All Along the Watchtower: A Dystopian TLIAW

[Time Enough]

Peter Shore deposed Joseph, Hans-Joschen Vogel won out over Strauss, and Jean-Pierre Chevènement saw the first socialist victory in France in the Fifth Republic -and promulgated an ideology branded the Third Way by Shore. The Third Way was, in their eyes, a middle path between imperial American capitalism and imperial Soviet communism, a democratic socialist vision focused on fostering disarmament.

I’m enjoying this immensely, but I will say Peter Shore doesn’t fit as an Anti-Nuclear Disarmament fellow given by the 70s he has shifted to a multilateral frame of mind and was very Pro-NATO. I would say Stanley Orme, John Silkin or Norman Atkinson would work better for fostering the Third Way in my opinion.

Not to derail this in anyway, enjoying this series immensely.

 

[Fleetlord]

BOOOOO!!!!

NOT AGGRESSIVE ENOUGH! NOT CORRUPT ENOUGH! NOT DYSTOPIAN ENOUGH!!

I WANTED THE UNITED STATES TO BURN, NOT TO ENJOY STABILITY!!!!!!!!

Eh, I'm viewing Curtie as Reagan on steroids. Fondly remembered at the time, but laying the groundwork for a lot of nasty shit to come.

 

[Enigma-Conundrum]

I’m enjoying this immensely, but I will say Peter Shore doesn’t fit as an Anti-Nuclear Disarmament fellow given by the 70s he has shifted to a multilateral frame of mind and was very Pro-NATO. I would say Stanley Orme, John Silkin or Norman Atkinson would work better for fostering the Third Way in my opinion.

Not to derail this in anyway, enjoying this series immensely.

Oh trust me, the contradictions of the man to the movement were very clear in my mind, to a degree he does act like a politician about it but that’s a tension that imo has to factor into any talk of the Shore ministry - he got selected as leader just before the nuclear issue really surged to the forefront of European politics the way it did after Korea. He might coin the name, but he - like so many other aligned leaders, such as Chevenement’s left-gaullist approach and Vogel’s relative centrism compared to the others - doesn’t always fit it like a glove. Note they’re not trying to leave NATO either necessarily, at most radical they want it to be basically just by Europeans for Europeans.

 

[Enigma-Conundrum]

Eh, I'm viewing Curtie as Reagan on steroids. Fondly remembered at the time, but laying the groundwork for a lot of nasty shit to come.

Exactly the goal - it’s not fun to send the country to hell when there’s forty years left on the TL. I don’t want to and I doubt Vidal wants to just have nuclear war hit in 1980 and spend the next few posts just writing about the rubble. Better to toss ingredients into the soup now, then we can really get cooking soon

 

[Vidal]

Exactly the goal - it’s not fun to send the country to hell when there’s forty years left on the TL. I don’t want to and I doubt Vidal wants to just have nuclear war hit in 1980 and spend the next few posts just writing about the rubble. Better to toss ingredients into the soup now, then we can really get cooking soon

LOL. Classic Enigma to give us a nuclear conflict on the third post and then say "No really, everything's pretty much fine"

 

[Aubreyyy]

BOOOOO!!!!

NOT AGGRESSIVE ENOUGH! NOT CORRUPT ENOUGH! NOT DYSTOPIAN ENOUGH!!

I WANTED THE UNITED STATES TO BURN, NOT TO ENJOY STABILITY!!!!!!!!

Do wish we got to see some of lemays insane corrupt spook ties but alas

 

[Time Enough]

Oh trust me, the contradictions of the man to the movement were very clear in my mind, to a degree he does act like a politician about it but that’s a tension that imo has to factor into any talk of the Shore ministry - he got selected as leader just before the nuclear issue really surged to the forefront of European politics the way it did after Korea. He might coin the name, but he - like so many other aligned leaders, such as Chevenement’s left-gaullist approach and Vogel’s relative centrism compared to the others - doesn’t always fit it like a glove. Note they’re not trying to leave NATO either necessarily, at most radical they want it to be basically just by Europeans for Europeans.

Ah alrighty then, amusingly Shore would probably get along swimmingly with Chevenement given how Shore has strong ‘Left Wing Gaullism’ energy.

Also the amusing thing about the NATO thing is that it makes sense, hell even the EuroCommunists were kind of okay with staying in NATO to the annoyance of the PCI’s actual supporters.

Excellent stuff.

 

[Peppermint Cardboard]

Filled in the appropriate boxes and retroactively marked “extreme corruption” and “economic collapse” because of prior updates.

 

[Blyatnik]

Filled in the appropriate boxes and retroactively marked “extreme corruption” and “economic collapse” because of prior updates.
View attachment 768445

Alright now we just need insurgency, and depending on who the next president is that might be very easy...

 

[shearsforest]

My ongoing review of TTL's presidents continues.

I'd say this new guy is better than the last 2 ones.

After the failure of President Butts, we now have LeMay, who I suspected was a Reagan analogue once Enigma introduced a Reaganomics-like term. But Mr. May, while not plunging America into dystopia, would see major events around the world instead.

#1: An axe-crazy group of North Koreans leads to both Seoul and Pyongyang getting blown off the map. I can't say much about the effects on Korean culture by 2022, but it's gonna be a crappy few years.

#2: Saudi Arabia gets Iran'd. This is gonna be shit for the people involved, if we're following Iran's OTL trajectory.

Overall, decent presidency, but super trigger-happy. Lucky that he somehow didn't end up going to war with China / the Soviets.

 

[King of the Uzbeks]

Tin Soldiers and LeMay coming
We're finally on our own
This Summer I hear the Drumming
Two nukes in Korea...

 

[ZeroFrame]

Bork, Rumsfeld, and Cheney are pretty much staples of the dystopian genre

@ZeroFrame and I have also worked to add Buddy Cianci to the list in recent years

Thanks for the mention!

Hopefully one day Cianci will be one of the six people who pop up in every generic dystopia.

 

[Brylyth]

The sheer blinding "jenius" of the Kim Korea to start shit with the USA of Bombs Away Lee May

 

[Beatriz]

Do we need WW3? Something like For All Time's level of is enough

 

[Kermode]

Amazing image to use for LeMay.

 

[Arthur Marston]

As soon as the new Vice President was sworn in, the midterms were upon the nation. Seemingly, they only answered one question: do you hate Earl Butz, or do you hate the people Earl Butz hates? While Republican districts in coastal suburbs voted for Democrats, rural districts in the south saw the few remaining white southern Democrats knocked off by the AIP and the midwest saw Republican overperformance relative to their incumbency. Despite the tumult of the brief Butz administration, it seemed America still distrusted “big-government liberalism” too much. Notably, these would be the last elections where the GOP and AIP would compete on the ballot in any meaningful way.

We looking at a merger in the future?

 

[LelouchOfTheBarBrawl]

Wouldn't the US intervene to prevent an anti-Western theocracy from taking over one of their biggest oil providers and allies in MENA?

 

[Beatriz]

Wouldn't the US intervene to prevent an anti-Western theocracy from taking over one of their biggest oil providers and allies in MENA?

Could the US organize some kind of middle eastern compact against the Saudis and the Sov-aligned states?

 

[Beatriz]

How is Saddam’s Iraq doing? Maybe the US could back the antiCommunist and secularist Baathists against the commies and Islamists ITTL

 

[EbolaMan131]

No RFK asassination? Great. South Vietnam surviving? Great. Despite the 2nd Korean War killing allot of people, the south still won atl which is a good thing. Unlike OTL we have a surviving North Korea which has trapped millions of people that are brainwashed and starving. In MY opinion this ATL is a bit utopic for me. I might change my opinion though.

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