this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2024
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It won't solve the problems of today but sometimes it can be interesting to see what people of today think for problems and crisises of yesterday. I was in model UN and that was a fairly frequent conference idea.
I also enjoy talking to people because it's easy for us to say "that's a colonialist action" and even though it's true the question becomes (for me) 'alright how could we have done better' and discussing that thought experiment
and I appreciate the call-out, I definitely didn't assume you were calling me one.
Maybe for a better question we ask "what could I have done as Winston Churchill or (I think it was) Truman." While they were singular people they did give the diplomats their marching orders when it came to the peace resolutions.
These people were influential but did not have unilateral power. In their position I would have tried to establish refuge for Jewish people and grant them protective status. Then because of how racist and dumb society was, I would have lost my political position and my influence.
Mmm that's a pretty fair point. Even back then being the President that ended a war only got you so much political good will in the States. Not sure how it worked for Churchill.
I kinda wonder what if any good solutions there were for this. Doing the moral thing but losing your job doing it and potentially seeing the work you did undone by your successor would suck hella bad.
Well thank you for indulging my questions this has been really fun chatting with you!
Churchill lost re-election because he made a really tone-deaf radio address on Labour's plans for socialized medicine, national insurance, and nationalisation of utilities and critical industries (all of which the overwhelming majority of the country wanted), basically calling them communism, said it would require a "gestapo" to implement, and he wouldn't stand for it.
Clement Atlee more or less thanked him for that speech the next day, and assumed the Prime Minister role after the Tories were absolutely trounced in the 1945 election.
Atlee lasted 6 years. Labour ran the show with a huge majority for a full five year term, then got an unworkably small majority of 5 seats in 1950. Snap election was called in 1951, and Conservatives retook the majority, despite Labour getting 48.8% of the vote, and Conservatives only getting 48.0%.
...Funny how that keeps happening.
Churchill resumed the role of Prime Minister until he retired in 1955.
Nifty!
Thank you for the history lesson I actually had no idea that's how that all went down.
Why did they still lose, was it like a gerrymandering thing?
It wasn't (maybe still isn't?) a strictly proportional representation system, so the urban areas get slightly fewer members per vote. More equal than the Electoral College, but still imbalanced in favor of the rural areas where wealthy people have huge estates that have been handed down for generations.