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I mean, ironically, it could well be Reagan himself if you want a liberal actor turned politician. Or it could be Kirk Douglas, or Paul Newman, or Robert Redford, or James Garner or Robert Vaughn from Man from UNCLE. If you want an era-defining liberal Democrat, I think Ted Kennedy is a good...

I was actually reading just now about a fellow from the mid-17th century who was, of all things, a False Shuisky (a pretended son of the tsar, I believe). Russia - especially the very strange 17th century Russia - might be your best bet for this.

Speaking of Peter III, another (not even especially serious, as far as I can tell) False Peter became Tsar of Montenegro in one of the strangest bits of history I know of.

The best options here are Bottomley and Marcus Garvey.

I think the frogs were Roy's sled to be honest because he actually looks happy here somehow

The sort of pseudo-Law French you’ve written it in is so so inspired! Also this feels like a very plausible way for an Angevin state to wind up!

This is maybe one of my favorite things ever.

I think Chase started out as a pious true believer and then got so caught up in the pursuit of power that gradually he and Kate started to believe in less and less until they finally were left with nothing but Salmon P. Chase to believe in.

Monroe (@moth) asked me to post this – so, without further ado: A HOUSE OF CARDS DIVIDED CANNOT STAND, Part One By Monroe Based on the novel series House of Cards by Michael Dobbs, and its adaptations by the BBC and Netflix. 2013—2013: Gov. Andrew Navarre (MI)/Sen. Hal Colson (FL)...

He could not win in 1991. Yeltsin was popular to the point of mysticism springing up around him, and even if he somehow loses, Zhirinovsky is not going to be the man who wins a second round. He might be able to win in 1994, and he was seen as being a serious candidate until the 1996 elections...

How would you reply to the criticism that your portrayals of figures like Robert E. Lee in, say, The Guns of the South play into the Lost Cause narrative – that is, how would you respond to someone who asked why you made the choice to make at least some Confederate characters heroic?

Rather sad to see no historically-attested Furies! :P

Yeltsin getting shot on the tank isn't impossible but seems unlikely to me – the man was a secular saint in 1991, after all. @Callan and I have discussed the far more likely possibility of Gorbachev getting shot by a trigger-happy guard during his little Black Sea holiday. With regards to a...

Please tell me – please, please tell me – that this is based on something real.

This is true, but then there was the really horrific crash of 1998 which discredited the fragile psuedo-liberal consensus which had kind of existed post-1993 - it was of this consensus that Nemtsov was the chief part of.

I mean, I'm prepared to debate this point seriously, I just don't think you've presented many facts to prove this – I don't have books on me at the moment, but hopefully the evidence I've laid out offhandedly has made sense? I think if there had been a snap election in 1994 or so, Yavlinsky...

Yeah, I'm not quite sure what that means either – 1993 was a dictatorial, Yeltsinite, self-coup in the grand tradition of Louis-Napoleon, and I strongly recommend @Ricardolindo to read about the Soskovets strategy, which shows just how nationalist and non-liberal Yeltsin often was.

I'm the last person to deny that Zhirinovsky was a protest vote. Of course he was, but the '93 crisis only brought to the fore pre-existing issues that were continuing until the late '90s and maybe even are still continuing. Zhirinovsky was the only person to offer stability, but he did it in...

Yeah, sorry to burst your bubble, but Zhirinovsky won a plurality of the vote in 1993, albeit with shock treatment. If Rutskoy can make the economy more stable and restore Russia’s international prestige, he will be able to do whatever he wants. If he can personify stability, the world (well...

See, um, Rutskoy was not a liberal or a democrat in any sense of the word. He was a nationalist who openly called for retaking the Crimea (remember, Khrushchev sort of just... gave it to Ukraine, although it obviously had a large Ukrainian population and before Stalin a very large Tatar...