Post by eurofed on Oct 9, 2020 23:30:08 GMT
As part of my ongoing work on a Successful Axis TL, I am planning to make the USA more liberal than OTL. This is going to occur for two reasons: first, ideological backlash from fighting the Cold War against a fascist Afro-Eurasian bloc drives America to turn more left-wing. Of course, utter failure of Communism and destruction of the USSR in WWII radically discredits Marxism-Leninism to almost-complete marginalization, so in this context a left-wing swing basically means more liberalism, social democracy, left-wing libertarianism, and anarchism. Second, the decisive defeat and collapse of the British Empire drives the former Dominions (minus apartheid South Africa, which finds Nazi Europe's plans for Africa an irresistible lure and switches sides) to merge with the USA, which also absorbs the Caribbean and Central America for strategic reasons, forms an EU/NATO equivalent with Latin America, and the Western bloc with India. The new sections help the enlarged Union turn more liberal by dampening the influence of the conservative South. What I'd like to analyze here is what this political shift may mean in terms of policies. There are a few ideas I've conceived:
- Universal health care since the mid 20th century.
- Desegregation happens more or less on schedule, since the accelerating effect of the divergence balances the delaying one of America staying neutral and directly transitioning from isolationism to a Cold War stance.
- More extensive, successful, and enduring Great Society-style anti-poverty programs.
- No significant swing to Reaganite/Thatcherite neo-liberalism.
- Abolition of gerrymandering, felony disenfranchisement, and the Electoral College.
- An expanded version of the Equal Rights Amendment to forbid government discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, language, creed, and sex.
- Court interpretation of the ERA ensures full reproductive rights for women, including unrestricted access to contraception and abortion.
- The District of Columbia gets the same voting rights as a state.
- Personally I frown on affirmative-action quota systems as anti-meritocratic and tribalist, and prefer to let circumstances favor class-based, color- and gender-blind welfare solutions for economically-disadvantaged minorities. Moreover, the ERA should favor this kind of outcome by making affirmative action unconstitutional.
- US party system restructures into a four-party system, with center-left Democrats, center-right Republicans, left-wing Progressives, and right-wing Conservatives.
- Abolition of corporate personhood, except as granted by statute, and consequently strict regulations of campaign contributions and expenses. Also limitation of eminent domain to public interest uses.
- Robust public investment in education.
- The Western bloc makes a mighty and largely successful effort to wean itself from dependency on fossil fuels due to fascist Europe's control of the Middle East. Combined with Europe's ideological sympathy for environmentalism and eventual imitation of the same path, this leads to less environmental trouble than OTL, even if more global industrialization counters it to a degree.
- Civilian ownership ban of semi-automatic weapons and stringent background checks for sale of firearms.
- A Constitutional Amendment to ban government discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. LGBT people are able to serve openly in the military and marry earlier than OTL.
- A Personal Rights Amendment to protect the right to privacy, consensual sexual behavior, and lifestyle choices of adults that do not cause clear and imminent danger to others.
- Court interpretation of the PRA ensures liberalization of coercion-free prostitution, gambling, no-child pornography, and drug (esp. marijuana) use for adults. Things are probably more controversial for 'hard' drugs, but decriminalization of their use is in all likelihood inevitable. OTOH, there is ample ground to let DUI stay a crime (since it easily clears the 'imminent danger' test).
Personally I loathe woke ideology, cancel culture, and radical feminism as the second coming of Stalinism. Therefore, even if North America goes more left-wing in a different sense, I'd much prefer the Western world not to develop this issue. This in order to let it be more utopian by my standards and help balance the dystopic aspects of decisive and enduring Axis success (to put it mildly, TTL Africa won't have an overpopulation problem any time soon).
I tentatively assume TTL can avoid the rise of woke culture thanks to a few elements: first, post-WWII collapse of Marxism poisons the roots of critical theory. If necessary, I can have butterflies remove a few OTL philosophers that fuelled it, or even do the same to postmodernism as a whole. Second, I expect that early and relatively effective classic liberalism, social democratic, and moderate feminism solutions to many of the socio-economic grievances of disadvantaged minorities and avoidance of neoliberalism should take a lot of wind out of the sails of PC culture. In this regard, I also assume an injection of a robust dose of left-wing libertarianism should help balance and prevent the possible slide into nanny-state and illiberal solutions of a more successful left.
I'd also like to prevent the rise of pedophile moral panic that caused demonization of adolescent sexuality and helicopter parenting, but I'm not sure which butterflies might help it. I suppose a more left-wing libertarian America should naturally lean into that to some degree.
Comments ? Ideas? Suggestions?
- Universal health care since the mid 20th century.
- Desegregation happens more or less on schedule, since the accelerating effect of the divergence balances the delaying one of America staying neutral and directly transitioning from isolationism to a Cold War stance.
- More extensive, successful, and enduring Great Society-style anti-poverty programs.
- No significant swing to Reaganite/Thatcherite neo-liberalism.
- Abolition of gerrymandering, felony disenfranchisement, and the Electoral College.
- An expanded version of the Equal Rights Amendment to forbid government discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, language, creed, and sex.
- Court interpretation of the ERA ensures full reproductive rights for women, including unrestricted access to contraception and abortion.
- The District of Columbia gets the same voting rights as a state.
- Personally I frown on affirmative-action quota systems as anti-meritocratic and tribalist, and prefer to let circumstances favor class-based, color- and gender-blind welfare solutions for economically-disadvantaged minorities. Moreover, the ERA should favor this kind of outcome by making affirmative action unconstitutional.
- US party system restructures into a four-party system, with center-left Democrats, center-right Republicans, left-wing Progressives, and right-wing Conservatives.
- Abolition of corporate personhood, except as granted by statute, and consequently strict regulations of campaign contributions and expenses. Also limitation of eminent domain to public interest uses.
- Robust public investment in education.
- The Western bloc makes a mighty and largely successful effort to wean itself from dependency on fossil fuels due to fascist Europe's control of the Middle East. Combined with Europe's ideological sympathy for environmentalism and eventual imitation of the same path, this leads to less environmental trouble than OTL, even if more global industrialization counters it to a degree.
- Civilian ownership ban of semi-automatic weapons and stringent background checks for sale of firearms.
- A Constitutional Amendment to ban government discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. LGBT people are able to serve openly in the military and marry earlier than OTL.
- A Personal Rights Amendment to protect the right to privacy, consensual sexual behavior, and lifestyle choices of adults that do not cause clear and imminent danger to others.
- Court interpretation of the PRA ensures liberalization of coercion-free prostitution, gambling, no-child pornography, and drug (esp. marijuana) use for adults. Things are probably more controversial for 'hard' drugs, but decriminalization of their use is in all likelihood inevitable. OTOH, there is ample ground to let DUI stay a crime (since it easily clears the 'imminent danger' test).
Personally I loathe woke ideology, cancel culture, and radical feminism as the second coming of Stalinism. Therefore, even if North America goes more left-wing in a different sense, I'd much prefer the Western world not to develop this issue. This in order to let it be more utopian by my standards and help balance the dystopic aspects of decisive and enduring Axis success (to put it mildly, TTL Africa won't have an overpopulation problem any time soon).
I tentatively assume TTL can avoid the rise of woke culture thanks to a few elements: first, post-WWII collapse of Marxism poisons the roots of critical theory. If necessary, I can have butterflies remove a few OTL philosophers that fuelled it, or even do the same to postmodernism as a whole. Second, I expect that early and relatively effective classic liberalism, social democratic, and moderate feminism solutions to many of the socio-economic grievances of disadvantaged minorities and avoidance of neoliberalism should take a lot of wind out of the sails of PC culture. In this regard, I also assume an injection of a robust dose of left-wing libertarianism should help balance and prevent the possible slide into nanny-state and illiberal solutions of a more successful left.
I'd also like to prevent the rise of pedophile moral panic that caused demonization of adolescent sexuality and helicopter parenting, but I'm not sure which butterflies might help it. I suppose a more left-wing libertarian America should naturally lean into that to some degree.
Comments ? Ideas? Suggestions?