Nice. So, here, Deng doesn't back Li's moves, as he did in our TL, and Zhao isn't in North Korea at the time, so, Li can't move against him behind the scenes while he's away.
America's Funniest President: Mo Udall Presidency & Beyond
- Thread starter CountDVB
- Start date
Yup. Deng and Zhao are on better terms here along with also being a bit more at ease thanks to the Askew administration, not to mention of course the concerns presented to them.
That, and Li tries going behind their backs, which isn’t something they appreciate here. So Zhao remains in power while the clock is ticking for Li before he is ousted or pressured to retire from Premier ship.
I can see some Chinese reformers being advised to reform, but not to move too fast to rush things.
Would they be the ones advising and promoting the reform? And well, not out of the woods for them yet. But certainly in a better position to try and deal with some of their economic and especially political issues.
And of course, happy New Year 🎆🎈🎊
Unsure here. Depends how China develops, but not sure unless the reformers replace the hardliners with the Taiwanese political officials
With Zhao's position secure, for now, any clue how much longer he'd be General Secretary of the CPC?
I'll wait to see what comes next, though, if I'm guessing right, you'll cover East Germany.
Well, we’ll see. Also, would like everyone to start sending suggestions on general pop culture stuff of the 1980s!
Summer 1989- Wave Beginnings
Summer 1989- Wave Beginnings
Voyager 2 picture of Neptune
Voyager 2 picture of Neptune
President Askew was finding his feet over regarding the presidency as well as what he was wanting to do with the nation. Beyond continuing with the long-term processes like electrifying the expanded American public rail system and the creation of new nuclear power station, much of the work had been relatively small for the most part, with one piece of legislation going through Congress just clarifying on abortion and birth control, namely to ensure actual legislation was in place on legalization and using the 27th Amendmet to support it. Askew did note that besides maintaining the prosperity, he would be aiming toward reform of the political system. One aspect he did was a pretty strong executive order to bar and restrict lobbying within the US government. President Askew noted that in his time as Vice President, he saw that there were than a few more broken systems or problems that needed to be addressed politically, especially with the election system and he hoped his administration can fix those problems. Other aspects was formulating executive orders to enable financial transparency over in Congress, having heard some concerns from activist groups and the newer Congressfolk over a conflict of interest over House Rep members, Senators and others holding stock in office along with that of term limits for Congressfolk and even Supreme Court Justice members. In the meanwhile, the Askew administration was also dealing with a bit of an economic downturn caused by some of the failures of savings and loans association. While the newer regulations helped mitigate the damage, especially regarding fraud, forbearance, the end of inflation and other issues still caused some trouble that the Askew administration had to deal with. Beyond some finetuning of regulations and investigations into fraud, another action done was another stimulus package to help the people affected by this along with the economic slowdown that could've happened.
Abroad though, the signs of a massive wave was coming. Poland would see their Soldarity party triumph over their communist party. For alot of people, they were seeing this as the beginning of an anti-communist revolution of sorts going on over in Central and Eastern Europe, with more and more nations that were held in the confines of the Warsaw Pact. In fact, with this, President Askew would be finding himself having to travel more over in Europe, such as Poland and Hungary to establish further Americnan relationships with the cracking of the Warsaw Pact. Poland itself would reestablish connections over with the Vatican after fifty or so years. [1] Over in the Baltics, Two million indigenous people of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania join hands to demand freedom and independence from Soviet occupation, forming an uninterrupted 600 km human chain called the Baltic Way. And in a more surprising one, a crowd over over 250,000 Hungarians gathered at Heroes Square in Budapest for the historic reburial of Imre Nagy. Nagy was a former Hungarian Prime Minister who had been executed in 1958. What made this more prominent was that Nagy was actually a devoted communist, just one who believed more in reform. He admitted non-communist politicians, dissolved the ÁVH secret police, promised democratic reforms, and mot of all, would withdrew Hungary from the Warsaw Pact. This would lead to the Soviets invading Hungary in the 1950s and eventually resulting in his death as a supposed traitor. [2] It served to provide that the anti-communist wave going on in Central and Eastern Europe could be better described as a response against forced Soviet hegemony rather than communism.
Beyond all of these developments in the national front, other innovations and phenomenon were going on. The world's first high-definition television (test) broadcasts commence in Japan over in analogue. A new television sitcom that would grab America's attention would be aired known as Seinfeld. Nintendo would change the industry once more with the release of the original Game Pal*, the name being a shoutout to Sony's "Walkman", with the latter making music on the go and so the Game Kid now puts games on the go. The satellite Voyager 2 would venture closer to the edge of the Solar System, getting a picture of Neptune and its largest moon Triton. The G7 summit served to check on the progress of further issues, including with the environment and climate change. And over on the borders of Austria and Hungary, the Pan-European Picnic would be held, a peace demonstration, done to try and see the USSR's response and promote greater unity for the various European powers. [1] Overall, it seemed that there was a growing wave of reforms desired and that peaceful protest was starting to get more attention.
--------------------------------------------------------------
*= Yup, the OTL Game Boy is called Game Pal ITTL!
[1]- Information and phrasing from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989
[2]- Information and phrasing from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Nagy
Last edited:
Very nice. Hmm. Can't imagine a film like Red Dawn being made in this alternate 1980's.
Speaking of films was Weekend at Bernie's (released in July 1989) any different in this timeline?
Yup, pretty much! Pop culture is becoming quite fascinating to look into and figuring out the various twists and turns. I will definitely need to ask questions and figure something out. Might ask folk like @Nivek given video games will start changing a bit (such as the increasing mainstream prominence of Japanese material in the US starting in late 1980s/early 1990s).
Thanks for the Mention, Did Kassar still fucked up Atari as OTL? did Coleco still make the blunder of Adam? and that is an interesting tidbit, are USA-Japan relationships far more warmer ITTL(like no destroying a radio outside the capitol like OTL?) AND WHAT other Japanese stuff permeated the west earlier ittl?
Typically in television and films women were and are stereotyped as objects and only good for their beauty though there are some exceptions few and far between. Would that be any different with the much more progressive 1980s of this timeline featuring a more prominent equal rights movement for all genders and sexual identities? This question would also bring up how topics like this would be addressed in memes and on the internet in the present day (2022).
Speaking of the internet will it still have the same name as I don't know how or when the term came about?
Speaking of the internet will it still have the same name as I don't know how or when the term came about?
And congrats to you and @RySenkari for your work! You were an inspiration for me going into pop culture aspects of alt history as well.
Atari is still in dire straits, but because the Video Game Crash didn't occur (mainly because the US economy was kinda in the toliet), they are trying to keep up and not succeeding. That said, while they may be in trouble, they are being eyed by a certain company or so who probably bought some stock in them already.
USA-Japanese relations are definitely warmer here. Besides Udall and Askew's own likeability, it's also in the public. Small Japanese pickups are more popular with the end of the chicken tax, Nintendo being market savvy and marketing video games toward boys and girls in the US makes them pretty popular, My Neighbor Totoro came out to be dubbed last year by Disney thanks to Hansen, probably planning a dub release of Castle in the Sky as well as the planned release for AKIRA thanks to the animation folk looking at it.
But yeah, more stuff is definitely gonna be coming.
So anime movie boom is happening a little earlier and might not be as niche it was, when cable become popular anime TV one will follow.
Interesting seems Atari didn't fully killed themselves but the economic downturn impacted them badly ( especially as expensive videogames tend to be, both for consumers and developers) but seems someone could help them, what comes next will be interesting
Yup. That will be seen more in the late 1980s and especially the 1990s. Coming more so over time for there. And yeah, this would be seen further down the line.