New Reality Seeds

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Patchwork

The British, French and Soviets take down the Nazis anyway, but it takes longer and the price is greater. The USA's banking collapses again as its loans to Germany, Italy and Japan are defaulted on by the victors. The result is a Soviet Union, a grimly socialist and desperately poor Western Europe, and a USA that's an international pariah - Americans are routinely denied entry visas to the rest of the 'civilized' world, and largely cut out of international trade. The British Empire, the world's sole nuclear power for the moment, imposes harsh trade penalties on the USA for its financial support of fascism. When the USA and Soviets get the bomb in the 50s, the USA turns inward altogether, becoming something like North Korea on a massive scale.

This is an attempt to recreate the "American Bund" timeline from Cowboy Angels. There are two obvious holes - the Dear Leader and Family who lead postwar America are never named and I don't have too many good candidates. I don't even have a good transitional president to follow Reynolds picked out. The other is America's land borders - is paranoia and misinformation really enough to keep poor and terrified Americans from fleeing to the neighboring countries? Perhaps we can throw in an invasion of Mexico that Britain et al intervene on the Mexican side, resulting in a Great Wall on the southern border, but any such event with Canada seems implausible (if only because not even America's crazy leaders could convince themselves that the international community would leave Canada to twist in the wind).

Following Reynolds is President Charles Lindbergh and his Vice-President and good friend, Henry Ford. The twenty-second amendment is never proposed and Lindbergh serves from 1940-1964, being succeeded by his son, Jon Lindbergh. Henry Ford dies in office on V-E Day, 7 April, 1947.

The Supreme Court rules that Sen. John E. Rankin having received the next highest total of electoral votes in the 1944 election is Lindbergh's new Vice-President.

WWII officially continues in the Pacific until V-J Day, 27 Jun, 1954. China continues to fight to expel the Japanese until 1956. Hong Kong and Macau were liberated as part of the V-J surrender terms.

The isolationist U.S. has very few friends in the world. It tries starting a 'Good Neighbour' policy with Latin America but is too closely identified with the United Fruit Growers Company to achieve much success. Mexico and Argentina as nations with pro-Nazi regimes do draw closer to the U.S.

The U.S. is very nervous at the war's end. The world's longest undefended border has been fortified since 1943 and Canada has a formidable military machine which has yet to disband. (IRL Canada ended the war with the world's third large navy and fourth largest air force, in this timeline they each move up a spot). While the Free French performed creditably, the war's most formidable victors are the Soviet Union, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (Canada and ANZ can't get together without disputing their relative ranking at some point. Generally, Canada gets listed first for the European theatre and ANZ gets listed first for the Pacific.)

Canada and the UK bought up most of the Belgian Congo's uranium supply and Canada refused to sell the US any of its Great Bear Lake uranium, so the US never got the bomb.

With 90% of the world's nickel supply, Canada also refused to sell that to the Americans. Consequently, stainless steel is rare in the US. Lack of nickel also inhibited the development of the alloys required for jet engines.

Hollywood has a very limited foreign market, so it hasn't had the big budgets to develop special effects that are seen in the films of the UK, France, the Soviet Union, India and the nascent Canadian film industries.

Operation Paperclip didn't happen for the U.S. German rocket scientists captured by the allies, such as Werner Braun, work at the British space centre at Montego Bay, Jamaica.

Castro's uprising against the Batista still came off on schedule but he was not called back home from his victory tour in this timeline. He was welcomed and feted at Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver. Canada rather than the Soviet Union financially supported him, not that the Americans claimed there was much difference between the two.

Tim Buck, leader of the Communist Party of Canada was rehabilitated to a greater degree than in our own timeline as he had a longer period to support the war effort. US isolationism coupled with Canada's anger over American support of the Nazis leads Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent to not invite American union organizers to set up in Canada as opposition to Tim Buck's communist unions. All Canadian unions are communist and by 1959 only Canadian farmers and the civil service are not unionized.

Americans with Canadian relatives can sometimes get work permits in Canada. Those whose parents moved south during the Great Depression can claim Canadian citizenship though the process can take two or three years.

The US largely finds itself on a cash basis with the rest of the world and is slowly drawing down Fort Knox to pay for its wants and needs.

The US never gets a pirate copy of Lord of the Rings, so Frank L. Baum's Oz stories remain the pinnacle of American fantasy.

Jack Shuster leaves the US during WWII and is sponsored for Canadian citizenship by his cousin Frank. Jack brings Superman with him and from 1944 on two rival Supermen are published, one by DC comics in the US and another by Bell Comics in Canada. Oddly, both characters have an evil identical twin.

Jon Lindbergh is not looking forward to the 1968 party nomination as his leading rival is Jack T. Chick and Lindbergh doesn't particularly want him as his Vice-President.