Miscellaneous, Non-Frivolous ASB Ideas II

That's true, though I was referring more to Churchill being a huge dick to India and other baggage of that sort. Which isn't to downplay the outdated views of other veterans, who'll need support to get back on their feet and enter a job market over a hundred years removed from what they're used to. Never mind the mind-blowing revelation that the Great War was overshadowed by an even bigger, nastier conflict less than thirty years after 1918. Ditto with how the Cold War that followed it could've gone nuclear at several points, something that a generation as war-torn as theirs will not be happy about.

One aspect of the silver lining to this, I think, is that they'll be able to keep "Never again!" going for much longer than the handful of WW2 veterans we have left, considering that they're in roughly the same age range as modern Millennials and Gen Z'ers. Once enough of them have adjusted, I can see plenty of TED Talks and panels with surviving WW2 veterans as they compare and contrast their respective experiences. It's no longer possible, due to the former having passed away in 2017 and the latter being a fictional character, but now I'm imagining a conversation between Jerry Yellin and William Schofield from 1917. There'd probably also be an upsurge in the popularity and production of new WW1 movies, though how likely it is that the actual veterans will have the stomach to watch them is debatable, at best.

As another non-frivolous scenario that returned to mind, '1992 George H.W. Bush Enters The 1952 Presidential Election'. Maybe he and a handful of uptimer Red states come back with him at the start of 1951, so that he can help turn the Korean War in America's favor earlier and court enough favor with downtimer voters in so doing. In terms of domestic policy, Bush also seemed to bridge the gap between the Reaganite Right and the mainstream GOP of the time, though "No new taxes!" might come back to haggle him every now and then. To ameliorate this, perhaps Bush drops Quayle from the ticket and taps Eisenhower to be his running mate? That makes political sense to me, and I'm curious as to how the Democrats respond (i.e. whether or not Governor Stevenson runs, considering how he lost to Ike by wide margins both times IOTL).

‘1994 Richard Nixon SI To His 1954 Self’.

‘1944 Henry Wallace Vs. 1984 Ronald Reagan’. Essentially, this is inspired by an idea I once saw about FDR being forced to withdraw from the race after a surprise health scare, with Wallace taking over and being annihilated by Thomas Dewey on Election Night.

Reagan may be far to the right of what was otherwise viable in 1940s America, but if he had some uptimer states sent back with him and they lent a hand in helping win World War II early, I think he’d have a shot once election season rolls around. Could he win the Republican nomination and crush Wallace in a fifty-state sweep, I wonder?

Well, checking Wiki, it seems Reagan's move rightwards started in the 1950s. That aside, I'm specifically talking about his incumbent 1984 self, who'd get sent forty years back along with a number of uptimer states. California, Texas, and some other big ones strike me as the best ones to accompany him.

In a vacuum, I can see him being too far to the right for most downtimers, so I'm guessing he'd have to moderate his platform to appeal to them, moving more into George Bush Sr.'s ideological territory and seeking input from the "Eastern Elite" on that front. That he'll also have to do something about civil rights won't help, so he could probably kiss the Solid South goodbye, if not the for the fact that Wallace is also an avid civil-rights supporter. Honestly, maybe some third-party Dixiecrat would over-perform down there, since the two-party candidates are bleeding-heart (social) liberals by 1940s Southern standards.

However, I'd think that uptimer success in crushing the Axis early, coupled with Reagan's vocal opposition to Soviet power, would lend him enough popularity to stand a chance. Especially when he contrasts himself with Roosevelt and Wallace, both of whom will have to do an about-face on relations with the USSR and disavow their OTL selves' views. The fact that he's also the uptimer "incumbent" would also help him ward off challengers for the Republican nomination, I'd think.

All in all, maybe Reagan wouldn't win fifty states unless Wallace royally torpedoed his own campaign. Ultimately, though, my guess is that he'd pass 270 electoral votes on Election Night, with Wallace and some third-party Dixiecrat competing for second place.

I'm thinking the ISOT happens on January 1st of both years, so that there's still eleven months' time between 1984 states' arrival and Election Night. Ideally, this provides plenty of time for everyone to make heads or tails of what's going on and decide where to go from there. Obviously, this means the uptimers lending a hand in ending World War II early, with lots of vigorous debate over larger policy and legal issues. Copyright, civil rights, the national voting age, and so on. Especially with the uptimers hoping to bring a hammer down on Soviet Russia next, though whether they can pressure Roosevelt to stop or reduce Lend-Lease at this point, I don't know. Considering his dislike for nukes, I'd also guess that Reagan would rule out using nuclear weapons, aside from considering a "sudden test" over a remote island in the ocean that's clearly meant to frighten America's enemies. Even then, I'm not sold on whether he'd give it the green light, though news of the Manhattan Project and the uptimers' nuclear arsenal will spread far and wide, no matter what they do.

Maybe Reagan wouldn't say it outright since it'd frighten the Soviets beyond mere suspicion or reasonably deducing what the uptimers' intentions are, but he might progressively escalate American rhetoric towards communism and "the other menace to global freedom across the Atlantic". In so doing, I think his clear intention to take the fight to the Soviets would give him stronger and perhaps more "genuine-sounding" anti-communist credentials than whatever Wallace or Roosevelt can bring to the table at this point. At best, the latter two can disavow their OTL selves' views and promise to take a hard line against Soviet power. But in Wallace's case, he'd have less credibility, especially if his "overcompensating" to seem at least as anti-Soviet as Reagan is perceived as pandering or flip-flopping, since he'd effectively admit to having been a horrible judge of geopolitics before uptimers informed his otherwise. That'll give Reagan lots of pot-shots during the 1944 debates, I'm sure.

As far as which states get sent back, I already mentioned Texas and California. But now I'm also thinking Florida, New York, and a handful of Rust Belt states--Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio--that voted for Reagan by especially wide margins. Meaning there'd be plenty of "Reagan Democrats" sent along for the ride, which helps tip white working-class votes towards the Republicans this time around.

Texas and Florida being in the Reagan-Bush corner aside, both candidates would have less headway in the Solid South, since they're both radical "racial egalitarians" planning to pass a Civil Rights Act of 1944. In which case, some third-party Dixiecrat throws their hat in and stands tall in a number of the Jim Crow states, though whether they fizzle out thanks to Southern voters reluctantly trading Jim Crow laws for Reagan's perceived strength and track record of anti-communist action remains uncertain to me. On that, you'd probably know more than I.

'1944 FDR Vs. 1972 Richard Nixon'. To modern observers, Tricky Dick may have less "star power" than Reagan. But, considering both how high his approval ratings were during election season and how he's a liberal Republican, he strikes me as someone who'd more easily appeal to downtimer voters.

Pit him against Wallace, though, and my guess is that Nixon would probably get his 1972 landslide twenty-eight years early. In which case, Wallace basically replaces McGovern as the radical left-winger who's crushed in what's potentially a fifty-state avalanche on Election Night. Forty-eight, if Alaska and Hawaii remain territories.

A Tunguska-like meteorite explodes over New York City at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis.