Line #34 Literature/McGoverning


1	An alternate history timeline located at Website/AlternateHistoryDotCom, written by the user Yes. As the name suggests, it focuses primarily around former US Senator and presidential candidate George [=McGovern=].
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3	If you’ve heard of [=McGovern=], it's likely because of his loss to UsefulNotes/RichardNixon in the 1972 presidential campaign. The loss was [[LandslideElection one of the most staggering landslides]] in US electoral history, in which the only state he managed to win was Massachusetts[[note]]Though he did also win the District of Columbia[[/note]]. This means that, such as it is remembered, [=McGovern=]'s legacy is heavily debated. To his supporters, he was a [[DoomedMoralVictor noble but doomed idealist]] whose sincere and principled stances were thwarted by a flawed campaign, [[WeAreStrugglingTogether antipathy from his own party]], and the cynical machinations of [[CorruptPolitician Nixon’s corrupt political machine]] as it actively sabotaged him at every opportunity. To his detractors, however, he was a [[WideEyedIdealist dangerously naive and weak ideologue]] whose pandering and submission to America's enemies would have seriously weakened and even destroyed the United States. His crushing defeat is remembered as the point where the Democratic Party first clamped down on its activist wing so as to prevent a repeat of that disaster, the beginning of a long move to the political center that culminated in the Presidency of UsefulNotes/BillClinton in TheNineties. In any case, in our world, whether you love him or loathe him, it’s pretty widely agreed that [=McGovern=]'s loss was, for one reason or another, [[ForegoneConclusion practically inevitable]].
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5	In the world of ''[=McGoverning=]'', however, one Charles Colson has something to say about that.
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7	If you’ve heard of Colson, it's likely because, as a senior aide to Richard Nixon, he was knee-deep in all sorts of corrupt activities, including involvement in the Watergate break-in. What's perhaps less well known is that Colson had plenty of other ideas for sabotaging Nixon’s enemies, many of which were... less than rational. In our world, (relatively) saner heads were able to put the kibosh on his more out-there plans, but in this world Colson -- thanks to a heady and potent combination of blind fanaticism, lack of sleep, Franchise/JamesBond delusions, and an addiction to caffeine and amphetamines -- goes completely off the reservation and decides it would be a good idea to stuff a homemade firebomb into the mailbox of the left-leaning Brookings Institution and raid the files... ''[[TooDumbToLive on the same night as the Watergate break-in]]''.
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9	This, naturally, goes about as well as you'd expect. And so, Charles Colson's arrest at the burning remains of the Brookings Institution leads to a much more intense and much earlier focus on Richard Nixon's corruption, a very different 1972 election, and some serious changes for the life of George [=McGovern=] and the whole world...
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11	The timeline can be found [[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/mcgoverning.433635/ here]].
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13	----
14	!!This work includes the following tropes:
15	* ActionPolitician: When [[spoiler:Salvador Allende]], the President of [[spoiler:Chile]], is targeted in his presidential palace by an assassin, he picks up an AK-47 and goes on the offensive. This is especially ironic because in actual history, he used the same gun to [[spoiler:commit suicide after being deposed in a coup d'état in 1973]].
16	* ActuallyPrettyFunny: What [=McGovern=] thinks of the outgoing Nixon staff filling an office with toilet paper to convey the message that the incoming [=McGovern=] team is full of shit.
17	* AmbiguousSituation: Did [[spoiler: Orlando Letelier know about Allende's planned assassination ahead of time]]? Not even the author knows.
18	* AttackOfThePoliticalAd: Nixon puts out an ad implying [=McGovern=] is playing games with the military; [=McGovern=] counters with another ad, courtesy of Creator/WarrenBeatty, claiming that Nixon deliberately sabotaged UsefulNotes/VietnamWar peace negotiations at the cost of thousands of lives to win the Presidency.
19	* BackfireOnTheWitnessStand: Senate Foreign Relations calls Anna Chennault to testify about the X File, hoping to get evidence of Nixon's guilt. She manages to put forward a fairly effective defense.
20	* BadassBookworm:
21	** George [=McGovern=], war hero and former History professor at Dakota Wesleyan University.
22	** Doug Coulter, described as "the only Harvard MBA who’d led Montagnards in combat we could find at the time".
23	* CourtroomEpisode: "Tipping The Scales", a two-parter covering the Nixon trials.
24	* CrusadingLawyer: All of the "Brookingsgate Irregulars" (including Hillary Rodham, William Weld, and Bob Mueller), but especially John Doar.
25	* DidntThinkThisThrough: The PLO tries to assassinate Golda Meir with a car bomb during a New York parade. They fail, however, to pay for parking, and instead destroy a scrapyard in Staten Island.
26	* DomesticAbuse: It is never outright stated, but it is made abundantly clear that Nixon physically takes out his frustrations on his wife Pat. This is used as a plot-point; when it looks like the Republicans are going to expose a love-child fathered by [=McGovern=] before his military service in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and use this against him, the Democrats respond by threatening to bring up all the dirt they have on every misdeed a married Republican has committed against his wife and family -- including Nixon's spousal abuse. The message is received.
27	* ElectionDayEpisode: The last section of "October Surprise? You Should See November...", covering the 1972 election, and most of "Ad Interim" and all of "Conclave", covering the 1974 midterms.
28	* FailedFutureForecast: The magazine cover that opens the timeline? It's real. In this case, however, it's invoked; although everyone was expecting [=McGovern=] to lose, the press didn't want to face another real-life example of this trope as they had with the 1948 election, and so produced some dummy copies of the cover in question just on the off-chance that they were needed. The author happened to come across one and was inspired by it.
29	* AFatherToHisMen: After [=McGovern=] determines that an apparent security breach was in fact a young enlisted man on a joyride, Admiral Tom Moorer speculates that he would have been one of these had he remained in the Air Force:
30	--> Mister President, said Tom Moorer in a ruminative tone, I have thought sometimes about what might’ve been if you had kept that uniform on and stuck around when the Army Air Corps turned into the Air Force. After a pause Moorer added: I don’t believe you ever would have made general.
31	-->[=McGovern=] grinned back, almost impishly. Now Tom, said [=McGovern=], I might want to take that as a compliment.
32	-->A look of guarded but friendly sarcasm crossed Moorer’s face. I thought you might, Mister President, said Moorer. The admiral tilted his head a little. You’d have been a fine colonel, though. Just fine.
33	* FictionalizedDeathAccount:
34	** [[spoiler: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Caetano Veloso are fatally shot during a protest against military rule in Brazil.]]
35	** [[spoiler: Salvador Allende survives a coup, but is killed a few weeks later in an assassination attempt by rogue military brass.]]
36	** [[spoiler: Ariel Sharon is killed in an Egyptian commando raid during the Yom Kippur War.]]
37	** [[spoiler: Carlos the Jackal and several fellow terrorists are hired by Saddam Hussein to take over an OPEC summit at the organization's headquarters in Vienna (Similar to the siege in real life). The terrorists kill a couple of senior diplomats and appear set to make their getaway, when instead, the Iraqis double cross them - Carlos and his gang are killed by Austrian sharpshooters]].
38	** [[spoiler: Saddam Hussein attends an Arab League summit in Algeria to sign a peace agreement with the Shah of Iran and Hafez al-Assad of Syria. On his arrival he's assassinated by a Red Army Faction terrorist in revenge for her comrades who were killed alongside Carlos in Vienna after the Iraqis betrayed them]].
39	** [[spoiler: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini cracks his head in a fall and dies of an unattended cerebral hematoma]].
40	** [[spoiler: Fanne Foxe goes on a different wild, drunken ride in downtown DC, still flees the car in question, but trips in the Tidal Pool, cracks her head, and drowns, setting up a far larger scandal for Congressman Wilbur Mills just before the midterm elections]].
41	* ForceAndFinesse: Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, respectively, are described as these:
42	--> The bluff Rabin, clumsy with words and sentiment, felt keenly the lack of Peres’ francophile charm. Peres, the face of Israel to its military suppliers, midwife of the nukes, had never worn the uniform and craved Rabin’s rugged ''sabra'' credibility.
43	* GoodOlBoy: House Majority Leader Hale Boggs and his "boys".
44	* HistoricalDomainCharacter: All of them.
45	* HistoricalHeroUpgrade:
46	** Played with in the case of Richard Nixon. His criminal activities are still exposed and he's still remembered as a crook, but since he narrowly loses the 1972 election rather than being forced to resign in disgrace, it's implied (and confirmed by the author) that it will be a lot easier for his supporters to hand-wave what he did, leading to this trope in various circles.
47	** Similarly, while not exactly lionised, it is noted that the Watergate burglars tend to be overlooked in this particular version of history. Perhaps understandably, as a drugged-up political fanatic blowing up a think-tank is naturally going to attract more attention than a bunch of third-rate spooks bungling a break-in.
48	* HoistByHisOwnPetard:
49	** Richard Nixon pushes George Wallace to run in the Democratic primary in order to divide and sabotage the party. After Brookingsgate and the Democratic National Convention, Wallace announces a third party campaign, hoping to throw the election to the House.
50	** Usually a master of media management, Jesse Helms' racially-charged comments about [=McGovern=]'s proposed "Medicare-for-all" legislation are caught on a hot mike, helping rally votes for cloture.
51	** Despite knowing about Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe's gay affairs, Harold Wilson forms a Liberal-Labour Coalition Government anyway, believing that Thorpe can be controlled. His gambit backfires when Thorpe's desperate attempts to conceal his affair with Norman Scott are publicly revealed.
52	* InspirationalMartyr: [[spoiler: Orlando Letelier refers to Allende as one of these, and may have knowingly allowed his assassination to proceed in order to make him into one.]]
53	* ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime: The [=McGovern=] administration makes a deal with Israel to provide Pershing II medium-range missiles in exchange for their participation in Middle East peace talks. [[spoiler:Israel secretly shares the technology with South Africa for use in their nuclear weapons program]].
54	* TheLastDJ: Archer Blood's outrage at the Nixon administration's inaction during the Bangladesh genocide almost destroyed his career - and did, in our timeline.
55	* SignificantNameOverlap: Phil Hart, [=McGovern=]'s vice-presidential candidate and eventual VP, and Gary Hart, [=McGovern=]'s chief of staff. They weren't related in real life. Amusingly, they also have practically opposite personalities; Phil is widely respected, admired, and liked, and has a rather gentle, peaceful personality, while Gary seems to piss off and antagonise almost everyone he comes into contact with.
56	* NiceJobFixingItVillain: Charles Colson is driven to destroy the enemies of Richard Nixon and secure his place in the White House and the history books. His bombing of the Brookings Institution directly leads to a world where George [=McGovern=] wins the 1972 election. Whoops.
57	* NotablyQuickDeliberation: ''Ervin v. Nixon'' is decided in a day from hearing to decision.
58	* ObstructiveBureaucrat: Nixon's White House staff refuses to provide the incoming [=McGovern=] team with briefings or information, steals 'A' keys from their keyboards (for "amnesty, abortion, and acid"), and fills their offices with toilet paper.
59	* PocketProtector: Archbishop Aloisio Lorscheider narrowly averts death when a bullet aimed at his heart is stopped by his ornamental cross necklace. Understandably, many people see this as a miracle.
60	* RedOniBlueOni: [=McGovern=]'s chief lieutenants fit this dynamic, with the impetuous Gary Hart contrasting with the cool-headed Frank Mankiewicz.
61	* RefugeInAudacity:
62	** Charles Colson's plan to ''bomb'' the Brookings Institution. Best of all, he actually proposed this in real life.
63	** George Mitchell asks William Loeb, editor of the ''Manchester Union-Leader'' and staunch conservative, to sue the Nixon campaign for fraud over the "Canuck Letter". It works, largely because Mitchell appeals to Loeb's desire to protect his newspaper's reputation; by filing the lawsuit, Loeb can avoid any blowback over the fact that the letter was a forgery, while standing by the letter (even though Loeb privately believed it was authentic) would tarnish the ''Union-Leader''[='=]s reputation.
64	* RevealingCoverup: The Brookings Institution is bombed, in part, to allow the Watergate break-in to happen uninterrupted. It doesn't work out.
65	* SadisticChoice: Does the Army Corps of Engineers open the Morganza Spillway and deliberately flood Southern Louisiana, or does it not do so and potentially allow the Old River Control Structure to be overwhelmed, which would shift the river permanently, destroying Morgan City and leaving New Orleans and much of America's chemical industry stranded? [=McGovern=] chooses [[spoiler: to open the spillway]].
66	* {{Scandalgate}}: The combined Brookings Institution and Watergate incidents become known as Brookingsgate. Some readers were disappointed to see that this world ''still'' winds up with the "-gate" suffix.
67	* ScareCampaign: Rick Stearns claims in "Conclave" that the [=McGovern=] campaign will likely have to run one of these to win a second term; if a liberal Republican wins the primary, they will have to scare conservative voters into thinking that candidate will sell them out and they should stay home or vote third-party, whereas if a conservative wins, they will have to scare moderate voters that that candidate is an extremist.
68	* ShoutOut:
69	** The timeline and the style used in it is a homage to the writings of Creator/HunterSThompson, particularly his famous coverage of the 1972 election. For what it's worth, Thompson shows up in the timeline; he's much the same as he ever was, but has a few more reasons for optimism in this version of history.
70	** The Introduction alludes to Literature/FearLoathingAndGumboOnTheCampaignTrailSeventyTwo, while a later chapter namedrops Literature/FightAndBeRight.
71	* ShootTheMessenger: After watching the "Coffins" advert designed by Creator/WarrenBeatty, Nixon gets so enraged that he kicks the screen of the television in.
72	* SimpleCountryLawyer: Sam Ervin, the original one, makes a number of appearances.
73	* StrawmanNewsMedia: Tim Crouse declares [=McGovern=] essentially impossible to report on because of this:
74	-->Almost no one could actually report on President [=McGovern=], at least not by the official rules of objective journalism. This was because, for nearly all professional reporters, what [=McGovern=] did and said was not “news” in the strict sense since none of its substance was new. To the press everything he did was a foregone conclusion, for good or ill. Everything filtered into one frame or the other. The people who could just take an act of this White House, work from facts, and then reason towards the administration’s logic or to possible outcomes, were few and far between. For everyone else those were just details in a tale already told. The outcome would be what they thought it would be, because George [=McGovern=] was who they thought he was. Not even Dick Nixon had wrecked American journalism so thoroughly, and President [=McGovern=] hadn’t even tried.
75	* TakingYouWithMe: Israeli General Ariel Sharon goes down fighting, Uzi in hand, during the Yom Kippur War.
76	* TeethClenchedTeamwork: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and Posse Comitatus agree to coordinate on their response to the [=McGovern=] presidency, but that doesn't mean that any of them especially like each other.
77	* TwentyFifthAmendment:
78	** Hillary Rodham uses this to argue that President Nixon was not immune from prosecution during his presidency, since he could have stepped down temporarily if dealing with that criminal case made it impossible for him to discharge his duties.
79	** The [=McGovern=] administration sees this amended further by the War Powers Amendments, which expands the scope of eligible presidential succession in case of disaster.
80	* VelvetRevolution: Not completely, but the fall of the military junta in Greece happens with very little bloodshed.
81	* VillainousBreakdown:
82	** Nixon generally doesn’t cope very well with the aftermath of the bombing, the investigations or the campaign, but losing the election, including his home state of California, completely unhinges him, leading to drinking, violence against his wife, and planning to drop atomic weapons on Vietnam.
83	** Charles Colson has a more tantrum-y example upon being apprehended by police and firefighters after the bombing, then has a period of instability while awaiting trial due to GoingColdTurkey from his addictions, which gradually ends with him converting to born-again Christianity. This version leads to him inadvertently exposing huge amounts of Nixon's corruption, since he's just so happy to talk to anyone and take his mind off things he'll shoot his mouth off about anything, even to a reporter who comes to visit him.
84	* WeInterruptThisProgram: [=McGovern=] first hears of Egypt's invasion of Israel from news breaking into a baseball game broadcast.
85	* WhamLine:
86	** An emotional example. After being given proof that Nixon's 1968 campaign sabotaged peace talks with North Vietnam by Lyndon Johnson, the senior staff of the [=McGovern=] campaign debate what to do next. Several staffers worry that if they expose it, they could risk backlash from the voters and accusations of playing politics with national security, and even possible criminal charges for exposing secret information. All debates about what the right thing to do is end, however, when VP candidate Phil Hart, driven to soberly reflect on his own experiences on Utah Beach during World War Two, looks up and utters only three words:
87	--->''People died, George.''
88	** Nixon's statement "Blow the safe" inspires Colson to execute the plan that starts the plot, and later comes back to haunt him when it's found in the Watergate tapes.
89	* WrongGenreSavvy: Colson's plan is inspired by Franchise/JamesBond, with him even referencing [[Film/{{Goldfinger}} Operation Grand Slam]] in his internal monologue. It doesn't work out like a Bond film.

Context Literature / McGoverning