stevep
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Post by stevep on Mar 31, 2020 10:44:08 GMT
If you’re talking about not going ahead with it since it would’ve occurred in June, that’d be my guess. What Romney does from this point forward since—for as much as he might know about OTL 1970s—he won’t perfectly replicate everything Nixon did leading up to election night—I don’t know. I’m guessing that even with his foreknowledge of what’s to come (though it may not apply as much ITTL), he’d have to adjust his positions accordingly due to the different political climate of 1972. Given that Nixon, at least as far as I’m aware, was more of a liberal Republican than Romney’s used to dealing with, it might be hard to find a compromise that allows him to make some desired changes so long as he’s time-traveling, but also doesn’t arouse suspicion from his family, his cabinet, the press and the public.
Thinking about it would Romney seek to continue the war in Vietnam longer and take a harder line in the cold war? Possibly also reverse Nixon's playing of the China card? Or with the latter especially think that was still worth doing?
Of course in situations like this there are all the personal issues that come into play. He's trying to impersonate another individual and doing that with the cabinet let alone Nixon's family is going to be very difficult even if he was given total knowledge of all Nixon's actions and memories. Plus how would his faith as a Mormon affect his behaviour and decisions he might have to make, such as sleeping with another man's [Nixon's] wife?
Steve
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Zyobot
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Post by Zyobot on May 28, 2020 18:11:01 GMT
If you’re talking about not going ahead with it since it would’ve occurred in June, that’d be my guess. What Romney does from this point forward since—for as much as he might know about OTL 1970s—he won’t perfectly replicate everything Nixon did leading up to election night—I don’t know. I’m guessing that even with his foreknowledge of what’s to come (though it may not apply as much ITTL), he’d have to adjust his positions accordingly due to the different political climate of 1972. Given that Nixon, at least as far as I’m aware, was more of a liberal Republican than Romney’s used to dealing with, it might be hard to find a compromise that allows him to make some desired changes so long as he’s time-traveling, but also doesn’t arouse suspicion from his family, his cabinet, the press and the public.
Thinking about it would Romney seek to continue the war in Vietnam longer and take a harder line in the cold war? Possibly also reverse Nixon's playing of the China card? Or with the latter especially think that was still worth doing?
Of course in situations like this there are all the personal issues that come into play. He's trying to impersonate another individual and doing that with the cabinet let alone Nixon's family is going to be very difficult even if he was given total knowledge of all Nixon's actions and memories. Plus how would his faith as a Mormon affect his behaviour and decisions he might have to make, such as sleeping with another man's [Nixon's] wife?
Steve
Yeah, those are fair questions. Based on my understanding of his general outlook, I think that Romney would at least keep it up in Vietnam, thinking that “if he does everything right”, he can win this thing. As for the overall Cold War, that seems less certain due to how he has to play nicer with the USSR than with some regional power that’s otherwise no threat to the United States, like uptimer Iran was in his time. On a personal level, I don’t know as much about his Mormonism, but he may have to put that aside for the time being in order to successfully impersonate Nixon for as long as he can. Otherwise, I’m unsure how Romney would proceed from there. For another interesting ASB idea, ‘How Would Uptimer-Downtimer Student Exchange Programs Work?’. The specifics would certainly depend on the times and places in question for one thing, but I think there are general trends that’ manifest in any case (e.g. knowledgeable uptimer students piping up in history class for obvious reasons). As some example dates, say such a program starts up between ~2020 and 1970s schools, due to the historical significance of both points in time—the former being an election year for you-know-who marked by a pandemic, and the latter a period of malaise before the paradigm shift under Reagan. |
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Zyobot
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Post by Zyobot on May 29, 2020 20:15:02 GMT
As a thread inspired by the one on AH.com, ‘1970s People React to YouTube’.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on May 30, 2020 2:23:25 GMT
As a thread inspired by the one on AH.com, ‘1970s People React to YouTube’. There is a lot of useful information on Youtube, also would this be ASB creating a program ore a app for people TVs like many nowadays have so the people of the 1970s can see YouTube. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on May 30, 2020 9:36:48 GMT
As a thread inspired by the one on AH.com, ‘1970s People React to YouTube’. There is a lot of useful information on Youtube, also would this be ASB creating a program ore a app for people TVs like many nowadays have so the people of the 1970s can see YouTube.
That would cause a fair amount of chaos assuming you mean the 2020 YouTube will all the content. Much of it would be meaningless to the down-timers as they wouldn't really have anything to relate it to. Other stuff would cause a lot of questions and in many cases probably offense.
Assuming this is the ASB affecting all down-time TVs which can't be blocked its going to be especially dramatic in closed societies like the former Soviet bloc and other dictatorships as the regimes will be unable to prevent a lot of information reaching their subjects. Which much might not be believed or be simply beyond their understanding it could cause some unrest. Not to mention the inevitable fall-out in terms of political activities. For instances assuming its before 1976 what does Mao do about his impending death and the way his successors take China. How does the Shah react to the revolution in Iran and the establishment of an markedly more brutal religious dictatorship. Many other such issues.
On the plus side, if those in power accept the information, global warming and other crisis such as AIDS might be handled somewhat better.
Steve
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Zyobot
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Post by Zyobot on May 30, 2020 13:26:14 GMT
As a thread inspired by the one on AH.com, ‘1970s People React to YouTube’. There is a lot of useful information on Youtube, also would this be ASB creating a program ore a app for people TVs like many nowadays have so the people of the 1970s can see YouTube. In the vein of YouTube getting sent back in time, I’m wondering if you’ve seen the AH.com thread that inspired me to propose this? |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on May 30, 2020 13:41:51 GMT
There is a lot of useful information on Youtube, also would this be ASB creating a program ore a app for people TVs like many nowadays have so the people of the 1970s can see YouTube. In the vein of YouTube getting sent back in time, I’m wondering if you’ve seen the AH.com thread that inspired me to propose this?66 pages of 2020 people discussing how 1950s people react to YouTube, well that is interesting. |
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Zyobot
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Post by Zyobot on May 31, 2020 14:03:46 GMT
‘2012 Red States To 1952’.
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Zyobot
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Post by Zyobot on Jun 1, 2020 14:05:57 GMT
‘2013 Barack Obama SI To 1933 FDR’. On January 1st of both years, to be exact.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Jun 1, 2020 15:32:12 GMT
‘2013 Barack Obama SI To 1933 FDR’. On January 1st of both years, to be exact.
Well on the down side he's now in the body of a semi-cripple in a far more conservative society and world. On the plus side, assuming he's got enough of FDR's knowledge to keep up the impersonation and it doesn't drive him made he can probably do a fair bit with up-time knowledge to ease some of the problems the US and the world faced in this period. Even through he would be helped by Elanor being a lot more radical that FDR by most accounts he might be able to do a little to ease racial bigotry in the US, although I doubt he could do much simply because the country is so reactionary compared to what he's used to.
In terms of the rise of fascism I also suspect he won't be able to do too much given how isolationist the US was at the time but might be able to avoid a few mistakes and get things moving a bit faster to both earlier involvement in the war and making it more effective. I;e. a few selections of better weapons, doctrine and the like when he can get a little input.
However there is relatively little he could do to make radical changes given the relatively limited powers he has at the time, both due to lesser powers of the Presidency then and the social conservatism of the population - as well as the wider world.
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Zyobot
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Post by Zyobot on Jun 2, 2020 3:22:46 GMT
To add to my list of cross-time presidential elections after a while, ‘1984 Ronald Reagan Vs. 1996 Bill Clinton’.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jun 2, 2020 3:42:37 GMT
To add to my list of cross-time presidential elections after a while, ‘1984 Ronald Reagan Vs. 1996 Bill Clinton’. Old versus young, that is interesting. |
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Zyobot
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Post by Zyobot on Jun 2, 2020 3:49:06 GMT
To add to my list of cross-time presidential elections after a while, ‘1984 Ronald Reagan Vs. 1996 Bill Clinton’. Old versus young, that is interesting. I’m glad you think so. Though Clinton’s ability to win this election is suspect due to Reagan’s legendary status, I think he’d at least do better than Jimmy Carter or Walter Mondale did. Him being a charismatic speaker and more of a conservative Democrat who moved his party substantially to the right, my guess is that he’d appeal more to swaths of 1984 America than the aforementioned Democratic challengers could. |
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Zyobot
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Post by Zyobot on Jun 3, 2020 16:05:14 GMT
‘1952 Adlai Stevenson Vs. 2012 Mitt Romney’ in yet another cross-time presidential election between losing candidates.
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Zyobot
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Post by Zyobot on Jun 4, 2020 19:50:11 GMT
As yet another cross-time US presidential election between losing candidates who got absolutely crushed, '1936 Alf Landon Vs. 1984 Walter Mondale'.
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