]

Also, how a number of countries / regions, especially Ukraine, develop ITTL depends a lot on how the rest of the Russian Civil War after Kazan pans out. The Red Army collapses? But what of its remnants, no further Bolshevik trouble anywhere at all? Also, if Kolchak breaks out towards the North, that makes (at least) two White forces in the Pontic-Caspian space. Ukraine's fate could depend to a great extent on how their interaction goes. Do they fight it out for predominance? Then the Ukraine is left in peace (well, except for the Poles, and anarchist groups, and other roving bands of demobilised soldiers... and I still think Bolshies of both Russian and Ukrainian persuasion, too) for another while, or might side with one of them. Do they integrate peacefully? (That's an awkward legacy for SR Russia, it wouldn't be so much of an exclusively SR Russia then...) In that case, they could "help" the Ukrainian National Army in putting down Makhno's Black Army (and possible Bolshie revolts here and there) together... which would throw their independence into question again.

 

[galileo-034]

Thanks for the comment.

First, I do intend for a TL to emerge, but I couldn't wait to write it properly, to keep so much ideas in my head for so long, because it will take me quite a long time to do proper research with proper sources (ie many books to read and 'digest'), given how extended I intend the TL in scope to be. My primary research material is mostly web based, so I keep to make the great lines. When I get much more detailed material, I would fill the void.
So, if you want to comment on other places, feel free and write, I'd like to hear.

For the assumptions you made on my view of the political system in SR Russia, you're mostly right.


Actually, I wouldn't say right ahead the SR cadres would be "utterly" corrupt in the way of usual corruption; if we speak of corruption, it's gonna be the old "power is corrupting" thing and here, the SRs are not going to escape this.
For now, though the CA prior election can make base for legitimacy claims, ITTL, the primary source of power and legitimacy for SRs is their victory in the Russian civil war. By January 1919 when the Bolsheviks are beaten, they control Siberia all the way from Vladivostok to the Urals, most of the Volga basin, Moscow and Petrograd, and have nominal sway over most of Central Asia (through Kazakh and Transcaspian governments) while the right wing Whites, Denikin and Krasnov's armies (who don't have merged yet with one another), only control North Caucasus, the Kuban and Don basins, Crimea and the lower course of the Volga river; so when time comes to negotiate a proper end to the civil war and reconstruction between these factions, the SRs will have the last word (and the Allies will prefer to end the whole mess as quickly as they can so they will support SRs).



I didn't ignore the social conservatism of Russian rurals and its subsequent expression in the SR party, though I may have not make it clear enough.
Social liberalism is more of a by-product of the revolution and the civil war than an actual policy, at least as it goes for decriminalization of homosexuality (as for the French revolution in the 1790s, the Bolsheviks "forgot" the references to homosexuality in their new penal code when they replaced the old Tsarist legal system). Beyond that, it stays that way because noone will then bother to act on it, either for or against, in the usual "that's not an issue, no need to talk about that" way; so, as long as it does not infringe on their hold and monopoly on power, the SRs tolerate it and let it go. This tolerance in turns leads to a vivid cultural scene on that matter. What's more, that would probably remain an "urban thing" (actually because it's more visible there than elsewhere), so that's secondary to rural concerns.
I think that kind of reasoning can go too for other social liberal things, without going too far either.
The main difference from OTL here, besides the political atmosphere being less totalitarian without the communist police state, will be the absence of Stalinian reaction with abrogation of the main social liberal measures of OTL (like recriminalization of abortion and homosexuality). There certainly would be a social conservative drive, but I'd tend to think that inertia over societal matters could still prevail; the economic crisis and the war with Japan will be more important issues to everybody than these subjects.



As for the Christian orthodoxy, I didn't give much thought to it actually.
Besides eventual conflict with the Orthodox Church over land reform, secularization and redistribution of church lands and possibly monasteries, along with state subsidies cut all together (without that much income source, hard to restore all the monasteries and churchs burnt and pillaged during the civil war while maintaining what is still standing), I've no much idea of what could happen. To go the Calles' way would likewise require someone violently anti clerical, I mean beyond just separation of state and church, land reform and "just let the church starve without funding".
Of course that's still an option, but else, by default, I'd keep going with the way I describe.
However, if the Orthodox church was ever to pose a political threat to the SRs despite all these funding cut and all these lands confiscated, that would likely change quickly. Because here, that wouldn't be any more just anti-clericalism, it would be about safekeeping their monopoly on power, and anti clericalism would be a convenient pretext to act upon.
That's certainly a topic deserving more research.



On the topic of economics, I wouldn't describe the system as "moderate social democracy". I would deem the SRs by nature to be highly interventionist in the economy even though not to the point Stalin did IOTL, with major industries nationalized, massive public work projects, extensive welfare and healthcare programs, etc.
Here, I get to make some precisions due to recent reflection.

In terms of economic policies, we'd have to make a distinction between two periods, the post civil war Reconstruction period, probably about 5 years or slightly more, and the post-Reconstruction period.

Though the SRs would be looking to implement socialist economic agenda, the Reconstruction would be staving them off implementing it all. Reconstruction would need heavy inflow of foreign capitals and low price goods to restore infrastructure and currency stability, less they be forced into autarcy right ahead as Lenin and Stalin did (but I doubt the SRs would go that route).
Into 1919, as the civil war comes to a close, Reconstruction begins.
For a short while, the SRs have still to field a sizeable army to deal with remaining factions (Krasnov' cossacks in the Caucasus, Semyonov in Siberia and the pacification of Turkestan) for another two years or three. All in all, that's still less in requirements and financial strain than IOTL as this is more about pacification campaigns to conduct before an eventual demobilization (partial or total).
Then, there is the sanitary and food crisis to deal with, and that is collateral to the infrastructure issue. The disruption brought about by the civil war, though less severe than IOTL as the civil war is a year shorter at least, would still have left a land hit by epidemics and food shortages bordering famine if not outright famines. Solving this in the immediate term would require in the short run import food to make up for lost agricultural output until that is restored. To restore that output would also require getting machine tools, fertilizer, and waiting the local industries can make up for the demand, these would have to be imported. To make this all running, this would also require transport infrastructure to be restored, which after years of extensive use, either in the war against Germany or during the civil war, will make it a not easy task, new rails to manufacture, new locomotives and wagons to bring in; again, failing an industry capable of doing that in the short run, that will require import.
And then, restore and upgrade factories to make up for local demand would possibly if not likely require foreign capitals and expertise.
Meanwhile, the fiscal administration would have been shattered by the civil war, and the country is left with a huge debt in the form of pre war, war and civil war debts incurred. Even though the SRs have the Tsar's gold underhand (I read these reserves are about several hundred metric tons) since their capture of Kazan (and that won't end up at the bottom of Lake Baikal as IOTL), they are left with not much hard currency to pay all of this. That would likely mean taking further loans, which precludes any unilateral default, partial or total, of the debt.
Now I said the basic needs of reconstruction, I'd point at some ways of funding it.
First, the import costs would need to be reduced as much as possible, so this would lead to very low tariffs.
Then, there would be to restore some form of hard trading currency internally. That means reintroducing a new ruble into the domestic market, backed by what remains of gold reserves and foreign currencies held in reserve (likely acquired from loans backed by part and partial sale of such gold).
At the same time, there would be to restore a formal fiscal administration to collect taxes and whatever custom and tariffs have not been slashed. That's a process that is going to take place within the context of rebuilding the government bureaucracy across Russia, which itself would be a politically sensible matter, but still minding that the fiscal part would be amid the top priorities.
Also, to bring in foreign capital without too much additional costs, there would be the perspective of profits to be made to attract investors into joint public-private industrial ventures.
Meanwhile, the access to loans, beyond what can be got with backing assets within politically and socially acceptable limits, would be defined politically. That would be through Allied governments providing guarantees and subsidies for loans to be granted to Russia as an ally in dire need. Diplomatically, there would be the question of war reparations. Here, Russia would have its share of the reparations, but I mind they would be more open to getting it in form of raw material, steel, coal, industrial and agricultural machine tools, using part of German reparations as collateral for loans whenever that's possible.

Politically, these whole policies which are not quite socialistic are motivated by necessities, but that doesn't mean the S of S-R would be empty.
Once internal peace is reached and government bureaucracy sufficiently restored, the SRs could proceed to an extensive land reform, one on their terms (I guess that their opposition to the Bolsheviks' one was partly if not hugely motivated by it not being under their control, at their political advantage). That's going to be the most important social reform of the Reconstruction era. Due to budgetary concerns over the financial constraints I listed above, reforms in welfare, healthcare and education would be either downplayed or pushed back to a later date beyond minimal requisites (in the matter of healthcare, the exception is about building hospitals and dispensaries, due to need of bringing the sanitary crisis and epidemics under control, but that's a sector that will probably see lot of charities, Red cross and foreign personel involved).
As the SRs have a largely agrarian base, that won't be too much a problem in the immediate (I don't think the farmers will dislike imported tools if they are low price and affordable). Plus, the reconstruction projects, works in rebuilding railways and roads, reopening or upgrading factories will provide with ample work opportunities.

But all things have an end. In a matter of a few years, currency has stabilized, credit rates and solvency have significantly improved, industrial production and agricultural output have risen up enough to replace imports. At that point, around 1923-1924 I'd say, we enter the post Reconstruction phase.

Concretely, that begins with a huge switch on tariff policy from free trade to protectionnism, "to protect the workers and farmers against rapacious foreign capitalist competition" or kind of. That is keeping in mind that production would be essentially meant to fuel domestic oriented growth rather than through exports. That would be followed by the enactment of further more ambitious social policies, in welfare, healthcare and education notably. There, we go finally with the full socialist-ish agenda of the SRs, there we see them definitely locking up the grip on the economic and political structures of the country in the guise of post Reconstruction political maturation of Russia.
Of note, after the civil war and until tensions rise up with Japan, I'd see the military budget, the army and navy rather neglected besides maintaining what's necessary to maintain order; diplomatically, the SR governments that would succeed each other as leader pass and go would be constant on their support of a "collective security" approach, ie maintain the pre war alliance with Paris and London to keep the European border safe, and play diplomacy whereever it can be. But when we get into the 30s and world get way more dangerous between worldwide depression and militarist threats first from Japan and then from central Europe (Germany, Italy, Hungary, Ukraine and possibly Poland), there would be a switch.