New America

[castlebravo92]

Originally Posted by Raellus

That's brilliant, castlebravo92. It wouldn't be the first time a CIA catspaw had gotten out of control.

Given the rise of White Power Accelerationist militia/terrorist groups in the USA over the last 20 years or so, and the emergence and growth of anti-gov't militias during the Clinton administration (many of which embraced some stripe of racist ideology), New America has never struck me as being an unrealistic entity, even in an alternate timeline where the USSR never goes away. That said, your stuff does a good job of explaining its seemingly sudden appearance, rapid expansion, and early successes during the Twilight War.
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Fair points. I guess I should be more explicit on what I consider "unrealistic".

Sorry if this ends up being something akin to a doctoral thesis.

If we take a look at the U.S as of Jan 1, 2001, we see in effect what are three or four large "successor" states in the US: MilGov, CivGov, New America, and Mexico (Mexico is debatable, so I'll leave them out of the discussion for now). MilGov inherited the bulk of intact domestic Federal capacity (and not an insignificant amount of remaining state government capacity) after the dissolution of the civilian Federal government in May of 1998. CivGov formed from disaffected MilGov components, surviving members of Congress, newly appointed members from the states, and some component of the Federal and state bureaucracies. But the net is, both MilGov and CivGov are successor states with some claim to legitimacy that are able to leverage surviving infrastructure and bureaucracies to organize their respective populations.

Per canon, New America doesn't really have that. The canon portrait of Hughes in Airlords of the Ozarks isn't all that flattering in terms of his ability to get things done:

His father had died in 1974, leaving him independently wealthy. He used a large part of that money to launch a political campaign aimed at getting him nominated for president on an independent ticket for the 1976 elections. The debacle before the press and against seasoned and soundly-backed campaigners was complete enough that he retired from politics at once, but not before fighting and losing a lengthy court battle over nonpayment of taxes and faulty reporting of campaign funding. He served eight months in prison on charges of income tax evasion.

it continues:

During the early to mid-1980's he returned to politics briefly
when he became deeply involved in the fundamentalist Christian conservative political movement, but his inability to win the confidence of several popular Christian leaders led to his dissociation from traditional religions by the time of the 1988 elections.

Hughes can be seen as an amalgam of Lyndon LaRouche (the crazy political movement), Howard Hughes (the reclusive billionaire angle), and maybe a splash of L. Ron Hubbard.

On New America membership (pre-war):

BACKGROUND AND HISTORY

New America has its roots in the numerous ultraright-wing, militant organizations which proliferated throughout North America during the 1970's and 80's. The organization formed by Carl Hughes in 1979 was an unusual coalition of survivalists, tax and "big government" resistance groups, neo-Nazis, ultraright-wing and militant religious organizations, and racists

This is a sanitized way of describing a bunch what are a bunch of crackpots and marginalized members of society, led by a guy with a bunch of crackpot ideas with questionable political and organizational skills based on prior performance.

The idea that these Hughes and his followers, as original written, would be able to stand up a parallel state that posed an existential threat to both MilGov and CivGov is one of the things I find unrealistic, but can be made a little more workable with some retconning of pre-war background without affecting the overall plot arcs.

The other aspect I found unrealistic is that a large group would escape notice by the Feds. Historically, radical groups are thoroughly penetrated by the Feds, and the larger they get the greater the likelihood that they are compromised. For a recent example, in the Whitmer kidnapping plot there were as many Feds and Fed informants as there were actual plotters. The leader of the Proud Boys was an FBI informant. The III Percenters were/are riddled with informants. The Islamist group that planned and executed the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York had an FBI informant in it (who came up with the idea of bombing the WTC...but I digress). The FBI penetrated the Weather Underground (Larry Grathwohl), the Nation of Islam, the KKK, and a bunch of other groups. The government is actually pretty good at this stuff...and the canon New America doesn't sound like an organization filled with the type of people that could maintain opsec over 15 years of development and growth. It took the left decades to hone their craft and develop the concept of affinity groups to reduce (not eliminate) the threat of informants. The cartels in Mexico limited penetration for a while by leveraging mutual family relationships in Sinaloa. But it doesn't take a lot to get exposed. Some New America mid-level guy kills his wife in a domestic dispute or gets popped smuggling rocket launchers in the trunk of his car to build up his group's post apocalyptic arsenal, and decides to cut a deal, and all of a sudden you have a Federal investigation, and things will unravel pdq. We don't really have a rationalization of why some white supremacist cell leader in Idaho would have some great, self-sacrificial loyalty to a crackpot recluse in the Shenandoah mountains.

But...if you have the CIA in your pocket (or they think you are in theirs), then that local or Federal investigation gets squashed...national security trumps all. The CIA steered DEA investigations away from people like Noriega in Panama for years before he was finally cut loose.

So, we can retcon Hughes & New America into being CIA assets. Make New America less overtly racist to make them more politically palatable pre-war so legitimate politicians and elected officials are co-opted into membership, and you have a scenario by which New America escapes suppression pre-war, and an explanation of how they are able to assume some of the pre-existing functions of government post-collapse in a similar manner to CivGov and MilGov rather than simply being an up-gunned, large marauder band. That's the premise anyway. Still needs a lot of development, IMHO.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by castlebravo92

Hughes can be seen as an amalgam of Lyndon LaRouche (the crazy political movement), Howard Hughes (the reclusive billionaire angle), and maybe a splash of L. Ron Hubbard.

Yes, and a splash of David Duke. Dude was a Grand Wizard of the KKK, then a Democratic Party presidential [primary stage] hopeful, and, later, the Populist Party's candidate in 1988, before later emerging as a sort of elder statesman for the alt-right movement of the late 20-teens.

re FBI infiltration of extremist groups...

The internet as it exists today would not have been a feature of the mid-to-late 1990s of the Twilight War. That cuts both ways. Extremists groups couldn't use it to recruit and coordinate activities nationwide (and even internationally); the FBI/NSA wouldn't be able to use it to learn of threats, keep tabs on extremist groups, and begin infiltrating same.

Also consider the de-centralized nature of extremist groups then and now. They're like the Hydra of Greek mythology. The FBI may be able to sever a head or two, but it can't kill the beast, and those heads will eventually regrow anyways. Given the FBI's RL success in infiltrating domestic terror groups, IRL, there's still no shortage of same.

I can see a Duke-like figure (natch, Hughes) helping start the movement, then laying back in the cut until global events (i.e WWIII) open the door to consolidate and seize the reins. As the face of "the movement", he'd be well placed to rise to the top when war breaks out. At that point, the FBI would likely shift it's focus to domestic pro-Soviet groups, as well as Soviet agents operating in the USA, thereby losing track of Hughes' activities.

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[castlebravo92]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Yes, and a splash of David Duke. Dude was a Grand Wizard of the KKK, then a Democratic Party presidential [primary stage] hopeful, and, later, the Populist Party's candidate in 1988, before later emerging as a sort of elder statesman for the alt-right movement of the late 20-teens.

re FBI infiltration of extremist groups...

The internet as it exists today would not have been a feature of the mid-to-late 1990s of the Twilight War. That cuts both ways. Extremists groups couldn't use it to recruit and coordinate activities nationwide (and even internationally); the FBI/NSA wouldn't be able to use it to learn of threats, keep tabs on extremist groups, and begin infiltrating same.

Also consider the de-centralized nature of extremist groups then and now. They're like the Hydra of Greek mythology. The FBI may be able to sever a head or two, but it can't kill the beast, and those heads will eventually regrow anyways. Given the FBI's RL success in infiltrating domestic terror groups, IRL, there's still no shortage of same.
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Pre-internet, there were the classified ads in Soldier of Fortune magazine, subscription newsletters and mailing lists, dial-up bulletin board services, etc. The NSA (allegedly) had trunk level taps into the phone system and were recording calls way before the public internet was a thing.

That's not to say de-centralized groups couldn't fly under the radar, but it would necessitate them to be relatively small, relatively minor in capability (sans some other explanation).

Of course, if we take a certain narrative liberty (such that would be required to make Hughes a CIA asset in any event), we can spin things in a different direction - namely the Howard Zinn / left wing view of US history that racism and white supremacy has always been a/the driving force in American culture and politics, and thus rather than Hughes tapping into a group of marginalized whites living in the fringe of society, he was tapping into a core part of America that never disappeared and was never marginalized after the Civil Rights era ended.

[LoneCollector1987]

Would something else be possible?

What if Hughes would have the clandestine support of another state?

According to data the FBI had its USSR infiltrators (Robert Hanssen for instance), CIA (Aldrich Ames), so what if they had helped Hughes?

Throw in that KGB / GRU agents would watch Hughes and his people, find out FBI / Police agents and either turn them or let them disappear or they suffer "accidents".

Could this be possible and how effective would it be?

And why didnt the FBI try to build a left-wing version?

You know, covering all angles: left wing, right wing.

[castlebravo92]

Originally Posted by LoneCollector1987

Would something else be possible?

What if Hughes would have the clandestine support of another state?

According to data the FBI had its USSR infiltrators (Robert Hanssen for instance), CIA (Aldrich Ames), so what if they had helped Hughes?

Throw in that KGB / GRU agents would watch Hughes and his people, find out FBI / Police agents and either turn them or let them disappear or they suffer "accidents".

Could this be possible and how effective would it be?

And why didnt the FBI try to build a left-wing version?

You know, covering all angles: left wing, right wing.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was building the left-wing version inside the US, primarily targeting university students and minorities, and US domestic intelligence was focused mainly on discrediting and rolling those groups up, especially as they became more involved in anti-war and explicitly criminal/terrorist activities (i.e., the Weatherman bombing campaigns). In the 60s and 70s, the FBI was a different organization that it is today, and the FBI and the US as a whole were much more worried about communism than today (Hoover was positively obsessed), which is to say...I think the idea of Pied Pipering the left by creating an American Lenin may have run into some resistance. Not to say it couldn't or wouldn't happen, certainly some of the plots that have become public about the CIA and FBI have made me scratch my head more than a few times (the CIA saving al-Sadr, the FBI instigating the Curtis Culwell attack in Garland, TX for example), so plots within plots is reasonable, I just can't get my brain to connect the dots on the first pass.

On the subject of foreign support and sponsorship, maybe Pinochet and Apartheid South Africa could be candidates, as well as some of the right wing narco-aligned figures in Colombia (who have been fighting a dirty war against FARC for 50 years now). New America is basically a fascist or proto-fascist org. Communist revolution was a persistent threat in the developing world in the 60s and 70s, and the aforementioned countries/regimes saw themselves as being embroiled in existential battles against the communists (South Africa even went so far as to secretly design and build 6 atomic bombs). Maybe you have some shadowy figures in those countries make common cause with some anti-communist people in the US like Hughes, mix the ingredients and let them stew for a decade or so and you get New America. I kind of like it.

The fiction/true crime writer James Ellroy writes pretty extensively about the intersection of the FBI/CIA/organized crime and drug trafficking from the 60s to the mid-70s. Some fertile ground there to mine as well.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by castlebravo92

Pre-internet, there were the classified ads in Soldier of Fortune magazine, subscription newsletters and mailing lists, dial-up bulletin board services, etc. The NSA (allegedly) had trunk level taps into the phone system and were recording calls way before the public internet was a thing.

That's not to say de-centralized groups couldn't fly under the radar, but it would necessitate them to be relatively small, relatively minor in capability (sans some other explanation).

Right. My point re the very early days of the public internet was only that it would be a little more difficult to keep track of and/or infiltrate the sundry far-right/racist/nativist groups than it is today. The hydra metaphor applies either way, both pre and post world-wide web.

Regardless, as long as Hughes keeps his nose clean, he stays out of prison and can continue to build support through TV and radio appearances, newsletters, zines, etc. In some mainstream political circles (it's all relative), he'd probably carry a sheen of legitimacy (e.g. Strom Thurmond was still in the US Senate in 1996). Even if Hughes was not particularly active in recruiting and organizing, his reputation in ultra right wing-racist-nativist circles as an OG and simple name recognition will position him to take up the mantle of leadership once the war breaks out and the government shifts its focus from right-wing domestic terror groups to foreign threats (and left-wing organizations).

The CIA angle is an interesting one, but I think the last half-dozen years or so or real life have proven that American far right/white supremacist groups don't need direct gov't support to grow and thrive, and that, try as it might, the FBI can't completely eliminate the threat they pose.

Tegyrius' Pacific Northwest sourcebook presents an interesting solution for New America's plausibility issues. Until he chimes in on the subject, I'll leave this here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product...pacific+northw

To connect this topic to the Mexican Invasion thread, if there's pre-war tensions with Mexico re illegal immigration and the drug war, Hughes can definitely capitalize on it. We saw in the impact of nativist sentiment on the 2016 US presidential election (many analysts see it as the deciding factor), IRL. Once Mexico invades in the T2k timeline, it'll be a big, "See, I told you so," for Hughes and New America.

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[ToughOmbres]

Good points from all as usual.

CB-when you mention "stolen from armories" do you mean "stolen" (wink wink, off inventory but actually surreptitiously supplied) or actually stolen outright?

[castlebravo92]

Originally Posted by ToughOmbres

Good points from all as usual.

CB-when you mention "stolen from armories" do you mean "stolen" (wink wink, off inventory but actually surreptitiously supplied) or actually stolen outright?

Yes and yes ;-).

I'm stealing / modifying a narrative arc in James Ellroy's Underworld USA Trilogy to build a deeper narrative arc for New America / Carl Hughes where a neo-fascist faction within the CIA clandestinely supplies extremist right-wing groups with weapons starting in the late 60s / early 70s when anti-war social upheaval is at it's apex with the intent of having a domestic anti-communist cadre if a social revolution occurred and official US organizations were co-opted or nullified by Marxists.

Because it's a faction and not the entire CIA, it's entirely off-books. The CIA and Hughes use drug money (in the same manner that they did to fund the arming of the Contras), and leverage facilitated theft to supply the militias.

[bash]

One option would be for Hughes to start up a trucking company to do some covert smuggling of drugs and weapons and other New America prepper aligned supplies. They'd be able to unofficially but officially move all sorts of stuff around and load up warehouses/barns/etc with supplies while nominally shipping consumer goods. Areas with a strong presence of Gold Ring Trucking would be areas of stronger New America influence post-TDM.

While I largely agree that New America wouldn't pose an existential threat to either MilGov or CivGov, they can still be a major power bloc in regions just by being the best supplied and coordinated group in an area. If New America is even slightly more palatable than an out and out gang running a town they'll get that town's support. So long as they can slow walk their full fascism and slavery until they run a bunch of towns in an area it would be too late to throw off the yoke.

Once they go full fascist slavers though both MilGov and CivGov will be able to put aside their differences long enough to retake areas run by NA. At the very least they won't shoot at the other when they're fighting NA forces.

[ToughOmbres]

Originally Posted by castlebravo92

Yes and yes ;-).

I'm stealing / modifying a narrative arc in James Ellroy's Underworld USA Trilogy to build a deeper narrative arc for New America / Carl Hughes where a neo-fascist faction within the CIA clandestinely supplies extremist right-wing groups with weapons starting in the late 60s / early 70s when anti-war social upheaval is at it's apex with the intent of having a domestic anti-communist cadre if a social revolution occurred and official US organizations were co-opted or nullified by Marxists.

Because it's a faction and not the entire CIA, it's entirely off-books. The CIA and Hughes use drug money (in the same manner that they did to fund the arming of the Contras), and leverage facilitated theft to supply the militias.

It certainly works for the T2k world. Since we're dealing with alternate history/reality I always thought the original GDW treatment of Hughes was quite good FTR.