SkunkyArt | RvBOMally — Timeline 15 RVB

The PoD is the government reacting to the 1993 World Trade Center bombings in a more intrusive fashion, which helps stop events like the Oklahoma City bombing from happening, but causes more pushback and sympathy towards anti-government movements. Anti-government movements rise on the left and right, causing greater polarization. The 2000 election is even more of a mess, with Bush and Gore pandering more to the extreme elements, and the result being even more hotly contested as the controversy lasted longer and Gore's popular vote win was by a much larger margin. 9/11 doesn't happen, but an analogue to the Patriot Act is passed anyway. The Americans intervene during the Second Iranian Revolution and depose the government there. Discontent with the federal government grows throughout the 2000s, coming to a head after the 2004 presidential election, which is canceled thanks to a series of domestic terrorist attacks throughout the country during election day. The militias quickly deny involvement, claiming it's a false flag by the desperate Bush administration. Crackdowns occur across the country, things get more violent, cities are lost to riots, and before anybody knows it, several states have declared independence from the Union and Washington DC is surrounded by a mob of protesters, many of them armed. Many military units defect to the revolutionaries. Pretty much every politician in DC is arrested, and a new constitutional convention is held, forming the American Confederation.

The new American Confederation is a far looser union than the old United States. Guarantees of power being left to the states are much stronger, and quite a few things are expressly prohibited from being managed by the federal government. Welfare and entitlements at the federal level are pretty much abolished, and these responsibilities are devolved to the states. The new constitution also has several measures intended to stymie government corruption, such as stricter term limits on Congress, limitations on donations and the degree of collusion a candidate can have with large donors, and expressly limiting the "speech rights" of political action committees. There are also greater civil liberties protections, to ensure that another *Patriot Act is never passed. Otherwise, the new constitution was identical to the 2004 one.

Not every state rejoined the Union. Some states remained independent as Associate States. The Associate States are independent for all intents and purposes, except that they pay the Confederation for defense, allow the Confederation to station troops in their countries, and there is free movement between the Associate States and the rest of the Confederation. These states have their own constitutions and are not beholden to decisions made by the Confederation's government, but they often pass equivalent legislation to help smooth things over.

NATO fell apart as the Confederation wanted to keep its influence to the Americas and, to a lesser degree, the Pacific. These treaties are mutual defense treaties, and the Confederation has sworn off getting bogged down in foreign wars. Foreign military aid from America has all but dried up, which has helped curb the number of American firearms in circulation around the world.

The War in Iran was largely costly and cost many lives, but with an actual secular, democratic movement existing in Iran, it managed to become a successful, secular democracy, although they are having problems in Afghanistan. Egypt's authoritarian government fell in 2008 and led to a relatively peaceful transition to a democracy. Israel finally let go of Palestine as a fully independent state, although border disputes remain.

The European Union as we know it never stayed for long, with referendums renouncing the Maastricht Treaty happening rather quickly after its ratification and with the EEC slowly devolving into nothing. Along with the fall of NATO, the European states have taken to creating their own blocs. However, realizing that fighting wars with one another would do them no good and only help Russia, they did sign their own, broad, alliance, while their blocs remain mostly economic. UKIP disbanded itself rather quickly, having no European Union for the UK to be independent from, and this culture war stuff isn't as much of a problem in Europe since there is no civil unrest in the Middle East feeding a migrant crisis. Also, the War on Terror was less of a thing, with American efforts directed at the Iranian state, not some nebulous group like Islam or terrorists.

The transition away from communism went better for Russia, with the economy doing better and the West being a bit more trusting of the Russians. Putin never came to power, and his brand of turning Russia into a frenemy of the West never got anywhere. The Russian sphere is rather richer and less top-heavy than OTL's as a result, and has good relations with the West.

The Chinese Communist Party fell surprisingly peacefully in 2008 after the financial crisis caused by the 2004 chaos, leading to a genuinely democratic government taking control. They did lose Xinjiang and Tibet in the process, as the revolutionaries there demanded referendums and got them.

South Africa did transition out of apartheid, but the ANC's power wasn't as absolute, and they had to compromise more. This ended up actually making the ANC less corrupt, and helped race relations in the long run. South Africa is much richer than IOTL, and crime rates are much lower. The country, along with China, also leads investment in the rest of Africa.

There is a much greater regard for science, and there is a pro-science mindset in general. There is no widespread opposition to the idea that climate change is happening, but it isn't happening at such a rapid pace thanks to China's new government focusing a lot on environmental cleanup. It is still regarded as a problem, but proposed solutions are more tech-based, such as greater reliance on nuclear power. Space exploration is highly regarded, and is something the Confederation's government actually invests money in. The Russian government, being rather richer than OTL, also has more money to spend on its space program. Private firms are also participating; there are several SpaceX analogues, and they're more successful than OTL's. Space is seen as the next step of human development, necessary for long-term human survival.

Globalism is more of a "black, brown, or white, your money's all green" idea. Multinationals still exist, although they are more focused on providing goods and services than buying lobbyists. The world still has problems with moneyed elites interfering against the will of the people, but that would be the case in any system. The Confederation itself is already having issues with corruption trials its government. Regime change in general is seen as a horrible idea, given the mess that was the War in Iran.

Culturally, people are more live and let live and generally moderate. The SJW and alt-right movements are even more fringe, with people espousing those views roundly mocked online.

Social media as we know it doesn't exist; the Internet remain more Wild West, and anonymity remains king. Only a fool would put their information up online, and anybody asking for it is probably a criminal. Cyber surveillance is a very real threat that people take seriously, so attempts at Internet censorship are roundly denounced. Twitter isn't a thing, or rather there was an analogue that appeared but died without anybody noticing. Facebook and MySpace never materialized, having butterflied away, but their analogues were around before the 2004 revolution, and quickly assumed to be some NSA phishing scheme. That wasn't the case (although the NSA did ultimately try to strongarm these companies into handing over private information), but perception that social media is some kind of backhanded surveillance program persists, so it never took off.

The world is generally more secular, and the Islamic world is considerably more secular. Most of the reform in Islam have come from within, and the idea of "cultural Islam" that rejects the most backwards part of the religion is in vogue, particularly as the biggest sponsors of Islamic radicalism had been taken down.

Space operas and military science fiction is more popular than the superhero stuff of OTL. Warhammer 40K is about as well-known as Star Wars.

The Star Wars prequels are better. LucasArts was never bought by Disney. The sequel trilogy exists (or rather, will exist), and Episode VII isn't a de facto ANH remake.

Alternate history is a more popular genre than it is IOTL, to the point that people are readily aware of tropes like Operation Sealion.

RTS games are still a thing, while MOBAs don't exist.

Reality TV never took off; nobody knows who Kim Kardashian is. Edgy shows like Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and House of Cards exist, but are more oriented towards dystopian science fiction. There's a science fiction series based on Orwell's work that's rather popular, and there's even a really good Warhammer 40K war drama focusing on the Imperial Guard; think Band of Brothers in the 41st millennium.

Donald Trump remains a rather obscure figure from the 1980s who occasionally shows up in cameos, and Hillary Clinton was never Secretary of State and is busy peddling books about her days as First Lady.

Classical music is popular; pop, country and rap aren't.

People actually like anchovies on their pizza.