Need help with: What if RFK or JFK Lived?

[liberalpragmatist]

Does anybody have any good links to articles or essays that talk about these alternate histories? What if JFK wasn't killed and what if RFK lived and won the '68 election?

If you know of something other than a good (credible) internet-accessible article, if you could direct me to where I could find one, that would be great.

[Selatius]

1. If folks like RFK lived, other Democrats may have won the presidency

They would've essentially been riding in on the coattails of JFK and RFK. However, I don't think anyone would've been able to defeat Reagan except another celebrity on a clear political path.

There would have been no Watergate, and the Anti-War Movement never would've arisen. This probably wouldn't have affected the Civil Rights Movement though.

Also, Vietnam would've been avoided. JFK wanted troops out of Vietnam by 1965. Vietnam was a civil war for control of power in the country. Foreign involvement (China, Russia, the US, France) prolonged the war until 1975, which meant many more dead Vietnamese on all sides and many more dead Americans as a result. If war had to come to Vietnam, it would've been less bloody had the superpowers not interfered, but that's my opinion.

[The Jacobin]

2. They would come out looking badly

Look at the attacks on the surviving Kennedy. To a significant majority of the voting population, he is just a punchline to a DWI joke.

Look at the attacks on the Big Dog -- at least as good a politician as JFK (though not nearly the statesman). The repugs crucified him. If they spent 80 million investigationg Clinton, they would have spent 160 million investigating JFK.

Do you think FOR A MINUTE that Limbaugh would use JFK as an example of a great democratic politician if he was still alive. No f*cking way.

The repug smear machine would roll over them like a grader smoothing a garbage dump.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

3. There was an episode of Red Dwarf based on this idea.

I think he ended up starting World War III, then being transported back in time to shoot himself from the grassy knoll.

[hollowdweller]

4. I think civil rights legislation would have been delayed.

It took LBJ who was a southerner to twist his buddies arms to pass it. Kennedy would have been painted as a do good yankee.

[Octafish]

5. A couple of things:

IMFO: No Vietnam. No LBJ. No Nixon. No Ford. No Reagan. No Bushes.

Nigel Hamilton's Alternate History:

Source:

http://mansfieldfox.blogspot.com/2003_11_01_mansfieldfox_archive.html

And a good read, you probably already know about, liberalpragmatist:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0465023231/103-6741594-5006219?v=glance

Hope these help. Will check in early Sunday.

[BornaDem]

6. What happened to Carter?...

Did I miss something or was he left out? Carter did more than any person in my lifetime to create a Republican majority. If there had not been a Carter presidency, there might very well have been no Reagan and the conversion of all those blue collar Democrats from unions into Republicans. There would not have been a Carter presidency if it had not been for Watergate and Ford's pardon. JFK might not have been elected to a 2nd term. He became popular as a martyr, not as a President. RFK became popular once JFK was a martyr and would not have had a chance to be elected had it not been for the circumstances of his brother's death. Many people on both sides of the aisle were frightened of him while his brother was alive. I can't tell you where to go on the internet to read articles, but I did live in those times and have been interested in politics since I was a child.

[PsN2Wind]

8. I also lived through those times

and I can't agree that RFK couldn't have been elected. I think his death was a greater loss for the country than JFK's, although with not the same immediate impact.

[1932]

7. If JFK had lived, Latin America would have been where it is today in 1969.

Kissinger stopped time moving forward 30 years. It's just now getting on the track it was on during JFK's Alliance for Progress.

If RFK had lived there'd be so much less poverty and so much more progress in the world.

RFK's death held back progress right up until today. If we elect a non neo-liberal Democrat in 2008, we just might get to the point in 2012 where RFK might have left us had he been given two terms.