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Tibby's Graphics and Grab-Bag Thread.

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Something experimental

Westminster Palace
10 December 2015

President of the Senate Roy Hattersley was tired. He saw too much. He saw Presidents come and go, some even dying. This year hit him hard as Sedgemore and then Meacher's deaths meant that he was now the only one alive who had presidential experience as three-time Acting President. Two too many. He remembered the eager to serve person he was back in 1998. A completely different person. One who even dreamed of being a proper President himself. Now? He wouldn't take the job even if Parliament voted unanimously to demand him to assume the office. It was somewhat cursed, that he was sure of.

Scratching his beard, he thought over the words, words he uttered to Presidents four times before. "Sir, is your Excellency willing to take the Oath?" started it off. He remembered that he came up with the words himself as his prime contribution to the whole new republican decorum, something that President Meacher moaned to him a decade later as "royalism wrapped in republicanism". He missed Michael very much.

He did not know why he was still President of the Senate. Perhaps he just wanted to hit the big twenty? Perhaps he felt a sense of responsibility to hold on as long as possible so to ensure that every President would have his capable advice? Maybe it was just sheer egoism still present in his aging and exhausted body, the idea that no one else could be President of the Senate better than him?

His inauguration garb was simple, a white cloak with a hood. He had no idea why it was even used, he didn't come up with it, it was something someone with a Welsh accent, he thought, put in as an idea late at night and that the tired convention waved through. Nevertheless, it was now tradition and he pulled the hood up. He looked like a grim old wizard came to deliver the bad news. Perhaps that was what he was.

Approaching the new President on the old throne, who was smiling politely at everyone - Jeremy Corbyn was a natural smiler - he felt like a cold wind in a warm room that made everyone shiver. When Corbyn's face turned to him, he could see the face go serious and his body posture get ready for the death sentence - no, inauguration oath. There was still a difference.

He lapsed back into his habitual, well-practised, routine - "Sir, is your Excellency willing to take the oath?"

"I am willing" declared President Corbyn. Every single one of them declared such. The oath was continued and confirmed, before Corbyn kneeled before... God? The people? Past heads of state? Who knows.

“The things which I have here before promised, I will perform and keep." said President Corbyn. Meanwhile President of the Senate Hattersley muttered "God help you, your Excellency" under his breath.

And so another man was condemned.
 
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Turns out the Democrats can win a fourth term if the Republicans are bitterly divided between libertarians and conservatives and can't fully unite by November and up against a President who was comfortably re-nominated with barely any opposition

Oh and Bernie won Alaska for some reason although it was close
 
Turquoise Blue said:
View attachment 3607
Rhode Island, the third step in my bizarre quest in wikiboxing an utterly dystopian America

At least this state is mildly tolerable, even if their left-wing party sold out their principles decades ago and was wiped out this election by Lincoln Chafee's En Marche!
Click to expand...

"Moderate Moose" is possibly my favourite party name ever
 
The list of British leaders in a random election game that focused entirely on America and that I managed to scrap together via hints

Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1859-1934)
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (Liberal majority) 1859-1865
1859: def. Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby (Conservative)
1865: def. Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby (Conservative)
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (Liberal majority) 1865-1875
1870: def. Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby (Conservative)
Spencer Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington (Liberal majority) 1875-1877
Benjamin Disraeli (Conservative majority) 1877-1883
1877: def. Spencer Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington (Liberal) and Isaac Butt (Home Rule)
Spencer Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington (Liberal majority) 1883-1888
1883: def. Benjamin Disraeli (Conservative) and William Shaw (Irish Parliamentary)
Sir Michael Hicks Beach (Conservative majority) 1888-1902
1888: def. Spencer Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington (Liberal) and William Shaw (Irish Parliamentary)
1894: def. Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (Liberal) and John Redmond (Irish Parliamentary)
1900: def. Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (Liberal), John Redmond (Irish Parliamentary) and Ramsay MacDonald (Labour)
John Hope, 7th Earl of Hopetoun (Conservative majority, then Conservative-led "War Cabinet") 1902-1908
Sir Hayes Fisher (Conservative-led "War Cabinet" then Conservative-led "National Government") 1908-1916
1912: def. David Shackleton (Labour), David Lloyd George (New Liberal), Jack Seely (Liberal) and Joseph McGuiness (Sinn Fein)
Sir William Joynson-Hicks (Conservative majority) 1916-1918
David Shackleton (Labour majority) 1918-1929
1918: def. Sir William Joynson-Hicks (Conservative), Jack Seely (Liberal) and David Lloyd George (New Liberal)
1923: def. Sir William Joynson-Hicks (Conservative) and Winston Churchill (Liberal)
F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead (Conservative-Liberal coalition, then Conservative-led "Wartime Government") 1929-1931*
1929: def. David Shackleton (Labour), Winston Churchill (Liberal), Albert Inkpin (Communist) and Victor Barker (Nationalist Alliance of Anglo-Saxons)
Neville Chamberlain (Conservative-led "Wartime Government" then Conservative-led "National Defense Ministry") 1931-1934

Prime Ministers of the British Union State (1934-1955)
Oswald Mosley (British Union of Fascists regime, then majority) 1934-1950
1942: def. John Maynard Keynes (National Liberal), Saunders Lewis (Plaid Cymru) and Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith (Traditional Unionist)
1946: def. John Maynard Keynes (National Liberal), Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith (Traditional Unionist) and Saunders Lewis [imprisoned] (Plaid Cymru)
Hugh Gaitskell (National Liberal majority) 1950-1955
1950: def. Oswald Mosley (British Union of Fascists), Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith (Traditional Unionist) and Saunders Lewis [imprisoned] (Plaid Cymru)
Reunification Referendum: 76% Yes - 24% No

Prime Ministers of the British Commonwealth / United Kingdom government-in-exile (1934-1955)
Neville Chamberlain (Conservative-led "Persistent Ministry") 1934-1940
Winston Churchill (Liberal-led "Persistent Ministry") 1940-1953
Clement Attlee (Labour-led "Persistent Ministry") 1953-1955

Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom of Great Britain (1955-1984)
Hugh Gaitskell (National Liberal majority, then National Liberal-Labour coalition) 1955-1964
1955: def. Clement Attlee (Labour), Alec Douglas-Home, 14th Earl of Home (Conservative), Wogan Philipps (Communist), Oswald Mosley (British Union of Fascists) and Saunders Lewis (Plaid Cymru)
1960: def. Aneurin Bevan (Labour), Alec Douglas-Home, 14th Earl of Home (Conservative), Wogan Philipps, 2nd Baron Milford (Communist) and Saunders Lewis (Plaid Cymru)
1964: def. Michael Foot (Labour), Derick Heathcoat-Amory (Conservative) and D. J. Davies (Plaid Cymru)
Barbara Castle (National Liberal-Labour coalition, then Liberal Democrat-Labour coalition) 1964-1970
Sir Harold Macmillan (Conservative majority) 1970-1973
1970: def. Barbara Castle (Liberal Democrat), Michael Foot (Labour) and D. J. Davies (Plaid Cymru)
Jo Grimond (Liberal Democrat minority) 1973-1975
1973: def. Sir Harold Macmillan (Conservative) and Denis Healey (Labour)
Reginald Maulding (Conservative minority) 1975-1978
1975: def. Jo Grimond (Liberal Democrat), Denis Healey (Labour) and Enoch Powell (National Front)
Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx (Labour majority) 1978-1984)*
1978: def. Reginald Maulding (Conservative), Jo Grimond (Liberal Democrat) and Enoch Powell (National Front)

Prime Ministers of Scotland (1984-present)
Gordon Wilson (SNP regime) 1984-1991*
Scottish Civil War 1991-1995
Capt. Alex Salmond (SNP regime) 1995-2017*
Col. Ruth Davidson (Independent regime) 2017-incumbent [democracy possibly coming soon?]

Prime Ministers of the Confederation of England (1996-present)
Nick Carter (Caretaker ministry, then Democratic Centralist) 1996-2007
1996: unopposed
2000: def. Margaret Beckett (Co-operative), Kenneth Clarke (Conservative), Keith Taylor (Green) and Loveday Jenkin (Mebyon Kernow)
2003: def. Margaret Beckett (Co-operative), Kenneth Clarke (Conservative), Keith Taylor (Green) and Loveday Jenkin (Mebyon Kernow)
Allan Leighton (Co-operative majority, then Co-operative-Green coalition) 2007-2018
2007: def. Nick Carter (Democratic Centralist), Caroline Lucas (Green), Kenneth Clarke (Conservative) and Loveday Jenkin (Mebyon Kernow)
2011: def. Stuart Roberts (Country), Kenneth Clarke (Conservative), Caroline Lucas (Green) and Loveday Jenkin (Mebyon Kernow)
2015: def. Stuart Roberts (Country), Kenneth Clarke (Conservative), Molly Scott Cato (Green) and Diana Wallis (Party of Regions)
Minette Batters (Country-Conservative coalition) 2018-incumbent
2018: def. Allan Leighton (Co-operative), David Cameron (Conservative), Molly Scott Cato (Green) and Diana Wallis (Party of Regions)

Princes of Wales (1998-present)
Lyndsay Morgan (Independent) 1998-2006
1998: unopposed
2002: unopposed
John Davies (Farmers' Union) 2006-2014
2006: def. Adam Price (Democratic) and Rhodri Glyn Thomas (Plaid Cymru)
2010: def. Kirsty Williams (Democratic) and Dafydd Elis-Thomas (Plaid Cymru)
Dafydd Iwan (Independent) 2014- [endorsed by Democrats and Plaid Cymru]
2014: def. Glyn Davies (Farmers' Union)
2018: def. Rhun ap Iorwerth (Farmers' Union)

Prime Ministers of Wales (1998-present)
Glyn Davies (Farmers' Union - Conservative majority, then Farmers' Union majority) 1998-2009
1998: def. Christine Gwyther (Social Democratic), Mick Bates (Farmers' Union - Liberal) and Dafydd Elis-Thomas (Plaid Cymru)
2003: def. Christine Gwyther (Social Democratic), Christine Humphreys (Liberal Alliance) and Gareth Jones (Plaid Cymru)
Karen Sinclair (Democratic majority) 2009-2017
2009: def. Glyn Davies (Farmers' Union) and Gareth Jones (Plaid Cymru)
2012: def. Russell George (Farmers' Union) and Gareth Jones (Plaid Cymru)
Llŷr Huws Gruffydd (Plaid Cymru-Democratic coalition) 2015-incumbent
2017: def. Russell George (Farmers' Union) and Karen Sinclair (Democratic)
 
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Decided to start today off a bit easy with the last election in a surprisingly-long election game [the same one as the UK list I made]

I'll explain the parties below

Our Millennium is basically En Marche! mixed with Occupy and yes, that does sound incoherent as fuck, they're basically a broad-tent anti-establishment party that somehow got their policies adopted by an unelected president and won this election with his support. They also are big against political dynasties, which unsurprisingly for an election game, was a big thing in this world

Conservative Alternative is basically the right-wing protest party and they ran an unrepentantly right-wing guy here since they were definitely not expecting to get in the runoff. They did, and well, that guy proved an utter failure and led to his party being hurt downballot

Democratic Choice is the left-wing coalition, made out of the Radical and Green parties, but those days the parties are basically non-existent as everyone more or less sings from the same hymnbook. In 2018, the two decided to give up all pretenses and just merge into one bigger party

Rally for the Republic is the centre-right establishment party, and "technically" the incumbent party, but they more or less rejected President Husain from the start for being the grandson of one of the worst Governors in American history. This led to a big chunk of their party switching to Our Millennium and the party receiving a pretty dismal result this election, although they did recover downballot thanks to CA's collapse

Americans Elect is the hardline "anti-dynasty" party, split off OM once the party voted to accept President Husain's offer of co-operation. Husain was part of a dynasty himself and the people who founded AE thought it was "selling out" to work with him. Apart from that, I think they're basically the same as Our Millennium in terms of policies and this is just a hardline splitter
 
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It's a bad time for America. President Scipio Grocer, the first African-American president who succeeded to the office after the tragic assassination of his predecessor in 1921, has presided over a time of troubles, of rising racial tension and of rising economic stagnation. Somehow re-elected in 1924 due to a fluke of the Electoral College, he has seen his party take hits downballot as people rally to the Conservative Party and to other options

Think the economy is bad and that only someone experienced with money can lead America out of it? Well, the Conservatives have you sorted with young, charismatic and telegenic businessman Jay Gatling! Some will say he's too inexperienced, being only a Representative, but he will settle down nicely as President, they say! And he has a much more experienced running-mate to help him!

Of course, he's not up against President Grocer, but against possibly the Progressive-Republicans' best candidate this time around, the left-y firebrand from Minnesota Clark Forsyth who promises to solve this recession with old-style Progressive policies that President Grocer shunned, along with new ideas like his promised infrastructure policy that he is sure will bail thousands out of unemployment!

But surely some of you will claim, the PRUSA and Conservatives are in the pocket of the globalist Wall Street conspiracy? Well, luckily for you there's an option in the rockscrabble populist Nationalists, promising to end American internationalism and return to splendid isolation while kicking Wall Street and the globalists out. [Rupert Larson insists he is not speaking of Jews, but it's a very familiar dog-whistle that brings quite a few votes]. Their leader is running for the second time and has hopes that people's despair will catapult him to power

What if you see the Nats as unpleasant anti-Semites yet want radical reform and not willing to trust Forsyth? The Social Democrats are here and they still champion socialist reforms, handing power over to the working-class and bringing around a "people's society", whatever that means. Samuel Franklin, their 1920 nominee, is back and hoping to build on their 1924 success

Oh, what extremism! What unpleasant radicalism! Surely there must be an option for the liberal middle-class that isn't Gatling? And there is! Two in fact! The idiosyncratic Michigan centrist Louis Orléans and the New York Governor Al Smith, the latter running on his vanity Democracy Party platform. Orléans has a huge ego, but he is great at convincing thousands that if only America would elect him, all its troubles would be over. This isn't true of Smith, unfortunately for him, but he does have party infrastructure backing him

But what about Paddy O'Brien and the United All-Americans? Well, if you're Mormon and a member of O'Brien's Supreme Ku Klux Klan, they're certainly your first choice, even if you're not sure about O'Brien himself, what with his weird drug-taking past

=====

In the first round, Gatling won a strong plurality riding on middle-class discontent, making huge gains in the north-east while losing traditionally Conservative Plains states to Forsyth and Larson. The runoff would be Forsyth and Gatling, and once Larson denounced both as "globalists", Gatling had the momentum and locked in his victory in the runoff, returning Conservatives to power after 12 years

Things were looking great for "the Great Gatling", as some nicknamed the new President. And then the economy went to hell
 
Thande said:
Interesting scenario TB - my only criticism would be that the world 'globalists' sounds anachronous. Maybe 'internationalists'?
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, the person who created Larson insisted on saying globalists, so that's canon

You can polish up a good election game but it's still an election game, unfortunately...
 
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It was the worst of times... Social Credit, implemented by a radical transforming president in the 1950s, was proving to severely harm the dollar, leading to a deep recession and the humiliation of having to accept aid from Third World countries. The South was torn between two warring terrorist groups - the Ku Klux Klan and the Socialist Negro Liberation Council, both of which committed atrocities that shocked a nation and spurred them on to demand action from their government. Now more than ever, the American people demanded action.

Unfortunately, the government was in a period of crisis itself, with the right-wing Congress obstructing a left-wing president who was elected and re-elected while losing the popular vote twice. President Henry Jones Jr. was however, shaping up to have a somewhat better second term after coming to an agreement with Congress, and then he was blew up by a radical civil-rights campaigner who saw him as too weak on the issue. His vice-president too was harmed, and lingered on a few days until he died, handing power to the Secretary of State.

New President Maxie Short was an unrepentant radical and America's first socialist president. He declared that no matter what Congress decided, "America will be fed" and adroitly used the political capital from the death of two Presidents to implement his radical agenda, including workplace democracy in the public sector and the final implementation of the "Food for Peace" program which was now aimed at feeding Americans in this depression that rivalled the Great Depression in its severity. And yet... those policies just didn't gain the American people's confidence. The economy worsened and worsened and by 1968, it was clear that Maxie Short was a dead man walking.

The Social Conservatives, the "out" party [and the party that implemented Social Credit in the first place] chose to look at their past two tickets, the two that won the popular vote yet lost the Electoral College, and combined them by taking the 1960 nominee for president, now-Senate Majority Leader Mellie Gump of Michigan and running her with the 1964 vice-presidential nominee, Senator Artemis Fowl of Connecticut. Fowl, known for his strong opposition to what he declared to be "socialism in disguise", helped convince many that the Social Conservatives were on a new page, that the hugely-unpopular Social Credit was not longer supported by the party, while Gump rallied many suburban women voters while keeping her Midwestern appeal. It was a strong ticket indeed, and one that certainly would have a lot of support.

But neither did the Citizens' Alliance roll over and die, as they chose to nominate their President, hoping to at least lose with dignity, and paired him with his successor as Secretary of State, Audrey Wilson. Audrey Wilson was widely known as the loudest supporter of the Estonian government-in-exile and although both Short and Wilson identified as socialists, Wilson's brand was considerably more moderate than Short's. It was a base-pleaser and didn't really have a wide appeal, but the primary aim was to keep their seats in Congress.

The rising third choice, the centrist Forward in Unity, nominated famed economist and incumbent Treasury Secretary Alben S. Nations. Nations campaigned on a centrist pragmatic platform but the fact his economic policies were implemented under the Jones and Short administrations hobbled him as he couldn't quite put away the accusation that he was "more of the same failed policy". He ran with the Secretary of Commerce Charles Henry Bonaparte, worsening people's view of the ticket in the process. Still, he had a wide appeal despite it all.

For those voters angry at the SNLC and at the government's insisting on pushing for civil rights, the Patriotic Independents were the party for them. A national rebranding of the regionalist Dixie Party, it surged in the 1966 midterms winning many seats outside the South, showing the people's deep anger at the two-party system and at the status quo. Nominating 1964 Dixie nominee and former Vice-President in the 1950s Harry Wright and running him with bombastic Mormon populist Jimmy O'Brien, they hoped to "make America great again".

But what if you think Short is too "Old Left" and insufficiently liberal? Well, the Nature and Left Coalition is for you, a weird coalition of New Left people, libertarians, anti-establishment progressives and those who just really like drugs. The 1966 midterms might have led to a PIP surge due to angry right-wing voters, but it also led to many turning to the NLC and their promise of "a new way". This year they nominated Representative Wendy Hamburger of New York, a passionate democratic socialist who opposed the merger that created the Citizens' Alliance and in 1960 split off to form the American Labor Party, one of the predecessors to the NLC. She campaigned this year as a "left alternative" to the failed policies of Maxie Short while denouncing Gump and Wright as wanting to roll back the clock on civil rights.

By a closer margin than he would have been comfortable with, Maxie Short got into the second round and prepared for the fight of his life against Senator Gump. And then a bizarre thing happened that threw everything in a tailspin. The SNLC and KKK came to a common understanding that the main enemy both had were the government which was trying to construct a moderate peace that would hurt their views of an African-American socialist republic (SNLC) and a white-ruled South (KKK), so they plotted together to end President Short once and for all. Fortunately for Short, he emerged unscathed, but it tragically killed Secretary of Defense and Veterans' Affairs Jack McCain.

The investigations quickly discovered that Ian Paisley, 1960 and 1964 Dixie running mate and high-up Pipper, was involved in it which led to the party quickly expelling him from any positions of influence but it helped to hurt them downballot as people turned against what they saw as a party of murderers despite their protestations that they knew nothing of Paisley's plotting.

On the presidential ballot, the assassination attempt merely harmed Short's claim that he was leading America back to recovery, and helped rally voters to Gump's "law-and-order" platform that promised no mercy to both the SNLC and KKK, and led to the Soc-Cons winning a landslide victory and to 16 years of right-wing dominance only ended by unimaginable horror in 1984.

====

Yeah, this is from the same election game as the two above infoboxes (1928 and 2016), this America has a fairly chaotic party system
 
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The Great War is raging and President John Edward Rockefeller is at the helm, ready to see things through and ensure the victory of the United Coalition against their enemies the Imperial League. There are significant isolationist discontent, but overall the consensus is that the war is what America should fight because the Imperial League sank American ships and forced them to intervene.

In any other situation, President Rockefeller would have an easy time winning, but his economic policy and his attempt to settle the silver/gold debate proved polarising with farmers grumbling that he's no Bill Cody Hickock - at least Hickock was a farmer and knew farmers' concerns, unlike this South Carolina elite dynast who knew no labor in his life! Also harming him in the Midwest was his firm anti-German rhetoric [ironically for someone with an etymologically-German last name] that drove German-Americans into the arms of the Republicans.

The Republicans, the party of capitalist businessmen, nominated perhaps the most famous scion of a remarkable dynasty, Albert S. Fitzgerald, who was the son of the inventor of "moving pictures", and a successful businessman himself. Fitzgerald represented a shift in the Republican Party, from free-market liberalism to "ethical capitalism" as Fitzgerald described his philosophy as. Pairing with an elder statesman in the form of Theodore Taft, the Republicans prepared to march to battle against the Conservatives.

But Rockefeller and the Conservatives were still the incumbent party in wartime and it was an uphill battle for Fitzgerald and Rockefeller wouldn't roll over and let the Republicans win. No, there was to be a battle for the ages between two wealthy scions of two incredibly influential dynasties, the old money Rockefellers of South Carolina and the new money Fitzgeralds of Delaware, and money for those two was no object.

The third choice were the centre-left Progressives, but they were increasingly eclipsed by the radical United Left, so when Theodore Roosevelt won the nomination of the Progressives for the second time, he reached out to Eugene Debs, the UL nominee, and agreed to form an united front against the "bourgeois" parties, one represented by Roosevelt at the top and Debs at the bottom. But then all their hopes were dashed when the Progressives' only president emerged from retirement to condemn this and declare an Independent run, splitting Progressive votes and making certain that the runoff would be one between the Conservatives and Republicans.

And it was. Fitzgerald authorised a spree of campaign spending and intense campaigning in the month between the election and the runoff and by declaring himself more willing to fight the war yet not divide America in the process, he got a lot of Americans' support. But not enough.

With 290 electoral votes and 51.7% of the popular vote, President John Edward Rockefeller won re-election and looked across the ocean, ready to end the war and emerge the victor. Albert S. Fitzgerald was a defeated man, but not a finished one, and he started to prepare for 1916.
 
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