OHC
deep green blue collar rainbow
- Location
- Little Beirut
- Pronouns
- they/she
A small and ghoulish POD here. In December 1976, Dianne Feinstein - then a San Francisco supervisor - was targeted by a bomb hidden in the flower planters outside her apartment. It misfired and was found later by a maid. The New World Liberation Front claimed responsibility in a communique demanding better conditions at local jails. What if it had gone off as planned and she'd been killed?
First of all, there would probably be a bigger manhunt for the NWLF; as is, it's one of the murkiest and most obscure of the New Left militant cells. Despite setting off more bombs than any other group of the era (almost all in Northern California and focusing not on big causes like US imperialism but specific local issues like prison conditions and high utility prices) it's still unclear whether it was a real underground group or just a label used by different groups of bombers - or both. One of the few people ever linked to NWLF bombings was a mentally disturbed cannabis farmer named Ronald Huffman, who was arrested in 1979 on unrelated charges of murdering his girlfriend with an axe and cutting out her brain. (The further you get from the sixties, the more the political stuff just blends into the true-crime stuff.) So morbid historians like myself would have more to go on.
Alright, but what are the real consequences? There's a decent chance a supervisor's assassination would result in no Milk/Moscone killings, either through increased security or sheer butterflies. Feinstein was a member of the conservative bloc on the board; were she replaced by a liberal, Moscone and his allies would have a majority, meaning more social liberalism and less commercial development. Enough less development to make the Bay's dystopian housing crisis even worse by 2018 ITTL? Maybe, although due to geography it's probably inevitable that the area would have terrible rent problems without some very smart urban planning or no tech industry. On the other hand, Moscone and Milk wanted to build more social services, care facilities, etc. so if those are in place by the 00s and 10s there could be a stronger safety net for those plowed out of the way by Silicon Valley.
As mayor, Feinstein vetoed America's first domestic partnership ordinance; that likely would become law ITTL. (So yes, San Francisco could be even gayer.)
It might be a little too far out from the POD to easily guess who would take her place in the gubernatorial and Senate races down the line - or who would take her place as champion of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban.
First of all, there would probably be a bigger manhunt for the NWLF; as is, it's one of the murkiest and most obscure of the New Left militant cells. Despite setting off more bombs than any other group of the era (almost all in Northern California and focusing not on big causes like US imperialism but specific local issues like prison conditions and high utility prices) it's still unclear whether it was a real underground group or just a label used by different groups of bombers - or both. One of the few people ever linked to NWLF bombings was a mentally disturbed cannabis farmer named Ronald Huffman, who was arrested in 1979 on unrelated charges of murdering his girlfriend with an axe and cutting out her brain. (The further you get from the sixties, the more the political stuff just blends into the true-crime stuff.) So morbid historians like myself would have more to go on.
Alright, but what are the real consequences? There's a decent chance a supervisor's assassination would result in no Milk/Moscone killings, either through increased security or sheer butterflies. Feinstein was a member of the conservative bloc on the board; were she replaced by a liberal, Moscone and his allies would have a majority, meaning more social liberalism and less commercial development. Enough less development to make the Bay's dystopian housing crisis even worse by 2018 ITTL? Maybe, although due to geography it's probably inevitable that the area would have terrible rent problems without some very smart urban planning or no tech industry. On the other hand, Moscone and Milk wanted to build more social services, care facilities, etc. so if those are in place by the 00s and 10s there could be a stronger safety net for those plowed out of the way by Silicon Valley.
As mayor, Feinstein vetoed America's first domestic partnership ordinance; that likely would become law ITTL. (So yes, San Francisco could be even gayer.)
It might be a little too far out from the POD to easily guess who would take her place in the gubernatorial and Senate races down the line - or who would take her place as champion of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban.
Last edited: