u/JW_Wells_and_Company

- The broader geopolitical alliances of this world would be unrecognizable in various fascinating ways. I believe that the US and the USSR would be allies more often than not, the great collectivist powers of the 20th century having put aside their differences and arrayed themselves against the neoliberal rising stars of Europe and Japan. I think that this timeline's belt and road initiative would be a joint project between Jobs' US and the Soviet Union, billed as a way to get America back onto the broader world stage and save various developing countries from European imperialism (and hey, if we liberate all these countries maybe we can get our hands on their rare earth minerals...)

- I was surprised that there was no mention of South America at all, so here's my idea for what's going on down there. The US quickly pulled support from right-wing regimes at the beginning of Lancaster's presidency, leading to a period of chaos in the early 80s. As the decade came to an end, a wave of left-wing governments swept into power, sometimes democratically, sometimes violently, all of them scarred by war and underdevelopment. In 1990, a conference of left-wing leaders met in Asuncion and agreed to aid each other in recovery and development. In 1992, this informal alliance was formalized as the Bolivarian League, a supranational union with a common currency, which encouraged internal freedom of trade and movement but adopted Lancastrian protectionist policies toward the rest of the world.

The League was very popular initially, and over the '90s and early 2000s it led to massive improvements in education and infrastructure, lifting millions out of poverty. It expanded, incorporating Cuba and Nicaragua as member states, and there have been frequent on-and-off discussions of Mexico joining. However, they began to run into many of the same protectionist stumbling blocks as the US, remaining technologically backward and isolated from global markets. Corruption, while more under control than it had previously been, was still an everpresent issue. Some countries were clearly contributing more to the League's common projects than others. And while the League had copied many of Lancaster's trade policies, they were far more lenient on immigration, leading to an influx of African refugees during the 2000s. All of this led to significant resentment in several member states, most notably Argentina, where the "Salirgentina" movement (anyone who speaks Spanish please tell me if there's a better Spanish equivalent of Brexit) began advocating for withdrawal from the league. Right-wing Peronist Carlos Reutemann leads an aggressive anti-immigrant, anti-League campaign that ultimately leads to a referendum. To the shock of almost everyone, Salirgentina barely passes in a low-turnout vote.

- The presidency of Jobs leads to a rise in violent left-wing groups collectively termed the "alt-left", which proliferate in online spaces, taking previously innocuous memes and turning them into symbols of revolution. One of these groups, the Society of the Godless, organizes a "Unite the Left" rally against the building of a monument of the ten commandments. When a Christian counterprotester is killed, Jobs controversially claims that there were "very fine people on both sides".

- The American Libertarian movement is now pretty firmly identified with the left, although it still includes many figures we might consider right-libertarian in our timeline. Within the Libertarian party you're as likely to meet an anarcho-communist as an anarcho-capitalist, and while the two have their disagreements they're likely to consider each other allies in the fight against statism. Libertarians are broadly pro-gun, pro-LGBT, anti-government, anti-racist, and antitheist, and are also firmly opposed to big corporations and monopolies.

- The far left is a lot more amorphous and less purist than in our timeline, often to their detriment. Weird syncretic movements that the left doesn't want anything to do with in our timeline, like Nazbols, "MAGA Communists", and as previously stated AnCaps, were instead kicked out of the right for being too left-wing and became somewhat accepted in left-wing spaces.

- Ukraine should be Tibet, with the region having broken away from China during the collapse of the PRC. Here it's Japan and the Soviets which serve as Tibet's most ardent defenders, fearful of Chinese invasion, while Europe plays America's role, with the government sending massive aid but the public dissatisfied. Steve Jobs and much of the American left are very anti-Tibet, as their atheist views cause them to oppose the theocratic rule of the Dalai Lama.

- Israel is more difficult, but I think it could be South Africa. Europe is one of the main "neoliberal" powers of this timeline and given how they treated the Françafrique in our timeline I think the CMEE would strengthen its neocolonial stranglehold on Africa. South Africa would be propped up as "the only democracy in Africa" despite not-so-covertly continuing Apartheid. Nelson Mandela would have signed a much-lauded peace deal with the Apartheid government, promising eventual full independence for the Bantustans, but this does little to calm the tensions. Violence continues, mostly on the Afrikaner side, throughout the 21st century. On October 7th 2023, black militants would emerge from the Bantustan of KwaZulu in a surprise attack, killing thousands of Afrikaners. In response the South African government enacts a brutal campaign of repression on the Bantustans, and repeatedly invades Zimbabwe under the pretext of rooting out terrorist cells.

- In general, with the decreased importance of oil, I think Africa would be the equivalent of our timeline's "middle east". It would be a site of major tensions between the CMEE and the Soviet Union, and I think that the 9/11 equivalent really should have been African Islamists attacking the European stock exchange in Rotterdam. The Texas subplot is where things jumped the shark for me.

- I can't imagine Jeffrey Epstein would ever gain prominence in this non-financialized, non-neoliberal America. Instead I think the equivalent should be a new-age cult which insinuated itself into powerful institutions across America during the 90s and 2000s, probably a weirder alternate version of NXIVM. It would have to have some kind of known connection with John McKernan during his post-presidential career. The left would be up in arms about this, both due to their hatred of religion and their hatred of the McKernans. "Release the NXIVM files" and "Raniere didn't kill himself" would become common refrains among Jobs supporters. However, it would be revealed that Jobs himself was closely connected with the cult during his own more woo-woo days, causing a good deal of consternation among the Democrats.

- Likewise, I think the leftist QAnon would be all about the evil pedophilic Vatican being in control of every right-wing politician, with NXIVM being a Vatican front to spread religious ideas.

- Hasan Piker would definitely be the Charlie Kirk of this timeline. Like Kirk, he's somebody that serves as a bridge between the more moderate and radical wings of his movement, though not without some friction. His killer would be clearly identified as a right-winger, but large segments of the right would refuse to accept this, claiming that the killer must have been a radical leftist who didn't think Hasan was extreme enough (Despite there being no evidence for this). His death causes the left to fracture, with some of the more radical leftists believing he was killed by the Jobs administration for threatening to speak against the free trade reforms.

- The online far-right of this world would be a lot more purist, constantly arguing over the fine points of fascism and refusing to participate in politics outside of protests. "Hitler did nothing wrong" is quickly becoming orthodoxy in right-wing spaces and anyone who disagrees is kicked out. Since antifa is inspired by paramilitaries that fought the brownshirts in Weimar Germany, their right-wing equivalent would literally call themselves the brownshirts.

If, for instance, there was a global overthrow of governments, in which a good deal of violence occurred (but not to postapocalyptic levels) could anything resembling a modern internet be maintained? Would smaller intranets become more common? If it did exist, could it be used to facilitate an anarchic order?

The real Redneck Revolt was an organization intended to build solidarity with rural white Americans and awaken class consciousness in them. That seems to me like a perfect environment in which socially conservative communists could establish themselves, but there don't seem to be any hints of that in the teasers for RR, with the closest being the Liberation Theologists. Of the other three factions, two are black nationalists (which I think does make some sense as antiracism is one of the real group's main priorities) and one is a bog-standard socialist party based in New Jersey.
Meanwhile, the APLA has its Jacobins, a clear reference to the real world "MAGA Communists" that try to hijack the trump movement for socialist ends. I just can't see such a group ever gaining traction among the leftists of California, it seems as though the only reason that they're in the APLA is to subvert expectations about leftist infighting. I think that Caleb Maupin and his crowd should become a RR faction. While Maupin isn't a southerner, he is from rural Ohio, and I think he would have an easier time appealing to RR's target audience than Greg Pason, a progressive socialist from New Jersey. Even if Maupin and the Jacobins remain in the APLA I think that their Maga communist elements should be moved to a RR faction and the Jacobins should become a more explicitly "Tankie" faction.