brucejoel99
Atlas Icon
Posts: 19,838
Political Matrix
E: -3.48, S: -3.30
|
 |
« on: July 08, 2019, 03:44:22 AM » |
|
1964: Goldwater would still be the nominee, though, regardless of whether or not the country's political atmosphere would be much less toxic without a president having just been assassinated, there'd still be no self-respecting moderate with an ounce of political sanity who'd team up with him. JFK & Goldwater embark on a traveling series of joint town-hall debates, which they'd already agreed to do before the assassination as, on personal terms, they were quite cordial. The election is a JFK landslide, only slightly smaller than LBJ's, both for the White House & congressionally.
JFK: Reshuffles the Cabinet, with RFK going to Defense, McNamara to State, Katzenbach to Justice, & Rusk to the UN. He also retires Hoover in 1965, publicly because he was past the mandatory retirement age & privately under threat of exposing him as a homosexual, & replaces him with William C. Sullivan. Both the CRA & VRA would've passed, especially considering enough Senators of both parties had privately pledged their support (for the former, at least) before the assassination, but with 2-1 Democratic supermajorities in both the House & Senate (most being liberal Northerners), the GOP would be irrelevant. The New Frontier legislative package would've passed, but there'd be no Great Society; consequently, there'd be more of an emphasis on the middle class than the poor, compared to LBJ. Some GS measures would pass, mostly those that concern consumer & environmental protection, but it wouldn't be the New Deal 2.0 that LBJ envisioned. And either Medicare or Medicaid would've passed, but not both, as neither Kennedy brother had the legislative acumen to get both passed. Medicaid would've been easier, because the GOP wasn't gonna vote against basic healthcare for the poor (otherwise, that would've been the easiest attack ad to ever make).
Vietnam: If he continues pursuing what was his Vietnam policy at the time of the assassination, then we basically just see an early Vietnamization under a different name. However, had the circumstances led to it, he could've very will still escalated in Vietnam too, considering any evidence stating he was committed to de-escalation & withdrawal is mostly anecdotal.
Hippies: Without escalating the war in Vietnam, you won't really see an anti-war movement; even without Vietnam, though, the New Left would've still came & went; the counter culture wouldn't have been stifled, as it was already set in motion. It would've just been less radically violent/militant, i.e. less Hoffman & more Lowenstein & Scheer. There's also the interesting prospect of American youth going into ventures like the Peace Corps & other civil service areas (perhaps an earlier AmeriCorps, too) in greater numbers, so you could probably take a good number of people who became hippies & keep them from getting disillusioned had they been put into those areas of constructive activism instead. I'd still expect there to be hippies though, just more Flower Power & Summer of Love, & less blowing up a federal building.
Silent Majority: I'd still expect the disillusionment that many white southerners felt in response to civil rights legislation to show itself.
1968: Nixon vs. either RFK (if he runs) or Humphrey (if he doesn't). I think the Republican nominee would've had to have been Nixon, even if he'd need a different tag line & may have a harder time; regardless, Reagan might not have even been elected Governor, Rocky was too liberal for the base, & Romney wasn't presidential material (he had the same problems his son had in 2008: Mormonism, gaffes, & flip-flopping). The Democratic running mate is Carl Sanders, or maybe Terry Sanford. Nixon would likely still beat Humphrey, but any contest between RFK & Nixon is 50-50.
RFK: He definitely resigns early from the Cabinet in 1968 to run... for something. Now, the nomination is his if he wants it, but he could've very well declined re: dynastic appearances. If he runs for President & loses, then he runs for the Senate in 1970 against Keating & wins; if he doesn't run for President, then he runs for the Senate instead against Javits & wins. Either way, he likely goes on to succeed a two-term Nixon in 1976, after having allowed a non-entity to be kamikazed against Nixon in 1972.
Watergate: There's a good chance there'd be no Watergate, in which case the relationship between politicians & the media would remain as it was before 1974 up until the mass media of the 1980s kicks in.
Carter: If there was no Watergate, then he'd be butterflied. Ditto for the energy & Iran crises.
Reagan: Might be butterflied, resulting in the emergence of the GOP's right-wing being delayed by up to a decade.
JFK Jr: He'd be alive & well today. He'd still have the potential to have been President, but if both his father & uncle had already been President, then voters could've very well eventually tired of the Kennedy dynasty.
|
