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Lists of Heads of Government and Heads of State

Tonight I learned about... Whoa boy
Best quote from his Wikipedia article:

Despite having failed to secure a presidential nomination from even minor national parties in three different elections over a dozen years, Holdridge would always claim to have been nominated by the Vegetarians and the Prohibitionists, an achievement of such ephemeral value that no reporter ever questioned it.
 
1979-1987: Margaret Thatcher (Conservative)
1979: James Callaghan (Labour), David Steel (Liberal)
1983:
Michael Foot (Labour), Roy Jenkins & David Steel (SDP-Liberal Alliance)
1987-1991: Cecil Parkinson (Conservative)
1987: Robin Cook (Labour), Shirley Williams & David Steel (SDP-Liberal Alliance)
1991-1992: Robin Cook (Labour)
1991 (Minority): Cecil Parkinson (Conservative), David Penhaligon (Alliance), David Owen (Social Democratic)
1992-1999: Tom King (Conservative)
1992: Robin Cook (Labour), David Penhaligon (Alliance), David Owen (Centre)
1994 Devolution Referendums:
Scottish Assembly:
55% YES, 45% NO
Welsh Assembly: 48% YES, 52% NO
English Mayoralties: 53% YES, 47% NO
1996: John Prescott (Labour), David Penhalion (Alliance 2000)

2000-2010: Cherie Booth (Labour)
2000: Tom King (Conservative), Nicol Stephen (Alliance 2000)
2002:
Michael Fallon (Conservative), Robert Kilroy-Silk (Centre), Nicol Stephen (Alliance)
2003 SchillingZone Referendum: 51% YES, 49% NO
2006: Theresa May (Conservative), Jenny Tonge (Alliance), Robert Kilroy-Silk (Centre)

2010-2011: Hilary Benn (Labour)
2011-2019: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative)

2011: Hilary Benn (Labour), Hugh Pym (Alliance)
2015: Tamsin Dunwoody (Labour), Hugh Pym (Alliance), Stewart Hosie (Scottish National)
2019-2022: Mark Clarke (Conservative)
2020 (Coalition with Alliance): Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Labour), Liz Truss (Alliance), Stewart Hosie (Scottish National), Martin Daubney (Centre)
2022-: Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Labour Minority)

A brief diplomatic kerfuffle in the South Pacific did little to dent the rising popularity of the Conservative Party over the course of 1982, with the recovering economy vindicating the monetarism, Labour wracked with infighting and the Alliance proving to be something of a fad. It was little surprise when, the next year, the Tories won 364 seats and a majority of eighty. By 1987, with privatisations, deregulations and and economic boom behind her it was widely assumed that Margaret Thatcher could stay on and win a third term. Instead she chose to retire early in 1987, her apparently minor injury in the Brighton Hotel Bombing proving to be more serious and long-lasting.

She was comfortable retiring because her protégé and Foreign Secretary won an easy victory on the first ballot on a platform of continuity. However, a complacent and frequently disorganised Tory campaign was caught offguard by the performance of the young Robin Cook, whose leadership had been up to this point rather beleaguered and beset by infighting, seen by many as a factional "replacement" after Neil Kinnock's near-fatal car accident during the 1983 leadership election. While the eventual Tory majority of ten was ultimately not the worst case scenario for the Tories, the tight majority meant that the pace of Thatcherite reforms slowed to a crawl as economic and foreign policy crises mounted towards the end of the decade and it was the Tories' turn to be beset by infighting as the Iron Lady publicly disowned her protégé. By 1991 he had lost his majority and his government fell to a vote of no confidence.

The Labour victory was not the sea-change that was hoped for. The Labour Party won only nine more seats than the Conservatives and 90,000 fewer votes, and nonexistent margin of error inflamed factional divisions from the dying hard left. The Cook Ministry was reliant on support from both the Alliance and the breakaway Social Democrats and soon the government's survival became a proxy fight over the collapse of the original SDP-Liberal Alliance three years previously. A motion of no-confidence and a miscount of MPs by Labour whips felled the Cook Ministry only nine months in office. The whole experience, as well as the comfortable Tory majority that followed, led many to conclude that the Tories truly were the natural party of government and question Labour's long-term viability.

That Tory victory was not a natural occurrence. Parkinson was initially determined to stay on and fight another election, encouraged by his popular vote win. But a well-timed leak of a decade's worth of philandering ended his political career. While Westminster anticipated a bloody battle between Parkinson's previous leadership rival and a hard-right Thatcherite, Tom King emerged as a consensus candidate with Heseltine's backing, and in government received a wide-ranging portfolio for political and economic reform. Regional Development Zones emerged across the country, the pace of privatisations resumed and most consequentially an agenda of devolution that came to receive cross-party consensus, even if it remained controversial in on the government benches. In the late 1990s the King-Hezza pact became undone by the question of European integration as the SchillingZone gathered pace, culminating the dramatic sacking of Michael Heseltine and a snap election that would resolve big questions in the party and country once and for all.

Labour had gone through another period of infighting and bloodletting post-Cook, which undoubtedly cost them many seats and Mayoralties in devolved administrations. Eventually, after the death of Donald Dewar, the party settled on his polar opposite. Urbane, upper class and always more popular with the public than her her party colleagues, Cherie Booth was considered to be a last throw of the dice in the face of a probable third Tory victory. A strong performance in the campaign ("Cheriemania" became something of a worldwide phenomenon) combined with the global tech bubble abruptly bursting worldwide put Booth in office with a majority of thirty. A raft of social and economic reforms and a long economic boom led Booth to three successive majorities. Her foreign policy was more troubled, attempting to row back her predecessor's commitments to the multitude of interventions in the former Soviet Union. Her efforts to join the single currency nearly broke her premiership, and it was only the backing of Cook (soon returned to cabinet) that enabled the Chequers compromise, where the Booth Ministry agreed to go into the next election on a platform of a referendum on the Single Currency.

This plan was nearly derailed by the resignation and defection of Defence Secretary Robert Kilroy-Silk, who single-handed lit revived the moribund and increasingly Eurosceptic Centre Party into a properly populist outfit that would give headaches to prime ministers for years and decades to come. Booth was later heard to remark that her trusting Silk was one of the worst mistakes of her premiership.

Ultimately, Booth was not felled by Silk, or Europe or the conservatives, but by the Long Recession from 2008 onwards making her party and her country increasingly intolerant of her foibles. Her charm became elitism, increasing scrutiny was paid to her husband and his unscrupulous clients and the Tories finally stopped feuding with one another and focused their fire on the Labour Party. Booth jumped before she was pushed at the ten year mark, satisfied to have outlasted Thatcher.

The extent that Mitchell had properly modernised his party is up for debate: it was definitely less male and pale and had mostly settled down on the Schilling question, but veered quickly to the right in government, happily pushing through many of the same austerity measures proposed by fellow members of the Schillingzone. He was more concerned with foreign affairs, reviving the interventionist mindset of the King years with interventions in Turkey and securing weapons of mass destruction left insecure during the Russian civil and earning plaudits around the world for his shuttle diplomacy. This was less received by his party who even after sailing to re-election had come to view him as aloof and disinterested in the wants and needs of Britons. Mitchell took the hint and resigned at the eight year mark, replaced by the arch-schemer who had helped engineer his retirement.

In spite of public popularity and a youthful vigour brought to government, almost every wing of the party had misgivings about the many rumours and schemes that surrounded Mark Clarke. While the hard lurch to the right and a “war on woke” seemed to initially temper the revivals of the Centre Party, Clarke botched a winnable election and was forced into coalition with another arch-schemer. While Truss’s own vision of “Classical Liberalism” were close to Clarke’s political goals, the two personalities frequently clashed and brought Whitehall into deadlock. Eventually, the pair’s gambits ran out and the Scottish Socialist with the woke, Marxist agenda Clarke had long dogwhistled about was kissing hands with the Queen.
 
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If QAnon is so fake, how come Q was John Adams’ son and the sixth President, John ‘Q’ Adams? Checkmate libs.


One senses an oncoming storm, perhaps

1825-1828: Andrew Jackson (Republican)
1824 (with John C. Calhoun) def. John Q. Adams (Republican), William H. Crawford (Republican), Henry Clay (Republican)
1828-1829: Andrew Jackson (Democratic)

The narrow victory of Andrew Jackson in the 1824 election began a new age in American politics: the age of the common man. Long having languished under the aristocratic pretensions of the Founders' elitist republic, the people had finally risen, and had put one of their own in the White House, the hero of the war of 1812. But for many, this victory was not enough. In 1825, as Jackson chaffed against Congresses unwilling to dissolve the national bank and rumours began to swirl of a failed attempt to deny him the Presidency in Congress the previous year, a series of mysterious pamphlets began to appear at the homes of prominent Democrats in Washington. Little noticed at first, these pamphlets signed 'Quintus Aelius Tubero' (after the famously plain spoken Stoic and Tribune of the Plebs) contained the most outstanding rumours. Tales abounded in them of secret plots by the elite, an alliance between Alexander Hamilton and the British army which had created a secret cadre in the Federalist Party dedicated to overthrowing the American republic, mysterious occult rituals performed by leading supporters of John Quincy Adams, and the covert manoeuvres of the President to defeat this evil cabal.

These rumours remained the stuff of hushed back room chatter between zealous Jacksonians, little known or cared about, until the day one of Quintus’ pamphlets fell into the hands of Edwin Crosswell, editor of the Argus, that venerable organ of van Buren’s ‘Albany Regency’. That was in 1826, amidst the difficult battle between the Clintonites and ‘Bucktails’ for mastery of New York, and Crosswell saw Quintus’ ravings as an opportunity to tip the balance against Governor Clinton and in William Rochester’s favour in that year’s tight gubernatorial race. And so it came to pass that ‘Quintus’ came to New York. His movement never looked back. Though the claim that Clinton was a “British stooge” and possible a pedophile Satanist was baseless and ludicrous, condemned by President Jackson and his enemies alike, it seemed to work. Or, at the very least, the Bucktails felt it had tipped enough votes their way to win their election, and soon enough Quintus’ memoranda were being delivered en masse by Tammany Hall - for many historians, this was the beginning of the “Q Letter” mania.

Quintus’ pamphlets, many signed simply Q, quickly spawned a whole genre of American poison pen letters, but a distinctive style quickly emerged which marked out the authentic missives from Quintus. These letters, combative, blunt, and outlandish spoke universally of a coming “storm” in which President Jackson would destroy his enemies and save the republic. Mass arrests would see crypto-Federalists interned or executed, and the secret forces controlling American life - particularly bankers and Free Masons - would be destroyed. President Jackson, still struggling with crypto-Federalists, Adams supporters, and Clayites in Congress neither denied or accepted Quintus' support, but the ambiguity of his response helped to fuel rumours that Jackson really was moving as Quintus' pamphlets and letters suggested. The growing sense that a quiet civil war was raging was only heightened by the Tariff Crisis of 1827, and the secession of South Carolina avoided only by military force - that crisis gave Quintus' theories a shot in the arm, just in time...

In late 1827, the effects of the Second Cholera epidemic began to be felt in the United States. The young nation was obviously unprepared - and unwilling - to take action to deal with its first major public health emergency, but Quintus was all too willing to portray it as a plot by the British and the Federalists. Perhaps such nonsense would have gone unheralded, had it not been for the leaking of the 'Number 7 Letters' by an exiled British diplomat in New York. Whilst widely (and, we now know, falsely) accused of being forgeries, the letters galvanised the President's supporters to see plots and cabals everywhere. So-called 'Quintians' began to seek office en masse, and by 1828 the newly formed 'Democratic Party' had been overrun. Whilst Jacksonian populism, and the smears against Jackson's assumed rival John Quincy Adams, were indeed popular, Quintianism was too much for respectable gentlemen both North and South. The 1828 election would see Henry Clay take enough votes from both men to force another contingent election, and as February neared, the fog of civil war loomed over the young country.

It was, then, unsurprising that the date of the contingent election, February 11th 1829, was one of calamity. Neither a Presidential nor Vice Presidential selection was at all certain, and with a significant minority of Jacksonians riled up, some began to feel it necessary to take matters into their own hands. The match that lit the powder keg came with Quintus’ last and most incendiary pamphlet of the campaign, which the pro-Jackson United States Telegraph quickly copied into their paper, containing a series of accusations that, amongst other things, Adams had publicly sought to persuade his wife to leave her former husband, his father had hopes to establish the family’s hereditary succession to the Presidency, that the National Party intended to abolish slavery and grant the vote to all former slaves, promote miscegenation in the south, and reform the plantation economy by redistributing land, and that Adams had schemed to give Henry Clay the State Department in return for his supporters’ votes in Congress. For many Democratic partisans it was all too much, and as the House met to try and hash out a compromise, it’s security was overwhelmed and angry rioters entered the chamber.

When the dust had settled, by most standards the riot had been far from disastrous: an attempt to hang Vice President Calhoun by insurrectionists flowing into the Senate had failed, and only a handful of Congressman had been injured and one killed as fighting between the National Guard and protestors (as well as some Representatives and Senators) raged in the Capitol. After the Quintians and insurgents had been cleared, however, it became clear that they had snatched defeat from the jaws of a possible victory. With President Jackson erring on whether or not to condemn his rivals, and embattled congress selected the National slate for the presidency. Tarred with the brush of his supporters’ treason, and avoiding impeachment only thanks to the partisanship of his congressional supporters, Jackson skulked in the White House until the end of his term, and skipped Adams’ inauguration.

1829-1848: John Q. Adams (National)
1828 (with John Sergeant) def. Andrew Jackson (Democratic), Henry Clay (Whig)
1832 (with John Sergeant) def. Andrew Jackson (Democratic)
1836 (with John Crittenden) def. John C. Calhoun (Democratic), Martin Van Buren (Whig-Democrat), Andrew Jackson (Quintus Movement) [did not accept nomination]
1840 (with William H. Seward) def. Henry Clay (Whig-Democrat), Andrew Jackson (Quintus Movement) [did not accept nomination], James Henry Hammond (Democratic)

With the beginning of the Adams administration, it was hoped that the Quintus panic would vanish - such hopes were quickly revealed to be naive. The coronation of the Quintus movement's great enemy, the conspiracy theories intensified, but at the same time pre-existing fractures began to intensify. The Second Sedition Act of 1829, passed to try to curb the "wicked Jacobin terrorism" of that February helped to prevent further Quintus inspired violence, and it just so happened that it helped in the destruction of the Democratic Party. In 1832, Jackson rode again amidst accusations of 'sedition' from the federal government, but his popular vote victory was not translated into a return for the White House, and with his retirement from politics, his movement fractured, and along with it so did Quintus' following.

By 1836, with Adams seeking an unprecedented third term, a certain sort of Quintianism - toned down, less obsessed with Satanism and the occult - had taken hold in the mainstream Democratic Party, and fuelled the "anti-tyranny" campaign of John C. Calhoun. But this hidebound defence of "slave power" against an Adams administration increasingly using abolitionism to secure Northern support caused a rift with the van Burenites, who allied with Henry Clay's followers to oppose Adams' pursuit of a third term. Likewise, Calhoun was outflanked from the other angle by a "pure" Quintianism, which continued to advocate for mass executions, a crusade against Nationalist Satanism, and war with Great Britain: when, two months after his ascension to the Democratic nomination as a compromise candidate, the ambitious rising star James Henry Hammond was revealed by his own patrons to be a serial sexual abuser and pedophile, the 'Quintus Movement', once again running a despondent former President Jackson despite his own protestations, was able to surge into third place, and guarantee a fourth term for Adams.

Nonetheless, the simple question "Who was Quintus?" remains unanswered, but entertain a curious anecdote, if you might. In 1831, the young abolitionist and anti-Quintian journalist William Lloyd Garrison began an investigation into the sources of the - then far less regular - 'True Q' pamphlets which still emerged from time to time. After months of searching, it became clear that their source was in Washington. Though Garrison died in a horrific carriage accident some days later, and his findings were not brought to light for over a century afterwards, in the last hastily drawn up notes for his investigation he left one curious phrase. Quintus, or Quincy?


Disclaimer: Obviously this list plays with, and to some extent 'realises' QAnon tropes and conspiracies. Hopefully its clear that as I am not a nutter, I don't intend this to be read as some lame and nutty parallel for anything going on today, its just a bad joke.
 
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War on Terror, End of an Empire

2001-2009: George W. Bush Jr./Dick Cheney (Republican)
2000 Def. Al Gore/Joe Lieberman (Democratic)
2004 Def. John Kerry/John Lewis (Democratic) and Dennis Kucinich/Amy Goodman (Independent; "Impeach Bush")

2009-2013: David Petraeus/Ken Blackwell (Republican)
2008 Def. Howard Dean/Jim Gray (Democratic)

2013-2017: Deval Patrick/Judy Chu (Democratic)
2012 Def. David Petraeus/Ken Blackwell (Republican) and Dennis Kucinich/Julian Bond Sr. (Alliance For Peace and Justice) and Jimmy McMillan/Robert Conley (Conservatives Against the War on Terror)

2017-2021: Ken Blackwell/Devin Nunes (Republican)
2016 Def. Deval Patrick/Judy Chu (Democratic)

2021-????: Micheal Render/Lori Wallach (Democratic)
2020 Def. Ken Blackwell/Devin Nunes (Republican) and Ana Navarro/Ed Rendell (Never-Render)

A quick and basic list based on an idea that I had last night. The basic premise here is that a much worse 9/11 (one that takes out the pentagon maybe?) and a more effectively handled early Iraq Occupation gives the American Government the public support they need to begin accelerating the War on Terror, with the assistance of Bush's new "Coalition of the Willing". After Syrian terrorists, angered by the United States' continued interference in the regional affairs of the Arab World, take hostages at Sears Tower in a widely publicized three-day standoff, the United States begins an invasion of Al-Assad's Syria in 2005 and later lead a U.N Peacekeeping force into a war-torn Lybia (courtesy of a CIA-backed coup). However, overextension and war fatigue begins to weigh down on the United States and eventually, situations that were already starting to go bad, namely the Syrian Intervention, begin to get much worse.

From there, we get a war hero General as President, who subsequently fails to respond to the collapse of the housing bubble and eventually the student loan debt bubble before fumbling Iraq and Syria even further with his failed "Surge" strategy. Petraeus's failure gives way to a trailblazing Massachusetts Governor who promises to withdraw the troops from Syria and begin working on the economy, before subsequently doing neither of these things, resulting in former Vice President Blackwell coming back for a narrow electoral college victory in 2016. But Blackwell's immensely controversial nature, particularly his failed fight to ban abortion at 12 weeks, the release of the "Syrian Prison Documents" revealing American war crimes in the Middle East, and an incredibly slow economic recovery not helped by the lazie-fiare economic program of the Republican Party, puts his approval ratings into questionable areas come 2020. The man who succeeds him is arguably an even more polarizing figure, a populistic former rapper turned Atlanta Mayor who openly identifies himself as a "socialist" and talks about ending the U.S Empire entirely with giddy anticipation. Currently, the United States future is uncertain.


I think I might have a few more ideas in mind for this TL; Might expand on it later.
 
One senses an oncoming storm, perhaps

1825-1828: Andrew Jackson (Republican)
1824 (with John C. Calhoun) def. John Q. Adams (Republican), William H. Crawford (Republican), Henry Clay (Republican)
1828-1829: Andrew Jackson (Democratic)

The narrow victory of Andrew Jackson in the 1824 election began a new age in American politics: the age of the common man. Long having languished under the aristocratic pretensions of the Founders' elitist republic, the people had finally risen, and had put one of their own in the White House, the hero of the war of 1812. But for many, this victory was not enough. In 1825, as Jackson chaffed against Congresses unwilling to dissolve the national bank and rumours began to swirl of a failed attempt to deny him the Presidency in Congress the previous year, a series of mysterious pamphlets began to appear at the homes of prominent Democrats in Washington. Little noticed at first, these pamphlets signed 'Quintus Aelius Tubero' (after the famously plain spoken Stoic and Tribune of the Plebs) contained the most outstanding rumours. Tales abounded in them of secret plots by the elite, an alliance between Alexander Hamilton and the British army which had created a secret cadre in the Federalist Party dedicated to overthrowing the American republic, mysterious occult rituals performed by leading supporters of John Quincy Adams, and the covert manoeuvres of the President to defeat this evil cabal.

These rumours remained the stuff of hushed back room chatter between zealous Jacksonians, little known or cared about, until the day one of Quintus’ pamphlets fell into the hands of Edwin Crosswell, editor of the Argus, that venerable organ of van Buren’s ‘Albany Regency’. That was in 1826, amidst the difficult battle between the Clintonites and ‘Bucktails’ for mastery of New York, and Crosswell saw Quintus’ ravings as an opportunity to tip the balance against Governor Clinton and in William Rochester’s favour in that year’s tight gubernatorial race. And so it came to pass that ‘Quintus’ came to New York. His movement never looked back. Though the claim that Clinton was a “British stooge” and possible a pedophile Satanist was baseless and ludicrous, condemned by President Jackson and his enemies alike, it seemed to work. Or, at the very least, the Bucktails felt it had tipped enough votes their way to win their election, and soon enough Quintus’ memoranda were being delivered en masse by Tammany Hall - for many historians, this was the beginning of the “Q Letter” mania.

Quintus’ pamphlets, many signed simply Q, quickly spawned a whole genre of American poison pen letters, but a distinctive style quickly emerged which marked out the authentic missives from Quintus. These letters, combative, blunt, and outlandish spoke universally of a coming “storm” in which President Jackson would destroy his enemies and save the republic. Mass arrests would see crypto-Federalists interned or executed, and the secret forces controlling American life - particularly bankers and Free Masons - would be destroyed. President Jackson, still struggling with crypto-Federalists, Adams supporters, and Clayites in Congress neither denied or accepted Quintus' support, but the ambiguity of his response helped to fuel rumours that Jackson really was moving as Quintus' pamphlets and letters suggested. The growing sense that a quiet civil war was raging was only heightened by the Tariff Crisis of 1827, and the secession of South Carolina avoided only by military force - that crisis gave Quintus' theories a shot in the arm, just in time...

In late 1827, the effects of the Second Cholera epidemic began to be felt in the United States. The young nation was obviously unprepared - and unwilling - to take action to deal with its first major public health emergency, but Quintus was all too willing to portray it as a plot by the British and the Federalists. Perhaps such nonsense would have gone unheralded, had it not been for the leaking of the 'Number 7 Letters' by an exiled British diplomat in New York. Whilst widely (and, we now know, falsely) accused of being forgeries, the letters galvanised the President's supporters to see plots and cabals everywhere. So-called 'Quintians' began to seek office en masse, and by 1828 the newly formed 'Democratic Party' had been overrun. Whilst Jacksonian populism, and the smears against Jackson's assumed rival John Quincy Adams, were indeed popular, Quintianism was too much for respectable gentlemen both North and South. The 1828 election would see Henry Clay take enough votes from both men to force another contingent election, and as February neared, the fog of civil war loomed over the young country.

It was, then, unsurprising that the date of the contingent election, February 11th 1829, was one of calamity. Neither a Presidential nor Vice Presidential selection was at all certain, and with a significant minority of Jacksonians riled up, some began to feel it necessary to take matters into their own hands. The match that lit the powder keg came with Quintus’ last and most incendiary pamphlet of the campaign, which the pro-Jackson United States Telegraph quickly copied into their paper, containing a series of accusations that, amongst other things, Adams had publicly sought to persuade his wife to leave her former husband, his father had hopes to establish the family’s hereditary succession to the Presidency, that the National Party intended to abolish slavery and grant the vote to all former slaves, promote miscegenation in the south, and reform the plantation economy by redistributing land, and that Adams had schemed to give Henry Clay the State Department in return for his supporters’ votes in Congress. For many Democratic partisans it was all too much, and as the House met to try and hash out a compromise, it’s security was overwhelmed and angry rioters entered the chamber.

When the dust had settled, by most standards the riot had been far from disastrous: an attempt to hang Vice President Calhoun by insurrectionists flowing into the Senate had failed, and only a handful of Congressman had been injured and one killed as fighting between the National Guard and protestors (as well as some Representatives and Senators) raged in the Capitol. After the Quintians and insurgents had been cleared, however, it became clear that they had snatched defeat from the jaws of a possible victory. With President Jackson erring on whether or not to condemn his rivals, and embattled congress selected the National slate for the presidency. Tarred with the brush of his supporters’ treason, and avoiding impeachment only thanks to the partisanship of his congressional supporters, Jackson skulked in the White House until the end of his term, and skipped Adams’ inauguration.

1829-1848: John Q. Adams (National)
1828 (with John Sergeant) def. Andrew Jackson (Democratic), Henry Clay (Whig)
1832 (with John Sergeant) def. Andrew Jackson (Democratic)
1836 (with John Crittenden) def. John C. Calhoun (Democratic), Martin Van Buren (Whig-Democrat), Andrew Jackson (Quintus Movement) [did not accept nomination]
1840 (with William H. Seward) def. Henry Clay (Whig-Democrat), Andrew Jackson (Quintus Movement) [did not accept nomination], James Henry Hammond (Democratic)

With the beginning of the Adams administration, it was hoped that the Quintus panic would vanish - such hopes were quickly revealed to be naive. The coronation of the Quintus movement's great enemy, the conspiracy theories intensified, but at the same time pre-existing fractures began to intensify. The Second Sedition Act of 1829, passed to try to curb the "wicked Jacobin terrorism" of that February helped to prevent further Quintus inspired violence, and it just so happened that it helped in the destruction of the Democratic Party. In 1832, Jackson rode again amidst accusations of 'sedition' from the federal government, but his popular vote victory was not translated into a return for the White House, and with his retirement from politics, his movement fractured, and along with it so did Quintus' following.

By 1836, with Adams seeking an unprecedented third term, a certain sort of Quintianism - toned down, less obsessed with Satanism and the occult - had taken hold in the mainstream Democratic Party, and fuelled the "anti-tyranny" campaign of John C. Calhoun. But this hidebound defence of "slave power" against an Adams administration increasingly using abolitionism to secure Northern support caused a rift with the van Burenites, who allied with Henry Clay's followers to oppose Adams' pursuit of a third term. Likewise, Calhoun was outflanked from the other angle by a "pure" Quintianism, which continued to advocate for mass executions, a crusade against Nationalist Satanism, and war with Great Britain: when, two months after his ascension to the Democratic nomination as a compromise candidate, the ambitious rising star James Henry Hammond was revealed by his own patrons to be a serial sexual abuser and pedophile, the 'Quintus Movement', once again running a despondent former President Jackson despite his own protestations, was able to surge into third place, and guarantee a fourth term for Adams.

Nonetheless, the simple question "Who was Quintus?" remains unanswered, but entertain a curious anecdote, if you might. In 1831, the young abolitionist and anti-quintain journalist William Lloyd Garrison began an investigation into the sources of the - then far less regular - 'True Q' pamphlets which still emerged from time to time. After months of searching, it became clear that their source was in Washington. Though Garrison died in a horrific carriage accident some days later, and his findings were not brought to light for over a century afterwards, in the last hastily drawn up notes for his investigation he left one curious phrase. Quintus, or Quincy?


Disclaimer: Obviously this list plays with, and to some extent 'realises' QAnon tropes and conspiracies. Hopefully its clear that as I am not a nutter, I don't intend this to be read as some lame and nutty parallel for anything going on today, its just a bad joke.

Holy shit.

That’s

That’s brilliant.

Thank you.
 
Holy shit.

That’s

That’s brilliant.

Thank you.
Thats utterly hilarious. Admittedly I think a better comparison might be the Illumanti panic in the 1790s but I also get the literary value of Q.
@Cevolian that list was very good. I really liked the part where it shows a split between Calhoun and Jackson, something that happened IOTL, but happens here as well and played well to show an analogue.
Thanks lads, glad it’s tickled people a bit!

FWIW I think Japhy is right that either Illuminati mania or anti-Masonry is the better parallel, but I came up with the joke first and story second. I think there’s certainly terrain for a more serious version of the idea though.
 
All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace:
1961-1969: John F. Kennedy (Democratic)
1960 (With Lyndon B. Johnson) def: Richard Nixon (Republican)
1964 (With Lyndon B. Johnson) def: Barry Goldwater (Republican)

1969-1973: Robert F. Kennedy (Democratic)
1968 (With Hubert Humphrey) def: Ronald Reagan (Republican), George Wallace (American Independent)
1973-1979: Tom McCall (Republican)
1972 (With Millicent Fenwick) def: Robert F.Kennedy (Democrat), George McGovern (Citizens)
1976 (With Millicent Fenwick) def: Henry M. Jackson (Democrat), Eugene McCarthy (Libertarian)

1979-1981: Millicent Fenwick (Republican)
1981-1989: Jerry Brown (Democratic)

1980 (With Gary Hart) def: Millicent Fenwick (Republican), Ronald Reagan (New America)
1984 (With Donald M Fraser) def: Paul Laxalt (Republican), Murry Bookchin (Green)

1989-1997: William Scranton III (Republican)
1988 (With William Weld) def: Donald M. Fraser (Democratic), Russell Means (Libertarian), Ralph Nader (Green)
1992 (With William Weld) def: Al Gore (Democratic), George Lucas (New Frontier), Tony Mazzocchi (People’s)

1997-2005: John Perry Barlow (New Frontier Alliance)
1996 (With Stephen Gaskin) def: William Weld (Republican), Al Checchi (Democrat), Karen Silkwood (People’s)
2001 (With Neal Stephenson) def: Michael Huffington (Democratic-Republicans), Pat Cardigan (New Agenda), Bernardine Dohrn (People’s)

2004 (Presidency Abolished, Replaced with U.S. Communications Coordinator)

"The original promise of the Californian ideology was that the computers would liberate us of all the old forms of political control, and we would become Randian heroes in control of our own destiny. Instead, today, we feel the opposite — that we are helpless components in a global system, a system that is controlled by a rigid logic that we are powerless to challenge or to change.” - Adam Curtis, 2011

America is having an interesting 21st Century, after the late part of the 20th Century was all about that "Spaceship Earth" rational technocracy idea preached by the Zen Guidance of Brown and Scranton. The Presidency has been replaced with the office of Communications Coordinator, anything that can be done with computer is done with one, the democracy of old has been replaced by an internet one in which people vote for there representatives through forums and blogs. Miles upon miles of fibre optic networks spread across the land of America. Everyone has power they say...

Of course that is a lie, America has become for all intensive purposes a consumer democracy and this won't be changing anytime soon. Oh well, at least humanity is merging closer and closer with there machines more and more...
 
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Spirit of '68

1969-1974: Richard Nixon (Republican)
1968 (with Spiro Agnew) def. Hubert Humphrey (Democratic), George Wallace (American Independent)
1972 (with John Connally) def. George McGovern (Democratic), John V. Lindsay (Liberal)

1974-1975: John Connally (Republican)
1975-1977: Carl Albert (Democratic / National Unity Administration)
1977: DISPUTED
1976; Willis Carto (American Independent), Nobody (write-in), Carl Albert (Democratic), Gerald Ford (Republican)
1977-0000: Willis Carto (American Independent)
1977-0000: Abbie Hoffman (Youth International), as Chief of Staff to President Nobody
1977-0000: Carl Albert / Gerald Ford (National Unity Co-Presidency)
 
Fully Automated Luxury Technocratic Social Democracy or YANG!

United States Senators From Wisconsin Since 2023


Class 3:

20xx-2023: Ron Johnson

2023-20xx: Mandela Barnes (Democratic)

2022 Def. Sean Duffy (Republican) and David Clarke (Independent)
2028 Def. Robin Vos (Republican)
2034 Def. Loren Oldenburg (Republican)

Class 1:

20xx-2025:
Tammy Baldwin (Democratic)

2025-2031: Kevin Nicholson (Republican)
2024 Def. David Crowley (Democratic)

2031-20xx: Marina Dimitrijevic (Democratic)
2030 Def. Kevin Nicolson (Republican)
2036 Def. Matt Walker (Republican)

Presidents of the United States of America

2021-2025:
Joe Biden/Kamala Harris (Democratic)
2020 Def. Donald J. Trump/Mike Pence (Republican) [306-232]

2025-2029:
John James/Mitt Romney (Republican)
2024 Def. Kamala Harris/Roy Cooper (Democratic) and Austin Petersen/Angela McArdle (Libertarian) [290-248]

2029-2037: Andrew Yang/Darren Soto (Democratic)
2028 Def. John James/Mitt Romney (Republican) [334-204]
2032 Def.
Donald Trump Jr./Heather Whitestone (Republican) [392-146]

2037-20xx:
Marina Dimitrijevic/Sabrina Cervantes (Democratic)
2036 Def. Ariana Rowlands/Tom Takubo (Republican) [299-239]

A Few Fun Features of This TL Include:


-Below average Biden Adminstration defined by a painfully slow Covid recovery process and largely failed temporary bouts of "bipartisanship" that fails to both get anything meaningful done or even break the continued political deadlock despite a Democratic majority
-Increased rates of domestic terrorism and political militancy throughout most of the 2020s; Shootings, street fights, and the lot at first, but eventually larger scale attacks from groups like the Proud Boys and Augustus Sol Invictus's new outfit, The Legion, begin later during the James Adminstration (wonder why lol)
-A, for lack of a better phrase, limp dick climate bill that finally establishes a carbon tax and provides immense resources to build carbon capture technology, as well as some new regulations, but little else
-2022 Republican wave, with a few exceptions in the Senate, where the Democrats manage to pull off a few victories where prime opportunities present themselves to prevent a total wash
-Climate change rapidly worsens over the course of the 2020s; The 2024 Hurricane Season is one of the worst ever recorded
-Vice President Harris, expectedly, dispatches the minimal opposition to her nomination despite Biden's mediocre approval ratings
-Michigan's young rising Governor James makes a late entrance into the 2024 Republican field and quickly rises to the front of the pack after a series of excellent debate performances propels him over a host of other figures, including Tom Cotton, Mike Lee, Ivanka Trump, Nikki Haley, and Adam Anderzejowski
-James defeats Harris amid widespread protests, a weak economy, unpopular civic policies, and political deadlock
-President James, the second black President, oversees widescale resistance to police violence, the adoption of a protectionist trade policy, conflict over trans and non-binary issues, street battles between far-right and far-left militias, the conversion of social security into state-subsidized 401k packages, increasing automation of service industry jobs, a "state of total war" against Boko Haram in Africa, a Republican climate bill that is somehow even worse than Biden's, and a housing crisis that certainly doesn't help the American economy, barely recovered from Covid
-2022 and 2026 both provide the Democrats with a decent bench, the result being a huge field of over 21 candidates aching to challenge President James
-After Michigan, the new first primary state for the Democrats, the race narrows down to a few top contenders, the most notable being NYC Mayor Andrew Yang, Nevada Senator Maya Harris, Illinois Senator Kwame Raoul, and Texas Senator Chuck Rocha; Yang, running on a platform that calls for rebuilding the American economy by increasing the purchasing power of working people, wins New Hampshire, before follow up victories on Super Tuesday cement him as the front-runner
-2028 is a very internet-defined campaign, and Yang's skill in using the internet as an effective medium of communication is ultimately what gives him the victory against James in a landslide; Already seeing his initial popularity fade below 40%, Yang is able to get both his criticisms of the James Adminstration and his own platform to more and more people, increasing turnout and handing the Democrats a massive victory, even giving us a Democratic Louisiana and Mississippi for the first time in Decades
-Yang's congressional majorities and allies in high places allows him to implement much of his most popular policies fairly quickly; Legalized and regulated recreational marijuana and soft drugs and the release of non-violent drug offenders, a massively reformed immigration system that provides an easy path to citizenship (albeit with "skilled" workers prioritized above others), a bill requiring employers to always employ human workers before automating the task, the indexation of the minimum wage to the cost of living, the demilitarization of municipal police departments, the importation of cheaper Canadian drugs for medicare, the capping of insulin at 40$ monthly, the adoption of the metric system, expanded internet neutrality and privacy regulations, and a large scaling back of the United States' foreign military presence were all accomplished within the first year of Yang's Adminstration
-Other aspects are more tough; Sapped of political capital due to an ongoing political crisis in Russia and Yang's "War on Domestic Extremism", the President is forced to put a hold on his Freedom Dividend, which saw a successful pilot in New York during his Mayoralty, as well as other major programs
-While we never do get to see a M4A style Single Payer system in the United States, Yang manages to shepard through the creation of a Federal Health Insurance company, with the United States adopting a Mixed-Model Healthcare System; Talks of a similar publicly-owned pharmaceutical company being created go nowhere under Yang, but Dimitrijevic had proposed creating one under her Adminstration
-Yang's Climate Bill(s) are actually fairly extensive, utilizing the large amount of public support and political momentum to enact wide-reaching programs and policies; Most famously, the Department of Energy is tasked with overseeing the building of over 5,000 miles of solar and wind farms in the largely uninhabited parts of the Southwest and Appalachia. As of 2037, the program had succeeded in building over 3,000 miles of both and creating what is estimated to be over several hundred thousand jobs in total related to the project
-We all get to enjoy the silly spectacle of an election between two Reddit Guys in 2032, Trump's spawn and Pennsylvania Governor Donald "Donny" Trump Jr.; Given that Yang is both A. Facing approval ratings averaging at about 61% and B. Inarguably the more likeable Reddit Guy between the two of them, Yang wins in a landslide promising to expand NASA, fund education more, create the Freedom Dividend, and ensure a more equitable America, while Trump's calls to "Make America Great Again... Again!" and reignite the nationalist right fall mostly on deaf ears amidst a time of relative peace and happiness unseen in decades
-Yang's second term sees the beginning roll out of the Freedom Dividend to much fanfare, albeit whittled down to only 2,500$ monthly rather than 4,000$ monthly as originally planned due to a decreased Democratic majority, the implementation of a universal childcare program, the creation of a relatively progressive taxation system, and the funding of a manned mission to Mars, among other things
-Yang initially wants to see his Vice President, Former Florida Governor Darren Soto, take over his torch, but the Vice President suprisingly doesn't have much interest in the seat; Instead, the 2036 Democratic Primaries comes down to a three way contest between Wisconsin Senator Marina Dimitrijevic, Vermont Governor Kesha Ram, and popular commentator Natalie Wynn, better known as contrapoints, who becomes the first trans person to win a Presidential Primary
-California Senator Ariana Rowlands, the first Republican Senator from California since the 90s, outmaneuvers Texas Governor Tory Nehls, Michigan Senator Peter Meijer, House Speaker Nick Feritas, and Florida Governor Pam Bondi to become the Republican nominee
-Marina Dimitrijevic holds the line against the Republicans, riding Yang's popularity and her own prominence in the fight for the expansion of climate legislation to endear herself to much of the American public; Dimitrijevic defeats Rowland 53%-47%, promising to continue Yang's political program
-As of the current date, things can basically go anywhere; Dimitrijevic is facing a Republican Majority Congress, even if it is bare, and Democratic voter fatigue is beginning to set in quicky. If Dimitrijevic can't effectively utilize executive authority to get things done, something Yang was extremely hesitant to do, it's most likely that a Republican victory in 2040 is on the horizon. The People's Republic of China also looks westwards wearily, the new leadership of the CCP seeking the forge a more economically independent path for China, not to mention the nationalist duo of India and Russia causing constant trouble in Eurasia. Things may get very rough here very soon. But hey, at least the wages are high, the air is fairly clean, I can afford an automated SMART apartment and these skin grafts are making me look and 20 years younger!




 
Oh well, at least humanity is merging closer and closer with there machines more and more...

EtEHVHJWMAAfKJ1
 
History of Benedict Arnold:
1741-1756: Private Citizen
1756: Private, Connecticut Militia
1756-1775: Private Citizen
1775: Captain, Connecticut Militia
1775: Colonel, Massachusetts Militia
1775-1776: Colonel, Continental Army
1776-1777: Brigadier General, Continental Army
1777-1785: Major General, Continental Army
1785-1789: Senior Officer of the U.S. Army

1785: Promoted by the Continental Congress
1788-1789: Candidate for President, Federalist [10 Electoral Votes]

1789-1797: Secretary of War
1789: Appointed by President Washington
1792: Candidate for President, Federalist [1 Electoral Vote]

1797-1801: Vice President of the United States
1796: Candidate for President, Federalist [64 Electoral Votes]
1801-1802: Private Citizen
1800: Candidate for President, Federalist [63 Electoral Votes]
1802-1807: Superintendent of the United States Military Academy
1802: Appointed by President Jefferson
 
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