Sequel de Mayo (Cinco de Mayo, Vol. II)

[KingSweden24]

I'm curious as to what the CSA's HDI will be in modern times. I don't see it being in the 0.6 or 0.7 range but definitely in the low to mid 0.8s, and not higher.

Remember, pre-FDR, the South was near-completely unelectrified, filled with malaria until the CDC came along (this is why it's headquartered in Atlanta), and while not completely unindustrialized, was several orders of magnitude worse-off than the North. Add to that the devastation of war with the only investment from the US being the strings-attached, debt-trap diplomacy kind, and the burgeoning industrial areas either being destroyed or spun off the country itself, while future oil sites are now in an independent Texas, and I could see the country being like more similar to OTL Brazil or even South Africa HDI.

My thinking on this FWIW has trended towards an HDI of maybe 0.75 or so (Brazil-ish) with nominal GDP somewhere between OTL Chile and Poland (so low 20s or high 10s). This would make it not as poor as, say, Central or South America OTL, but by far the economic and social basket case of the Anglosphere, even accounting for the quite liberal kneecapping I’m applying to Canada and her successor states

The Confederacy has no choice but to grant greater rights to Black people - which is going to include - gasp! - the allowance of interracial marriage. Additionally, one may note that the war is going to disproportionately hurt poorer whites, which may make the poor population more integrated racially, while the rich aristocrats remain segregated from the rest of the populace. The author appears to be going for a "CSA as Latin American country" analogue, and seeing a CSA with a rich Charleston or New Orleans surrounded by favelas of poor Black and white workers seems increasingly likely to me, though the racial resentment is going to be sadly more extent.

Favelas in New Orleans is the apotheosis of CdM you hit the nail on the head with that comment

One thing I wanna know is how the fuck did the Confederacy rack up 900,000 dead from combat? How many war crimes is the USA going to commit to get to that number?

Bear in mind lots of “combat” deaths being counted as military casualties are from disease and starvation in combat environments, rather than gallant charges into the maw

So even with winning (original post over on closed thread), the US ends up with almost 50% more casualties (Dead & Wounded) than the CSA? But with the CSA (excluding slaves) having about 1/3 of the USA population, the casualty *rate* is about double in the CSA as in the USA?

I’m struggling to come up with a comparative demographic and economic disaster other than Russia 1917-45 or maybe late 19th century Paraguay

 

[TheBalkanizer]

Everyone here is talking about the great American war and I’m just sitting here waiting for when Germany and France to square up again lol

 

[KingSweden24]

Everyone here is talking about the great American war and I’m just sitting here waiting for when Germany and France to square up again lol

We’ll be getting back to the slow moving train crash in Europe very imminently - I had to shift a ton of non-GAW content to after the thread cut, and good thing I did haha

 

[Devoid]

My thinking on this FWIW has trended towards an HDI of maybe 0.75 or so (Brazil-ish) with nominal GDP somewhere between OTL Chile and Poland (so low 20s or high 10s). This would make it not as poor as, say, Central or South America OTL, but by far the economic and social basket case of the Anglosphere, even accounting for the quite liberal kneecapping I’m applying to Canada and her successor states

The mindset of the Confederate political class makes this inevitable, unless they can find a way to get over their racism fast. Which they will not, as racial grievance politics are too convenient for them.

Everyone here is talking about the great American war and I’m just sitting here waiting for when Germany and France to square up again lol

Germany and France fight to death (and I guess Austria, Italy, Belgium, and Denmark are here too but who cares).
Just kidding, we know this is gonna matter for all of them (Belgium's royal family will have a particularly fun time. Or at least we will finally watching fate catch up with them).

 

[KingSweden24]

The mindset of the Confederate political class makes this inevitable, unless they can find a way to get over their racism fast. Which they will not, as racial grievance politics are too convenient for them.

Germany and France fight to death (and I guess Austria, Italy, Belgium, and Denmark are here too but who cares).
Just kidding, we know this is gonna matter for all of them (Belgium's royal family will have a particularly fun time. Or at least we will finally watching fate catch up with them).

It’s not even convenience - it’s a very deeply held view of the world that even today influences a great deal of Southern culture subtly and covertly rather than overtly (contrast to Europe, where the lower Gini ratio does not account for African footballers casually having monkey noises made at them during games, which would be a national scandal even in the South)

Denmark’s “participarían” in the CEW will be more of a technicality than anything but then again unlike 1940, where blitzkrieg was a thing, the geography in 1919 still would pose some issues for an invading force

All I’ll say re: our favorite family of waffle-addicted, hand-amputarch villains is that them getting Romanov’d right at the conclusion of the CEW is too convenient and dragging out their cosmic comeuppance will be more fun

 

[nevaRRaven164]

I was working on some of my own wikiboxes for the US elections in the series but the ones pinned are just way better and more interesting. Canada red-colored Liberals is much better than highlighter yellow.

 

[KingSweden24]

I was working on some of my own wikiboxes for the US elections in the series but the ones pinned are just way better and more interesting. Canada red-colored Liberals is much better than highlighter yellow.

If third parties ever win states (which they might) there might need to be a modified color scheme but I agree, Canadian Liberal Red works very well

 

[Devoid]

If third parties ever win states (which they might) there might need to be a modified color scheme but I agree, Canadian Liberal Red works very well

I mean, without the Electoral College, third parties will be a lot more able to affect presidential races, which IMO is the main stumbling block that screws over third parties in the US to a point of complete irrelevance even other two-party systems don't have. Even when the Dixiecrats were explicitly trying to do this in 1948 and 1968 they failed miserably. If they can actually more credibly fuck with the big parties in the presidential races they stand a better chance of long-term survival.

 

[theINQUISITOR]

The near-catastrophic loss of so many younger white men is going to have an...interesting effect on race relations in the Confederacy, I imagine - as the Black minority grows even larger and manumission is enforced by American guns, I wonder if this leads to a serious issue of a Black underclass that is prone to strikes and revolts at maltreatment. Now that I think about it, this is just like OTL Brazil.

Well, you have to remember that a significant proportion of the prewar Black population is going to end up decamping to Kentucky, either during the war or in its immediate aftermath. Aside from that, tons of Black Confederates are going to die during the war itself too, either from slaves requisitioned by the Army and forced into combat-adjacent roles, the impending post-crop failure famine, or from the potential slave uprising that KingSweden has hinted might be coming.

To me, if anything, the white-to-black ratio of the post-war Confederacy is likely going to be higher than it was pre-war.

 

[Couperin]

Well, you have to remember that a significant proportion of the prewar Black population is going to end up decamping to Kentucky, either during the war or in its immediate aftermath. Aside from that, tons of Black Confederates are going to die during the war itself too, either from slaves requisitioned by the Army and forced into combat-adjacent roles, the impending post-crop failure famine, or from the potential slave uprising that KingSweden has hinted might be coming.

To me, if anything, the white-to-black ratio of the post-war Confederacy is likely going to be higher than it was pre-war.

I don't think I agree with that assumption. Kentucky is still going to have race riots and the like - the political will for the US to try to keep the peace is not going to be vast enough, IMO. Additionally, the utterly gutting numbers I'm hearing for the white male population is still a major balancing force. My guess is that the demographics mostly remain equal, or that the Black population slightly increases by a few percentage points, but not by the numbers expected from war losses.

 

[PresidentZinn]

I wonder what the debate will look like in the 1915 Confederate election. Will one of the candidates run on a platform of seeking peace?

 

[FesteringSpore]

New thread 🪡

 

[DanMcCollum]

I wonder what the debate will look like in the 1915 Confederate election. Will one of the candidates run on a platform of seeking peace?

With the Alliance for Victory emerging, with the collapse of Tillmanism, I suspect that it's going to be a one-party election. There could conseivably be a few fringe parties running their own candidates, but it's basically going to be decided in the new party's convention and the election itself will just be a rubber stamp for the AoV's choice.

 

[Kennedy Forever]

Awesome new thread. Looking forward to the new inbox/ post

 

[Curtain Jerker]

With the Alliance for Victory emerging, with the collapse of Tillmanism, I suspect that it's going to be a one-party election. There could conseivably be a few fringe parties running their own candidates, but it's basically going to be decided in the new party's convention and the election itself will just be a rubber stamp for the AoV's choice.

The question is: who is crazy enough to want the job in the first place? My money's on Hoke Smith.

 

[Devoid]

With the Alliance for Victory emerging, with the collapse of Tillmanism, I suspect that it's going to be a one-party election. There could conseivably be a few fringe parties running their own candidates, but it's basically going to be decided in the new party's convention and the election itself will just be a rubber stamp for the AoV's choice.

Given how Confederate politics work and that the Confederate political class feel like the sort of people who'd revere the Congress and deride presidental overreach (a leftover from the grievances of the Southern political class of 1860, who for all the impotence of most of the antebellum administrations (and the ones that weren't impotent being pretty pro-slavery) somehow frenzied themselves into a rage over presidential overreach against slavery even before Lincoln was elected, I'd say it's pretty the clear that Senate President Pro Tempore is the more powerful position in the Confederacy, at least since Tillman took the position (because let's face it, whoever succeeds Ed Smith is just gonna be Thomas Martin's bitch). A weird pseudo-parliamentary perversion, if you ask me, and very Confederate (in the worst possible way that's not racism).

 

[theINQUISITOR]

Kentucky is still going to have race riots and the like - the political will for the US to try to keep the peace is not going to be vast enough, IMO

I don't follow.

Some quick rough math, based on the CSA military deaths estimate (950k), a 16 mil to 8 mil pre-war white-to-black population ratio (taken from this post and this post from KingSweden in the OG thread discussing the 1910 CSA Census), and my own estimate of roughly 500k excess White Confederate civilian deaths from all sources, including but not limited to: US war crimes (reprisal killings, terror shelling/bombing), collateral damage (from both sides), famine, disease, and a potential, may-or-may-not happen slave uprising.

That gives us roughly 1.5 million White Confederate deaths as a result of this war, give or take. Given 8 million pre-war Black Confederates, you'd only need roughly 10% (800k) of them to make their way to Kentucky in order to have a proportionally equal population loss (given the 2:1 ratio), and, IMO, that is a very low estimate for the number that will eventually end up there (I'd assume the number ends up being at least double that). And that's, again, before taking into account excess Black Confederate deaths, which will likely be considerable when it's all said and done.

Now, the math is complicated by the secessions of Kentucky and Texas, and the loss of the Arizona. IIRC all 3 had significantly lower enslaved populations (proportionately) than average, which will help lower the ratio in the rump Confederacy. Without knowing the exact percentages, as well as the percentage of war-related deaths that come from the seceded areas, and additionally the number of white Kentuckians who end up fleeing south of the border, its impossible to say for sure.

I think, at best, the ratio remains unchanged from pre-war. And even then that would be almost entirely due to Texas's secession; Taking all of the pre-war Confederacy's territory, excluding Kentucky (for obvious reasons) the ratio would almost certainly be higher.

 

[PresidentZinn]

With the Alliance for Victory emerging, with the collapse of Tillmanism, I suspect that it's going to be a one-party election. There could conseivably be a few fringe parties running their own candidates, but it's basically going to be decided in the new party's convention and the election itself will just be a rubber stamp for the AoV's choice.

Even with the war effort in shambles?

 

[Couperin]

I don't follow.

Some quick rough math, based on the CSA military deaths estimate (950k), a 16 mil to 8 mil pre-war white-to-black population ratio (taken from this post and this post from KingSweden in the OG discussing the 1910 CSA Census), and my own estimate of roughly 500k excess White Confederate civilian deaths from all sources, including but not limited to: US war crimes (reprisal killings, terror shelling/bombing), collateral damage (from both sides), famine, disease, and a potential, may-or-may-not happen slave uprising.

That gives us roughly 1.5 million White Confederate deaths as a result of this war, give or take. Given 8 million pre-war Black Confederates, you'd only need roughly 10% (800k) of them to make their way to Kentucky in order to have a proportionally equal population loss (given the 2:1 ratio), and, IMO, that is a very low estimate for the number that will eventually end up there (I'd assume the number ends up being at least double that). And that's, again, before taking into account excess Black Confederate deaths, which will likely be considerable when it's all said and done.

Now, the math is complicated by the secessions of Kentucky and Texas, and the loss of the Arizona. IIRC all 3 had significantly lower enslaved populations (proportionately) than average, which will help lower the ratio in the rump Confederacy. Without knowing the exact percentages, as well as the percentage of war-related deaths that come from the seceded areas, and additionally the number of white Kentuckians who end up fleeing south of the border, its impossible to say for sure.

I think, at best, the ratio remains unchanged from pre-war. And even then that would be almost entirely due to Texas's secession; Taking all of the pre-war Confederacy's territory, excluding Kentucky (for obvious reasons) the ratio would almost certainly be higher.

I think you're overestimating the amount of people who are willing to pull up roots and move to what is essentially an (at this point) extremely white buffer state, especially when there's a far more stable, far less devastated US across the Ohio River. My guess is that there will be efforts to promote migration by the Free State of Kentucky that lasts exactly as long as the Union keeps troops there, but the sad fact is that most Black Confederates do not have the money or personal connections to make the trip, and Kentucky is simply not a compelling enough destination for this migration to take. And while the US is far more progressive on race relations than OTL, I somehow get the feeling that people will not be particularly charitable about opening their gates to this hypothetical Great Migration. IMO, there's more likely to be a small trickle of folks, somewhere around 50k or so, coming to Kentucky, part of a sponsored workers' program. Race riots in Louisville are suppressed at first by US soldiers, but like Reconstruction IOTL, the political will is going to wear off, and the conditions of Black people there is going to deteriorate. Seeing Kentucky, an extremely white (probably one of the whitest) parts of the CSA suddenly become a bastion of racial tolerance and equality is a great hope, but I don't consider it very likely. What is more likely is that Black people will fight tooth and nail to get homestead rights on their old plantations as the Union moves through the country, and even after the war, this land reform becomes the great hope - a hope, that as it gets deferred, leads many to seek opportunities in New Orleans, Charleston, Raleigh, and yes, Kentucky - or other proto-industrial centers.

 

[Reisen Storm]

Congratulations on a new thread, @KingSweden24