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  1. in U.S. in ‘ 76, ‘88, or ‘92, a liberal Democrat wins and has reasonably successful presidency.

    Clinton, even with impeachment, arguably did have a successful presidency given the times. The issue with saving the middle class in the 88/92 time frame is that there were a large number of economic forces working against that middle class. This was an era of free trade, deregulation, lax...

  2. Europe in a US-led Cuban Missile War

    This. There were a large number of battlefield nukes on both sides. It isn't hard to imagine these being used all over the Continent. IIRC, this was when France was still in the NATO integrated command structure, so I imagine Germany, the UK and France are all nuked with a combination of...

  3. Would Humphrey Have Been Re-Elected in 1972?

    Yes, he would have been able to cobble together the old New Deal coalition for a few more years. The New Left really wouldn't have anywhere to go but to sit out 1972, but Humphrey would have held on to labor (for whom it can be expected he would have produced something) and thus a part of the...

  4. What happens to Richard Nixon if he loses in '68?

    Secretary of State is problematic. Few Presidents appoint people who might overshadow them and that would have been an issue with Nixon. Nixon isn't going to beat George Murphy in the 1970 primary. Nixon hated practicing law. He found it very unfulfilling. He'll wind up practicing law in New...

  5. WI President Reagan killed by microburst?

    I didn't know this; it provides for a host of possibilities down the road. First, this is two years before Delta 191 crashed at Dallas/Ft. Worth due to a microburst. You'll probably see windshear detection at airports and on aircraft a couple of years earlier as a result. This is also a month...

  6. How We Lost Detroit: The Fermi Nuclear Disaster

    Very good stuff. I would have been 4 during this TL and living in Toledo, 20 miles or so from Monroe. The impact on the whole region would have been significant. In October, the prevailing winds are out of the northwest as colder weather sets in; I can see this badly affecting Lake Erie and the...

  7. When the Wind Blew: a P&S Open Thread

    This is heresy and I've lost all respect for you. :p I'll bet you hate Coneys and redpop, too.

  8. WI: Dukakis didn't run in 1988

    it's probably going to be whoever wins New Hampshire. Dukakis was from neighboring Massachusetts and effectively took it off the table. It's possible Gephardt wins Iowa as in OTL and then takes NH. Gore would have had to change strategies entirely; his plan was to skip the early states and focus...

  9. If FDR absolutely wanted, could he have killed or substantially diminished segregation?

    I disagree a bit with what most are posting here, since I think he had a post-Pearl Harbor opportunity to use the war as an excuse to "temporarily" suspend segregation as a necessary step in the war effort, particularly if he played it off against the prevailing sexism of the day and said the...

  10. WI: George W Bush runs in 1996

    I think he loses the nomination to Dole. A few reasons: comparative inexperience next to Dole, too soon after his father was President, it was Dole's "turn" (a factor that still mattered in GOP presidential politics in 1996). If, somehow, he managed to win the nomination, he loses to Clinton...

  11. J.P. Morgan dies on the Titanic

    Well, Morgan died just shy of a year later on March 31, 1913. His presence and death might add to the legend of the sinking, but the actual effect would in reality be rather small. His son takes over his business empire a year earlier. His death, despite owning the holding company that owned...

  12. AHC: Kill Embraer

    A series of accidents involving the E-120 Brasilia early in their entry into service such that they get a bad public reputation might do it. You basically need the public to believe that the company builds third world unsafe aircraft that kills the E-135/E145 programs. Perhaps another couple of...

  13. WI: Sears Survives

    Just throwing this out there, because it isn't necessarily an insurmountable issue, but even if Sears' management did everything right, they still had a problem: the company brand was considered old and stodgy by the mid-90s. Sears was where your grandparents shopped, not where you shopped if...

  14. Holocaust without WW2

    In that case, wouldn't it be far easier to simply make conditions so intolerable for German Jews that they are forced to emigrate? The Nazis were rather squeamish about conducting that project inside Germany; this is why the exterminations were conducted in Poland and the conquered territories...

  15. AHC: Nobody Likes Ike

    A series of blunders leads to a short non-nuclear ground war in Europe that winds up with the Soviets on the banks of the Rhine. Short of something like that, this is really hard. By the time of his election, he was already one of the great heroes of World War II.

  16. WI: No Baby Boom

    A few fair points in this, so a few points in partial rebuttal. The 1920s were also a decade of vast strides in farm mechanization as cars, trucks, harvesters, tractors and other equipment became available, further reducing the need for human labor. Bear in mind here that the 1920 Census was...

  17. WI: No Baby Boom

    Which had to do with the drop in the rural population as people moved off farms and into cities for industrial employment. More kids = more help on a farm, which means, in economic terms, that kids are a productive economic asset on a farm; they can help with chores and make the farm more...

  18. The baseball model: post-WWII surgeons as young as age 18?

    Not only that, but surgery is as much art as technique. There is a lot of judgment and knowledge involved in most operations and the ever-present possibility that something goes awry or not as expected. Experience and knowledge matters here sometimes more than adept technique and good motor...

  19. What if it was heavily raining in NYC during 9/11? Will the Towers collapse?

    An excellent analogy. Scud running at 500 knots is not for the inexperienced or the faint of heart. It would have been VERY difficult, even for a qualified pilot. In theory, it could be done using constructed FMS waypoints, but that requires a knowledge of systems and advance planning that I...

  20. What if it was heavily raining in NYC during 9/11? Will the Towers collapse?

    This depends on how low the ceiling was. If you had a really nasty day, the towers could be obscured by clouds making them nearly impossible to hit. In that case, provided that the hijackers checked weather forecasts, you surely would have had an abort that day. If they didn't check METARS/ATIS...
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