The Twenty-Ninth HoS Challenge

[Walpurgisnacht]

I think we can all agree that we're Proud of making HoS Lists! [aide whisperers frantically in ear] Uh, the goal of my content has always been to entertain,

The rules are simple; I give a prompt, and you have until 4:00pm on the 27th (or whenever I remember to post the announcement on that day) to post a list related to the prompt. As for what constitutes a list? If you'd personally post it in Lists of Heads of Government and Heads of State rather than another thread, I think that's a good enough criterion. Writeups are preferred, please don't post a blank list, and I'd also appreciate it if you titled your list for polling purposes. Once the deadline hits, we will open up a multiple choice poll, and whoever receives the most votes after a week gets the entirely immaterial prize.

In case anyone gets concerned, I haven't suffered some terrible accident. Instead, I've just been knackered from studying for exams and putting this off. In times of total exhaustion like these, it's traditional for organisers of events to fall back upon the shoddy material of the past that's left over, which is why this month's challenge is a Do-Over. Contestants may pick any theme previously used for one of these challenges (stating which one they're tackling in their post) and do their list on that. Those of you with too many ideas, or ideas you're unable to finish--this is your chance.

Good luck.

 

[Steve Brinson]

My Hero, Spiro
or,
Fear, Loathing, and Old Bay
or,
ATLF: Fear, Loathing, and Gumbo on the Campaign Trail '72, but only the parts I actually remembered reading

(This entry corresponds to HoS List Challenges #9 ["The Return"] and #24 ["ATLFs"]).

1969-1973: Richard M. Nixon (Republican)
1973-1973: Spiro Agnew (Republican, acting)

'72 Richard M. Nixon (R), John J. McKeithen (Democratic), and George C. Wallace (AIP) advance to contingent election over George McGovern (Peace)​

'72 Spiro Agnew (R) def. Birch Bayh (Democratic) in contingent Vice Presidential election​

1973-1973: Spiro Agnew (Republican)

'73 John J. McKeithen (Democratic, deceased) wins contingent election; as McKeithen is ineligible, Agnew succeeds to Presidency​

1973-1976: James Gavin (no party affiliation)

'73 Agnew resigns facing impeachment​

'73 William Scranton (R) appointed Vice President​

1976-1977: William Scranton (Republican)

'76 Gavin assassinated by Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña​

1977-1981: Spiro Agnew ("Agnew" Republican)

'76 (with John B. Connally) def. Ted Kennedy (Democratic), William Scranton ("Main Street" Republican)​

'78 Connally resigns​

'78 Phyllis Schlafly (Republican) appointed Vice President​

1981-1981: Richard M. Nixon (Republican/Alliance)

'80 (with Reubin Askew) def. Spiro Agnew (Republican)​

1981-1985: Reubin Askew (Democratic/Alliance, then Moderate)

'81 Nixon dies of phlebitis​

'81 Margaret Heckler (Republican/AHP) appointed Vice President​

1985-1988: Phyllis Schlafly (Republican)

'84 (with John Porter East) def. Reubin Askew (Moderate)​

We all know the story. Louisiana Governor John J. McKeithen emerges out of nowhere in 1972 to take the Presidential nomination, then manages - just barely - to deadlock the Presidential race against Nixon. As George Wallace holds the Presidency hostage for segregation and his own ambitions, the Senate selects Agnew for the Vice Presidency (and thus the Acting Presidency) by a single vote - his own. Agnew's disastrous Acting Presidency and an assassination attempt on former President Nixon lead the man to make a deal with McKeithen to resolve the situation, just in time for McKeithen to die in a plane crash of all the things. But as Agnew's Presidency continues to circle the drain, his past corruption back in Maryland catches up to him, and his decision to pardon himself only exacerbates the crisis. Impeachment and replacement with James M. Gavin, an almost universally respected general without partisan affiliation, solves the problem - particularly after Agnew decides to jump before he's pushed, trusting in the American people to understand him as a victim and act accordingly.

Gavin's Presidency got off to a bad start. As Agnew made his way to the redoubts of the right-wing press and nascent talk radio, Gavin worked feverishly to bring an end to the Vietnam War just as other crises were building. The economic situation had already been undermined by Nixon's inflationary policies and the previous year's political uncertainty; as the Middle East spiraled into war, rising oil prices only exacerbated the issue, plunging the United States into a level of economic sickness not seen since the Thirties. Meanwhile, despite the better efforts of Secretary of State Nixon, China repudiated the thaw in relations and plunged into renewed terror, while Brezhnev's sudden death led to bloody power struggles in the Soviet Union. An organized and militant right wing, led on by a network of policy institutes and agitprop spigots, organized, winning control of the House in the 'Bloodbath of '74' as safe Democratic seats across the South and Midwest fell to right-wing cadres. Gavin himself would be dead just months before his term was up, with the FALN linking up with the remnants of the Weather Underground (and, allegedly, with Cuban intelligence) to assassinate him with a car bomb. With Ted Kennedy's campaign bogged down in the Senator's own baggage and conflicts with his own party, the way was clear for the resistible return of Spiro Agnew.

The next four years were deeply controversial, to say the least. The FBI turned loose to go after Agnew's political enemies but unwilling to prosecute the Klansmen who shot Judge John Minor Wisdom and murdered an estimated sixty other people. Doubling the number of Americans in prison amidst a nationwide War on Crime, with many political prisoners disappearing forever, never to be found. Pervasive censorship of the press to cover up abuses across the system, as well as pervasive corruption. Bloody conflicts in Angola, Korea, and Yemen. For around a quarter to a third of Americans, this was the first truly patriotic and constitutional government in a generation, if not more. For a narrow majority, it was somewhere between regrettably and embarrassingly excessive and outright fascism. The mainstream of the Democratic Party and the "Main Street" faction of the Republicans combined, first to take back control of Congress, then to take back the Presidency - and, with the tailwinds of a shitty economy, they succeeded. But their standard-bearer had feet of clay - more importantly, he had veins of clay, coupled with the long-term effects of the assassination attempt eight years prior.

Reubin Askew was, in some respects, a better figure for the job than Nixon had been. An outsider, unconnected to the system and with hands unbloodied by it. A figure of widely-respected probity and humility. A Southern Catholic with civil-rights credentials. But he was also a figure of domestic politics in an era defined by foreign policy - the unwinding of America's foreign wars, the crushing of reform in the Soviet Union, and the aftershocks of the invasion of Hong Kong. When former Vice President Schlafly became the first female President, it was hardly a surprise. And when her belief that arms control agreements were a bad joke and the communist system would collapse given one good kick were combined into policy, the results




























1988-1991: various claimants inc. Charles Wilson (Moderate), Donald Rumsfeld (Republican), and James "Bo" Gritz (military)

'88 Schlafly and East killed in atomic bombing of Washington, D.C.​

'88 Secretary of State Rumsfeld forms American Continuity Government in London, UK​

'88 Gritz declares self "Acting Commander-in-Chief", begins recruiting military and police units from Carson City, NV​

'89 Surviving members of House of Representatives elect Wilson Speaker and therefore President in Santa Fe, NM​

1991-2001: Donald Rumsfeld (National Recovery)

'91 Wilson, Gritz, and several regional warlords sign Asilomar Declaration, forming consensus government led by Rumsfeld​

'92 (with Charlie Wilson) effectively unopposed​

'93 Wilson resigns due to health issues​

'93 John Otho Marsh II appointed Vice President​

'96 (with John Otho Marsh II) def. Bo Gritz (Federalist), Angela Davis (Socialist Unity)​

2001-2003: John Otho Marsh II (National Recovery)

'00 (with Evan Bayh) def. Steve Largent (Christian), Bo Gritz (Federalist), Bill Browder (Socialist Unity)​

2003-2009: Evan Bayh (National Recovery)

'03 Marsh assassinated by United Florida Reconquista Command​

'04 (with Andrew Schlafly) def. Helen Hage (Federalist), James Hoffa (Labor), Larry Sanders (Ecological)​

2009-2009: James "Bo" Gritz (Independence!)

'08 (with Pat Choate) def. Evan Bayh (National Recovery), Andrew Schlafly (Conservative)​

2009-2013: Pat Choate (Independence!)

'09 Gritz dies by suicide​

'09 John McAfee appointed Vice President​

'11 McAfee impeached​

'11 James N. Rowe appointed Vice President​

2013-2016: Gary Condit (National Recovery)

'12 (with R. Ted Cruz) def. Pat Choate (Independence!), John McAfee (Unbowed)​

2016-2019: Rafael Cruz Jr. (National Recovery)

'16 Condit resigns due to extramarital affair​

'16 (with John Kitzhaber) def. Ammon Bundy (Unbowed), Peter Navarro (Independence!)​

2019-: John Kitzhaber (National Recovery)

'19 Cruz impeached for ineligibility​

'20 (with Valerie Davidson) effectively unopposed​

Donald Rumsfeld was saved by what had been, up until the moment the balloon went up, the bane of his existence. Western Europe had been badly affected by the twitches and grunts of the American elephant - bad diplomacy choking off its oil, bad politics spraying instability throughout the world, not to mention protectionism hurting industrial employment throughout the continent. Grim Grom may have seen dealing with Europe as a fool's errand under normal circumstances, but he spotted the opportunity to drive a wedge right down the Atlantic. Among other things, that meant that when Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld met with Prime Minister Benn in London to try to dictate terms on intelligence-sharing and American use of British bases, he was a safe distance away from the apocalypse.

Crisis created its own opportunities, and for none more than Donald Rumsfeld. Determining himself to be the highest-ranking surviving member of the line of Presidential succession, he proceeded to form a continuity government in exile. Though others made their own claims, Rumsfeld could do something they couldn't - he could go, hat in hand, to the strongest powers left behind, and promise them reconstruction on favorable terms if they backed him over Wilson. Armed with the support of Owen, Mitterrand, and Ozawa, he returned to American shores in 1990, then used his foreign backing to negotiate with the others from a position of strength. Asilomar formalized the status quo - the future of America would be technocratic, skeptical of civil liberties, and corporate.

The first signs of trouble came from Bo Gritz. Hero of the wars in Vietnam and Angola, Gritz had been America's most successful warlord, bringing together surviving military and police units from the Oregon high desert to the Georgia Piedmont to share resources, training, and intelligence. His government fought organized and disorganized crime across the nation, and helped make long-range transportation possible again - but the average Gritz supporter thought Spiro Agnew hadn't gone far enough, and his government's human rights record combined personalist rule by a military officer with an antisemitic streak with the decentralized terror and cruelty of a warlord state without central control. Given amnesty under the terms of Asilomar, Gritz saw Rumsfeldia as a surrender to the same socialists and liberals that had gotten America into the mess in the first place, and formed the Federalist Party as a backstop to protect law-abiding Christian communities from the long arm of the One World Government.

As time went on, Gritz' right-wing cry of despair was joined by one from the left. Rumsfeld's government - and those of his successors - saw labor rights deteriorate massively, as the pressures of a struggling economy harmonized with the demands of international companies like British Petroleum and Aso Mining. It also saw a widespread reversion to extraction and "dirty" manufacturing, with devastating ecological consequences. Rumsfeld dropped Wilson to pander to the right, gave Evan Bayh high office to pander to the left, and oversaw Andrew Schlafly's installation as Vice President to pander to the right again - but none of it was able to stop the shaky left-right coalition that was the Independence! Party.

What was able to stop it was the lack of a way out. Two decades of Rumsfeldism and reconstruction had brought America back to a limited sort of prosperity, but that prosperity was dependent on a steady stream of overseas investment. With a third of its landmass still too irradiated for settlement and healthcare and security constant drains on the budget, any capital strikes that interrupted that flow would be disastrous. The situation took a heavy toll on Gritz as a person, with devastating results; the mild-mannered economist Choate was able to convince the World Bank to tolerate restructuring and renegotiation, but he was himself undermined by his own party. Most Independence! voters didn't want to compromise with the World Bank - they wanted to vaporize it.

Since Rumsfeld's retirement, the National Recovery machine has more or less chugged along like it did under his rule. Condit, the Governor of California chosen to appeal to both middle-class cosmopolitan internationalists and soft environmentalists, submitted to a shotgun wedding with evangelical legal scholar Rafael Cruz Jr., then blew his own Presidency up by having an affair with a college student; Cruz, meanwhile, was dogged by constitutional questions over his Canadian birth and general questions about his closeness with people in Gritz's circles, some of whom were now providing constitutional justifications for protracted people's war against the United States government. As the militia crisis reached its third decade, Vice President Kitzhaber wrote the country a prescription - military suppression backed up by strongman rule legitimated by universal provision of austere, limited public goods...

 

[OHC]

Social Credit Horror (Challenge 21)

1962-1968: René Lévesque (Mouvement souverainiste)
1968-1970: Pierre Trudeau (Mouvement souverainiste)

The social forces unleashed by the death of Maurice Duplessis moved faster than anyone could have expected. Within just a few years, the Republic of Québec had – at least in its leaders’ self-conception – joined the ranks of newly decolonized nations rising from the old British Empire. Like Gaullist France, Québec attempted to chart a path of armed neutrality in the Cold War, flirting with the Non-Aligned Movement and pursuing a developmentalist policy through nationalized industry. Unlike Gaullist France, they were right next to the United States and didn’t have a nuclear deterrent. And after Lévesque was rolled by militant leftist writer Pierre Trudeau in the midst of a strike wave, the neighbors decided that that was enough of that.​

1970-1973: Jean-Louis de Kérouac (Parti laurentien) †

The 1970 general election is generally considered to have been rigged in favor of the PL by the American and British security services. The American-born de Kérouac, a staunch Catholic conservative whose rhetoric combined romantic nationalism with nostalgia for the Grande Noirceur, ironically served as a foreign puppet, distracting the country with beautiful but meandering speeches fueled by alcohol and amphetamines as his cabinet joined NATO, signed over the nation’s resources to international investors, and began arresting dissidents. Opposition protests morphed gradually into Communist and indigenist insurrections as Québec became a Cold War battlefield on the North American continent. The premier’s death in 1973 came as a relief for almost everyone, even his political allies.​

1973: Daniel Johnson (Parti laurentien)
1973-1977: Réal Caouette (Parti créditiste) †

With leftist and liberal parties suppressed and Pierre Trudeau in prison, aboveground opposition to the PL regime had fallen to the creditists, who could combine impeccable anti-communist and social conservative credentials with pungent criticism of the government’s capitulation to capital. (“International finance” capital, in particular, if you got their drift.) Johnson was enough of a democrat to accept Caouette’s shock victory in the semi-free 1973 elections. While the rest of NATO was leery of the new premier’s economic ideas, they were initially willing to smooth over any bumps with dollars as long as the transition to compensated pricing didn’t distract from the fight against the FLN and the Warriors’ Alliance. Indeed it did not, and the “Québec experiment” attracted just as much interest from heterodox economists as it did opprobrium from those in other Western nations disgusted by Caouette’s open admiration of the Nazis and his brutal "dispersal" of First Nations settlements. The proximity of the bloodshed to the United States and Canadian borders made it difficult to hide, especially when the conflict began to spill over the line. After a gun battle between Québec secret police agents and Raymond Levasseur’s US "fundraising" branch of the FLN tore apart a Boston neighborhood in 1976, the Kennedy administration – directly humiliated – started turning off the taps.​

1977-1978: Camil Samson (Parti créditiste)
1978-1984: Roch Thériault (Parti créditiste – Pèlerins de Saint-Michel)

Caouette died in 1977, and the computerized pricing system couldn’t adjust for the complicated and off-book effects of a civil conflict and the disappearance of foreign cash. Things started to fall apart, and when the bumbling populist Samson proved too bumbling and too unpopular, the creditists’ armed wing stepped in: white-bereted militiamen seized the presidential palace and installed their leader. Raised in the movement since childhood, he was a massive, boisterous, charismatic man whose long black beard and hypnotic blue eyes spoke of a virile blood-and-soil masculinity. Here was Le chef that the nation needed.​

1984: Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf (United States military occupation)
1984-0000: Gen. Idriss Déby (UNMIQ occupation)

"We go now to live footage of former Québec prime minister Roch Thériault’s ongoing trial at the Hague. Viewers of sensitive dispositions or those with young children may wish to change the channel."​

Spoiler

I drafted this years and years ago after Mazda and Skinny made some jokes about “Social Credit Horror” as a theoretical subgenre and I remembered that factoid about Thériault being raised in the White Berets. This is definitely not serious but very appropriate for the theme! Even the bit about Kerouac as a right-wing Québec nationalist is recycled from one of my old lists. And yes, don't look up the Ant Hill Kids unless you have a strong stomach.

 

[OHC]

(Free idea that I considered doing, also Quebec separatist related, for the ATLF challenge: ATLB for Infinite Jest figuring out how we got to a hyper-neoliberal united North America run by a greenwashy govt that uses Quebec and northern New England as an environmental sacrifice zone for the rest of the continent. I bet Jerry Brown was involved somehow. But it's been too long since I read the book so I couldn't remember the details.)

 

[Walpurgisnacht]

[Challenge #15--Liberal X/Conservative Y]

Use Your Loaf
​

1902-1907: Joseph Chamberlain (Liberal Unionist leading Unionist Ministry)
def 1903: (Majority) Henry Campbell-Bannerman (Liberal), John Redmond (Irish Parliamentary Party), Keir Hardie (Labour Representation Committee)
def 1905: (Majority) H. H. Asquith (Liberal), John Redmond (Irish Parliamentary Party)
1907-1908: Joseph Chamberlain (Reform)
1908-1916: H. H. Asquith (Liberal)
def 1908: (Majority) Joseph Chamberlain (Reform), John Redmond (Irish Parliamentary Party), Daniel Sheehan (United Irish Farmers)
def 1911: (Majority) Leo Maxse (Reform), John Redmond (Irish Parliamentary Party), George Williamson (Independent Labour), Fred Jowett (Socialist Labour)
1916-1918: Sidney Buxton (Liberal)
def 1917: (Minority with IPP support) Austen Chamberlain (Reform), John Redmond (Irish Parliamentary Party), Fred Jowett (Socialist Labour), Havelock Wilson (Independent Labour)
1918-1921: Austen Chamberlain (Reform)
def 1918: (Majority) Sidney Buxton (Liberal), Tim Healey (Erin), George Peet (Socialist Labour), Havelock Wilson (Independent Labour), John Dillon (Irish Parliamentary Party), Jim Larkin (Irish Socialist League)
1921-1924: Winston Churchill (Liberal)
def 1921: (Minority) Austen Chamberlain (Reform), Tim Healey (Erin), Jimmy Thomas (Independent Labour), George Peet (Socialist Labour), Jim Larkin (Irish Socialist League), John Molson (Unionist Reform), Thomas Pilcher (Anti-Waste League)
1924-1925: Austen Chamberlain (Reform)
def 1924: (Minority with de facto Independent Labour support) Winston Churchill (Liberal), Erskine Childers & Jim Larkin (All for Ireland), Jimmy Thomas (Independent Labour), Noel Pemberton Billing (Anti-Waste League), Henry M. Dockrell (Unionist Reform), Arthur MacManus (Socialist Labour)
1925-1927: Winston Churchill (Liberal)
def 1925: (Coalition with United Loyalists) Austen Chamberlain (Reform), Tomas Mac Curtain & Jim Larkin (All for Ireland), Walter Guinness & Ormonde Winter (United Loyalist), Victor Fisher (Democratic Labour), Oswald Mosley (Anti-Waste League), Arthur MacManus (Socialist Labour)
1927-1930: Winston Churchill (Liberal leading Emergency Ministry)
1930-1931: Walter Runciman (Liberal)
1931-1935: Arthur Steel-Maitland (Reform)
def 1931: (People's Coupon with Democratic Labour and Anti-Waste League) Walter Runciman (Liberal), Billy Hughes (Democratic Labour), Pat Coates (Socialist Labour), Oliver Locker-Lampson (Anti-Waste League), John Pretyman Newman (United Loyalist), Megan Lloyd George (Peace Liberal)
1935-1936: John Buchan (Reform)
def 1936: (People's Coupon with Democratic Labour and Anti-Waste League) Ernest Benn (Liberal), Arthur Horner (Socialist Labour), Almeric Paget (United Loyalist)
1936-0000: Clement Attlee (Reform)

"What does it mean to be a conservative?"

"You can get a simple answer to this question, of course, by consulting some of the people in the back-benches of Parliament. Ask a Loyalist, and he'll tell you being a conservative is about opposing change--any change, and all change--and trying, like Cleo Bono, to 'turn back time a hundred years'. Yes, yes, settle down--I've been told to try and make more contemporary references. Anyway, this definition is, yes, a simple one, and it's very compelling, and many of these people devote their lives to it, and it is, ultimately, a fallacy. This sort of thing is conservativism for children, who haven't outgrown the desire to go back to the nursery after a bad first day at school. It is blind and uncritical, and all it leads to is an overfocus on trivialities and ground easily conceded to individualism."

"Real conservatives have always understood two things. The first is that total return to the past is impossible. Just like Cleo, we realise that the spirit that once was there is gone, and trying to construct a body without the spirit animating it would just create a hollow parody. The second is that this total return is undesireable. After all, if the previous state of affairs is what got us here, once circumstances changed, then why would recreating it not simply result in another round of degeneration? The blind conservative lives a Sisyphan existence,always pushing the boulder of society uphill to watch it fall again. The guiding principle of true conservativism was best expressed by di Lampedusa, in his book The Leopard--'if we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change'. Or, and perhaps more relevantly for our party, 'We used this stage/In a bygone age/And found it worked very well then/But that way to go/Is terribly slow/In nineteen-hundred-and-ten.'"

"Indeed, it's Chamberlain's example that defines, for me, what it means to be a real conservative. The Liberals of the turn of the century were doctrinately obsessed with free trade, placing ideals of 'liberty' and 'free markets' over the very real needs of the British population. With British industry going into decline, it would have been easy for the socialists to seize upon the issue and place their own, equally arbitrary ideals of 'equality' and 'central planning' above the needs of the British population while claiming to be saving them from penury and isolation. It took the pragmatism of Chamberlain, who had already burnt his bridges over Ireland, to lead the precursor to our party towards the tarriff reform we take our name from. What saved the British economy and the British Empire wasn't another ideal of returning to the past--in that situation, our blind conservative would choose to back the Liberals under the belief that free trade was a sacred policy to be upheld. It was a hard-headed pragmatism that saw the rotting parts of society that needed to be amputated to save the main body."

"That pragmatism came into play again during the National Emergency. Under Churchill, liberalism was revealed for the dead letter it's always been--for a liberal's devotion to 'freedom' just means freedom for themselves and their chums to party while the world rots. We've seen, of course, worse examples since--we're still dealing with the aftermath of Jenkins' permissive society--but the arrests in Britain and the killings in Ireland as Churchill tried to retain control shamed us in the world's eyes. And when the marines were sent to Glasgow and Parliament was suspended? The Liberals might claim otherwise, but the man had become a second Cromwell, nearly as bad as the first. Even when they toppled him, it took a Reform government to swallow its pride and end both the Irish war and the class war with peaceful negotiations and compromises on all sides, while restoring the liberties that are the rights--the time-honoured rights--of every Englishman."

"It's a legacy that has animated the party ever since, and our great achievements. The Nicolson Agreement in Ireland, sacrificing British control and influence over the majority of the island in favour of continued autonomy for Ulstermen and Dubliners. Attlee's building of the social state that Webb and Moseley laid out, preserving the social basis of our communities that would have been atomised by hyper-capitalist individualism or heavy-handed collectivism. The Commonwealth Free Movement Policy of the Seventies, carefully managed to maintain our cultural fabric, which enriched our country beyond measure--indeed, my esteemed predecessor, the late Baroness Eugenia Charles, wouldn't have been here without it. I could go on, but I'd rather not take up your whole night."

"To me, conservativism isn't an ideal, because it goes beyond ideals. It takes a core of things it knows to be important--Roy Ball's 'Dog-walkers on the green/Everyone cheering for the village cricket team/A pint of warm beer by the stream/A life that's half a golden dream', if you'll allow me another song-quote--and it does what it needs to to preserve them, come what may, not for intellectuals, but for the common man who wants a bigger loaf and his good old flag. From Oastler to Blatchford to Chamberlain to Mount to, well, to me, that core has been passed down, and it's up to us all to carry it forward."

--Zach Glasman, Reform Party Conference, 2008
​

 

[Walpurgisnacht]

One more day to get your entries in!

 

[Excelsior]

Coming Second II: Two Seconds (25th Contest)

List of Formula One World Drivers Champions
2007: Lewis Hamilton (McLaren-Mercedes)
2008: Lewis Hamilton (McLaren-Mercedes)
2009: Jenson Button (Brawn-Mercedes)
2010: Michael Schumacher (Ferrari)
2011: Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull-Renault)
2012: Fernando Alonso (Red Bull-Renault)
2013: Fernando Alonso (Red Bull-Renault)
2014: Sebastian Vettel (Mercedes)
2015: Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
2016: Sebastian Vettel (Mercedes)
2017: Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari)
2018: Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari)
2019: Max Verstappen (Mercedes)
2020: Max Verstappen (Mercedes)
2021: Lewis Hamilton (Red Bull-Honda)
2022: Lewis Hamilton (Red Bull-Honda)
2023: TBD

List of Formula One World Constructors Champions
2007: Ferrari
2008: Ferrari
2009: Brawn-Mercedes
2010: Red Bull-Renault
2011: Red Bull-Renault
2012: Red Bull-Renault
2013: Red Bull-Renault
2014: Mercedes
2015: Mercedes
2016: Mercedes
2017: Mercedes
2018: Mercedes
2019: Mercedes
2020: Mercedes
2021: Red Bull-Honda
2022: Red Bull-Honda
2023: TBD

At the 2007 Chinese Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton was leading the World Drivers Championship by 12 points to his teammate Fernando Alonso, and 17 points to their next nearest rival, Kimi Räikkönen. All Hamilton had to do was finish ahead of Alonso and within six points of Räikkönen to win the championship in Shanghai. Starting the race in pole position, he seemed likely to accomplish this. However, wet conditions during the race interfered with the tyre strategies. Hamilton stayed out too long on intermediate tyres on a drying track, and began lose pace and grip. This allowed Räikkönen to pass him and take the lead. This was not a problem for Hamilton. As long as he retained that position and stayed ahead of Alonso, he would win the championship. After being passed, he entered the pits¹ for a fresh set of tyres and came out behind Fernando Alonso. Räikkönen followed him into the pits a few laps later and came out just behind Hamilton. The two drivers then went several laps with close racing until Räikkönen passed Hamilton near the end and won the race. Alonso failed to catch Hamilton, finishing two seconds behind. Hamilton kept second place and therefore won the championship, becoming the first rookie world champion in history and the youngest world champion to date. He repeated the following year in another down to the wire finish. Things began to unravel from there.

Ferrari was furious. Despite the team winning the 2007 and 2008 Constructors Championships, the Räikkönen-Massa duo had failed to win any titles and both lost in close contests to Lewis Hamilton. Desperate for success, they convinced Michael Schumacher to return. He ordered them to make personnel changes and retain Massa as his teammate instead of Räikkönen, who was given the boot. Although Ferrari lost the 2009 title to Brawn GP due to the new regulations, the Michael won his eighth title in 2010 against the upstarts at Red Bull. The next three titles were split between Sebastian Vettel and his teammate, Fernando Alonso. Vettel's frustration with Alonso and the team led him to leave Red Bull for emerging German contenders, Mercedes, who had bought out Brawn and now wanted to replace Jenson Button to make an all-German driver lineup. He won the championship in his first year with the team, to the dismay of Nico Rosberg, who had been with Mercedes since their beginning.

Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton replaced Michael Schumacher at Ferrari after the latter's second retirement. Rosberg and Vettel developed a fierce rivalry, which later led to Hamilton pipping a title off them despite an inferior car. Rosberg left Mercedes and was replaced by rookie phenom Max Verstappen, which did not solve the team's problems as he proved to be a shockingly fierce match for Vettel. Vettel made his way back to Red Bull, while Hamilton was forced out of Ferrari by internal politics, who wanted to pair Jules Bianchi with his godson Charles Leclerc. Hamilton turned down the Mercedes seat due to their mismanagement of teammates thus far, and joined Vettel at Red Bull. Verstappen easily won the next two championships, with no competition from his new teammate, Nico Hülkenberg. In doing so, he surpassed Hamilton as the youngest championship winner.

However, due to the new regulations in 2021², Red Bull developed a car which far outpaced the rest of the field. Hamilton and Vettel were the only real contenders for the title, and Hamilton won 2021 and 2022, leading to Vettel's retirement. He was replaced by Fernando Alonso, who was reunited with Hamilton after 16 years apart. The renewal of their rivalry has lead to a respectful but fierce competition for the current season. Some things never change.


¹ In OTL, Hamilton's tyres were so worn by the time he pitted, he slipped on a wet spot and his car got stuck in the gravel, ending his race. Räikkönen ended up winning the championship at the next race.
² Due to butterflies, COVID doesn't happen and the new regulations start in 2021 instead of being delayed another year.


Most championships:
1. Michael Schumacher: 8 (1994, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2009)
2. Lewis Hamilton: 6 (2007, 2008, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022)
3. Juan Manuel Fangio: 5 (1951, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957)
T4. Fernando Alonso: 4 (2005, 2006, 2012, 2013)
T5. Sebastian Vettel: 3 (2011, 2014, 2016)
T6. Max Verstappen: 2 (2019, 2020)

 

[Walpurgisnacht]

Just slipping under the wire there, as entries are now closed! The poll will be up soon.

 

[Dom]

Come come dat poll.

 

[Walpurgisnacht]

I'll be the first to admit this challenge has been a bit of a mess, but our winner is crowned (for the first time) as @Wolfram with his list My Hero Spiro; or, Fear, Loathing, and Old Bay! Congrats to our winner, and condolences to our losers!

Next challenge should be up tomorrow.