WI: 2020 Pacific US + British Columbia ISOTed to 1968

[Madam Carstein]

On that note: the ISOT is on June 1 and the Soviets invaded to stop the Prague Spring on August 21. How they deal with Czechoslovakia will greatly influence uptimer opinion of them.

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In some respects, it's hard to imagine the Soviet leadership taking a different position than IOTL.

The thing is, the Prague Spring's leadership was a lot more careful to remain within the Soviet orbit compared to the Hungarian Revolution which went violently anti-Soviet very quickly. The goals of the Czechoslovak leadership were primarily oriented to internal reform and sought no changes to Czechoslovakia's position within the Warsaw Pact or the wider communist world.

Then again, future knowledge of the Warsaw Pact's ultimate fate might stay the hand of the Soviet leadership. It's hard to know which way Brezhnev himself will jump, or whether this will affect the then-ongoing struggle between him and Alexei Kosygin for leadership.

This was, on one hand, getting into the era of Detente where Brezhnev pursued eased relations. This was markedly not the case before Nixon's election. The Soviets were greatly wary of Nixon's staunchly anticommunist politics and even offered to provide financial aid to the Hubert Humphrey campaign.

But on the other, Brezhnev tended to a conservative approach to ideology. His experiences with the erratic and unpredictable nature of Khrushchev's reforms tended to predispose him against such things.

One thing is for certain, the Eastern Block puppets are going to have the Soviet's hands so far up their ass that they may as well be Soviet Socialist Republics, if they aren't openly turned into SSRs anyway.

Alternatively maybe the SSR system will be abolished as leading to separatism, and it will just be a big happy Soviet Union.

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How so? I feel as if knowledge of the eventual collapse of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe would only spur further internal resistance, especially in flashpoints like Poland. The Soviet Union isn't going to annex communist regimes, because that would remain even the illusion of independence and provoke massive unrest, especially in places that were never a willing part of the Warsaw Pact and had very little popular support, notably Poland.

I feel like this kind of doesn't reflect how the Soviet leadership of this era tended to deal with its problems. Interestingly, this is actually one of the last major turning points for the cause of reformist Soviet leaders, notably Alexei Kosygin. After he was marginalised and Brezhnev consolidated power, that was pretty much the end of it.

 

[the atom]

Honestly... the same is probably true of the GOP, they will probably have no problem hopping on board with Nixon... and actually will be to the right of him on things like gun control.

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Given that the GOP California primary was the same day as the democratic one he very well could've been in the state at the time

 

[jenalysis]

To be honest organized labour is also going to be kinda foreign to uptime democrats too

The democrats will have to contend with the fact that they gave up on the New Deal's legacy after Reagan trounced them.

It's not something the republicans are well placed to capitalize on though, so I fully expect another go at the southern strategy, especially as the dixiecrats realize this isn't their party anymore.

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I think uptime Democrats would be perfectly willing to admit giving up on the New Deal was a mistake. Clintonism isn't that celebrated in the CA Dems.

I still think the most likely scenario is some sorts of states rights compromise within the Dems where the social issues become a state-by-state thing, and gradually spread.

 

[HaydenS222]

Given that the GOP California primary was the same day as the democratic one he very well could've been in the state at the time

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As far as I can tell he wasn't on the California primary ballot so it seems unlikely that he'd be in California. Actually it seems Reagan was the only one on the ballot, so most of the field should be OK.

 

[AYC]

Speaking of social issues, the War on Drugs is probably butterflied. Even in the (unlikely) event that the downtime US still wanted to wage it, legal marijuana on the West Coast makes that laughably impossible.

I predict nationwide marijuana legalization by 1985.

 

[AYC]

Given the high amount of discussion this thread is generating, I'm inviting anyone who wants to take a crack at writing a TL for this to do so. I'll threadmark your contributions.

 

[Nyvis]

Remember the West Coast GOP of this time produced Reagan and Nixon (unless you're referring to the 2020 West Coast GOP which is still bad). If you want moderate Republicans in 1968, it's better to look at the Eastern Establishment like Nelson Rockefeller (and even his record was hardly without blemish, as his handling of the Attica Prison Riots attests to).

I don't honestly see the Democrats of 1968 having that many issues with 2020 Democrats. The trends of the party's political development are going leftward anyway and younger Democratic voters will eagerly take up the War on Poverty and other big economic initiatives.

Honestly... the same is probably true of the GOP, they will probably have no problem hopping on board with Nixon... and actually will be to the right of him on things like gun control.

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No, I meant the uptime west coast GOP. One of their issues in California is that the Trump line is deeply unpopular. Switching to slightly less outrageous republicans is likely to be good for them.

 

[Madam Carstein]

No, I meant the uptime west coast GOP. One of their issues in California is that the Trump line is deeply unpopular. Switching to slightly less outrageous republicans is likely to be good for them.

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The CA GOP is more or less fine with Trump, but he's so hideously unpopular that it's contributing to an already-ongoing process of collapse for traditional GOP support bases like Orange County. They've been slowly bleeding support for a while but Trump is so actively loathsome that it's speeding things up. At least some of Orange County's Republican Reps probably would have stayed in office for at least one more term had it not been for Trump, rather than the GOP losing every single GOP seat.

The current strategy in Orange County seems to be to run "less bad" Republicans who are less openly conservative and present themselves as wise "common sense" leaders.

The ongoing collapse of the California Republican Party would likely just continue in an ISOT scenario here.

 

[Nyvis]

The CA GOP is more or less fine with Trump, but he's so hideously unpopular that it's contributing to an already-ongoing process of collapse for traditional GOP support bases like Orange County. They've been slowly bleeding support for a while but Trump is so actively loathsome that it's speeding things up. At least some of Orange County's Republican Reps probably would have stayed in office for at least one more term had it not been for Trump, rather than the GOP losing every single GOP seat.

The current strategy in Orange County seems to be to run "less bad" Republicans who are less openly conservative and present themselves as wise "common sense" leaders.

The ongoing collapse of the California Republican Party would likely just continue in an ISOT scenario here.

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But my point is that without them being tied to the rest of the uptime GOP, they can actually try to reinvent themselves using the downtime GOP. The memory of Reagan is still popular in places and would probably do better than being tied to Trump.

 

[jenalysis]

I could see the CA GOP allying with the most liberal parts of the downtime GOP into a more moderate faction, and a full repudiation of the Southern Strategy. I don't know if they'd be enough to be a majority of the party, or whether they would split off.

There's a non-zero chance of a four-way split, or for a three-way split of perhaps uptime and left-leaning downtime Republicans with some Dems thrown in.

Trumpism is going to horrify the downtimers, many of whom fought in WWII- the abuses listed might get closed up quick with bipartisan support. I don't think something like Watergate happens ITTL.

I think the most likely things the uptimers and downtimers will work on is a more muscular voting reform , and campaign finance reform. I expect insincere court challenges to both , to get better Supreme Court rulings (as in , a left-group will sue to try and make sure the laws say constitutional in case law). Anti-gerrymandering, laws on Supreme Court vacancies are likely to happen. In the 1960s , there might have been disagreements on the issues, but generally folks accepted facts. I don't think most of these changes would even be controversial, they'd just be enshrining norms.

I also think M4A might have enough downtime support (Nixon wanted it) to be passed as well. I think there will be enough common ground and things uptimers and downtimers can agree on, that the civil rights issues would be set aside as long as possible. This might lead to an exodus of minorities to the west coast, particularly CA and BC.

I'm curious how BC would interact with the rest of Canada.

 

[Nyvis]

I also think M4A might have enough downtime support (Nixon wanted it) to be passed as well. I think there will be enough common ground and things uptimers and downtimers can agree on, that the civil rights issues would be set aside as long as possible. This might lead to an exodus of minorities to the west coast, particularly CA and BC.

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Nixoncare time

Yeah that's a possibility. Avert the Reagan slide to the far right economically.

 

[gman391]

Well for BC it's returning right when the dying day of the Quiet Revolution are ending and Trudeaumania is sweeping the nation. (Pierre, not Justin) but it's also an election year with the election to take place on June 25th...it's unlikely in the extreme that BC gets to keep all the extra seats it received in the last few elections, simply because Elections Canada has literally no time to do that. Particularly given the need to keep Covid contained. That said with Elections Canada impartial by law, BC will get its seats back, and proceed to be one of the major players. (1968 Canada has a population of roughly 21 million, BC would add 5 million to that on it's own.) On the plus side, Tommy Douglas probably won't lose his seat at all. (BC is not going to kick out the man who brought public healthcare to Canada) And we might be able to save Lester B Pearson from cancer...might. It'd be nice the guy didn't deserve to die of Cancer. On the other hand we've probably made it so Brian Mulroney never gets the top spot, too many people are going to hate that he made the NAFTA deal.

However it also means that the October Crisis is likely going to be butterflied away. (If only because Trudeau Sr is unlikely to allow it to happen. However Trudeau and Levesque are both looking at the future of Canada, and neither is going to like what they find. Rene Levesque is going to see his dream of an independent Quebec having died not with a bang but with a quiet whimper. What he'll do in response I don't know, probably something a little more drastic.

As for Trudeau for a man who was stubborn and pigheaded in a lot of ways against the US, who was determined to make Canada truly stand as an independent nation. The NAFTA treaty will horrify him, and he'll probably do everything he can to make sure it never happens, even if the overall failure of his National Energy Program is going to give him pause. Particularly given the whole climate change thing. While Trudeau wants Canada to be mostly economically self sufficient for

As for relation with BC itself, a lot has changed, BC is overwhelmingly more liberal and diverse than it was. And there's going to be a lot of quiet disbelief over the outcome of the protests in the north. Along with a lot of cognitive dissonance over the residential schools and sixties scoop. Which BC will probably demand an immediate end to and likely get it. Whether they'll be willing to accept the results of the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions its hard to say. Canada has it's own racism problems, and they were worse back then. This is just at the start of the Multiculturalism project within Canada, there's every chance that the more conservative parts of the country are going to see where it leads and decide no.

On the other hand BC was in the 60's firmly in the hands of W.A.C. Bennet who...was larger than life in a lot of ways and generally did whatever the hell he thought was best for BC and to hell with the rest of Canada's opinion. So Horgan is probably more inclined to talk but he also has a much stronger hand in matters and has a habit of scrapping with his provincial neighbors.

And that's not throwing into the mix the later Patriation of 1982 which saw Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms introduced as the law of the land and the formal ending of Westminster's ability to directly intervene in Canadian Law.
Which is a good thing, but Canada was still heavily in the spirit of defining who it was at the time as the 1967 centennial had made a profoundly patriotic country that was still not entirely clear on what it was patriotic for rather than against. So how the separation goes over isn't clear to say.

I want to say BC will try to drag Canada forward into the 21st century. But BC is fairly reliant on the rest of Canada for grains so it has to give a little. But with the NDP (John Horgan) as a minority government reliant on the Greens to stay in power he's not going to have a lot of room to maneuver. Particularly if he wants reelection, the NDP's heart is in the fairly liberal urban centers all of which want have Canada be more left.
Whether BC gets special status like Quebec eventually wrangled depends a lot I think on how they handle the economic transformation. In particular this gives a real chance to rescue Atlantic Canada from it's over-fishing, and BC is the home of a lot of technology and mining data for the far north. What it lacks beyond grain production is honestly manufacturing. Whether this is enough to save Ontario and Quebec? Not sure, the tools to build the tools aren't there, but it could be built up.
The fly in the ointment is going to be Alberta who will want naturally to become the economically dominant part of Western Canada that it was in the OTL, but that's built on oil, so there's going to be a lot of fights over the tar sands I expect.

So TLDR

-Canada has an election that month and it's going to have a lot of butterflies
-Quebec Separatism is going to radically alter itself in light of losing
-BC is fairly left, but might be too left for Canada and there's gonna be a lot of debate, particularly on racial and gender issues.
-BC needs Canada a lot more than the rest of West Coast needs the US
-Canada is going to nope the fuck out of NAFTA
-We're almost certain to be working with the British until the Constitution Act of 1982 is re-ratified if it ever is.

 

[Sakuya's Butler]

Well, look on the really good side for BC.
Wayne Gretzky is only 7 years old at the moment, over in Ontario. Plenty of time for the Vancouver Canucks to offer his parents 15mil to move into town, so long as Wayne gets practice in. You can probably hear the joyous cries aimed towards heaven at this fact, shouted from the hockey rink, from 5 miles away.

 

[the atom]

I honestly think the CAGOP could wind up as it's own party because it's downtime counterpart might just fall apart after this election.

As for Trudeau for a man who was stubborn and pigheaded in a lot of ways against the US, who was determined to make Canada truly stand as an independent nation. The NAFTA treaty will horrify him, and he'll probably do everything he can to make sure it never happens, even if the overall failure of his National Energy Program is going to give him pause. Particularly given the whole climate change thing. While Trudeau wants Canada to be mostly economically self sufficient for

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The NEP as it was conceived probably won't come to pass at all, as it was built around a set of assumptions about the oil supply that are totally obsolete. The basic idea behind it was that oil was running out and that Canada had to ration what it had left for itself rather than selling it all like Alberta wanted. They now know there's way more oil and exactly where to find it, so the name of the game has changed. If he does attempt another National Energy Plan, it'll probably be more along the Norway style lines that Peter Lougheed originally wanted.

This might actually radically change the relationship between Ottawa and Alberta for decades to come because they'd at least be sorta on the same page and want the same things.

 

[gman391]

I honestly think the CAGOP could wind up as it's own party because it's downtime counterpart might just fall apart after this election.

The NEP as it was conceived probably won't come to pass at all, as it was built around a set of assumptions about the oil supply that are totally obsolete. The basic idea behind it was that oil was running out and that Canada had to ration what it had left for itself rather than selling it all like Alberta wanted. They now know there's way more oil and exactly where to find it, so the name of the game has changed. If he does attempt another National Energy Plan, it'll probably be more along the Norway style lines that Peter Lougheed originally wanted.

This might actually radically change the relationship between Ottawa and Alberta for decades to come because they'd at least be solely on the same page and want the same things.

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It's more that Trudeau Sr. was a fairly arrogant man from everything I've seen, he knew he was smart and usually the smartest in any given room. But the fact is that the NEP didn't deliver everything he wanted, and indeed Canada economically would over all decline under his leadership. I think that is enough to make even him pause and reflect on what he's doing.

But maybe not, maybe he'll just keep assuming he's the best *Shrugs*

 

[Cybandeath]

This is one of those threads I just see easily turning into a shitshow later but the idea compels me too much not to get involved especially as a Pacific American myself who has lived from California to now Seattle.

Also something near everyone seems to be overlooking is that June 1st 1968 already had the civil rights act passed earlier in the year.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

This is one of those threads I just see easily turning into a shitshow later but the idea compels me too much not to get involved especially as a Pacific American myself who has lived from California to now Seattle.

Also something near everyone seems to be overlooking is that June 1st 1968 already had the civil rights act passed earlier in the year.

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And this was also before the Southern Strategy became irreversible for the GOP. Therre were still enough Republican members (who in the OTL jumped ship for the Democrats) to pull it back, which possibly leads to a three way split:

The uptime Democrats, A "socially liberal/fiscally conservative GOP,) centered on the Northern states, and a Dixicrat party.

I think, in the short run, things may get ugly in the south--there are lots of groups who are going to look at their ending, and decide to not go gently into the good night.

 

[jenalysis]

I can see VA/NC, maybe GA turning away from Dixiecrats harder ITTL. There was real progress in those states in the 70s and 80s, it's part of what made 2010 so shocking.

The knowledge of history is going to impact how the uptime Dems look at things, they know where the future fault lines are, and they can prepare for them. I wouldn't be surprised if they put real effort into the future swing states, and abuse the campaign finance laws in their favor if they don't get said reform passed.

I could see uptime Dems becoming very popular with minorities in the South, moreso than the traditional Dems, and there might even be some real animousity between uptime Bernie-loving Dems and the downtime Dems who will be seen as establishment at best.

 

[Nyvis]

I can see VA/NC, maybe GA turning away from Dixiecrats harder ITTL. There was real progress in those states in the 70s and 80s, it's part of what made 2010 so shocking.

The knowledge of history is going to impact how the uptime Dems look at things, they know where the future fault lines are, and they can prepare for them. I wouldn't be surprised if they put real effort into the future swing states, and abuse the campaign finance laws in their favor if they don't get said reform passed.

I could see uptime Dems becoming very popular with minorities in the South, moreso than the traditional Dems, and there might even be some real animousity between uptime Bernie-loving Dems and the downtime Dems who will be seen as establishment at best.

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On the other hand, California also has a ton of machine politics democrats who stand with the establishment in lockstep despite their much more liberal home state. They'll have to figure out who's the establishment now

But yeah, the renewed popularity of left leaning economic solutions is likely to avert the OTL move away from New Deal policies to some degree, and the uptime democrats know you can crack into the south with some effort, since we're starting to see it right now. They'll probably be more watchful about voter suppression.

 

[jenalysis]

On the other hand, California also has a ton of machine politics democrats who stand with the establishment in lockstep despite their much more liberal home state. They'll have to figure out who's the establishment now

But yeah, the renewed popularity of left leaning economic solutions is likely to avert the OTL move away from New Deal policies to some degree, and the uptime democrats know you can crack into the south with some effort, since we're starting to see it right now. They'll probably be more watchful about voter suppression.

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You just listed another possibility- CA Dems could also split into two separate parties, CA Republicans might align with Dixiecrats. With CA's jungle primaries, a 3-party system could work in CA effectively in a way similar to the French system?

 

[Sakuya's Butler]

Beyond politics, has anyone considered how this is going to affect the Apollo program? Apollo 7 or 8 should be already flown by this point I believe.

How will NASA handle something like a smartphone, which has a couple million times more computing power that what ran the crew & lander modules (combined), while weighing only 1:100,000th the mass and volume. To say nothing of removing all those relatively heavy gauges and switches, to be replaced by flat screen displays.

Or carbon composite materials too on top of all that. IIRC, they did a comparison with the original equipment, and a new orbiter/lander the exact same size/shape, but with newer components, and it came out to somewhere between 2/5ths and 3/5ths the mass. Which is one hell of a savings.

We might just see the later Apollo missions stay up there once the west coast starts mentioning how much money is possibly to be made, instead of doing it mostly for patriotic reasons (and then seeing congress lose interest, and cut funding, for 25 years). Mention the words 'potential 1+ billion USD a year industry', and watch heads turn.

Then hit em with Star Wars.


On that note, how many former or current astronauts were present in the West Coast states when this happened? That and isn't one of the few Canadian astronauts from Vancouver?

 

[Nyvis]

You just listed another possibility- CA Dems could also split into two separate parties, CA Republicans might align with Dixiecrats. With CA's jungle primaries, a 3-party system could work in CA effectively in a way similar to the French system?

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Yeah that's possible. That would also fit with the downtime dems, who have their progressive outsider wing and their machine/establishment wing.

I could see a divide on foreign policy too, with the establishment wanting to repeat the fall of the USSR and the progressives going for detente.

 

[Usili 2.0]

Beyond politics, has anyone considered how this is going to affect the Apollo program? Apollo 7 or 8 should be already flown by this point I believe.

How will NASA handle something like a smartphone, which has a couple million times more computing power that what ran the crew & lander modules (combined), while weighing only 1:100,000th the mass and volume. To say nothing of removing all those relatively heavy gauges and switches, to be replaced by flat screen displays.

Or carbon composite materials too on top of all that.

We might just see the later Apollo missions stay up there once the west coast starts mentioning how much money is possibly to be made, instead of doing it mostly for patriotic reasons (and then seeing congress lose interest, and cut funding, for 25 years). Mention the words 'potential 1+ billion USD a year industry', and watch heads turn.

Then hit em with Star Wars.

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If you're discussing the Apollo Program, by this point, none of the crewed Apollo missions have flown, and in essence the ISOT would eliminate the Apollo Program as assembly of the CSM, S-IVB, and S-II were all located in California. Further, with regards to the guidance computers for Apollo, any kind of 'weight savings' from switching to modern computing would probably be... negligible, as the Apollo Guidance Computer (with the rope memory) only weighed about... seventy pounds? And there's also a variety of issues therein, in terms of the kinds of hardware and software decisions at the time and so on. Further, I doubt you would see the Apollo missions 'stay up there', for a variety of reasons such as geopolitical, the entire manufacturing side being shot, and so forth, and there's of course the potential question in that you could see the cancellation of the Apollo Program at this point.


On the political side, it'd honestly get weird I feel, since there's also a significant amount of information that would now be present for what historical figures did/have done/will do, and how that would in turn result in; for example, would people go to believe them or not for example? And this wouldn't be something just limited to the US and would be spanning the entire world and it's just... it's something I do really wonder in terms of the kind of affects that'd see, as I'm honestly not sure myself as to the kind of wide-ranging impact that'd occur.

 

[jenalysis]

Yeah that's possible. That would also fit with the downtime dems, who have their progressive outsider wing and their machine/establishment wing.

I could see a divide on foreign policy too, with the establishment wanting to repeat the fall of the USSR and the progressives going for detente.

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I don't think you'd any side pushing to accelerate the timetable. Uptimers know how the fall of the USSR was mismanaged and led to Putin. They're going to push detente, gradual reform of USSR, and much more generous terms when it's done. Maybe an assassination attempt on Putin though.

Iran is another area where I could see US doing things differently.

 

[Nyvis]

I don't think you'd any side pushing to accelerate the timetable. Uptimers know how the fall of the USSR was mismanaged and led to Putin. They're going to push detente, gradual reform of USSR, and much more generous terms when it's done. Maybe an assassination attempt on Putin though.

Iran is another area where I could see US doing things differently.

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That's kinda naive. To a lot of the older uptimers, the USSR is still the ultimate enemy, and they now know how it fell. I doubt they want to maintain a challenger, even a reformed one. I could also see the more hawkish ones having a go at preventing China's rise to maintain US hegemony.