Yeah though Soviet politics isn't my forte and just how alot was tossed around... a bit nuts. I will try though wondering how will go here.
America's Funniest President: Mo Udall Presidency & Beyond
- Thread starter CountDVB
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Hmm…Popular culture? Does Udall do anything of significance relating to Hollywood or elsewhere in the entertainment world?
Hmmm, not sure there. I have foreign relations obviously, health and some of the misc stuff like law enforcement and other things.
Who headed the CIA and FBI under Udall, and what changs were in both from OTL's 80's?
Ooooh, that's a tough one.
CIA may be Stansfield Turner if Carter suggests him since they were classmates back in the Naval academy.
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski could be for either one of these...
Since there's no Iran Contra scandal what is trust like between the public and the Udall administration?
probably much greater than OTL's Reagan administration (or TTL's, for that matter)
Yup, very much. Udall Administration enjoys a very high level of trust and well, not really any scandals. Any "controversey" would be something like on his former Mormonism or the federal government getting back into rails.
Did Mario Cuomo still get elected Governor of New York in 1982 in this timeline or did he make his splash in politics a little earlier in 1977 when he ran for Mayor of New York City (which he only lost to Ed Koch with 41% to Koch's 50%)?
Presidental Reflection: The Udall Administration (1981 - 1989) [Pt. 2]
Health & Infrastructure
Healthcare was a massive priority for the Udall administration. Unsurprising how it was rooted in a personal stance over for President Udall and with the backing of powerful figures such as Ted Kennedy and other Congressfolk that were in, the Udall Administration would go bold with one of the biggest reforms. The creation of the National Bureau of Healthcare or NBH would be the result. Americans of all sorts would receive their NBH card and be able to get the medical attention that is needed with little to no cost to them. Beyond just general healthcare as defined, this included pharmeceuticals (which itself led to reforms there to get generic drugs to help people and put pressure on the companies), glasses and dentistry. All of this has led to a general increase of the quality of life for Americans, especially for the less fortunate. Additionally, it began providing insight into larger issues and more systemic problems. Beyond the HIV/AIDS problem of the time and people becoming much more aware and careful for that, it showed the difficulties of the physically and or mentally handicapped and what they need to go through to function as happy productive members of society, which itself began leading to a bigger need of community consideration. Additionally, the question of abortion found itself in a strange tussle since birth control (along with feminine hygiene products to a degree) were covered here. Easy access to afforadable and safe birth control would to overall drop in abortions thanks to the promotion of safe sex. While there were certain groups that tried to combat this, said opposition was usually too weakened or divided to do much, especially as the results and data spoke for themselves.
Beyond the health and safety of the American people, the health of the Americna nation itself was considered. As part of the economic restoration attempt, pages were taken from FDR's book and money poured into infrastructure projects. The expansion of the public rail service in Amtrak and the like was one such way, especially with the ongoing electrification process on said rails. While rails were always a bit odd with Americans, it and other public transportation options were becoming much more favorable over time. The end of fossil fuel subsidies, gasoline companies raising prices, the need for more environmentally stable housing and urban development and so on were major factors in this shift of thinking and usage. Other signs of this were the return of tram suburbs and the relaxing of rules of single family units, resulting in a gradual number of duoplexes and the like within neighborhoods, not to mention more money being poured into downtown areas and city areas damaged by hostile policies, including the daunting task of trying to reverse redlining. While many of these were just started in his administration, the hope was the trend could continue through the years beyond his. Other infrastructure was the growing development and construction of nuclear power plants, viewed as a stop gap between fossil fuels and true renewables, with the hopes of closing all coal plants within the next couple decades. Other developments included into other practices, including the expansion of the relatively carbon neutral biogas/biomethane, expansion of recycling programs and other methods of dealing with wastes and even large regulation aimed at plastic, which appear to be carried into the next term, namely with the research showing most plastics may be too difficult to recycle along wth the skepticism of the companies' willingness to do.
Miscellaneous
The Udall administration worked across various fields and implementing various reforms and processes. Beyond the obvious major accomplishments of pushing the 27th amendment, the Second Civil Rights Act, and various other legislation to expand the rights, protections and freedoms of all Americans, other more gradual shifts were taken. One of which was the deescalation of the "War on Drugs" that began over the time of Nixon and briefly increased during Reagan's time. Much of this came from the MKU administration's concern over the actual effectiveness of this and that it would be perpetuating a cycle of crime. As such, while law enforcement did receive plenty of support, it came in different matters and enforcing different approaches. One major notion was that possession and usage of illict drugs would not be penalized to such an extent, with the concerns that criminalizing them would instead create more hardened criminals. As such, non-violent offenders would not be incarcerated while other means and treatments were being discussed. One was working with the NBH on the reason for substance abuse in the first place to deal with long term problems.
Another aspect was in the rise of computers. As they were growing more advanced, computers, software and related technologies looked to be the big thing in the future and unsurprisingly, the Udall administration did have some influence here. However, a direct example would be a bit of an unusual one. After the formation of the Free Software Foundation, they along with their work on GNU would end up getting the Udall Administration's attention, namely because they saw it as a potential bargaining chip. Namely, as part of their ongoing deals and developments, such as the ratificiation of SALT II on both sides, the United States did offer some assistance to the Soviets in computation in exchange for various assistance down the line. However, rather than grant proprietary software, they invited the Free Software Foundation to allow the Soviet computer scientists to share with the GNU project. They did this on the principle of the free and open-source software the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation represented, with many Soviet computer students building on GNU down the line and the foundation for future computer work. This menawhile spread the Free Software Foundation to a global reach quickly along with the GNU Project quickly gathering attention, not just in the USSR, but also in China later on and other natons, all following the creed. This would further promote the comptuer sciences while showing the Udall administration's cooperative nature and also the need for innovation.
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Mario Cuomo does become Governor. I imagine he would get along well with Udall regarding policy stances and being of help with transportation development. I don't think he would expand prisons like OTL due to the Udall Administration's different stances on dealing with war on drugs along with being a big push toward reforming the police over time.
For domestic policy, if not covered already, how the Udall administration improved access to technology for the visually impaired.
Probably through some regulation though depends what you mean by technology. Like computers and so on?
Right. Screen readers, or other forms of technology that allow the blind to use computers via text to speech, and audio description as an audio track to films, something that began in our 80's.
That would likely be covered in NBH though it would be expanded on more in the 1990s since that's when computers really took off. But yeah, I imagine technologies to allow the blind to use computers would be pretty big priority when computers really hit the mainstream.