A Thousand Points of Light
1974-1981: George H.W. Bush (Republican)
1976 (with John Connally) def. George C. Wallace (Democratic), George S. McGovern (Independent)
1981-1985: John Connally (Republican)
1980 (with Donald Rumsfeld) def. Henry Jackson (Democratic), Mike Gravel (Citizens')
'Making a new world order'
The day that Richard Nixon resigned as President was the day that the GOP should have died. And yet it did not, and through a mixture of skill, preserverence, and a great deal of luck would go on to win two more presidential elections as a divided and crumbling Democratic Party put up little more than tokenistic opposition. With the nomination of George Wallace by the Democrats in 1976 Bush was able to win re-election to the nation's highest office, in a landslide as the GOP hammered Wallace's former segregation and George NcGovern led a walkout of the party's left. Though not linked to the GOP campaign, the most memorable stickers and posters of the election - probably distributed by disaffected centrist Democrats - bore the phrase "Vote for the crooks, not the fascist." Bush won with 354 electoral votes, and promised a new America, one built on compassion, duty, and public service. What this meant, in practice, was a radical increase in military spending, deeply unpopular tax increases, and a furthering of American-Soviet cooperation. Bush was unable to stand for re-election in 1980, but Vice President Connally would take up the reins as Jackson and Gravel split the left wing vote again, allowing four more years of military buildup, faltering old school Keynesianism, and the much lauded "end of the Cold War" in 1987 with the signing of the signing of the Soviet-American Treaty of Friendship which Connally and Bish had negotiated. Yet with the economy failing at home and the old economic and social order breaking down, the GOP would finally be thrown out in a landslide in 1984.
1985-1993: Jerry Brown (Democratic)
1984 (with Ed Koch) def. John Connally (Republican), Mike Gravel (Citizens') [write-in], Lyndon LaRouche (Citizens')
1988 (with Ed Koch) def. Pat Robertson (Republican), Mark Hatfield (Independent Republican)
'The Neoliberal Revolution'
Jerry Brown's 400 electoral vote landslide was all the mandate that the erratic California Governor needed to transform the country. The budget was to be balanced, at almost any cost, and not even the protestations of the Citizens' Party (destroyed by the nightmare nomination of Lyndon LaRouche and the failed write-in campaign of Mike Gravel) could stop Brown. The GOP's brief embrace of far-right rleigious nationalism and 1988 splinter only gave Brown further scope for change as the military industrial state was rolled back in the face of an ending Cold War, taxes were cut, and the Democrats embraced a heady mixture of social and economic ultraliberalism. If not explicitly isolationist, Brown more or less abandoned the old foreign policy order, and a British led NATO was left to flail in the face of a rising "non-aligned" Germany and as the US adjusted to an economic conflict wth a rising Japan. Such a conflict saw the bizarre u-turn of 1991, and Brown's embrace of protective tariffs and 'dirigiste' economics whilst still attempting to keep taxes low and budgets balanced. This, and the frenzied media speculation around Ed Koch's mysterious private life, would kill the Democrats' attempts to hold onto power in 1988, and though Koch would beat Gary Hart for the Democratic nomination, he lost to Bay Buchanan. After eight years, and as if nothing had happened at all, the GOP was back.
1993-1997: Bay Buchanan (Republican)
1992 (with Michael Huffington) def. Ed Koch (Democratic)
'We can't continue on this path'
When Bay Buchanan declared the above words in her inauguration, she painted a picture of a new America, one which would depart substantially from the old and bring about true change. This was not what came to be. Rather, the Buchanan years represented a period of reaction: an old Reaganite, Buchanan had nevertheless embraced the defeat of the arch conservatives, and embraced a midway point between Nixonism and Reaganism, emphasising both her commitment to former Governor Reagan's supply side economic policies and the realist foreign policy of the Nixon, Bush, and Connally years. Into this mix, Buchanan threw the maintenance of late Brown era protectionism, promising to bring jobs back to America and "win the economic war with Japan". That these policies failed is without doubt, and the 1994 midterms saw the Democrats retake both houses of congress as they railed against protectionist economic policies which had produced a brutal trade war and an agricultural recession as the new "Eurasian Economic Community" was inaugurated by Germany, Japan, and a liberalising Soviet Union, bypassing the need for American grain locked behind tariffs for Japan and Germany, and allowing the USSR to buy consumer goods from Europe and Asia. Indeed, the formation of this alliance led one bold academic to declared "The End of History" as Kojeve's vision of a mixed system between Cold War extremes seemed to triumph in Eurasia. As the economy dipped again in the 95-96 recession, Buchanan was voted out of office and defeated by a rival who pledged to abandon her failure to secure the economy, and to re-emphasise America's role as a global power.
1997-2005: Bruce Babbitt (Democratic)
1996 (with Winthrop P. Rockefeller) def. Bay Buchanan (Republican), George S. McGovern (Citizens')
'Past the end of history'
Under Babbitt the United States has "corrected its course", rejoining the NATO command structure and strengthening its links with Britain and France, whilst also pursuing a detente with a increasingly military ruled China. Likewise, Babbitt has ruthlessly embraced free trade and the "age of neoliberalism" to produce a shock to the economy and rapid "economic rejuvenation". With Japan's economy flagging after a demographic downward spiral and with the Soviet Union now facing brutal insurgencies in Central Asia, semi-violent secession in the Baltics, and a war with far-right Ukrainian nationalists, the Eurasia of the early 2000s, if still a threat to the United Staes has long squandered its moment of "near hegemony". Yet if the "Babbitt miracle" has allowed the US to escape from the economic doldrums of the 1970s and 80s, it has come at a dreadful cost. Unemployment remains high despite a record rate of economic growth, and if the United States has become competitive on the world stage, it has been by outsourcing labour and undercutting domestic labour rights. As Babbitt gears up for the 2000 election, it is clear that he has yet to forge a new consensus: GOP rising stars John Bush and Elizabeth Warren may still be battling it out for the nomination, but they can agree on one thing, no Republican government would allow such flagrant undercutting of the American worker, the backbone of a strong and free United States.
1974-1981: George H.W. Bush (Republican)
1976 (with John Connally) def. George C. Wallace (Democratic), George S. McGovern (Independent)
1981-1985: John Connally (Republican)
1980 (with Donald Rumsfeld) def. Henry Jackson (Democratic), Mike Gravel (Citizens')
'Making a new world order'
The day that Richard Nixon resigned as President was the day that the GOP should have died. And yet it did not, and through a mixture of skill, preserverence, and a great deal of luck would go on to win two more presidential elections as a divided and crumbling Democratic Party put up little more than tokenistic opposition. With the nomination of George Wallace by the Democrats in 1976 Bush was able to win re-election to the nation's highest office, in a landslide as the GOP hammered Wallace's former segregation and George NcGovern led a walkout of the party's left. Though not linked to the GOP campaign, the most memorable stickers and posters of the election - probably distributed by disaffected centrist Democrats - bore the phrase "Vote for the crooks, not the fascist." Bush won with 354 electoral votes, and promised a new America, one built on compassion, duty, and public service. What this meant, in practice, was a radical increase in military spending, deeply unpopular tax increases, and a furthering of American-Soviet cooperation. Bush was unable to stand for re-election in 1980, but Vice President Connally would take up the reins as Jackson and Gravel split the left wing vote again, allowing four more years of military buildup, faltering old school Keynesianism, and the much lauded "end of the Cold War" in 1987 with the signing of the signing of the Soviet-American Treaty of Friendship which Connally and Bish had negotiated. Yet with the economy failing at home and the old economic and social order breaking down, the GOP would finally be thrown out in a landslide in 1984.
1985-1993: Jerry Brown (Democratic)
1984 (with Ed Koch) def. John Connally (Republican), Mike Gravel (Citizens') [write-in], Lyndon LaRouche (Citizens')
1988 (with Ed Koch) def. Pat Robertson (Republican), Mark Hatfield (Independent Republican)
'The Neoliberal Revolution'
Jerry Brown's 400 electoral vote landslide was all the mandate that the erratic California Governor needed to transform the country. The budget was to be balanced, at almost any cost, and not even the protestations of the Citizens' Party (destroyed by the nightmare nomination of Lyndon LaRouche and the failed write-in campaign of Mike Gravel) could stop Brown. The GOP's brief embrace of far-right rleigious nationalism and 1988 splinter only gave Brown further scope for change as the military industrial state was rolled back in the face of an ending Cold War, taxes were cut, and the Democrats embraced a heady mixture of social and economic ultraliberalism. If not explicitly isolationist, Brown more or less abandoned the old foreign policy order, and a British led NATO was left to flail in the face of a rising "non-aligned" Germany and as the US adjusted to an economic conflict wth a rising Japan. Such a conflict saw the bizarre u-turn of 1991, and Brown's embrace of protective tariffs and 'dirigiste' economics whilst still attempting to keep taxes low and budgets balanced. This, and the frenzied media speculation around Ed Koch's mysterious private life, would kill the Democrats' attempts to hold onto power in 1988, and though Koch would beat Gary Hart for the Democratic nomination, he lost to Bay Buchanan. After eight years, and as if nothing had happened at all, the GOP was back.
1993-1997: Bay Buchanan (Republican)
1992 (with Michael Huffington) def. Ed Koch (Democratic)
'We can't continue on this path'
When Bay Buchanan declared the above words in her inauguration, she painted a picture of a new America, one which would depart substantially from the old and bring about true change. This was not what came to be. Rather, the Buchanan years represented a period of reaction: an old Reaganite, Buchanan had nevertheless embraced the defeat of the arch conservatives, and embraced a midway point between Nixonism and Reaganism, emphasising both her commitment to former Governor Reagan's supply side economic policies and the realist foreign policy of the Nixon, Bush, and Connally years. Into this mix, Buchanan threw the maintenance of late Brown era protectionism, promising to bring jobs back to America and "win the economic war with Japan". That these policies failed is without doubt, and the 1994 midterms saw the Democrats retake both houses of congress as they railed against protectionist economic policies which had produced a brutal trade war and an agricultural recession as the new "Eurasian Economic Community" was inaugurated by Germany, Japan, and a liberalising Soviet Union, bypassing the need for American grain locked behind tariffs for Japan and Germany, and allowing the USSR to buy consumer goods from Europe and Asia. Indeed, the formation of this alliance led one bold academic to declared "The End of History" as Kojeve's vision of a mixed system between Cold War extremes seemed to triumph in Eurasia. As the economy dipped again in the 95-96 recession, Buchanan was voted out of office and defeated by a rival who pledged to abandon her failure to secure the economy, and to re-emphasise America's role as a global power.
1997-2005: Bruce Babbitt (Democratic)
1996 (with Winthrop P. Rockefeller) def. Bay Buchanan (Republican), George S. McGovern (Citizens')
'Past the end of history'
Under Babbitt the United States has "corrected its course", rejoining the NATO command structure and strengthening its links with Britain and France, whilst also pursuing a detente with a increasingly military ruled China. Likewise, Babbitt has ruthlessly embraced free trade and the "age of neoliberalism" to produce a shock to the economy and rapid "economic rejuvenation". With Japan's economy flagging after a demographic downward spiral and with the Soviet Union now facing brutal insurgencies in Central Asia, semi-violent secession in the Baltics, and a war with far-right Ukrainian nationalists, the Eurasia of the early 2000s, if still a threat to the United Staes has long squandered its moment of "near hegemony". Yet if the "Babbitt miracle" has allowed the US to escape from the economic doldrums of the 1970s and 80s, it has come at a dreadful cost. Unemployment remains high despite a record rate of economic growth, and if the United States has become competitive on the world stage, it has been by outsourcing labour and undercutting domestic labour rights. As Babbitt gears up for the 2000 election, it is clear that he has yet to forge a new consensus: GOP rising stars John Bush and Elizabeth Warren may still be battling it out for the nomination, but they can agree on one thing, no Republican government would allow such flagrant undercutting of the American worker, the backbone of a strong and free United States.
~-~
Just as a bit of background, this isn't an explicitly serious list in the sense that I wanted desperately to track what could happen if Bush had been VP instead of Ford, rather it's an attempt to map out a (hopefully vaguely plausible) way to map out a few different concepts. In this world you have a US even more wedded to the military industrial complex, an explicitly and wholeheartedly neoliberal Democrtaic party (even more so than OTL) in response to a longer period of decline under Nixonian Keynesian economics, a Reaganite nightmare vision of the consequences of detente run amok, and a GOP that's embraced workers' rights as a central plank of a hyper-corporatist military industrial state. I hope you enjoyed it.
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