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What's the most Cringeworthy Alternate History you've ever read?

Hoover's personally driven enough people to suicide or death in prison based on those selfsame criminalizations that I'm sure he's fully resolved his sexuality as pardoned by a special grace for being such a patriot, a la closested Republicans, and sneers that much more at on all the "deviant" gays who are the norm and not his exception.
 
bookwyrm said:
Hoover's personally driven enough people to suicide or death in prison based on those selfsame criminalizations that I'm sure he's fully resolved his sexuality as pardoned by a special grace for being such a patriot, a la closested Republicans, and sneers that much more at on all the "deviant" gays who are the norm and not his exception.
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Also, his homosexuality remains highly uncertain. It's quite likely that if he was gay, he never actually acted on it.
 
VoidTemplar said:
Sexual and social norms bouncing forty years ahead as a result of a revolution, or just because socialists reach power. (Who knew that the average union worker does not have the social opinions of a 1970's Hippie?)
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You are aware that studies about sexuality and tolerance of homosexuality existed before the 1960's, right? And by leftists like Magnus Hirshfield.

Also assuming that the working class is just inherently reactionary, cool, cool
 
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IT'S ALMOST AS IF WE GAYS HAVE ALWAYS EXISTED OR SOME SHIT LIKE THAT.
 
Miss Teri said:
You are aware that studies about sexuality and tolerance of homosexuality existed before the 1960's, right? And by leftists like Magnus Hirshfield.
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Oh, I am very aware. I am also saying that what happens in intellectual circles and what papers and studies are circulated are very much not equal to those opinions translating down to mass of support that they will need to rely on like the broad base of union workers will not be so inclined to think the same thing. Forcing those things down the throats of those will, very unfortunately not be tolerated in 19-something.

As for the working class, I don't really know. In 1972, 54% of all union households voted for Nixon, and in 1924, I am willing to bet there was a fair few union people voting Republican.
 
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VoidTemplar said:
Oh, I am very aware. I am also saying that what happens in intellectual circles and what papers and studies are circulated are very much not equal to those opinions translating down to mass of support that they will need to rely on like the broad base of union workers will not be so inclined to think the same thing. Forcing those things down the throats of those will, very unfortunately not be tolerated in 19-something
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How do you exactly know it's being "forced down their throats"? The working class is just too dumb and reactionary to accept it?
 
Miss Teri said:
How do you exactly know it's being "forced down their throats"? The working class is just too dumb and reactionary to accept it?
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And that's not even getting into the absurdity of implying that you can't be both working-class and LGBT, or claiming that queer rights is only a relevant political issue because of "intellectual circles" pushing for it. Way to take reactionary memes at face value.
 
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It's also kinda weird because in Reds! (which I assume is being talked about) the social progress and the change towards a more socially liberal norm actually starts decades before the revolution. The revolution does eventually lead to a cultural revolution and movements of social liberation, but it doesn't actually get a standing start from "Exactly OTL 1930s in social mores."
 
Miss Teri said:
How do you exactly know it's being "forced down their throats"? The working class is just too dumb and reactionary to accept it?
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That's grossly misrepresenting my words, I am saying that they opinions they hold are not compatible with suddenly bouncing social norms a couple generations ahead. I am quite sure they were reasonable people with plenty reason, but the choice is very binary. Either bend to the democratic will, which is that legalizing homosexuality in the 1920's-1950's is not acceptable or bring out the authoritarianism in the name of equality and legalize it by decree with the resulting public outcry to follow.

But it's clear that to me at least, you are arguing in bad faith since you have now not once, but twice misrepresented my words.
 
VoidTemplar said:
That's grossly misrepresenting my words, I am saying that they opinions they hold are not compatible with suddenly bouncing social norms a couple generations ahead. I am quite sure they were reasonable people with plenty reason, but the choice is very binary. Either bend to the democratic will, which is that legalizing homosexuality in the 1920's-1950's is not acceptable or bring out the authoritarianism in the name of equality and legalize it by decree with the resulting public outcry to follow.

But it's clear that to me at least, you are arguing in bad faith since you have now not once, but twice misrepresented my words.
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Timelines that branch off decades before the 1920s and 30s have plenty of time to make the decriminalization of homosexuality pretty believable, frankly, even if full acceptance and normalization would be a long and difficult process.

Like, in America's case America actually got worse on LGBT+ people in the 1940s and 50s, not better, so the idea that it's bouncing 'generations' ahead is falling too much into the Whig historical narratives.
 
VoidTemplar said:
As for the working class, I don't really know. In 1972, 54% of all union households voted for Nixon, and in 1924, I am willing to bet there was a fair few union people voting Republican.
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Claiming that there were no major political shifts between 1972 and 1924 and therefore people were voting basically the same way is an astoundingly unsupported logical leap, beaten out only by insisting those political dynamics would remain precisely the same both during the course of and in the aftermath of a literal socialist revolution.
VoidTemplar said:
That's grossly misrepresenting my words, I am saying that they opinions they hold are not compatible with suddenly bouncing social norms a couple generations ahead.
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Despite what the Whigs might tell you, the course of history is not in fact a linear, unchanging line from a barbaric, unenlightened past to a glorious present. And even putting aside the fact that it's dead wrong, a slavish insistence on parallelism makes for deeply boring alternate history.
 
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Hakazin said:
And that's not even getting into the absurdity of implying that you can't be both working-class and LGBT, or claiming that queer rights is only a relevant political issue because of "intellectual circles" pushing for it.
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Both these are literally "Blue Dog Democrats" talking points. It's a reactionary anti-LGBTQ talking point.


VoidTemplar said:
Either bend to the democratic will, which is that legalizing homosexuality in the 1920's-1950's is not acceptable or bring out the authoritarianism in the name of equality and legalize it by decree with the resulting public outcry to follow.
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You just committed a logical fallacy there, you realize? Also, again, it's working off the assumption the working class is reactionary.
 
We know from a lot of modern studies that to a certain extent, not only do parties pick up the viewpoints of their voters... but also visa-versa, especially as partisanship increases, which it probably would in any country where a literal communist party was surging in votes.

To use modern, liberal-democratic examples, Democratic voters have grown more liberal on Abortion rights not just through dying and being replaced, but through just constant exposure to a more-socially-left party.

So a major party advocating at least decriminalization of homosexuality and propagandizing for it (probably as part of a broad base, because intersectionality is not a new thing) would probably lose some votes from it, sure, but would also probably sway their voters as well. That's just... how it works with normalization?

Imagining a group of people as having some sort of 'resting state' in bigotry that can't be changed by context or events is just sorta silly.
 
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VoidTemplar said:
And on the flipside, America as the Great Satan who will topple anyone, even in Western Europe or Oceania that looks at them funny. Neither are very funny to read, and both are gross misunderstandings of America in the world.
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I mean the US has acted and still acts like that from time to time and aren't shy about admitting it in some cases, so minus the Great Satan part i don't see how this is really a misunderstanding.
 
Miss Teri said:
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I am done arguing this with you. I have already said I think you are arguing in bad faith.


StarMaker764 said:
I mean the US has acted and still acts like that from time to time and aren't shy about admitting it in some cases, so minus the Great Satan part i don't see how this is really a misunderstanding.
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There's to me at least a difference between backing a coup in Las Republicccas Della Bananas or Destabilized Military Junta #95 and "Literally backing Operation Clockwork Orange because Harold Wilson bad"
 
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VoidTemplar said:
Las Republicccas Della Bananas or Destabilized Military Junta #95
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Why would the US coup goverments it put in power in the first place? Coups are usually reserved for any nation that dares be led by or elect someone to the left of Ronald Reagan (and that includes developed nations btw, though it was a debate on wether or not the thing in Australia counted as a coup).
 
VoidTemplar said:
I am done arguing this with you. I have already said I think you are arguing in bad faith.



There's to me at least a difference between backing a coup in Las Republicccas Della Bananas or Destabilized Military Junta #95 and "Literally backing Operation Clockwork Orange because Harold Wilson bad"
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Sure, it's not what America did OTL, but it's not hard to imagine a further right or even more aggressive America doing those sorts of things, because America certainly wasn't averse to meddling in Europe in pretty big ways. It's just that Europe increasingly had ways to meddle back, which put limitations on the matter.

There's several ways that a timeline could lead to American engaging in even more shenanigans in Europe.
 
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Hakazin said:
Claiming that there were no major political shifts between 1972 and 1924 and therefore people were voting basically the same way is an astoundingly unsupported logical leap, beaten out only by insisting those political dynamics would remain precisely the same both during the course of and in the aftermath of a literal socialist revolution.
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In this period alone, we have:

  • The repression of the IWW
  • The First Red Scare
  • The New Deal
  • The HUAC
  • World War 2
  • The Cold War
  • Taft-Hartley
  • The Second Red Scare
  • McCarthyism
  • The Smith Act trials
  • The expulsion of communists from trade unions
  • The Hungarian uprising
  • Khrushchev's secret speech
  • The Southern Strategy (biggest pertinent thing here)
  • The backlash to the Civil Rights and 60's counterculture movements
  • Prague Spring.
 
VoidTemplar said:
Oh, I am very aware. I am also saying that what happens in intellectual circles and what papers and studies are circulated are very much not equal to those opinions translating down to mass of support that they will need to rely on like the broad base of union workers will not be so inclined to think the same thing.
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Oh hey, it's the 2020 argument that pronouns will hurt union rolls, funny seeing you here.

When the Soviet Union turned homophobic, a lot of official communist parties joined with them, but the left and LGBT people have gone hand in hand for much of the 20th century. To the point that the entire post Stonewall LGBT movement was classified as a New Left organization by the FBI. We have a wealth of evidence that workers and The Gays can coexist, and LGBT people have always had the most success through the left, and their biggest defeats by moving center.

When it comes to the US you need to understand that George Meaney and the AFL-CIO sold out the entire union movement to the republican party out of spite that they weren't considered the single most important part of the Democratic party anymore.

Even then, the primary push was to put unions on a pro-war, pro-establishment footing to separate them from social justice movements. The famously astroturfed "Hard Hat Rebellion" for example. They completely destroyed unions in the country as a result when this scorpion turned out to be a scorpion, doing scorpion things. There effectively isn't a labor movement because of this split.

Further, obstacles to social progress in America in the 20th Century are typically caused by economic downturns or jingoistic fears of the Soviet Union. See the social blowback of the great depression or the scares of the 50s.
 
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