Kennedy, Eternal

@doghousesenator
okay let me explain; I was listening to a recounting of one of the more Out There political conspiracy theories where [stifled laugh] Jimmy Carter is the antichrist and the Kennedys are all involved with the Illuminati and witches? and JFK isnt really dead. And it made me realize, "...oh my god, this is an AU. but for the fact it's presented as truth (which I consider an irresponsible act of all theorizing**, even when charitable), this is tantamount to a depraved RPF AU" and my whole brain rewired on the spot.

Tacitly im human im not immune to bias and I have my own standard of theory I consider "reasonable" or "truthful" etc. and thus generally I steer far away from the overtly slandering conspiracy shit [about Ted]. But. This is a game changer. I can creatively repurpose them into a Dark!Ted variant.

[Looking at the short essay I ALREADY wrote comparing Ted to Gilles deRais as both bifurcated, objectified figures of good and evil] ...and why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I express through caricature the zeitgeist of Evil Kennedys. Is this not true journalistic objectivity?
Do I not do a DISSERVICE to "truth" by only expressing my narrow bias towards my fondness for Ted. Certainly I MUST acknowledge the scores upon scores of people who see him as irredeemable. As much as those sentiments wound me. I will wield it, make it my own. Catharsis, maybe.

Even in that Damn Movie I like so much, Ted is artfully depicted to weave between being a genuinely sympathetic lost and tender soul and someone petulantly selfish, wielding status and power without thought. I like that as being the humanly contradictory aspects One Person but hey, aspects of personality as distinct characters are neat.

Satirically taking the teeth out of conspiracy theories by presenting them as deeply depraved fujoshi RPF sounds like a personal call to action if i ever heard one.
[wiggling my fingers] I have research to do.

-----

**"Theory" carries the unearned weight of unproven truth. "Headcanon" does not pretend to know truth, while also conveying the holder's personal truth which is as good as if not better than objective truth to them. HEADCANON should be adopted by pundits and historians -my opinion


IF OLIVER STONE CAN DO THIS I CAN DO ANYTHING

@doghousesenator
this is the dark!ted timeline on god

god bless the US alternate history nerds out there they're creating frameworks for the most unhinged character AUs like. knowing ted's emotional journeys and all the reasons he DIDN'T run IRL, what in gods name would push him to do this. pure evil that's what

scrapping the 22nd amendment is the icing on the cake like this is really a villain regime now. a villain regime with amazing healthcare

-----

@doghousesenator
I’m not sure why I didn’t think of having the splitting point for the dark!ted AU be that he actually wins the 1980 run. But I sure am now.

anyway ted lost the presidency, simply, because he was not evil enough. next question

@doghousesenator
[speaking of Ted almost being named George] we're not just piling all the insane conspiracies and bad faith reads on ted's character into this guy we're also doing near-misses. he has a mechanical arm from being bitten off by a zebra at a young age

@Yeets09237278
If he has a mechanical arm than you can probably stretch it to the point of him avoiding chappaquidick b/c he lifted the car outta the water or ripped the door off and saved Mary jo

@doghousesenator
alright there's no going back now i HAVE to do it

drunk driving into a pond and then saving the girl inside with your mechanical arm is a really jimmy-neutron-ass way of getting accolades for solving a problem you created. and you know it would work too people would be all over that shit. now THAT's PR

@hoodienanami
thats what kennedys DO they cause a problem and then solve it expertly to much public acclaim and love. so this counts as historically accurate. from a certain point of view

@doghousesenator
yes and that's exactly the allegory, you got it. but throwing a mechanical arm into the mix is what makes it neutron-esque

-----

@doghousesenator
i should probably standardize how i draw eternal!ted's mechanical arm. or i could keep winging it every time i draw it. that sounds more like me

i think it probably changes design over the decades as medical technology rapidly improves under his administration so that could be my excuse

Ted will eventually weather an assassination attempt.

@Yeets09237278
Did he rip his brain tumor out

@doghousesenator
that's a goated suggestion gotta add "prion induced self surgery" as one of the endings

@Yeets09237278
A more optimistic take is that Kennedycare cured cancer tbh.

@doghousesenator
yeah... that's definitely like. i think the true/ideal outcome of the AU. I was thinking about this in terms of his son too, since that's what he cites as his impetus towards healthcare, though in this AU this could have started from losing his arm. lots of directions to consider

@doghousesenator
i do often think about what [ted would] say if he was still here

@Yeets09237278
President rn as he ran and landslided in 2020

@iloveminigolf
Real + True


@doghousesenator
although i was keeping this au in line with his real date of departure im going to loop this one in here as an alternate. really putting the eternal in eternal

@iloveminigolf
Al Gore was killed and replaced with Kamala Harris by the Ted Kennedy secret police after Al tried to remove the elderly Kennedy from power

@doghousesenator
Originally I had set the dark!ted/eternal kennedy regime at the 1980 election but I'm now considering him surviving chappaquiddick politically (due to the mechanical arm of course; Mary Jo lives... though whispers about his behavior leak) and making the run in 72 for uh, Reasons.

This strips me of the emotional sting of him taking and holding power in *spite* of the incident people generally hold over his head to this day, which is part of what was driving this concept, but there's a lot to work with regardless and it doesn't need to be a non-issue either.

I guess the way to really drive this would be that somehow he manages the election in-spite of the incident played straight but then I have to justify that with some equally compelling reason, no conspiratorial handwaving that's no fun. maybe he has nixon killed

The right way to do this is have him using camelot as a weapon; constructing a plausible framework for the CIA conspiracy and using it to bring down certain key players, giving his image a huge boost as both the victimized brother and the one who finally brings truth and justice.

Ted could have absolutely abused his position as the last kennedy brother and the utter frenzy people were in about the assassinations for personal gain; I'd need to properly sit down to work out the details but I think that's the direction I'd want to take an amoral!ted in anyway.

@KyivWorker
I like the idea-- it leaves more post-Johnson New Deal libs on the table (Hart, Church, McGovern, Bayh, etc.), Carter is still governor of Georgia (and you could do something with that idea of him running for Senator in '80), and Kissinger, Reagan, etc., all stick around

@doghousesenator
you've picked up on my subtle implication that i want dark!ted to inherit kissinger

@KyivWorker
A Kennedy win in '72 also implies that Kissinger never leads the State dept. for Nixon--does he stay as NSA then get promoted in '84 in a mirror of Nixon? Now I'm thinking about it and this is incredible. Deep-state admin

@doghousesenator
this entire AU started with the concept of "Ted Kennedy as seen through the conspiracy theorist's lens", so yes, basically. Imagine a true dynastic deep-state regime with like, really good healthcare

@KyivWorker
I need you to understand I would give my life for any administration like this. Pulling strings in Congress to kill the Nixon admin's agenda and then immediately pick up from there after inauguration. I like the options available with a '72 start, but I also like the prospect of an older Ted that's become genuinely ruthless over the course of Nixon/Carter to kill agendas in both

@doghousesenator
now you're getting exactly the splitting point i've been straddling; the justifiably ruthless pathos of starting in 80' is so potent and originally my intention.... but the kind of administration i could get out of him starting in 72' is calling to me like siren

@KyivWorker
True conundrum. OH IDEA. Timeline happens as typical, but Nixon survives Watergate in the Senate. Apocalyptic midterm for Rs in '74, and out of genuine spite Kennedy gets new characteristics, runs in '76 against Reagan (and again in '80). Compromise that has a little less juice.
Also could use the incredible D margins in '74 to buoy him basically taking control of the party and picking up the torch from Daley, Meany, etc. Not sure if this has it, though, still missing some names and faces

@doghousesenator
a little too middle of the road for my purposes but genuinely interesting and feels almost plausible on it's own so i'm passing you this torch if you want to run with it

@KyivWorker
I wouldn’t mind, but only with your input— I very much like the idea of a Kennedy ‘80 run with the last hurrah of new deal libs in the cabinet (Punished McGovern, etc) mixed in with deep state characters (Kissinger, etc.)

-----

@KyivWorker
I did want to bring up that I could see Cheney having a bigger role to play in either Congress or as a cabinet member in DarkTed80.
iirc Dick was involved in Republican leadership through the late 80s and was pretty prominent (with Rummy) post-Ford, so putting both of them around an imperial Teddy admin would very much fit the aesthetic

-----

@Yeets09237278
In 72 you could have things really go bad for Nixon to have him lose. Such as: 1. Watergate is worse and blows up early ( A coked up aid blows up Brookings ) and Nixon is in the midst of impeachment by ED. 2. Agnews mess comes out and Nixon tries to drop him but Agnew fights and is re-nominated at the RNC in an open vote over Nixons choice of Ronald Reagan. 3. Nixon is caught abusing pat ( Happened IRL ) 4. Nixon is more hawkish on Nam causing domestic turmoil and Nixon uses a longer lived Edgar Hoover to try and create a police state

@doghousesenator
I wanted this to be ted-driven pointedly (he doesn't get in by good fortune but by machination), but Nixon impeachment speedrun is actually worth investigating on its own. #3 hit me like a train. truly the darkest timeline

@Yeets09237278
Now this leaves a jaded Ted to fight Dick Nixon and save America. What Ted doesn't expect is Wallace running again and deadlocking the election

@KyivWorker
[on the topic of ways to secure the presidency on his own merit, Ted] works with "Deepthroat" and gives him the room he needs to basically blow Watergate to Woodward and Bernstein as an October surprise, maybe?

@doghousesenator
lets not get ahead of ourselves, we're still in 72'

@KyivWorker
Fair enough-- if he ran in '72, who would his VP be? Actually, who would it have been in '80?

@doghousesenator
McGovern seems like the most by-the-book answer but i feel like as long as we're doing something insane we could do something insane. what if he pulled orrin hatch into this

@KyivWorker
On the one hand, he didn't have any electoral experience to that point, unless something else happens in this timeline pre-72-- on the other, it would be funny. I could 100% see Hatch as a shoe-in for AG, otherwise

@doghousesenator
i have a habit of doing things because they're funny and justifying it on the backend later; this could be an 80 thing. maybe he starts out with a more properly left VP in 72' and they start getting increasingly uncomfortable with ted until an untimely and oddly suspect accident

@KyivWorker
He nominates a still-living Reuther and then has him put down in a plane crash (like IRL, but delayed a decade)

@doghousesenator
oh that damned kennedy curse...... what can you do

I like the idea that before Ted came into the picture, Jimmy was way more "Mr. Rogers" about his broadcasts, but started voicing his concerns about Ted's pro-life healthcare plan and unintentionally struck an vein of mounting bible-thumping fear & backlash that became a firehose source of donations, steering Jimmy in a much more combative (and much more lucrative) direction and eventually giving a voice and cohesion to a newly formed Religious Right, with pitchforks aimed at the unshakable emperor of universal healthcare and progressive freedoms dismantling their God-given institutions.



The real dark turn for Jimmy is that he probably ends up leading the Religious Right instead of just falling victim to it; he most likely courts both progressive evangelism and conservative fundamentalists in the same way he sort of appealed to both sides of the aisle initially. But you can only be a play-the-field moderate for so long before you start leading the new religious movement against your militantly progressive Catholic rival and have to take a hard look in the mirror and ask yourself what happened.

I think Jimmy at heart still has the internal compass he would have followed in real history, not nearly so far to the right, but is pulled so quickly and visibly into this position that the power he has (and fear of it turning on him) forces him to abandon his outwardly progressive views altogether.

This is a... barely edited quote from the real Jimmy Carter. (source: Faith, A Journey For All)



---

Any mildly critical or even balanced text on Jimmy Carter will often say, in more or less words, "He was self-important with a streak of self-righteousness, was contemptuous of his rivals--even petty at times; he micromanaged his administration and was an ultimately ineffective leader, despite his later rehabilitation as an upstanding private citizen."

...Which is part of why televangelist works so well as an allegory for the worst of his role in history; the admonishing televised speeches, the vengeful behind-the-scenes behavior, the lust for power; I really only have to set him off course by a degree & he sails into it himself.

You know he still does the Playboy interview in this timeline to the exact same effect.

The real kicker is when Jimmy ends up developing pancreatic cancer the way of the rest of his family, and it's Ted's healthcare which saves his life. ....no, I mean, it was prayer! Sure, you were also getting the best treatment the country had to offer, but really it was your faith that saved you...

If Jimmy was a different character one of the ways i could have pushed it was that in a brazen, crazed display of faith he outright refuses clinical treatment as the entire healthcare industry has now been infiltrated by the devil, and well. dies.

But I doubt Jimmy is that foolhardy, in any universe; with the implied and outright duplicity about his character, it makes a lot more sense that he would just lie by omission about the standard of care he was getting. But I think that probably rattles/shifts him a bit on a personal level, especially if it wasn't just him but his family that get saved.

I'd like to come up with some visual distinction for televangelist Jimmy from regular Jimmy, like dark!Ted's mechanical arm. I've been drawing his hair part on the other side, but that can't be definitive since it's too subtle, and b/c irl Jimmy will flip his hairpart sometimes for REASONS UNKNOWN.

Distinguishing him from AMUTOP/maid!Jimmy is easy due to the lack of donkey ears, but sometimes I draw unspecific Jimmy Carter, and it would just be fun give Eternal!Carter something of his own. 'Been considering having his hair be pure white, though it's not like I draw with color/shading often.

I sort of added the hint of set dressing off the cuff [in my art of his broadcasts so far] but I'd really like to design a dedicated set for tele!Jimmy... It would be easy enough to emulate the iconic fireside chat setting of his more casual televised addresses, as those aren't far from what some televangelist sets looked like.

But going for something more along the lines of whatever Gene Scott was on is appealing to me... incredible aura. I'll have to play with what feels right. I do want him to have a dedicated little terrarium to spew self-righteous nonsense from.

@Yeets09237278
I know this is late but the ultimate dark Ted POD is where Sr agrees to [RFK's] request to name Ted "George Washington Kennedy"

@doghousesenator
oh my god please don't tempt me i don't want to have to start calling him george. i wont survive

@Yeets09237278
"The Eternal President George Washington Kennedy America's Lionheart". Have that be on a plaque at his ATL monument under a statue of him sitting on a throne , wearing a roman toga and holding the constitution in one hand and a flame in the other

@Yeets09237278
Just imagine how Ted deals with Carter here. Absolute domination. I know it's a stretch but he would probably hijack a plane and use the power of Camelot to rescue the hostages. He then of course absolutely DOMINATES Carter in the primaries to the point where Reagan drops out in terror. GWK faces HW and wins 538 or only loses Wyoming

-----

@Yeets09237278
As i was told "Reagan won so much because he was like a drug. He was addicting."
You could also apply this to Ted fucking Jimmy progressive. Like: "Give me Healthcare and I'll give you the best night of your goddamned life"

@doghousesenator
i could only imagine this backfiring and jimmy, red-faced, hurling a lot of accusations of promiscuity and indecency at ted before storming off (and then quietly touching himself later)
Well. I know how Dark!Ted won in 1980 now.