South would have had the Gulf and Texas oil.
A lot of third world countries have had oil. It usually results in a few living it up and the rest of the country struggling to survive. The oil in Texas and the Gulf may have lasted longer if it was in a separate country.
Oil also didn't come along until the very end of the 19th century, which would have been nearly 40 years after the South split. The economy may not have survived the Industrial Revolution.
I've tried reading a few of Turtledove's books and there is something often off with his premises that don't quite work for me.
In any case, it is interesting to speculate what may have happened if the South did split off any become a separate country. Another thing from
American Nations is that New York city was making noises of becoming an independent city state when the South split. The start of the Civil War cemented them as part of the US.
Mass shootings don't only happen at schools. Apparently you've completely forgotten about the Vegas shooting.
What people use is a mixed bag:
Mass shootings in the United States - Wikipedia
In the Las Vegas shooting there were only 58 killed by the perp, but 480 were hit by gunfire and 910 were injured or killed in some way. Firing 1100 rounds fully automatically and hitting 480 (I believe some people were hit multiple times), is about a 50% hit rate.
Overall mass shootings are a mixed bag based on weapon type. Hand guns are easy to conceal so shooters can get closer to their victims. Some mass shootings with hand guns were done with large magazine weapons. The Gabby Giffords shooting started at point blank range and the carnage was so bad because the perp had a large magazine on his hand gun. He was stopped when he had to reload.
Every once in a while there is something in the news that is so disgusting that it makes my stomach turn. What the press has inflicted upon the boys at Covington Catholic is absolutely abhorrent. This is why the press has lost so much credibility. The fact that the press would push a story, unchecked, about children shows the hatred for anybody that shows support for Trump. This was because they were white and had on MAGA hats. Now these children have been doxxed and are receiving death threats. Their whole school is shut down for security reasons. People on here demonstrate hatred as well. All because they have separate views on issues. The Left has gone out of control. This saddens me because I considered myself to lean left in the past. In fact, I did not vote for Trump because I bought into the narrative as well. I will never make that mistake again.
Any story that seems to fit a narrative on first blush has a possibility of becoming big news before the truth comes out. Right wing pranksters have played on this to plant fake stories and have managed to get some to run before discrediting them. Then the rest of the right points to these incidents and say "see, everything they say is a lie!" It's a way to help perpetuate the false equivalency meme.
Sometimes these stories evolve on their own, which appears to be the case here.
Humans have a tendency to cook up theories and then find data to support the theories. We've been doing it since before time began. When someone comes along who just follows the facts where ever they lead, they usually catch a lot of flak from the majority who are cherry picking. This has happened with most major scientific discoveries, some major technological advancements (it's going on with the EV industry today), and it happens in politics.
When I initially saw the story, my first thought was not much. Another example of a Trump supporter behaving badly. So what? It's like a story about the weather being colder in winter. And it turns out the whole situation started with some nuts out on the fringe the other way verbally assaulting the MAGA hat wearers.
I would not be surprised to find the African-Americans who started the whole thing were not some ultra-fringe group with 3 members like the "New Black Panthers" who showed up near a polling place in Pennsylvania on election day a few years back. Fox News made them out to be a massive organization, but it turned out to be a handful of guys in one city with no organization. There are music bands playing small clubs that are bigger.
The thing with any group of people, any attribute you give to the whole group is going to be proven wrong. Even basic things like gender are proving to be less black and white that originally thought. There are jerks who are pro-Trump and jerks who are anti-Trump. Anecdotally, it looks to me like there are more pro-Trump jerks than anti-Trump, but that's based on two things: observing the news over the last 3 years, and what I know about human nature.
Trump is a classic playground bully type. We probably all went to school with at least one kid who was leader of the school bully group. In some places these bullies might have been violent, in others they may have just taunted. But one thing is pretty constant, these alpha-bullies tend to draw beta bullies into their orbit and little else. There are some who go along with the alpha bully to prevent becoming victims, but they mostly just try to keep their head down.
The active beta bullies usually have some reason to be angry and like to be able to take it out somewhere, so they participate in whatever the alpha gets up to.
Sometimes the targets of bullying strike back. Sometimes the victims organize too. Sometimes there are competing bullies. There are a lot of dynamics to these things, but most fit into a set of patterns.
Trump's "pack" is, by human nature, going to include some angry people who want to strike out and the alpha gives them permission and targets. The victims are also going to do things to fight back.
But just because the initial narrative of one news story turns out to be false is a distraction from the bigger story. Conflict is happening over American politics. However that plays out, it isn't really news, it's a sidebar story.
Whenever these sorts of stories happen, I get concerned that the opponents are going to manage to use the backlash to achieve their aims. That was my biggest concern on 9/11/2001 and it mostly played out as I predicted with draconian surveillance laws passed, stupid security checks that do little, and perpetual wars in far flung places that nobody can figure out how to end without creating worse disasters.
Ignore the light show and look behind the curtain. That's the real problem.
