So now the USA is significantly further to the left economically, taxes are very high, and we don't yet have smartphones because cellular technology is still pretty primitive.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34778548)

In the fall of 1863, as Joseph Hooker was laying siege to Richmond, he had a dispute with President Abraham Lincoln over some strategic disagreements. Having had it with Lincoln's meddling, General Hooker took 75% of his army, marched on Washington, and deposed Lincoln, installing himself as dictator for the rest of the war. Hooker then completed the Civil War, beating the Confederates by 1864.

Hooker remained in power as dictator of the USA until the early 1870's. He was extremely popular in the North because of his status as a Civil War hero, despite the fact that he showed great pettiness and sacked and imprisoned multiple critics and former allies over small disagreements. He imposed a harsh peace on the South. While democracy was restored after his death, he harmed US political institutions. For example, there were 2-3 unsuccessful military coups in the 20th century and the USA was briefly under martial law in the early 2000's while a particularly close and disputed election was recounted.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34778611)

Thus, Donald Trump's election without the popular vote was seen as even more unusual, making #theresistance even fiercer. Trump's approval rating is at 32% instead of 37% and vast chunks of the federal bureaucracy and judiciary refuse to acknowledge his legitimacy.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34778635)

Hilariously (or not), this new front in WWII has very little impact on history. WWII pretty much ends up happening the same, except that for most of WWII there is brutal, indecisive trench warfare between the USSR and Japan in Siberia. Barbarossa still fails (let's say the Germans make it a bit further into the USSR, but not meaningfully so).

Nobody gives a fuck about the "Siberian Front" of WW2 after the war, except superstudy military history dorks. CharlesXII does end up having a particular fondness for it.

The biggest difference is that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria happens a few weeks earlier in July of 1945, so the Soviets attempt to seize Hokkaido but are stopped by vicious guerilla warfare from the inhabitants. Japan surrenders to the USA and the Cold War pretty much plays out the same. The defenders of Hokkaido end up being considered heroes by the Japanese far right, and to a lesser extent the larger alt-right.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34778736)

This allowed the libs to gain control of SCOTUS when Chief Justice Rehnquist died, but now the financial crisis happened on the Democrats watch and John McCain won the 2008 election in a landslide and was re-elected bigly in 2012 as the economy improved. OTOH, the Supreme Court abolished capital punishment by fiat and upheld Washington DC and Chicago's strict gun laws.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34778799)

(1) Madagascar was largely unsettled until it was discovered by Europeans during the 1500's.

(2) Many kooky megafauna of Madagascar, such as giant gorilla-sized lemurs, were not hunted into extinction. Europeans encountered them and most of them survived to the modern day, if barely.

Seeing its value, the Dutch colonized Madagascar in the 1600's, settling it with a few Dutchmen and a large number of laborers imported from Dutch-controlled Indonesia. Later, the British seized it from the Dutch. They turned it into an extractive colony, importing laborers from the Punjab.

As such, in this timestream, Madagascar is a mess. There is constant tension and violence between Dutch-speaking Indonesian Muslims and English-speaking Hindus and Sikhs. There is also a small Japanese Christian minority (whom the Dutch allowed to settle there when the Japanese government banned Christianity in the early 1600's). These super Catholic Japanese dominate the highest paying professions and key government positions.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34778891)

Instead, lots of secondary Canadian cities or even suburbs of major Canadian cities got teams. So half the NHL plays in Canada.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34779272)

This causes significant social stress in the United States, which in this timestream still gets a lot of Guatemalan immigrants. Latino civil society groups in the USA are reluctant to accept Guatemalans, many of them being turned off by their paganism.

Read more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Minerva_(Guatemala)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34779284)

But twist - the Protestant Reformation still happens! Only instead of being led by the relatively moderate Martin Luther who "kept one foot in Rome", it is led by the true radicals like Thomas Muntzer and Andreas Karlstadt who go much farther than Luther. German evangelicalism becomes a truly iconoclastic faith that completely rejects sacraments, the real presence, and idols of any kind. The Holy Roman Emperor tries his hardest to stop it, but protestant fundamentalism spreads across the Germanic world and is embraced by rulers who want to stop paying taxes to Rome or appropriate church wealth for themselves. In other places, peasant mobs overthrow the local lords and create communes. There are mass murders of priests and monks, historic cathedrals are burned to the ground by angry mobs, etc.

The macrohistorical outcome is that Northern Europe becomes less stable. Consolidation into Westphalian nation-states is a slower process. Institutions are weaker. Academic learning suffers. But it also becomes a somewhat more dynamic place; great inventors or poets have more courts at which to ply their trades and flourish. Spain, meanwhile, gets much more leeway in exploration and colonization, and big chunks of North America are thoroughly settled by the Spanish instead of the English.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34784255)

Hitler uses the insight provided by these time-travellers to win World War II - and then slowly converts the German Reich to Islam. The Neo-Nazis, who are stuck in this timestream they created, are forced to take the shahada or die.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34784321)

Mitt Romney then wins the 2012 election convincingly, repeals the carbon tax, and gets to work on other issues, such as healthcare reform. Citing the "Massachusetts model", he passes a healthcare bill whose central plank is a health insurance mandate for all American adults. As a sop to Democrats, the bill also expands Medicare. "Romneycare" is celebrated as a great Republican accomplishment.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34784363)

http://media3.s-nbcnews.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Slideshows/_production/ss-091007-tea-cup-pigs/ss-091007-teacuppig-05.today-ss-slide-desktop.jpg

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34784393)

but you've clearly burnt out after many amazing poasts so I forgive you

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34784410)

Of course, this means that all of our major cities have big-ass airports in downtown areas. Blocks upon blocks of historic buildings are demolished to build these wide open spaces where people can land their airplanes, take the wings off, and drive the remaining few feet to work.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34784542)

As a result, the Soviet Union's economic outcomes improve dramatically, as does the power of the Soviet military. The Soviets prove more than capable of standing up to Reagan and don't collapse in the 1980's - instead, the Cold War and Space Race drag on for many decades to come.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34784580)

When the Soviet Union launches its first undersea colony in 1957, America panics about a "undersea city gap" and the Eisenhower Administration pledges unlimited support to American sea colonization. Soon, the Soviet Union and the USA are competing to see who can send more of its population to live in domes under the sea, to see who can build the best pressurization chambers, to see who can develop the best diving suit.

By the year 2000, mankind has colonized millions of square miles of sea floor and a huge chunk of our population lives under the sea, many of them employed in the mining of deep sea Manganese nodules. Billions live and die without seeing the sun.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34784606)

As such, our stereotype for vampires isn't a stoutly built Transylvanian nobleman with an eastern european accent. Our stereotype is that vampires are tall, thin, waspy men with British accents.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34784660)

https://i0.wp.com/TheHistoryJunkie.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/plymouth.jpg

The impact on modern politics is that Democrats have 2 additional Senators and 2 additional electoral votes. Gore won in 2000, among many other differences.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34784703)

The world split in how to react to this. Some countries believed the dogs were possessed by demons and burned them. In these countries, religious fanatics saw the talking dogs as proof that demons were real, and thus religious fundamentalism was adopted. Some countries listened to the dogs and became neckbeard atheists with advanced science. So everyone lives in either a reddit utopia or a Taliban or Amish style religious society.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34921365)

As a result, Jesus is always depicted in pictures with a horse's head. Let me be clear: Christians in this universe do not actually believe that Jesus had or has a horse's head, but merely depict Him this way in art. Christians explain this by saying that human art can't really depict the otherewordliness of a divine being, so depicting them with an animal head makes it a bit more mystical than making God look human.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34921825)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexamenos_graffito

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34924279)

So, the United States is ruled by an Emperor (the current dynasty is descended from Alexander Hamilton, who was the second Emperor after George Washington's death). And like classical China, there is a civil service exam. Every striver takes a tough standardized test in high school, and the top 1% get prestigious jobs in government and run the country.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34923157)

I really like it here

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3809876&forum_id=2#34936315)