I think it's the common consensus that Enterprise had its moments, but also that it was generally an inferior show to its predecessors and was let down by the fact that those moments came too late to save the show. I have my own version of what the ideal Enterprise would look like, but I wanted to start a discussion on what the show could have done better in its seasons.
POD: Hillary manages to secure enough superdelegates to win the Democratic nomination, allowing her to run as the Party’s nominee in 2008.
2008-2010: Clinton 2.0
In a disappointment to the grassroots campaigners who had devoted much of their time, effort, sweat, and tears, CNN announced on June 3rd that Hillary Clinton had secured enough superdelegate endorsements to triumph over Barack Obama, the favored candidate of an insurgent populist movement.
From the mindet of his campaigners, the Establishment had won and made only the token concession to the upstart movement by promising that Obama would become the Vice President. To their amazement, he eagerly accepted, mostly happy to get out of the Senate which he hated. Besides, it gave him a platform for a future Presidential bid which would surely be more successful.
The Convention in Denver went as well as could be expected, despite the disappointments of grassroots organizers, and it gave Hillary a good platform from which to begin her general election campaign. The failing economy and Iraq quagmire had tanked the Republican Party's image, and John McCain had no ability to overcome it. Even fearmongering about the hated Clintons taking back the country could only do so much to save the GOP's chances, and the final results showed it: the Clinton-Obama ticket triumphed over the McCain-Palin ticket by a 52%-46% margin, and the Democrats won a decisive Electoral College victory.
Pictured: the results of the 2008 Presidential election.
With the election over, President Clinton found herself inheriting all of the problems which Bush had left for her - and her popularity suffered alongside them. In particular, a bank bailout in March 2009 caused her approval rating to decline, especially among left-wingers who had not seen her as progressive enough. Meanwhile, Clinton's inability to maintain bipartisan support for her agenda became immediately apparent as Republican votes on various bills were hard to come by.
Despite these early warning signs, the Clinton administration geared up for one of its key promises: healthcare reform. Eager to deliver on at least one core domestic promise, Congressional Democrats began debating a monumental health care bill which Clinton would eventually sign in 2010. The Affordable Care Act, often called Hillarycare, was initially unpopular but would manage to gain some popularity in subsequent years.
Meanwhile, in the realm of foreign affairs, the Clinton administration seemed to many on the left to be a disappointing continuation of Bush-era foreign policy. Plans to deploy missiles in Eastern Europe (plans which infuriated Russia) went ahead as scheduled. However, there were still some successes: the withdrawl of troops from Iraq went ahead on schedule. Ultimately, however, it would not be enough...
2010-2011: Tea for Two
Despite these policy wins, the revolt against the Clinton administration came from two directions: the left and the right.
On the right, the emerging "tea party" gained broad popularity, able to crusade against an incumbent Democratic administration and every failure it made. These candidates won primaries nationwide one by one, and they managed to flip the House in the 2010 midterm elections. With John Boehner coming to gain the Speakership with a tenuous hold on power, further legislative victories became impossible.
The left had its own populist movement, too. Occupy Wall Street caught fire in 2011, and populist leftists crusaded against the Clinton administration - many even called for a primary challenger. This eventually led to calls for a new progressive movement in America, a progressive movement which would come to be influential within the Democratic Party.
Both of these movements grew with each point-decline in Clinton's popularity - and that decline remained one of the most predictable forces in American politics. Although she managed to gain positive approval following the killing of Osama Bin Laden in 2011, the general trajectory went downward. An onslaught of scandals, such as Bill Clinton's alleged harassment of secretaries or the Clinton Foundation's acceptance of foreign donations, helped contribute to the decline. The conventional wisdom among Republicans was that victory was theirs for the taking, if only they could find the right candidate...
2012: A Blast From the Past
It seemed as if every Republican under the sun wanted to get the Presidential nomination. The chance was widely understood be unmissable. However, the race soon narrowed down to four main contenders. Evangelicals rallied by Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. Libertarians crusaded for Ron Paul. Suburban moderates saw Mitt Romney as their man. The man who had the greatest appeal to movement conservatives, however, was an old face with a well-established place in Clinton lore: former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Despite a well-publicized series of gaffes, scandals, and controversial remarks, the last man was the one most easily able to ride the anti-Clinton wave due to his proven ability to hammer the First Family. After a long and contentious primary season, it was Gingrich who was able to secure the Republican nomination, ensuring that the Presidential election would seem like a throwback to the 1990s to any casual observer of American politics.
Much like the 1990s, the coming campaign was highly negative in nature. Both sides assailed each other's corruption, with the Democrats accusing Gingrich of being a pawn for rich oligarchs who wanted to privatize Social Security and Medicare while Republicans accused the administration of being tax-and-spend liberals enriching themselves off of graft. In the end Gingrich would emerge triumphant, but the election was close - neither side won an outright majority of the popular vote (which actually favored Hillary by a narrow margin), and turnout was among the lowest of any election in American history.
Pictured: the results of the 2012 Presidential election.
2013-2014: The Divided States of America
Almost immediately after taking office, the Gingrich administration attracted controversy. On the first day of the new administration, waterboarding was legalized at Presidential discretion, and the Mexico City policy was reinstated.
Pictured: Newt Gingrich, the 45th President of the United States.
However, Gingrich's ability to enact his agenda was limited by one factor: his lacking control of the Senate. The Democrats still retained a slim majority through the independents who caucused with them, and this blocked the Gingrich administration's most unpopular measures. Other efforts to enact more conservative policy were successful, but they required a combination of peeling off Democratic votes and keeping Vice President Bob McDonnell in Washington to serve as the needed tie-breaker. The efforts to overturn Hillarycare therefore died, and the Republicans were left instead to figure out how to make a program they reviled work - or how to collapse it from the inside.
The inability of the Gingrich administration and the Democratic Senate to work together became clear during the January 2014, shutdown, when the White House and Congress could not agree to a suitable budget. While everything was eventually sorted out, it still took twenty days of negotiation and was widely seen as embarrassing for the nation.
As for Vice President McDonnell, he soon became a staffing decision which Gingrich would regret. In late 2013, it was revealed a federal investigation into corruption charges stemming from McDonnell’s tenure as Governor of Virginia was dropped after pressure coming from the Gingrich White House, causing a massive controversy and a series of Senate hearings which revealed that the administration had acted improperly in its handling of the allegations. The controversy caused Gingrich's approval ratings to dip into lower levels than ever before, to which he could only respond by launching partisan attacks against Democratic congressmen.
The only relief was in foreign policy. Gingrich staunchly supported Ukraine in the aftermath of the Russian annexation of Crimea, sending arms and severely sanctioning Russian officials. This response was generally popular with Americans and saw a brief rebound in opinion polling for the President, although it once again declined as the hearings revealed more domestic corruption.
In the end, Ukraine policy proved insufficient to swing the 2014 midterms. The Democrats maintained their narrow hold on the Senate while picking up the House, enabling another round of investigations into Gingrich corruption. Speaker Pelosi, now back in power, soon emerged as a leading antagonist for the administration. It seemed with each passing day the President looked weaker, and his loss in the next election seemed to be increasingly inevitable.
2015-2016: Feel the Bern
Limited opposition in the primary allowed Gingrich to easily secure renomination despite his unpopular, and pundits generally paid little attention to his renomination campaign, with the main headline being his decision to replace McDonnell as Vice President with Ted Cruz.
It was initially assumed that Martin O'Malley, the former Governor of Maryland would secure the Democratic nomination. However, his campaign was unexpectedly upended when Bernie Sanders, an independent Senator from Vermont, entered the race. His oratory assailing the rich electrified the increasingly populist Democratic base, and he managed an upset victory in the primary.
At first, Gingrich celebrated the opponent he found himself up against. A socialist senator as a Democratic nominee seemed perfect to run attack ads against. For a time, it worked, and he did rebound in polls. However, in the end, the Sanders campaign retaliated with its own negative ads, and the divided electorate heading into Election Day ultimately favored the Democratic nominee.
Pictured: the results of the 2016 Presidential election.
2017-2019: Political Revolution
It wasn't long before the Democratic base found itself disappointed yet again.
Many of Sanders' signature proposals, such as Medicare for All, could not gain the needed support in Congress, and so as a result he mostly left the Hillarycare structure intact. Other high-profile initiatives, such as a proposed privacy law against NSA surveilance, also failed. The main legislative achievements he made were more modest: a slight increase in the minimum wage was implemented, as well as an immigration reform omnibus bill which tightened immigration enforcement in return for amnesty for DACA participants and a small wealth tax. While this was not "nothing," it was also not the total change which had been promised.
Pictured: Bernie Sanders, the 46th President of the United States.
But while progressives found themselves disappointed with the political revolution that failed to materialize, conservatives became convinced that America was on the road to becoming a communist country. The militia movement became stronger than ever, and political violence subsequently soared. Moderates became increasingly pessimistic about the state of America.
In 2018, this came to a head. Sanders attempted to primary establishment Democrats who had opposed much of his agenda. This was successful in some areas, but his preferred candidates were often uncompetitive in many swing districts. Furthermore, Democratic Congressmen who survived the challenges were infuriated with him - West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin even became an independent as a result. In the end, this meddling divided the Democratic Party and allowed the Republicans to capture the 2018 midterms, creating a Congress even more hostile to President Sanders than ever before.
Meanwhile, on the foreign affairs front, the Sanders administration also created controversy. It leaked to the press that Vice President Tulsi Gabbard opposed many of the measures designed to weaken the Assad regime as well as the continuation of the sanctions against Russia, and normalization with Cuba was seen as betrayal by Cuban-Americans and cost many votes in Florida.
2019 saw the stand-off between Sanders and Congress continue. Most notably, the government shutdown lasted 40 days without resolution. Eventually, Sanders was forced to sign a budget which cut expenditures to many programs he had supported, but the incident did cause him to rebound in polls.
2020: Lockdown
The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 brought about another, much-needed boost. The seemingly decisive leadership provided by the Sanders administration, defined in large part by a large series of stimulus checks that supported Americans in their hour of need, caused the administration's popularity to massively increase, and it seemed like re-election - which had seemed unthinkable in 2018 - was now within grasp.
That did not stop Republicans from trying to win back the White House. Ted Cruz, generally seen as a focal point of the conservative opposition to Sanders, managed to easily clench the nomination, parlaying his status as an anti-Sanders icon into electoral success.
Cruz then blitzed the nation in a desperate attempt to rally it against the incumbent President, even catching COVID in the process (he recovered). Sanders responded with another large series of rallies, and he also became infected (he likewise recovered). Both men understood this to be a make-or-break moment, and America did too: a record number of Americans registered to vote by mail as a means of ensuring their participation.
In the end, the election was won by Sanders - but not in the margins he was hoping. Internal polls had him winning a far larger percentage of both the popular and electoral vote than actually occured, leaving his team stunned - and also helping prepare them for another decline in popularity.
Pictured: the results of the 2020 Presidential election.
2021-2022: Meltdown
Although the development of the Covid-19 vaccine in 2021 promised a return to normalcy, it would ultimately not be so. Anti-vaccine senitment became a key feature of political discourse, turning public health into a minefield. Stand-offs between the Sanders administration and Congress continued.
The biggest chaos agent, however, was inflation. Supply chain issues, stimulus spending becoming overstimulating, and a precarious international situation brought about by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 all contributed to an inflationary economic environment. Public sentiment consequently turned against the Sanders administration, which was unable to resolve the crisis. This all culminated in the 2022 midterms, which were a wipeout for the Democrats. Republicans now had the largest Congressional majority they had enjoyed in decades, and it served them well in opposing the Sanders administration.
2023-2024: Turning Point
The post-COVID chaos and the deadlock in Washington had the net effect of turning Americans against the Sanders presidency, making 2024 fertile ground for a Republican to run for office. The ultimate beneficiary was Nikki Haley, the former Governor of South Carolina. Having credentials with the conservative base from her days as a Tea Party governor while also capable of shifting stances to appeal to moderates, Haley proved to be a formidable candidate heading into the general election.
Meanwhile, Sanders (now disillusioned with Gabbard entirely) endorsed Ro Khanna, a representative from California, for the Presidency. Managing to secure the nomination with the backing of Sanders' base, Khanna seemed at first to be capable of energizing the Sanders coalition for another turn at the White House.
However, in the end, it was not enough. Eight years of Democratic governance had caused Americans to desire a change, especially when those years ended with inflation. Nikki Haley thus became the 47th President of the United States, taking office in January 2025 with a Republican Congress able to help her implement her agenda.
I saw that many years ago someone posted a meme version of this premise, and it reminded me of my own childhood playing the FNaF games. I had the idea to engage with the core premise a little more seriously, as ridiculous as it is, and think about the broader technological and cultural implications of this concept.
As an additional note, I have not played Secrets of the Mimic and do not know what it's done to the lore (something I won't pretend to understand anymore). I am mostly only acknowledging the events referenced in the original games, primarily the ones set in the 80s. Here it goes:
1977-1983: Birth and Expansion
The story of William Afton and Henry Emily, perhaps the greatest robotics experts of the late 20th century, began in a humble town called Hurricane, Utah.
There, in 1977, the two entrepeneurs opened a restaurant called Fredbear's Family Diner, a small restaurant and arcade with two star animatronic performers. However, the robots used at this restaurant were unlike any other such duo in the world: unlike conventional animatronics, they were capable of getting off the stage and moving around. With this marvel of technology impressing children and parents alike, the restaurant came to be an immediate and massive success.
With the influx of capital, the two men were able to establish two businesses which became core to their careers: Fazbear Entertainment and Afton Robotics. The former, led primarily by Emily, was an entertainment conglomerate focused on establishing franchises of animatronic restaurants across the United States. The latter, led primarily by Afton, focused on producing and innovating upon the marvels of engineering which made its counterpart a success. These two businesses often occupied the same space in the public imagination, however, and they were each other's largest clients for their sole decade of business.
Other aspiring entrepeneurs lined up to become franchisees of the Fazbear band, and in 1980 a spin-off restaurant chain was established to meet these goals: Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. With the introduction of four new animatronic characters to provide each location - Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy - the chain proved to be a massive success. By 1981 twelve restaurants had opened up in big cities around the United States, and each proved to be a massive success.
The following year, Afton Robotics introduced one of its other signature pieces of technology: springlock suits. Doubling as both suits and animatronics, the springlock suit technology was hailed as revolutionary and regarded as being perhaps a bigger achievement than the walking robots. However, they were also highly dangerous - an open secret among company employees which would later be horrifyingly revealed to the public.
Pictured: a decayed springlock suit from a Freddy's location.
With these successes garnering them worldwide attention, Emily and Afton made multiple media appearances which made them even more publicly-known. Their predictions on the future of technology were repeatedly eagerly by magazines, and they were given roles in bringing it about. Afton Robotics especially benefitted from this hype, as it acquired valuable contracts to do everything from making animatronics for Hollywood movies to designing prototype robotic soldiers for the American military. 1983 saw this hype reach its height when Afton and Emily both received the National Medal of Science from President Ronald Reagan.
The growing popularity of these men coincided with a growth in their fortunes. The revenues raised by Fazbear Entertainment's restaurants and Afton Robotics' contracts were in the millions of dollars annually, and they only grew due to merchandising opportunities. Toylines based on the characters were produced beginning in 1981, and Afton Robotics developed new animatronic dolls for children to take home that same year. Sales reached their height in 1983, when the TV show Fredbear and Friends debuted on Nickelodeon. It received mixed reviews from critics due to its cheap animation and was critiqued like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe as an early exemplar of "commercials disguised as entertainment,” but it was also briefly popular with children.
Pictured: the title-card of Fredbear and Friends.
1983-1989: Fall From Grace
1983, however, would prove to be the height of the Fazbear brand. In November that year, two events occured which marked the beginning of the brand’s decline: the disappearance of Charlotte Emily and what company employees called "the Bite of '83."
Charlotte was Henry's daughter, but despite her status as the progeny of her town's most prominent resident she was often a target of bullying. Her father designed many security measures in Fredbear's to protect her, but she was still frequently harassed. On Halloween night, 1983, she was locked outside of the restaurant and disappeared. The reason was unknown at the time, although it was later suspected to be the first murder associated with the chain.
Charlotte's disappearance would not have been too detrimental to the Fazbear brand had it not been followed by the grotesque Bite of '83. David Afton, William's youngest son, was forcibly shoved into Fredbear's mouth by his older brother Michael. The animatronic's bite force was far stronger than normal for a robot, however, and David's skull was horrificly crushed in front of patrons. He was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.
Charlotte's disappearance and the Bite of '83 caused Fredbear and Friends to be cancelled after only one season had aired, and Fazbear Entertainment shut down the Fredbear's sub-brand by merging it with the Freddy Fazbear's Pizza chain. Attendance at Fazbear restaurants slowed into 1984, but they began to rebound in 1985. The Wall Street Journal even wrote that the two incidents would be forgotten pieces of tragic history in what was ultimately become one of the most famous corporate success stories of the 1980s.
However, June of 1985 saw two events which shook the Fazbear brand to its core. A springlock suit failure killed two employees, revealing the safety flaws inherent in the technology and causing it to be abandoned. The suits would be back in the news when one was used to lure five children to a backroom of the flagship Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, where it was suspected they were murdered. Afton was apprehended in connection with the events but was not arrested. However, the controversy did lead to many of Afton Robotics's prized contracts being terminated, causing the company's revenue to sharply decline.
Pictured: a newspaper clipping discussing the disappearances at the flagship Freddy's.
The missing children's incident proved to be detrimental to animatronic arcades nationwide. Attendance for all such establishments declined, especially after an attempted copy-cat was arrested for attempting the same at Showbiz Pizza. Fazbear locations were, however, the hardest - most locations went out of business by the end of 1986.
In an attempt to regain momentum for the brand, Fazbear Entertainment opened a new flagship restaurant in Hurricane. Larger than the initial Freddy's and populated by a new cast of animatronics with facial recognition software as a means of ensuring customer safety, the measure was initially hailed by the media as potentially ensuring the comeback of a failing brand. However, another string of murders ensured the location's closure after a month. The establishment's final day of operation saw any hopes of a reopening foreclosed after a security guard's frontal lobe was removed by an animatronic in the infamous "bite of '87."
Pictured: a newspaper article announcing the closure of the reopened Freddy Fazbear's.
Around the same time, Circus Baby's Pizza and Rental - a spin-off brand established by Mr. Afton which delivered animatronics for private parties at a family's home - attracted scrutiny due to the disappearances of children at parties where its animatronics were present. The rental service shut down after the Bite of '87 made Fazbear characters toxic, and Afton Robotics filed for Chapter 11 immediately afterward.
Fazbear Entertainment made one last attempt to regain popularity by opening a smaller location (actually a refurbished version of the 1985 flagship restaurant) in 1989. However, it was generally regarded as a failure - even if longtime company employee Ralph Miller had not disappeared under suspicious circumstances, attendance was low from the start and the establishment closed that Christmas. Fazbear Entertainment declared bankruptcy the moment the doors closed.
1989-2019: Afterlife and Effects
The failure of Fazbear preceded a failure of other emulators in the animatronic restaurant business. Showbiz Pizza declared bankruptcy the following year in 1990, and Chuck-E-Cheese (which had already abandoned its usage of animatronics following the Bite of '87) went under in 1992. Many other companies which specialized in producing animatronics also filed for Chapter 11, and those which survived emphasized new safety measures.
Despite that, the innovations in walking animatronics which could be produced on a reasonable budget survived and became a staple of theme parks and film. The techniques pioneered by Afton Robotics caused animatronics to become even more central to effects-heavy blockbusters, something which continued even after the rise of CGI due to their versatility and realism. The slowness of the Afton machines and their delicacy rendered American efforts to militarize the technology worthless, however.
Although Fazbear briefly received renewed attention when both William and Michael Afton were reported missing in early 1993, the brand lost all cultural relevance and became an obscure memory of the 80s by the 2000s. However, the brand did retroactively benefit from one thing: the rise of message boards online and the subsequent emergence of creepypasta culture. Stories of the Freddy's animatronics "coming to life at night" had been circulating in Hurricane since 1983 at the earliest, and they became especially prominent after 1985. Former security guards publicly confirmed the rumors, and their stories (although dismissed as fabrications by the mainstream media) spread like wildfire online.
Something Awful, 4Chan, Reddit, YouTube - all hosted streams of content related to the Fazbear brand. In 2011 Henry Emily garned media attention when he accused his former business partner of being responsible for the disappearances associated with his company, but he could not provide conclusive evidence to support his claims. His statements did, however, draw more attention, and online discussions of the tragedies and events which occured at Freddy's locations became ever more prominent.
This online frenzy created a breeding ground for enterprising individuals hungry for money to make it. An indie horror game was created based in part upon the rumors of the animatronics being possessed, and it would become the sleeper hit of 2014. Around the same time, entrepeneurs in Hurricane garnered mainstream coverage when they announced their intention to create a haunted house using old Fazbear artifacts. While it attracted much controversy due to the tastelessness of the enterprise, the Fazbear's Fright attraction also received much support and was widely anticipated. However, it burnt down the day before opening, preventing the public from ever experiencing it.
The controversy combined with a failed film adaptation of the horror game caused Fazbear mania to lose relevance, having become confined to a select handful of niche online communities by later half of the 2010s. In 2017 Henry Emily died in a fire at a small location at the edge of Hurricane, and his obituaries marked the last time the Fazbear brand received mainstream media attention.
Despite their failure, Afton Robotics and Fazbear Entertainment left their mark on the world. Afton Robotics revolutionized the robotics industry, creating state-of-the-art machines which raised the bar to new heights and made Afton and Emily some of the most appreciated names in the field. Meanwhile, Fazbear Entertainment simultaneously created and ended the 80s boom in popularity of animatronic establishments, and its online appreciators have bolstered the company's reputation in the years since 1989. The cultural and technological impact left by these businesses cannot be understated, even as their names have associated more with tragedy than wonder.
I’m currently reading Nixonland by Rick Perlstein, and I found myself interested in the "dirty tricks/ratfucking" which marred the 1972 Democratic primary. Perlstein mentions specifically the sending of fake letters marked with campaign stationery and the infamous "Canuck letter," but I want to know: did Nixon operatives resort to other tactics, and how much of an influence on the final result did it have?
The Kennedy administration went off the rails almost immediately after the 1972 election.
The Cuban War dragged on long after Castro’s assassination, dragging the administration’s popularity down with it. Anti-war protests grew in their ferocity with each passing day. However, the Kennedy administration’s decision to begin pulling out troops in October 1974 turned into a disaster - the Cuban government failed to control large portions of its own countryside, and the raging civil war there accelerated a refugee crisis.
Economic issues also contributed to Kennedy’s decline in approval ratings. Wage and price controls created economic distortions which eventually caused an economic downturn, and rising unemployment was not sufficiently addressed by the newly-created Jobs Corps. When price controls were removed in late 1973 to try and address these issues, inflation skyrocketed. On top of these problems, the 1973 oil embargo by the Arab nations caused gas prices to skyrocket to levels never seen before.
Above all, civil rights remained a key wedge issue. Northern liberals pressed Kennedy to push for a civil rights bill, and his lacking stance on the issue enraged liberals. Eventually he promised to introduce one, but it infuriated Southerners and led to them feeling conned into supporting him. Once again talk of a challenge to the Northeastern Democratic elites began.
This led to two main groups to mobilize themselves against the administration: the Republican Party and the emerging conservative movement. The first was able to appeal to dissatisfied liberals and blacks by promising to introduce measures that would provide both public accomodations and voting rights to African-Americans, and this allowed them to mobilize a substantial base that allowed Republicans to sweep the 1974 midterms up North.
However, Kennedy also faced a third-party challenge by conservatives. Feeling shut out of both parties, attempts to raise another third-party challenge to the Democrats and Republicans became the main goal of the conservative movement. Drawing together former Wallace supporters, Goldwaterites who had been decisively rejected by the GOP in 1968, and suburbanites alienated from both parties, the Conservative Party was founded in 1974.
The midterms proved successful for both of these insurgents. The Northeast and Pacific Northwest was swept by Republicans. Meanwhile, conservative challengers proved to perform astonishingly well in the farm states and South. The most notable election was Ronald Reagan as Governor of California as a Conservative, having been shut out by the Democratic Party he once belonged.
Conservatives spent most of their efforts heading into 1976 preparing to nominate a candidate. The eventual winner of the open primary process they created was Ohio Congressman John Ashbrook, an ex-Republican who was immensely popular with a burgeoning conservative base by promising to cut taxes and government expenditures.
Pictured: John Ashbrook, the man who mobilized the emerging conservative movement in 1976.
The Democrats selected Al Gore, a Tennessee Senator who had served as Vice President for the Kennedy administration. Gore campaigned on continuing the policies of the government he served, rendering him unpopular with the majority of Americans.
The Republicans selected Nelson Rockefeller, New York's brash governor. He managed to mobilize dissatisfied liberals and a new voting base of African-Americans by promising that he would implement civil rights policies the now-assassinated Martin Luther King had called for.
In the end, Rockefeller was able to sweep the election - in the Electoral College. However, Ashbrook had managed to mobilize an astonishing 20% of the electorate to his cause, and Rockefeller had failed to even clear 50%. The commanding presence he communicated to foreigners was thus largely superficial - and he could not rely on similar measures again.
Pictured: the results of the 1976 Presidential election.
Pictured: Nelson Rockefeller, the 39th President of the United States.
With a Republican majority in Congress (the first since 1954), Rockefeller passed the Civil Rights Act of 1975, which provided long-sought public accomodations for African-Americans and banned many of the measures used to disenfranchise them in Southern states.
Although these measures endeared Rockefeller to liberals, they did not save his approval rating. The "stagflation" plaguing the economy continued,
Meanwhile, conservatives noticed the failure of their third-party crusade - and changed tactics accordingly. Many of the elected Conservative Party members changed their registration to Democratic, and Southern Democratic politicians openly courted their voters. In California the two party organizations officially merged, causing Ronald Reagan to win re-election as a Democrat in 1978.
Reagan was not the only Democrat to win in the midterms. In fact, the elections were generally a wipe-out for Republicans. Tainted by poor economic performance, the Republican brand was widely tarred.
The following year worsened the GOP's fortunes. - Rockefeller died of a heart attack (allegedly brought on by a one-night stand with a secretary) while visiting his home state of New York in January 1979, allowing Gerald Ford to take his price. He would not get to enjoy a honeymoon - the following month the Iranian monarchy was officially overthrown, and Islamists seized control of the nation shortly thereafter. A hostage crisis in the Iranian embassy temporarily boosted Ford's approval rating, but it soon became an albatross around his neck.
Pictured: Gerald Ford, the 40th President of the United States.
Heading in 1980, it was clear Ford would fail. As a result, Wallace, Reagan, and Kennedy's former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie all competed for the Democratic nomination. The brand of liberalism Muskie represented was decidedly rejected, and he attempted to run a third-party campaign against both Reagan (who won the Democratic nomination) and the unpopular Ford.
Meanwhile, Reagan blitzed the nation and impressed Americans with charismatic media appearances. He promised them a return to the days before the economic stagnation of the Lodge, Kennedy, Rockefeller, and Ford years, offering in its place a national revival through a return to traditional values and smaller government. Middle America found these promises appealing, and it flocked to the Democratic Party in record numbers. A particularly notable headline was the switch of Bob Dole, a long-time conservative Republican, to the Democratic Party so he could run as Reagan's Vice President.
In the end, Reagan emerged victorious and won by a landslide. Ford was relegated to the Northeast, his home state of Michigan, Minnesota, and Washington state. Muskie won his home state of Maine by an exceedingly narrow margin (less than 1,000 votes). The conservative triumph of the Democratic Party seemed to be complete.
Hello, Reddit! How do users here create fake social media posts to post as images? I want to know as I had an idea for a project based on this premise.
(I decided to change up the title structure as I frankly think this is better. Part one will be linked below: https://www.reddit.com/r/AlternateHistory/comments/1tcehl5/nixonland_1960_part_1_what_if_richard_nixon_won/
Despite President Lodge's victory in 1964, the Democrats still retained control of both houses of Congress. What's more, the President's approval ratings almost immediately began to enter negative territory. This was due to two main reasons: the overseas wars and lawlessness at home.
Abroad, the escalating troop commitments in Vietnam and Cuba required ramping up the draft efforts domestically, provoking massive protests against the war effort. These became especially pronounced as college students became increasingly eligible, and youth radicalism came to dominate elite campuses. Although initially the public despised these youths as unruly, the inability of the US Army to achieve victory in either of its foreign wars caused public sentiment to become increasingly anti-war.
Pictured: an anti-war protest under President Lodge
Meanwhile, disillusionment with the political establishment following its refusal to consider further civil rights legislation turned African-Americans against the Lodge government, and race riots broke out in many American cities starting with New York in 1964. A new wave of these hit in 1965, with the Watts Riots in Los Angeles provoking similar events in New York and Chicago. These often mixed with the anti-war movement, and both came to join forces against the
The collapse in support for the Lodge administration culminated in the Democratic landslide during the 1966 midterms, with the party gaining control of supermajorities in both houses. The failure to secure a victory for the Party in the midterms led Barry Goldwater to announce an effort to primary Lodge in Feburary 1967, claiming only he could save the GOP from the Eastern Establishment which had led it astray.
1967 was, in general, another bad year for Lodge. More race riots and a deteriorating situation in both Vietnam and Cuba caused his approval ratings to drop to only 20% - a new low in the history of approval polling. Despite this, Lodge refused to announce he would not seek re-election, pulling out all of the stops to maintain his place on the ticket.
1968 proved to be a pivotal election year - and a chaotic one. Lodge succeeded in his efforts to maintain control of the Republican Party and win renomination, but these efforts caused a riot on the floor of the Republican National Convention. Meanwhile, Wallace formed the American Independent Party to launch a third-party campaign for the presidency. With the Democrats now able to appeal to the North only, they selected a familiar face who could offer an inspiring vision - John F. Kennedy, who promptly selected liberal icon Hubert Humphrey as his Vice President. Despite the Democratic split, the Republican vote share had collapsed to such a low point that JFK was able to win the Presidency as he could not in 1960.
Pictured: the results of the 1968 Presidential election
With a Democratic supermajority, JFK was able to get to work implementing the New Frontier agenda he had promised Americans back in 1960. Social Security payments were increased and a tax cut was passed, in addition to reforms allowing for federal employees to collectively bargain. This caused the budget surplus which had accumulated during the Nixon and Lodge years to give way to a growing deficit, and inflation (already rearing its ugly head during the Lodge years) only grew further. In response, Kennedy implemented wage and price controls, which initially proved popular but did more harm to the economy than good.
Kennedy was far less successful at upholding his foreign affairs promises. While he was able to secure a ceasefire in Vietnam as well as peace negotiations to end the war, the Cuban insurgency continued to cause headaches for the Americans. Fidel Castro remained in hiding, and everyone understood there was no chance of victory until he was taken out.
JFK's civil rights agenda also became problematic. While he and Humphrey had mobilized the black vote in record numbers by promsing to enact public accomodation and equal employment protections, the influence of Southerners combined with fears of exacerbating the Democratic split led to these initiatives being tabled until after the 1972 presidential election. He did, however, further implement school desegregation, with a record number of children attending integrated districts.
Pictured: John F. Kennedy, the 37th President of the United States
The 1972 re-election initially proved to be threatening. However, Kennedy was able to regain momentum heading into the election through three major things: the selection of a new Vice President, the division of the opposition, and the killing of Castro in September.
To appease Southerners, JFK selected Al Gore Sr. of Tennessee to be his new VP, replacing Humphrey on the ticket. By choosing a Congressman with mild segregationist sympathies, Kennedy was able to reintegrate the South into the Democratic coalition despite Wallace's presence on the ticket, and many Southern party organizations eagerly signed up to support the re-elect.
Meanwhile, the Republicans remained divided between both their progressive and conservative wings, and the chaos of the Lodge years left the party in severe disarray. Although perennial candidate Harold Stassen finally got his place atop the ticket after many years of striving, he was only able to run in the worst race to be a Republican since 1936. Meanwhile, the GOP was unable to court black voters effectively: Martin Luther King Jr, dissatisfied with the vaciliation on civil rights from both parties, formed his own Social Justice Party to advocate for minority rights. This ensured that the Democrats would be able to consolidate the white vote nationwide heading into 1972.
Finally, Castro was finally caught and killed in an American special operations raid in September, promising an end to the Cuban War after over a decade of fighting. This provided the President with a bump in his popularity heading into Election Day.
In the end, Kennedy won a gigantic landslide in the Electoral College and 57% of the popular vote, allowing him to decisively declare victory. However, his victory did not ensure Democratic control of the government forever.
(Reposted because I screwed up the body text. This is my first time making a post with a lot of body text and images.)
POD: Instead of campaigning in all 50 states, Nixon focuses his efforts on key swing states and manages to win a narrow victory.
Pictured: The results of the 1960 Presidential Election
On November 9th, 1960, Americans learned over the evening news that Richard Milhous Nixon had been elected the 35th President of the United States. Following his inauguration in January, he assumed the Presidency and got to work on an agenda to continue the victories of the Eisenhower era.
It would not be long before the Nixon administration found itself achieving an early victory. In May 1961, the planned Trinidad invasion was finally launched, and with sufficient air and naval support, the Cuban exiles were able to lead a successful revolt against the Communist government. Castro was forced into hiding, and a Cuban provisional government took control of the country. While this at first seemed to be a massive win, it would eventually come to be a toxic one for America. The international community was stunned at the flagrant violation of Cuban sovereignty, and Castro found himself in charge of leading a guerrila operation in the countryside.
This victory, however, was soon followed by a crisis. Nikita Khruschev announced the construction of the Berlin Wall in June, provoking a stand-off between East and West. In the end, he would get his wall, which caused the high of the successful Cuban operation to come down.
Meanwhile, America's commitment to Southeast Asia only escalated. Nixon sent yet more advisors to South Vietnam in an effort to stabilize that nation, drawing the US ever deeper into the quagmire.
Pictured: Nixon meeting with Nasser in 1963
On the domestic front, the Nixon administration had two main priorities: balancing the budget and passing a civil rights bill. The first was easily doable - Eisenhower had left his successor with a budget surplus, and all it took to keep that going was to avoid cutting taxes or making massive increases in expenditure. The surplus continued into 1962 and 1963, and it was used to gradually begin paying down the United States federal debt. Although this was what Nixon had promised to do, he found himself attacked by populist politicians on both the left and the right for it.
A civil rights bill was introduced in late 1961, and manuevering it through Congress proved to be a hassle. To get critical votes from Republican conservatives like Barry Goldwater, provisions concerning public accomodations and equal employment were dropped. While this allowed Nixon to sign a Civil Rights Act in September 1962, it also disillusioned civil rights activists and fueled, rather than quelling, the growing demonstrations.
Southerners were also infuriated by this new bill, and they reacted harshly. In the 1962 midterms, all gains that the Republican Party had made in the South over the course of the 1950s were immediately reversed, with a new crop of staunchly conservative Southern Democrats sweeping into the offices the GOP once held. This further entrenched the Democratic majority in Congress while also making it more hostile to Nixon on the margins, making further legislative wins ever-more-impossible.
Despite that, Nixon was still able to achieve a massive victory in 1963: negotiating the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty with Khruschev. Following the Cuban crisis and the Berlin crisis, Nixon began to attend a series of summits with the Soviet premier, eventually culminating in an arms control treaty which both limited certain types of weapons while also banning non-underground nuclear tests. Although this provoked backlash from some conservatives, Nixon was able to pass it through Congress by utilizing both his anti-communist credentials and gaining support from Northern liberals.
Despite this win, 1963 also created further problems for the country Nixon led, many of which were of his own making. In South Vietnam, a coup against President Ngô Đình Diệm occured on November 1st, 1963. Although the coup was supported by the Nixon administration, which believed that overthrowing Diệm would lead to a more competent regime that could better stabilize the country, it only exacerbated American involvement, leading to a yet-more-intense commitment in Southeast Asia.
However, the worst event of 1963 occured on November 22nd.
That day, Nixon arrived in Havana for a meeting with leaders of the Cuban provisional government. Castro's guerillas saw an opportunity to strike a blow against both the Americans and the anti-communist regime, and they took it: a bomb was thrown under Nixon's car, and he was killed along with one of the anti-communist leaders. His body didn't even survive to allow for a return to Washington, DC.
Pictured: Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr, Richard Nixon's succesor as President
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr, the then-Vice president, was officially inaugurated the day after the assassination. Seizing on public sentiment to avenge his fallen predecessor (who had only been declining in polls and was believed by the pundit class to be on the verge of defeat in 1964), Lodge called for a massive troop build-up in Cuba to wipe out the insurgency. He got his wish, and he also got to place more troops in South Vietnam in an effort to defeat the communist insurgency there to boot. Although these interventions were initially wildly popular, in time they would come to be seen as mistakes.
While having to manage the growing wars in both Latin America and Southeast Asia, Lodge also found himself occupied with another critical matter: securing re-election in 1964. Although he himself was able to easily secure the GOP's nomination, 12 years of Republican rule had been detrimental to his party's image.
However, Lodge did have a savior: the Democratic Party's own internal divisions. The 1964 primary campaign had led to a divisive contest between George Wallace, who had mobilized conservatives and Southerners outraged by integration, and Hubert Humphrey, who had similarly mobilized civil rights leaders eager for more reforms and liberal activists who supported them. To unify the Party, the delegates instead chose Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, who they saw as the only figure able to unify both the Northern and Southern wings of the Democratic Party. With Lodge's popularity shooting through the roof due to the outpouring of sympathy and Johnson proving to be an uncharismatic figure prone to frequent gaffes, the incumbent managed to just narrowly secure re-election - a re-election which would come to break his party.
