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Lists of Heads of Government and Heads of State

@AlfieJ

#FBPE

2016-2019: Theresa May (Conservative)
2017 (Minority, with DUP confidence and supply) def. Jeremy Corbyn (Labour), Nicola Sturgeon (Scottish National), Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat), Arlene Foster (Democratic Unionist), Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein)
2019-2019: Jeremy Corbyn (Labour)
2019 (Majority) def. Theresa May (Conservative), Nicola Sturgeon (Scottish National), Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat), Arlene Foster (Democratic Unionist), Mary Lou McDonald (Sinn Fein)
2019-2021: Nick Houghton, Baron Houghton of Richmond (Crossbencher leading Progressive Directorate, with Back Together and Military backing)
2021-2025: Philip Lee (Back Together)
2021 (Progressive Unity List) def. scattered independents
2025-2029: James Chapman (National Progressive Union)
2025 (Sole Legal Party) def. unopposed

Nobody paid much attention to the steady radicalisation of a certain section of Remain voters. Anna Soubry and Chuka Umunna flounced off with a few hangers on to create Back Together but barely held on to the three seats in 2019 when Labour won the most paper thin of majorities over Theresa May who was still leader mostly because no one else wanted to bear the responsibility. But in the first few months of the Corbyn premiership, a few more Labour MPs defected to Back Together, and his proposals for radically reforming the military was the last straw. A military coup, backed by Back Together, formed a so-called Progressive Directorate. A bare handful of people from other parties agreed to participate, in a government which made its objectives military preparedness against Russia, rejoining the European Union and forming a sensible, centrist economic policy.

Of course, the EU was a little bit worried about reopening negotiations with Britain at all, let alone with a military dictatorship which had dressed itself in garments of progress. But in the face of an increasingly unstable Vladimir Putin sabre-rattling in the Baltic, they agreed to allow Britain to have a 'Special Arrangement' that was supposed to encourage a transition back to proper democracy.

This path back to democracy would prove difficult, as it became clear that the Progressive Directorate's policies had simply forced more of the population into identifying as Leavers. Scotland and Northern Ireland were returned to semi-civilian rule fairly rapidly, given that the SNP and the new government in Stormont were willing collaborators. But in England and Wales, the grip only tightened. Finally, it became clear that the EU would no longer tolerate continued military rule, and an election was held in which only parties on the Progressive Unity List were allowed to stand and the ballot paper simply asked Yes or No.

What the new 'Guided Parliament' did not expect was that Back Together's partners on the ballot would prove troublesome. The SNP wanted independence, the Fianna Fail majority in Northern Ireland wanted reunification of their island, the New Social Democrats wanted more left wing economic policy, the Christian Democrats wanted to re-examine social policy. Four years of infighting ensued, encouraged by the scattering of Independents who had managed to win seats. The nail in the coffin for British democracy was the Russian invasion of Latvia, as NATO got into gear and declared war. The remnants of the Progressive Directorate could not stand for this petty arguments when the real issue of the day was the Russian interfering in other countries. The Progressive Unity List was merged into a single party and opposition parties were banned. The more troublesome MPs from the List parties were purged.

It was a new day in Great Britain.
bob imma tackle you and lick ur face

Seriously though, this is very good. Totally implausible etc, but the ironic echo of Chapman's future slogan – shut up, Russia is meddling – is perfect, given it's all the #Yes2Skiing brigade say on Twitter these days.
 
bob imma tackle you and lick ur face

Seriously though, this is very good. Totally implausible etc, but the ironic echo of Chapman's future slogan – shut up, Russia is meddling – is perfect, given it's all the #Yes2Skiing brigade say on Twitter these days.

I'm so glad you picked up on that.
 
The King Makers
Josie Sideways Elections Series Pt 1

Okay, So a while ago I decided that I needed a template OTL PM list done in the Wikipedia colours in my usual style. Rather than actually sit down and write one, I've decided to set myself a little challenge of doing PM list with a POD just after every election. This is part one of until I die of doing this or it turns out to be boring.

July 2017-November 2017: Boris Johnson (Conservative)

June 2017: Theresa May (Conservative) [317] Jeremy Corbyn (Labour) [262] Nicola Sturgeon (SNP) [35] Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat) [12] Arlene Foster (DUP) [10] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [7] Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru) [4] Caroline Lucas and Jon Bartley (Green Party England & Wales) [1] Sylvia Herman (Independent) [1] John Bercow (Speaker) [1]

Theresa May's presidential style in the snap election was meant to be a sure thing to deliver her party a majority. Given the situation, it is inconceivable that she could have stayed on after losing her party its majority. After a period of feuding, Boris Johnson obtained a coronation as new Conservative Party leader and became PM. However, he failed to make a secure deal with the DUP.

November 2017: Jeremy Corbyn (Labour) Progressive Coalition

November 2017-September 2018: Boris Johnson (Conservative) [304] Jeremy Corbyn (Labour) [272] Nicola Sturgeon (SNP) [37] Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat) [13] Arlene Foster (DUP) [9] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [8] Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru) [3] Caroline Lucas and Jon Bartley (Green Party England & Wales) [1] Sylvia Herman & Claire Wright (Independent) [2] John Bercow (Speaker) [1]

Corbyn rode high in popularity after the first 2017 election and just about managed to form an alliance with the SNP, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, the Greens and Claire Wright. He was forced to push many of the moderate members of his own party into key roles and was forced to ask for an extension to negotiations, PR, and a final referendum on Brexit. The government was hamstrung on social issues and it's biggest legacies was the removal of nuclear submarines from Scotland and a charge on non-resusable coffee cups.

2018-2020: Michael Gove (Conservative) coalition with Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat)

After Labour moderates forced an amendment to the Constitutional Convention Bill asking for changes to be ratified by a referendum the Lib Dems pulled out of the government, going into coalition with the Conservatives. They were offered a final vote on the EU, an elected House of Lords and STV without a referendum. The new government pushed ahead with an EU deal that kept the country in the single market and customs union and was, in many ways, seen as a desperate deal for the Tories to make. Socially, the government once again didn't achieve a great deal. Upskirting videos was made illegal, a tax was introduced on single use plastics packaging, and Gender self-ID was introduced.

2020 EU Exit Deal Referendum:
Yes, Leave: 50.2% No, Remain: 49.8%


The Third Europe referendum saw a massive, vocal, pro-Remain faction grow in size and militancy, and was one of the most hotly contested votes in the country's history. While both sides resorted to violence and abuse, a large number of people were bemused, either feeling that the EU affair had been drawn on too long or that the deal on offer was so soft that it wasn't really Brexit anyway.

2020-2025: Jeremy Corbyn (Labour) coalition with Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat)

2020: Jeremy Corbyn (Labour) [306] Michael Gove (Conservative) [282] Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat) [31] Derek Mackay (SNP) [9] Michelle O'Neill (Sinn Fein) [7] Robin Swann (UUP) [6] Claire Wright (Green Party England & Wales) [2] Arlene Foster (DUP) [2] Clare Hanna (Fianna Fail) [2] Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru) [1] Alliance [1] Yvette Cooper (Speaker) [1]

Once again Jeremy Corbyn was in the lead nationally, and while many of his supporters believed that the last government had failed due to a Lib Dem stab in the back they had no choice but to do another deal. The first House of Lords election took place in 2022, although it was modified from pure AV to be AV/MMP. STV was already a done deal, and the Ninth Periodic Boundary Review was pushed through in record time, ratifying the new rules. The new government had a significant enough majority to commit to paying off public sector debts to the private sector, and to commit to a major housing scheme.

2025-????: Liz Truss (Conservative)

2025: Liz Truss (Conservative) [331] Jeremy Corbyn (Labour) [230] Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat) [29] Derek Mackay (SNP) [24] Claire Wright (Green-Equality) [12] Michelle O'Neill (Sinn Fein) [6] Robin Swann (UUP) [6] Arlene Foster (DUP) [1] Clare Hanna (Fianna Fail) [3] Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru) [4] Nuala McAllister (Alliance) [2] Anne Marie Waters (For Britain) [1] Yvette Cooper (Speaker) [1]

Despite PR, Liz Truss won the first majority of any government since 2017. The new government plans to implement regional devolution in England, expand private housing stocks and develop a new range of nuclear power facilities to tackle the energy crisis. With over 15 million votes, the Conservatives have won the largest number of votes of any party in British history. It remains to be seen if Liz Truss can maintain her popularity.
 
The Leaders of the United States of America

President of the Second Continental Congress/Congress of the Confederation
1776-1777: John Hancock (Mass.) [1]
1777-1778: Henry Laurens (SC)
1778-1779: John Jay (NY)
1779-1781: Samuel Huntington (Conn.)
1781-1782: Thomas McKean (Dela.)
1782-1783: John Hanson (Mary.)
1783-1784: Henry Laurens (SC)
[2]

Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army of the United States
1784-1787: Horatio Gates (Virg.) [3]

Grand Marshal of the United States
1787-1792: Horatio Gates (Virg.) [4]
1792-1795: Thomas Conway (Penn.) [5]
1795-1801: Benedict Arnold (Conn.) [6]

President and Vice-President of the Supreme Executive Council of the United States
1801-1803: John Adams (Mass.)/Thomas Jefferson (Virg.) [7]
1803-1805: Thomas Jefferson (Virg.)/John Jay (NY)
1805-1809: John Jay (NY)/Albert Gallatin (Penn.)
1809-1811: Albert Gallatin (Penn.)/James Monroe (Virg.)
1811-1813: James Monroe (Virg.)/William Crawford (Geor.)
[8]
1813-1815: William Crawford (Geor.)/Caesar Rodney (Dela.) [9]
1815-1816: Caesar Rodney (Dela.)/Alexander Hamilton (NY) [10]
1816-1818: Alexander Hamilton (NY)/None [11]

Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army of the United States
1818-1824: Andrew Jackson (Fran.) [12]

President of the United States
1824-0000: John Quincy Adams (Mass.)

[1] When the United States was declared on July 4, 1776, leadership was assumed by the Second Continental Congress, later renamed the Congress of the Confederation. Though the President of the Congress chaired the body, their influence was always limited by the whole, much to their general detriment.

[2] Laurens’ second term as President of Congress, now under the auspices of the Confederation, was cut short by the dissolution of Congress by the Continental Army.

[3] The Hero of Saratoga had been named Commander-in-Chief to replace his weaker predecessor, George Washington, in 1778. He led the Continental Army through until final victory was achieved in the field, at the Battle of New Haven in 1782. By his own account, reluctantly, he led the Continental Army in the march on Lancaster, and then Philadelphia, to seek the backpaythe army was still owed, beginning the two-year War of the Confederation. In 1786, the war ended, and Gates called a convention in Philadelphia to reform the United States into a more dynamic, centralized state which could pay its armies, which would meet in 1787.

[4] Under the new Constitution of the United States implemented by the then-Continntal Army in 1787, Gates was proclaimed head of state for life under the new title of Grand Marshal of the Republic. Though many accused him of seeking to place himself on an American throne, he established a republican system of government, reformed Congress as a legislative check, and primarily approved or rejected legislation. However, given his continuing control of the Grand Army of the United States, Congress always existed under his careful eye. Gates, however, always stopped short of proclaiming himself as King.

[5] After Marshal Gates’ death in the Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1792, Conway, one of his top supporters, seized power, and compelled Congress to elect him to replace Gates. However, when the second stage of the election - the appeal to the states - failed, despite loyal Gatesians’ control of each state government, due in part to Conway’s Catholic background, Marshal Conway’s War started. The balance of Conway’s term was spent attempting to assert his authority over the United States, with the Gatesians’ infighting giving an opening to their opponents...

[6] After Conway was forced to flee the United States, the revolutionary hero General Benedict Arnold - who had resigned in disgust at General Washington’s removal in 1778, and was a dedicated anti-Gatesian - was elected Grand Marshal by a newly constituted Congress, and then confirmed by the states. Grand Marshal Arnold initially attempted to rule moderately under the Gatesian constitution, but this became increasingly untenable due to resistance in the states, and the continuing opposition of true Gatesians in the army made it difficult to maneuver. Ultimately, he dissolved most of the army, after paying them in full; he called a new convention in Philadelphia, which formulated a new constitution, called the Instrument of Government. Arnold willingly stepped down as head of state when the new government was established, though he was retained under the lesser style of Commander-in-Chief by the new government.

[7] It was the men who had, side-by-side, steadfastly opposed Gates’ military rule of the country in their states and then abroad, who had backed Arnold and then forced him out, that finally took the reins of government in 1801, with the election of the first Supreme Executive Council by Congress. Modeled on the pre-Gates Pennsylvanian Constitution, the new Congress of the United States would elect fourteen men - one from each state, each elected for a seven-year term - who would then elect from among themselves a President and a Vice-President, from different states, for a two-year term, who would hold the reins of executive power.

[8] Under James Monroe’s presidency, the Supreme Executive Council faced mounting criticism. It was often difficult for sessions to come to conclusions, and constant debate led to indecisive government. Each man constantly looking to their own states had led to resentment among larger states of the smaller states’ influence, while the smaller states began to look further askance at the large states’ dominance of the popularly-based Congress. Monroe called a new convention, to revise the Instrument of Government and allow for the creation of new states, and a rebalancing of executive and legislative power. It was at the end of his term that the reforms were implemented.

[9] The revised Supreme Executive Council - now consisting only of seven men all from different states, and never reelecting a state which had just lost its member - was off to a shaky start. The newly-established Senate constantly challenged its authority, as well as that of Congress, which resented the creation of the new upper house above them. Administration quickly fell into deadlock as partisanship began to finally set in in Congress and, to a lesser extent, in the Senate, rather than the more collegiate attitude which had generally prevailed on the Supreme Executive Council and previous iterations of Congress. The only, lingering element of consequence to survive Crawford’s presidency was the United States joining the War of the Seventh Coalition, demanded by the western states to open the lands west of the Mississippi to settlement.

[10] The new Rodney presidency saw further deadlock, with many calling for yet another Convention to reform or replace the Instrument of Government. Rodney, convinced that the new system could be made to function, found himself at constant loggerheads with his vice-president and others who sought a more centralized executive, as well as many who wanted to return to the old system, merely expanded to account for the western states. They would not be allowed to do so, as Rodney saw his presidency come to an abrupt end as he was captured in the occupation of Philadelphia.

[11] Alexander Hamilton, a veteran of the revolution, took command of the country and led it into its war for survival, now standing alone, against Napoleon Bonaparte. Hamilton fled west with what existed of the eastern militias, as the French further went to occupy Annapolis, Baltimore, New York, Boston and Charleston in the opening months of the war on American soil. However, Bonaparte’s forces quickly began to get bogged down in what the Emperor would call the “American Ulcer”. Nevertheless, the occupation and the war continued, even as the War of the Eighth Coalition began in Europe, and British troops from the north entered into the United States to support Hamilton. In 1818, Hamilton died, leaving the presidency vacant - with the Supreme Executive Council never having met since the beginning of the invasion. With no mechanism to legitimately select a new President or Supreme Executive Council under the circumstances, the Instrument of Government fell.

[12] A hero of the war with Bonaparte, promoted to Commander-in-Chief after his liberation of Pittsburgh, Jackson was left in command of what existed of the executive apparatus of the United States. Though some of his officers called for him to declare himself Grand Marshal, and take Gates’ path, Jackson simply assumed the leadership of the United States under the style of Commander-in-Chief, and oversaw the final rollback of Bonaparte’s forces in the country, forcing Michel Ney to surrender the last major French forces in the Siege of Yorktown in 1821. In the Yorktown Proclamation, Jackson summoned a new convention to Philadelphia, to create a new government, but Jackson - long a champion of the rights of the common American - demanded serious reform, including a strong, executive branch, elected by universal manhood suffrage, and the formalization of party politics within a structure designed to maintain it. After much negotiation, and struggle, and more than a few interventions by the Commander-in-Chief, the new Charter of the United States was adopted. Jackson peacefully surrendered power happily to the first directly elected President of the United States, who retained him as Commander-in-Chief, and they remained close friends, despite their disagreements, until the end of Jackson’s life.
 
I'm pleased you carried on with the idea, since it was never really something I had time for.
I’ve been thinking about it a lot and was hoping to get a proper short timeline going, and I still might, but I thought I’d just put this down and come back rather than just set it aside in a document for later. Hopefully something more will be made of it.
 
'The Empire is America 10 years from now'

1969-1987: Richard Nixon (Republican)
1968 (with Spiro Agnew) def. Hubert Humphrey (Democratic), George Wallace (American Independent)
1972 (with Spiro Agnew) def. George McGovern (Democratic)
1976 (with Ronald Reagan) def. Jerry Brown (Democratic)
1980 (with Ronald Reagan) def. Ron Dellums (Democratic-Socialist Alliance)

1987-1987: Ronald Reagan (Independent)
1987-1988: John Connally (Republican)
1988-1988: Alexander Haig (Republican)
1988-0000: Shirley Chisholm (Alliance To Restore Constitutional Government)
1988 (with John Glenn) def. scattered Republican candidates

obviously patti davis and ron reagan are leia and luke respectively
 
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'The Empire is America 10 years from now'

1969-1984: Richard Nixon (Republican)
1968 (with Spiro Agnew) def. Hubert Humphrey (Democratic), George Wallace (American Independent)
1972 (with Spiro Agnew) def. George McGovern (Democratic)
1976 (with Ronald Reagan) def. Jerry Brown (Democratic)
1980 (with Ronald Reagan) def. Ron Dellums (Democratic-Socialist)

1986-1986: Ronald Reagan (Independent)
1986-1987: John Connally (Republican)
1987-1987: Alexander Haig (Republican)
1987-0000: Shirley Chisholm (Alliance To Restore Constitutional Government)
1987 (with John Glenn) def. scattered Republican candidates

obviously patti davis and ron reagan are leia and luke respectively
I carry your heart in mine bob
I carry it in my heart
 
I'm reposting here something Lafinur wrote for Yakutia in WIAF:


1. Independence


In the beginning, there was the Russian Civil War.

The November Revolution of 1917 proceeds as IOTL, but there is a key factor that plays a big role ITTL: China. On March 11 of 1918: In Harbin, General Lu Yongxiang meets with Dmitri Horvath, manager of the Chinese Eastern Railway and governor of the Russian railway zone, and offers to make him leader of the White Russian forces in Siberia, in exchange for his support for Chinese deployment. An agreement is reached, smoothed by a hefty kickback. By late march, the first Chinese forces enter Siberia (a cavalry regiment seizes Khabarovsk. Blagoveshchensk is likewise occupied a few days later) and in April they secure Vladivostok with a division, transported by train from Harbin thanks to Horvath’s cooperation. On May 4, Horvath formally becomes commander of the White troops in Eastern Siberia. The Chinese provide him with funding.

On June 21 of 1918, Horvath appoints a Provisional War Cabinet, its members being a diverse group including former Duma members, among them a Constitutional Democrat, two socialists, Kerensky's former Vice Minister of Communications, a director of the Russo-Asiatic Bank, and General Flug, the former Military Governor of Vladivostok. On July 5th, he transfers his seat of government from Harbin to Chita. A few days later, he appoints Mikhail Khanzhin as his Commander-in-Chief so he can focus on political issues. At the same time, Lu Yongxiang, who has realized that the Czech Legion is now the single most powerful military actor in Siberia, meets with Mikhail Diterikhs, its commanding officer. An agreement is reached for the Chinese to provide the Legion with funds and supplies in exchange for coordination of their respective operations.

During the war, the Chinese work with the Japanese, who will ultimately deploy some 12,000 men at Vladivostok and other parts, somewhat uneasily, and with the Czech and the Whites, who are junior partners in this venture. By February of 1919, the Whites have retaken the northern Caucasus and Poland enters the war against the Soviets, but the Chinese are nevertheless uneasy about White prospects and are ultimately proven correct when Yekaterinburg is captured by the Bolsheviks and the French attempt to take Odessa is defeated, both on March of 1919.

At the same time, Tang Shaoyi, minister of foreign affairs in Liang Qichao’s government, meets with Japanese Prime Minister Hara Takashi. The Chinese, who have begun considering the option of setting up a puppet state in Eastern Siberia, require the tacit approval of Japan, which also has strategic interests in the region. Tang, in exchange for Japanese approval of the scheme, offers Chinese recognition of Japan’s sovereignty over the entirety of Sakhalin—at that point divided between Russian and Japanese zones at the 50° parallel—as well as Japanese privileges over the exploitation of Kamchatka’s resources. The Japanese accept, but also demand, and obtain, the right to create an extraterritorial settlement in Petropavlovsk. Over the following years, Kamchatka will become a de facto Japanese colony, and will be annexed by Japan between 1934 and 1943.

Between 1919 and 1920, the Soviets have taken the initiative and are on the offensive, the White fronts are being crushed one by one; The Chinese begin setting up defensive lines across Siberia, while working on the creation of a puppet-buffer state in Eastern Siberia. By September of 1920, China has annexed Outer Manchuria and Western Xinjiang, and by January the Reds have reached Omsk, in Western Siberia.

On November of 1921, the Soviets reach the Krasnoyarsk line, the last defensive line set up by the Chinese, Czechs and White forces, and the bloody Battle of Krasnoyarsk takes place, ending in a carnage with heavy losses for both sides, forcing an armistice and the signing of the Treaty of Krasnoyarsk: The delineation of the Sino-Soviet and Soviet-Yakutian borders is settled. Yakutia is officially declared an independent country, and Yakutsk is chosen as its capital. Kang Tongfu, third daughter of Emperor Jianguo, is crowned as Queen Khongordzol I; Dmitri Horvath becomes Prime Minister, and Mikhail Khanzhin becomes Chief of Staff.
******​


2. Dimitri Horvath and the 1920s

A wily politician and quick-thinking technocrat, General Horvath surrounds himself with a cadre of capable man, including Chinese advisors, Czech Legion officers, local Siberian talent and even some Russian exiles. With his right-hand man, Radola Gajda, he recruits the help of men like Siberian regionalist and writer, Ivan Serebrennikov, and founds the People's Prosperity Party, Yakutia's ruling party for 24 years. The party is large and heterogeneous, but largely a tool for Horvath to control Parliament and use it as a rubber-stamp. Serebrennikov is elected to Parliament and becomes Speaker of the Lower House, whereas Buryat Bato-Dalai Ochirov becomes Speaker of the Senate.

Just as importantly, between 1921 and 1922, Kang Tongfu, daughter of the Chinese Emperor and future Queen of Yakutia, is touring Eastern Siberia on a good-will tour that also allows her to meet her future subjects and ingratiate herself to them. It is at this juncture that she meets her husband and King Consort, Innocent Alexeyev, and achieves her first PR coup: she travels to the capital, meets with Parliament in the midst of the debate on the monarchy and the royal residence, and refuses to be lodged at a grandiose palace to be built at the expense of the people, and instead asks to reside in the most modest government building that they can afford to give her, insisting that no royal palace should exceed in height, size or cost those of Parliament or the ministries. Thus she gains a reputation as a Citizen Queen who eschews pomp and protocol in favor of a no-frills lifestyle and frequent informal interactions with ordinary people. She also makes a point of staying out of the business of governance.

Around the same time, the White March of Death marks the end of the Russian exodus to Yakutia, which poured tens of thousands of Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Czechs, Mongols and Central Asian nomads on Yakutian soil between 1918 and 1921. The last march of exiles, doomed by the cold, merciless winter of 1922, the soviet post-war repression and the Yakutian desire to normalize relations with Moscow and prevent further violence, ends with the death of tens of thousands, only a few hundreds/thousands reaching Yakutia by the end of the winter.

Geographically, the new country has formal control over most of Eastern Siberia east of the Yenisei, with the exceptions of Kamchatka, under legal and official Yakutian control, but under Japanese economic and political "administration/supervision", thus officially making the peninsula a Japanese protectorate; of Sakhalin, formally annexed by Japan and of Outer Manchuria and Tuva, both annexed by China. The remaining territory is divided into four provinces (Aldan, Angara, Buryatia, Sakha and the Japanese supervised province of Kamchatka), the Federally Administered Military Region of Sayan, the federally administered territory of Chukotka (later a province, in 1945) and the Autonomous Municipality of Irkutsk.

Demographically, Yakutia's population ( 3,039,418 people, of which 40% is Russian, 25% is Turkic, 12% is Mongol, 9% is Yakut, 4% is Chinese and 5% is Jewish) has been boosted by tens/hundreds of thousands of displaced and exiled people from across the Russian Empire, from the steppes of Central Asia to Moscow, from former Russian politicians, writers and artists to thousands of Mongolians and other central asian ethnicities displaced by the Soviets during the war. So it's possible that Yakutia's population at the end of the war is between 3 and a half million and 4 million people, the Chinese, Mongol and Turkic populations being the fastest growing.

Politically, Horvath is somewhat of a strongman with a rubber-stamp parliament, but he mostly acts benevolently and without abuses of power, although accusations of being a Chinese puppet and a autocrat abound. His detractors would even call him "Napoleon of the Arctic", "Little Tsar" and "Ruler of All Icefields." The People's Prosperity Party rules supreme through the 1920s, being stronger in the countryside, where most of the population lives, and with the lower classes than in the cities.

In the cities, we see former Socialist-Revolutionaries led by Mikhail Lindbergh or Pyotr Derber found a Socialist Party, whereas a faction of more moderate Socialist Revolutionaries led by Ivan Yakouchev found the Social-Democratic Party. Russian conservatives led by Vasily Boldyrev, a former officer of comparatively liberal leanings, form the Liberal Party around the same time in the early 1920s, absorbing many Kadets and other moderate exiles from Russia throughout the decade, including the Kadet organization that Pavel Milyukov and Vlamidir Nabokov Sr. found in Irkutsk in 1920.

The 1920s also see the development of the Ethnic and Provincial Parties, created to represent the many actors that play a part in Yakutia's rather complex ethnic framework. A first step is taken when the former poet and now Governor of Sakha, Aleksei Kulakovsky, founds the Yakut/Sakha's People's Party in 1923, as an instrument to cement the position of the Yakut people within Yakutia and better represent their interests in Parliament. Every governor of Sakha for the better part of the century represents the Yakut People's Party, and the same applies to the majority parliamentary representatives to the Lower House and the Senate.

Similarly, the other Turkic peoples, although related to the Yakuts by common ancestry and ethnicity, are separated by religion (Yakuts are Shamanistic, while the other Turkic peoples are Muslim), form their own parties, to provide a voice for the strong local Kazakh population (10% of Yakutia's total population) which has been boosted by the thousands of displaced men and women from central Asia. The Muslim Kazakh party (name pending) eventually forms closer bonds with other Turkic organizations and form an Ethnic Turkic party in the 1920s, which eventually enters into alliance with the Yakut People's Party in the late 1920s, becoming the second largest entity in Parliament after the government People's Prosperity Party.

The third major Ethnic and Provincial Party is the Buryat Party, which effectively controls the southern province of Buryatia, the only province other than Sakha where a single ethnicity is a majority and thus enough to control the entire province.

Horvath's rule also sees a political dominance of Russians, Czechs and Chinese (since Yakutia is basically a vassal of the Qian Dynasty), although Buryats, Mongols and Yakuts are also invited to government. This dominance is extended under Radola Gajda's government.

The years of consolidation and stabilization are mostly peaceful and prosperous for Yakutia, but the Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression puts a damper on East Asia and the world at large. Weakened and aged, Horvath has begun delegating matters on his right-hand man and protégé, the Czech Legion officer, General Radola Gajda.

Gajda and Horvath make a deal with the Ethnic/Provincial Parties: the Yakut People's Party and their Turkic Party allies join the Buryat ethnic party to form the National Rebirth Party, effectively an umbrella party for provincial-level native political formations, and a junior partner to the ruling People's Prosperity Party, which continues to rule thanks to their new-found allies for another 16 years.

Come 1933, Dmitri Horvath retires at the age of 76, leaving General Radola Gajda as Prime Minister of Yakutia, at the age of 41.

******​

3. Radola Gajda and the War against Japan

Young and ambitious, an aggressive officer and Major-General of the Czech Legion at age 26, he was the highest-ranking officer to stay behind when the majority of the veterans left for their new country in Europe, keeping a cadre of talented Czech officers around him. Unlike the conservative, hands-off Horvath, Gajda cultivates a populist streak and takes advantage of the war to implement ambitious policies of industrial development. Gajda, who was IOTL a Czech fascist inspired by Mussolini, is also somewhat more authoritarian than Horvath, as the war forces him to take an unprepared Siberia and turn it into an efficient machine capable of defeating the Japanese. Just how much of Gadja's authoritarianism is due to his personality and how much due to the difficult circumstances that forced all war leaders to make hard decisions later becomes a hotly debated subject for Yakutian historians. Government control over the economy and the populace, conscription, war propaganda and a personality cult of sorts ensue, as does industrialization, militarization and repression of dissident elements and anyone who could be considered Pro-Japanese or Pro-Soviet.

Militarily, Yakutia is a secondary theatre for the war. The Japanese use Kamchatka as a springboard to occupy Chukokta, Chukotka and the entirety of Yakutia's coasts at the Sea of Okhotsk, including Naval Base of Ayan, where most of the Yakutian Navy is destroyed. The Japanese are stopped at the Battles of Nel'kan and the Okhota River, but otherwise the theatre quickly becomes a sideshow. Outside of the occasional Yakutian attempt to retake Ayan or create a diversion to help the Chinese, the front sees little action between 1934 and 1943, when the Americans liberate Kamchatka and the Yakutians liberate Kolyma (which provides the Japanese with rich Goldfields and a great source of funding )and Chukotka.

Demographically, the war sees the migration of tens and hundreds of thousands of people from the countryside to the big cities, as the needs of conscription force people to join the army, and the new factories offer more opportunities than the old farms and mines. Thus cities like Irkutsk, Cita and Deede-Ude experience a demographic and economic boom, and throughout the 1930s and 1940s the mostly rural and agrarian population and economy are replaced by a brimming industrial economy and a working class of proletariats where none was there before.

Politically, there are no elections between 1931 and 1946, and thus we see the Gajda government start as dynamic and populist, but with time grow stagnant, conservative and somewhat authoritarian. Liberals and Social-Democrats support the war and the People's Prosperity Government, even if they're critical of certain measures, whereas the Socialists might be generally more critical. The growth of a strong, urban worker class also has important effects later on, chiefly among them, the formation of a strong labour movement and unions/syndicates.

The most important effect of the war, however, might be the role it had in shaping the Yakutian National Identity and Conscience, turning a hastily formed and chaotic patchwork of ethnicities, religions and peoples and turning them into a single nation, a single identity by which every Yakutian can identify, rather than as a Buryat, a Russian, a Yakut, a Mongol, a Kazakh or a Irkutskian or the like. The threat of the common enemy, the adversity and misery of the war, the mood of general cooperation, the great internal migration from the countryside to the cities, the mass conscription putting Buryats, Yakuts, Mongols, Jews and Chinese into single units and forcing them to bond and face the hardships of war, the war propaganda of the Gadja Government hammering in the idea that "we're all Yakutians, we're all in this together", etc. all contribute to making all Yakutians feel like actual Yakutians, and not like Buryats or Yakuts or Russians living in a rump-pseudo-Russia.

******​
4. Ivan Kirillov

Young, handsome, tall and charismatic, General Ivan Kirillov (b. 1902) made his bones fighting the Japanese in the 1930s and became a household name after he and General Fyodor Okhlopkov led the liberation of Kolyma and Chukotka in the summer of 1943. The feat conquers the heart of the nation and catches the eye of Prime Minister Gajda, who appoints Kirillov as Minister of War and Okhlopkov as commander of the Yakutian theatre. As Minister of War, Kirillov uses his popularity to build a strong base of support among the military brass and the soldiers, who already worship him as the "Hero of Kolyma." He might also be appointed Deputy Prime Minister to Gajda, if Gajda tries to further sponge off Kirillov's popularity.

Kirillov nevertheless proves too popular and too independent for Gajda to handle and the breaking point comes in mid-1945; the war now over, the nascent worker's movement in the big cities demand for their rights to be recognized and their voices be heard, as well as several concessions including ending martial law/state of emergency /emergency economic measures/salary freezes during the war, etc. Gajda of course wants to hear nothing about this and threatens to end the strikes by force and even forcibly conscript the strikers if necessary and send them to Kolyma, Kamchatka or Japan on occupation duties.*

Faced with the possibility of a general strike and national upheaval, Gajda is cornered and this is where Kirillov steps in, negotiating with the workers and assuring that no military measure would be taken against strikers, neither arrest, violent break-ups nor conscription. Already the hero of the people and the lower classes, Kirillov is now also the hero of the workers, whereas Gadja sees this as an act of open betrayal and thinks that Kirillov has sided with the workers. Paranoid and insecure, Prime Minister Gajda works to isolate Kirrilov and his clique, eventually forcing the young and popular General to resign his post as Minister of War/Deputy PM and announce his intentions of running for Parliament in the next general elections, which Gadja still refuses to call.

The Queen has thus far been neutral in all of this, although rumours persist that she prefers Kirillov to Gajda. 12 years in government have left Gajda as paranoid, authoritarian, polarizing and growingly unpopular, as the good-feelings left by the end of the war and the victory over Japan have ended and made way for a sense of resentment against Gajda's authoritarianism, refusal to end the emergency measures and call for elections, and especially, his very public confrontation with the idol of the masses, Kirillov. Cornered and increasingly unpopular, Gajda asks the Queen to dissolve Parliament and calls for an election to be held on February of 1946. Emanuel Moravek, a Czech legion officer and Gajda's right hand man (could be his Chief of the General Staff, personal Secretary or just a prominent minister) becomes Gajda's appointed successor and leader of the People's Prosperity Party for the upcoming 1946 elections.

Standing against him is Kirillov, around whom massive support begins to coalesce as the days and weeks pass. The first party to proclaim Kirrilov's candidacy is the Yakut People's Party, the Ethnic-Provincial party that dominates Sakha Province, effectively meaning that the provincial party has left the National Rebirth Coalition and thus, the Gajda government. To this support one can add that of the Yakutian Labor Party, funded in the midst of the 1945 anti-Gajda crisis/strikes to oppose the PPP and Gajda government, and then that of a faction of Yakutian conservatives that leave the Liberal Party to form the National Liberal Party. Completing the picture is the Independent Socialist Party, formed by a breakaway faction of the mainline Socialists. Thus these United Parties form a Kirillovist Front against Moravek and the People's Prosperity Party/National Rebirth Coalition. The mainline Liberals, Socialists and Social-Democrats might choose to support Kirillov by not presenting candidates in certain provinces, as they see their chances to oppose the two big coalitions as null, anyway.

While officially a race between Kirillov and Moravek, the election quickly becomes an issue of Kirillov versus Gajda, resulting with a considerable victory of the United Parties under Kirillov over the Gajdaists, thus ending 24 years of PPP rule in Yakutia. Kirillov's personal popularity also means that hundreds of thousands of Buryats, Kazakhs, Kamchatkans, Jews and Mongols now identifying as Yakutians rather than as Buryats, Kazakhs, Kamchatkans, Jews and Mongols vote for Kirrilov and his coalition rather than for the National Rebirth Party or the local ethnic-provincial parties. Thus the share of the vote of the Ethnic-Provincial parties is nearly halved, their parliamentary representation reduced and left only controlling the province of Buryatia. All the other provinces see the election of Kirillovist governors.

The 1946 Election, the first in nearly 12 years, also sees hundreds of young men being first elected to Parliament, most of them on the Kirillovist ticket, thus making this the greatest changing of the old guard in Yakutia's electoral history. Before the election, the medium age for an MP would have been 50-60, whereas in 1946 it would be 35-45. Among the prominent men first elected in 1946 there are four future Prime Ministers of Yakutia: Vladimir Novikov (39, a Kirrilov man) the social-democrat Dmitry Khodulov (34), Vladimir Borsoev (40, elected on the PPP ticket, later switches to the Socialists) and Vsevelod Pepelyayev (33, elected as a Kirillovist National Liberal).

Public works, government reforms, workers' rights are all landmarks of the Kirillov Government.

file.php
 
My Darkness Live (pt. 1)

---

a.k.a.

GambinoPunk

---

2017-2021: Donald J. Trump (R-MA) / Michael J. “Mike” Pence (R-IN)
2016: Hillary Clinton (D-MA) / Tim Kaine (D-SD)
2021-2025: Roy A. Cooper III (D-NC) / Karen Bass (D-CA) [2]
2020: Donald J. Trump (R-NY) / Martha McSally (R-AZ)[1]
2025-2033: Kelda Roys (D-MI) / Tim Wu (D-NY) [3]
2024: N. S. “Nikki” Haley (R-SC) / T. R. “Thom” Tillis (R-NC)
2028: Cliff Pirtle (R-NM) / Mike Pompeo (R-KS), Jack N. Gerard (MS-UT) / Kevin Lee Faulconer (MS-CA)[4]

2033-2037: Cliff Pirtle (R-NM) / Callista L. Gingrich (R-GA) [5]
2032: Ron Nirenberg (D-TX) / Christina Hartman (D-PA)
2037-2045: Tessa L. Thompson (D-NY) / Ian Calderon (D-CA) [7]
2036: Cliff Pirtle (R-NM) / Callista L. Gingrich (R-GA) [6]
2040: Ryan Peters (R-NJ) / Francesca Roy (R-TX)


[1] Klobuchar, Harris, Gillibrand, and Gabbard all traded places for over a year and a half as the “future” of the Democratic Party, and because of ceaseless vote-splitting and four platforms that to the average voter were more or less “Yas Kween” – none of them were. Instead it was the quiet man from North Carolina – Governor Roy Cooper – who would inch ahead, winning South Carolina (and many of the states to come) by a narrow margin, and parlaying what had at first looked like an O’Malley-esque tribute candidacy into a real foothold on the moderate end of the party. Still, with strong credentials on opioid abuse, gay rights, and voter suppression (and a wise VP choice in Representative Bass, who became the first black woman on a major party ticket), Cooper roused the base enough to push to a stable victory over President Trump’s lackluster re-election campaign. Trump didn’t even bother going to Cooper’s inauguration.

[2] Cooper ended up wishing he hadn’t gone either - Putin’s ultimate ouster was sweet, yes (and scared most Republican contenders out of the water) but also took a number on the world economy, and Cooper, whose every instinct told him to push broad policies through the narrow Democratic majority in Congress, was pilloried for not going far enough. Some corners still resented him for winning over “more inspiring” nominees, for his inability to be a rabble-rouser, his utter lack of desire to be an “anti-Trump”. He even started getting challengers. It added up to a mess, all in all – a mess that got a lot worse when Susan Sarandon won Iowa. It took New Hampshire as well, and another awkward press conference where the President tried to tip-toe around the fact that he’d just lost to an Oscar winning 77-year-old, before he threw in the towel. The field split wide open.

[3] And the winner was – to the gratification of much of the party – a woman: Governor Roys of Wisconsin, to be precise. She hadn’t run in 2020, inexperienced and rightfully wary of the mud-slinging that would ensue – and in 2024, her steely, poised campaign celebrated Roy Cooper’s (few) accomplishments and crushed Maura Healey, Tammy Duckworth, and Susan Sarandon into the ground. Picking Congressman Wu as running mate (where Cooper had failed to restore Net Neutrality, Wu had literally coined the term) – Roys was proud to talk about the economic turnaround she’d led in Wisconsin, and won an razor-thin victory over former Ambassador Nikki Haley, despite the economic nosedive. (Pollsters looked askance, at it, after the fact – white Republican support for Haley had plunged during the actual election, for some reason.)

[4] Roys unveiled Vocational School For All, guaranteed union rights to an unprecedented degree, restored campaign finance protections, and most of the public – didn’t even notice: the Republican Party had just broken into all-out civil war. Haley and Trump supporters quarreled in the streets or (more frequently) on the Internet, in a dispute that started just seconds after the Ambassador’s graceful concession speech. Apologize to the American people, or go on the attack? Campaign on competency – or charisma? Republicans answered none of these questions, instead nominating young Senator Cliff Pirtle of New Mexico, known largely for his opposition to Daylight Savings Time, receptiveness to Hispanic voters, and well, bushy beard. Pirtle was rugged but inoffensive, and Republican moderates, who seemed to have counted on the nominee being Literally Steve Bannon, were rather taken aback. All they could dredge up to counter Trumpism was an old oil tycoon and an ex-Mayor of San Diego, and the Main Street Party contested one election before going quietly into the night.

[5] Pirtle, on the other hand, was back in 2032, and with a real platform this time. It was time to move beyond the past; beyond the tensions of 2016 and onwards, beyond even the tired policies of the 60s and 40s that Roys had tried to resurrect, beyond the old foreign and economic grievances. It was time for America to Try Something New. Bit of an odd message, coming from a man who had lost four years before and who basically wanted Smiley Happy Trumpism – but Nirenberg was bland in his own right, and 12 straight years of Democrats had been more than enough for most Americans. Pirtle won in a walk.

[6] And then walked into a mess. Easy enough to preach “Try Something New” on the campaign trail – a bit tough to watch the Saudi government fall and stand idly by; to see UBI implemented in fits and starts that satisfied no one, to see new treaties with Russia proposed and then retracted because they were "too Trumpian". For all that the Pirtle administration was trying to be ethical, it also, frankly, had no clue where it was going. His successor would not face that problem.

[7] Governor Thompson had been an outspoken progressive for decades before she first ran for office, and her two terms as Governor of New York lived up to that – reforming everything from state hiring processes to the mental health system to the UBI exchanges themselves. But what finally spurred her to run was a crisis away from home – Mandatory Gene Modification – the pseudoscientific “strategy” that tinpot dictators were leaping on around the world. “Our Children, Our Choice!” said the posters, and Thompson beat Pirtle like a rug. The U.S. settled in for 8 years of various sanctions and little more – with one exception. Thompson’s whirlwind trip to Russia, and subsequent rapprochement with Premier Sontsova (a mix of shitty science and a shitty economy meant that Russia was lagging behind in the Gene Race) was a rare example of the U.S. flexing – for once – its diplomatic muscles. The subsequent alliance was surprisingly durable.

It needed to be.
 
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1935-1945: W.L. Mackenzie King (Liberal)
1935 (Majority) def. R.B. Bennett (Liberal-Conservative), J.H. Blackmore (Social Credit), J.S. Woodsworth (CCF), H.H. Stevens (Reconstruction)
1940 (Majority) def. R.J. Manion (National Government), W.D. Herridge (New Democracy - Unity), J.S. Woodsworth (CCF - Unity), Tim Buck (Communist - Unity)
1945 (Majority) def. A.C. Macphail (Unity), Arthur Meighan (Liberal-Conservative)

1945-1955: M.J. Coldwell (Liberal)
1950 (Majority) def. John Bracken (Unity), J.G. Diefenbaker (Liberal-Conservative)
1955-1961: William H. Temple (Unity)
1955 (Minority) def. M.J. Coldwell (Liberal), J.G. Diefenbaker (Liberal-Conservative)
1956 (Majority) def. M.J. Coldwell (Liberal), J.G. Diefenbaker (Liberal-Conservative), Réal Caouette (Union des electures)

1961-1970: Jean Lesage (Liberal)
1961 (Majority) def. William H. Temple (Unity), Réal Caouette & M.A. MacPherson (UDE-Independent Conservative), J.G. Diefenbaker (Liberal-Conservative)
1965 (Majority) def. William H. Temple (Unity), Réal Caouette & M.A. MacPherson (UDE-IndCon), J.G. Diefenbaker (Association of Canadian Taxpayers)

1970-1974: Réal Caouette (Freedom Movement)
1970 (Majority) def. Jean Lesage (Liberal), William H. Temple (Unity), J.G. Diefenbaker (ACT)
1974-1976: Jean Lesage (Liberal)
1974 (Minority) def. Réal Caouette (Freedom Movement), W.H. Temple (Unity), J.G. Diefenbaker (ACT)
1976-1980: Paul Hellyer (Liberal)
1976 (Alliance Majority) def. Réal Caouette (Freedom Movement), J.G. Diefenbaker (ACT), W.H. Temple (Unity)
1980-1982: Brian Mulroney (Liberal)
1980 (Majority) def. J.G. Diefenbaker (ACT), Paul Hellyer (Free & United Future)
1982-1994: Neil Reynolds (Libertarian)
1982 (Minority) def. Brian Mulroney (Liberal), Pierre Trudeau (Left Coupon)
1985 (Majority) def. Ralph Goodale (Liberal), Pierre Trudeau (Left Coupon), Kathryn Cholette (Green)
1989 (Majority) def. Ralph Goodale (Liberal), Steve Langdon (Left Coupon),
Kathryn Cholette (Green)
1994-1996: Bill Vander Zalm (Libertarian)
1994 (Majority) def. John Manley (Liberal), Steve Langdon (Left Coalition), Kathryn Cholette (Green)
1996-1997: Myron Thompson (Libertarian minority)
1997-Present: Brian Mulroney (Independent Liberal - The Green Solution ‘97)
1997 (Majority) def. Myron Thompson (Libertarian), Kathryn Cholette (The Green Solution ‘97), John Manley (Liberal), Steve Langdon (Left Coalition), Keith Martin (Social Credit - The Green Solution ‘97)
 
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It Happened Here... I think?

1929-1937: Herbert Hoover (Republican)
1928 (with Charles Curtis) def. Al Smith (Democratic)
1932 (with Charles Curtis) def. Al Smith (Democratic)

1937-1949: Charles Lindbergh (Republican)
1936 (with Hamilton Fish III) def. Huey P. Long (Democratic)
1940 (with Hamilton Fish III) def. Millard Tydings (Democratic), Fiorello H. LaGuardia (Non-Partisan League)
1944 (with Gerald P. Nye) def. James F. Byrnes (United Front - Democratic, Non-Partisan League)

1949-1957: Douglas MacArthur (Republican)
1948 (with Dwight H. Green) def. Harry F. Byrd (Democratic), Henry A. Wallace (Non-Partisan League)
1952 (with Dwight H. Green) def. Norman Thomas (Socialist), Earnest Sevier Cox (Democratic)

1957-1961: George Bell Timmerman Jr. (Democratic)
1956 (with Joe McCarthy) def. Victor G. Reuther (Socialist), Everett Dirksen (Republican)

The May 15th Incident of 1932 turns into an actual coup, with the ultra-militaristic 'League of Blood' successfully assassinating not only the Prime Minister of Japan but his son, the heads of several zaibatsus, and possibly most importantly of all, Charlie Chaplin. The League hurriedly established a 'Showa Restoration' and immediately sabre-rattled America into reacting to the threat. By June, America and Japan are at war.

FDR doesn't receive the Democratic nomination, concerns about his health having a greater impact when the war with Japan trumps the economic situation. Al Smith receives the nomination and suffers the same disquiet at the prospect of a Catholic President that he did in 1928. With America under seemingly mortal threat, woefully unprepared against the modern despotism of Japan, Hoover pulls off a narrow electoral college victory.

Over the next four years, America rapidly rearms and militarises, the sheer effort of this endeavour managing to mitigate unemployment and bring about a shuddering recovery from the worst of the Great Depression. Conscription helps too. For the first few years, there is something of a Phoney War, mostly fought at sea. However, the industrial might of America begins to tell, coupled by crippling sanctions from the League of Nations. The very instability of Japan's military government doesn't help either with assassinations of prominent figures being alarmingly regular. By 1936, a newly enlarged US Navy had forced Japan out of the Pacific and was preparing for an invasion of the Home Islands. The war had also taken on a distinctly unpleasant tone, much like the Pacific War of OTL but lacking any of the mitigating factors of a wider war against fascism.

Charles Lindbergh sweeps the Republican Convention, on a platform of Smashing The Jap and ensuring America's place in the Sun. Two bloody years later, the Commonwealth of Japan had been created, under American protection. A not insignificant amount of the old Japanese Army had fled to Manchuria and there with the Kwantung Army had hunkered down. Lindbergh debated about pursuing the war, but the respectable showing of Long in '36 showed the American people had an appetite for peace. The end of conscription and the slowing of armament led to the economy taking a nosedive again, the seeming recovery having been built on sand and Lindbergh soon began casting about for a new war to restart growth.

He got his chance when the Pact of Steel unleashed armageddon upon Europe. Lindbergh had American factories begin a programme of Lend-Lease, a new demand and a new market for weaponry that saw the economy begin to grow again. Disquiet over this arrangement led to the emergence of the Non-Partisan League, which performed well in the dusty ruin of the old Plains States and in industrial centres. The Democrats had begun to withdraw back into their comfortable Southern heartland but there was a degree of alignment here as the left-leaning NPL was opposed to fascism and Southerners largely backed the British led Entente over the German led Pact of Steel.

American troops entered China and in fighting the Kwantung Army, came up against Mao's Communists who perceived the Yankee invader as little better than the Japanese one. After one too many firefights against Soviet armed militias, and with the Pact advance into Russia slowing and even reversing, Lindbergh led America into the bloodbath in 1942. Given that, he decided to run for an unprecedented third term in 1944 and faced his greatest challenge yet, as the Democrats and NPL formed a United Front. Sadly the United Front simply had too little weight behind it and was tainted by the affiliation of the Communists. America recognised Puyi as Chinese Emperor and ended the conflict with the Kwantung Army, drawing them into their sphere of influence to fight the Communists.

By the time of the 1948 presidential election, the world was at peace once more. If you could call it peace. All the world lay under the rule of the Pact of Steel, forged between Germany, Italy and America. Douglas MacArthur, former Governor of Japan and Hero of Vladivostok, won in a landslide. The Democrats, seeing which way the wind was blowing, teetered back into the rhetoric of white supremacy. Where there was hope, it was in the NPL which formally merged into the Socialist Party in 1949. The Socialist performed surprisingly well in 1952, as America's war-driven economy stuttered and her youth bled itself white in the Occupation of China. By 1956, with the Pact of Steel crumbling and Germany vaunting its achievements in atomic power and rocketry which left America in the dust, the opposition had grown weighty enough to produce a hung electoral college in which the Socialists came first, followed narrowly by the Republicans. A corrupt deal ensued in which the Democrats and Republicans conspired to prevent racial egalitarians from taking power.

It's evening now in America.
 
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@AlfieJ

#FBPE

2016-2019: Theresa May (Conservative)
2017 (Minority, with DUP confidence and supply) def. Jeremy Corbyn (Labour), Nicola Sturgeon (Scottish National), Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat), Arlene Foster (Democratic Unionist), Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein)
2019-2019: Jeremy Corbyn (Labour)
2019 (Majority) def. Theresa May (Conservative), Nicola Sturgeon (Scottish National), Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat), Arlene Foster (Democratic Unionist), Mary Lou McDonald (Sinn Fein)
2019-2021: Nick Houghton, Baron Houghton of Richmond (Crossbencher leading Progressive Directorate, with Back Together and Military backing)
2021-2025: Philip Lee (Back Together)
2021 (Progressive Unity List) def. scattered independents
2025-2029: James Chapman (National Progressive Union)
2025 (Sole Legal Party) def. unopposed

Nobody paid much attention to the steady radicalisation of a certain section of Remain voters. Anna Soubry and Chuka Umunna flounced off with a few hangers on to create Back Together but barely held on to the three seats in 2019 when Labour won the most paper thin of majorities over Theresa May who was still leader mostly because no one else wanted to bear the responsibility. But in the first few months of the Corbyn premiership, a few more Labour MPs defected to Back Together, and his proposals for radically reforming the military was the last straw. A military coup, backed by Back Together, formed a so-called Progressive Directorate. A bare handful of people from other parties agreed to participate, in a government which made its objectives military preparedness against Russia, rejoining the European Union and forming a sensible, centrist economic policy.

Of course, the EU was a little bit worried about reopening negotiations with Britain at all, let alone with a military dictatorship which had dressed itself in garments of progress. But in the face of an increasingly unstable Vladimir Putin sabre-rattling in the Baltic, they agreed to allow Britain to have a 'Special Arrangement' that was supposed to encourage a transition back to proper democracy.

This path back to democracy would prove difficult, as it became clear that the Progressive Directorate's policies had simply forced more of the population into identifying as Leavers. Scotland and Northern Ireland were returned to semi-civilian rule fairly rapidly, given that the SNP and the new government in Stormont were willing collaborators. But in England and Wales, the grip only tightened. Finally, it became clear that the EU would no longer tolerate continued military rule, and an election was held in which only parties on the Progressive Unity List were allowed to stand and the ballot paper simply asked Yes or No.

What the new 'Guided Parliament' did not expect was that Back Together's partners on the ballot would prove troublesome. The SNP wanted independence, the Fianna Fail majority in Northern Ireland wanted reunification of their island, the New Social Democrats wanted more left wing economic policy, the Christian Democrats wanted to re-examine social policy. Four years of infighting ensued, encouraged by the scattering of Independents who had managed to win seats. The nail in the coffin for British democracy was the European Emergency that occurred as the EU had to deal with its Special Arrangement with Britain. The somewhat authoritarian states of Eastern Europe saw this as cart blanche for them to formalise their de facto domestic arrangements, while populist Eurosceptic parties of both right and left flavours got a shot in the arm as the reality of trying to argue with Brussels or implement anti-austerity economic policies sank in. As the established order crumbled in Italy, France and even Germany, Russia was able to move into the Baltics with nary a shot fired. The petty squabbles that dominated the Unity List could not be allowed when the real issue of the day was the Russians interfering in other countries. The Progressive Unity List was merged into a single party and opposition parties were banned. The more troublesome MPs from the List parties were purged.

It was a new day in Great Britain.

Ha! Fantastic stuff Bob :) Enjoyable list from a really stupid premise :)
 
Not what I decided to use for my Utopia/Glass half full world but something I thought was at least worth a brief write up.

"Cannot Be Won And Must Never Be Fought"

1981-1988: Ronald W. Reagan / George H. W. Bush (Republican)
1980: James E. Carter / Walter F. Mondale (Democratic), John B. Anderson / Patrick J. Lucey (Independent)
1984: Walter F. Mondale / Geraldine A. Ferraro (Democratic)
1988-1989: George H. W. Bush / Lynn M. Martin (Republican)
1989-1997: Mario M. Cuomo / Charles S. Robb (Democratic)

1988: Marion G. “Pat” Robertson / Alan K. Simpson (Republican)
1992: H. Ross Perot / John S. McCain III (Independent), Patrick J. Buchanan / M. Elizabeth A. H. Dole (Republican)
1997-2001: Charles S. Robb / Michael S. Dukakis (Democratic)
1996: A. Lamar Alexander, Jr. / Jack F. Kemp (Republican), H. Ross Perot / Angus S. King, Jr. (Reform)
2001-2009: J. Danforth Quayle / Christine Todd Whitman (Republican)
2000: Charles S. Robb / Michael S. Dukakis (Democratic), William J. Clinton / Jesse G. Ventura (Reform)
2004: Richard A. Gephardt / Joseph I. Lieberman (Democratic)
Ronald Reagan was not over the course of his administration the most popular President in American History, but by the mid 1980s he had secured a more-than-comfortable reelection and was viewed by most Conservative Republicans to have delivered on being the promised figure after decade upon decades of defeat and betrayal since Bob Taft had the nomination stolen from him in 1952. His charisma was enough to at least leave most Americans outside of the GOP roughly content with the idea that at the very least, the President meant well, though for many Americans, specifically Racial, and Sexual Minorities he could only at best be said to be disinterested and at worst malevolent as Crack and AIDS wracked their way across the country.

His 1986 summit with his new Soviet counterpart Gorbachev turned everything though. Reagan the hawk and Reagan the madman and Reagan the fiercest Anti-Communist in America made an offer to the USSR, massive cash injections, investment and grain discounts, almost whatever the General Secretary could ask for if the USSR would agree with Reagan to walk forward into the glorious morning of a world without Nuclear Weapons. After intense consultation with his economic and military advisers Gorbachev agreed. Reagan had not consulted with anyone outside of his inner circle, who were opposed but none the less using the Bully Pulpit of his office he forced it forward. The 1987 Disarmament Treaty, that followed used up all of Reagan's political and diplomatic capital but eventually Mitterrand and Thatcher came aboard and within a year of its signing so too would Deng, the United Nations Security Council Powers all agreed, by 2001 none of them would maintain nuclear arsenals, with a small stockpile to be maintained under UN auspices for a further ten years, all to be done under a legion of observers and full disclosure. In America Democrats were baffled, divided and torn as Reagan flew to Stockholm to accept a Nobel peace prize. The Republicans were equally confused and enraged but even as they'd been bullied into helping secure a one vote majority to approve the Treaty, most were sharpening the knives in preparation for revenge.

Republican would use Iran Contra as a weapon to destroy their President in a fit of madness, the rage and division overflowed forcing George H. W. Bush to stand down after the New Hampshire Primary in 1988, and no matter what he could do or say he was unable to lead the party back towards decorum or unity, in the end the intensely divisive political novice from Virginia won the nomination repelling moderate Republicans as the GOP became for a time, no more then a component of the Evangelical Moral Majority. Democrats were barely able to keep the lid on things themselves, settling on a compromise position about the Reykjavik Treaty, cautious optimism and demands for withdrawal clauses if any power started to cause questions. With victory certain and popular pressure intense, Mario Cuomo jumped into the race comfortably securing the nomination before winning a landslide victory on par with that of Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

Cuomo would spend his term attempting to revitalize American Social Liberalism and fighting off the "New Democrats" and Jerry Brown types who while holding a good deal of momentum suddenly seemed to have lost any means of claiming that they could win back the Reagan Democrats. Cuomo's great foreign policy victory would come in 1990 when the second Reykjavik Treaty would see many other potential or actual nuclear powers such as Post-Apartheid South Africa, India, Pakistan, Israel, Argentina and Brazil agree to join in the nuclear weapons ban. By the end of the Century nearly every country in the world had signed on, with notable exceptions including Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the DPRK, and the Junta in Myanmar.

1992 would see divisions in the Republican Party into a disastrous third place as Pat Buchanan's need to talk about the nazis in a less then negative light doomed the campaign and caused his Vice Presidential nominee to resign the ticket in an October surprise that was never quite worked out. In 1996 Gorbachev and Cuomo would meet in Helsinki and agree to an official end to the Cold War, with very quiet US Intelligence Aid being provided to help the Soviets deal with the growing danger of the Islamic Insurgency in its Central Asian Republics.

Vice President Robb was easily able to brush off a Primary challenge by Senator Al Gore and defeat a resurgent GOP as well as the Reform Party which rode high after Perot's impressive result in 1992. Robb would oversee a booming economy and liberalize trade with the PRC while maintaining Cuomo's domestic politics and expanding them with the passage of the 1998 American Healthcare Act.

In 2000 Robb though would be defeated, mostly due to party fatigue and the world for a moment held its breath. Dan Quayle, the first Republican President in twelve years campaigned talking tough as the final countdown to disarmament approached, and many feared that he would toss the whole treaty apart. In the end he would meet with the new Soviet Premier, in Istambul shortly after the transition from the USSR to the USS, and agreed to stay the course. In 2002 the last US and Soviet warheads, a pair of gravity bombs were officially dismantled. While the last Chinese bombs would be dismantled a week later and questions about the Iraqi arsenal would remain until the UN-NATO Air Campaign toppled the regime there in 2007 that date, 15 years after Reagan had sacrificed everything became known as Disarmament Day, which over the past few years has slowly moved towards being a government recognized holiday in the United States.

It is said that Ronald Reagan, long ago having ridden off into the sunset of disgrace and dementia watched the official ceremony at his home in California, in the few lucid years he had left between his impeachment and the loss of his mind he had developed a close friendship with his one time rival and then brother-in-arms as far as being an exile from his own party went, Jimmy Carter who was with him for the ceremony, and would deliver the eulogy at his funeral two years later, noting that whatever their differences were, Reagan had gladly accepted the costly burdens of making the world a safer place. And while few Republicans or Democrats would ever be willing to publicly admit it, as the world moved forward without the nightmare of nuclear winter and atomic horror hanging above it the results seemed to speak for themselves.
 
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