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Lists of Heads of Government and Heads of State

1980: Edward Moore Kennedy Democratic Gil Petterson
Def: Ronald Wilson Reagan Republican George Herbet Bush
John Anderson Independent Patrick Lucey
1984: Robert Dole Republican Howard Baker
def: Edward Moore Kennedy Democratic Gil Petterson
1988: Robert Dole Republican Howard Baker
Jesse Jackson Democratic Alan Cranston

1992: Howard Baker Republican Dan Quayle
Def: Mario Coumo Democratic Albert Gore J.r.
1996: Gil Petterson Democratic Jerry Brown

Def: Howard Baker Republican Dan Quayle
 
It certainly doesn’t help that this was a collaborative list with very little external context: I spent the whole time thinking that the United States had ship-of-Theseus’d itself into annexing Israel but sloughing off some of its current territories.
I was thinking the same thing. I figured "Get Off the Rock" succeeded and large parts of the population got off the rock, leaving Israel, which was now part of the US, and other states with a large Jewish population that refused to leave Earth.
 
List of First Ministers of Florida
1974-1979: Lorenzo Clark (People's Democratic)
'74 def. John Harrison (National Republican)
'76 def. John Harrison (National Republican)
'78 def. J. Perry McCormick Sr. (National Republican), Johnny Hutchins (Social Democratic)

1979-1979: Carlos Hastings (non-partisan)
1979-1982: Leon Porter (People's Democratic)
'80 def. J. W. Hunter (National Republican), Rudolph Jennings (Social Democratic)
'82 def. J. W. Hunter (National Republican), Denis Colley (Social Democratic)

1982-1982: Carlos Hastings (non-partisan)
1982-1988: Joseph Robinson (People's Democratic)
'84 def. Ashley Carter (National Republican), Milton Greene (Social Democratic), Leon Porter (New Democracy)
'86 def. Milton Greene (Social Democratic), John Grady (Liberal), Philip Evans (National Republican)

1988-1990: Ulysses Shelton (People's Democratic)
'88 def. John Grady (Liberal), Milton Greene (Social Democratic), J. Perry McCormick Jr. (National Republican)
1990-1996: Rómulo Blanco Zaragoza (National Liberal)
'90 def. Ulysses Shelton (People's Democratic), Ian Dalton (Social Democratic), Anson Henry (National Republican)
'92 def. Elias Williams (People's Democratic), Patricia Kearney (Social Democratic)
'94 def. Elias Williams (People's Democratic), John Willie (Social Democratic)

1996-1999: Harry Maharaj (National Liberal)
'96 def. Michael Johnston (People's Democratic), John Willie (Social Democratic)
'98 def. Theophilus Andrews (People's Democratic), Warren Goodliffe (Social Democratic)

1999-1999: R. S. Hughes (non-partisan)
1999-1999: Jacob Powers (National Liberal)
1999-1999: R. S. Hughes (non-partisan)
1999-2000: Thompson West (non-partisan supported by all parties)
2000-2000: R. S. Hughes (non-partisan)
2000-2002: Harry Maharaj (Party for Justice in coalition with People's Democratic and Social Democratic)
'00 def. Jacob Powers (National Liberal), Theophilus Andrews (People's Democratic), Cynthia Greene (Social Democratic)
2002-2004: Harry Maharaj (Party for Justice in coalition with Social Democratic)
'02 def. Gerald Palmer (People's Democratic), Alejandro Rosas de la Vega (National Liberal), Cynthia Greene (Social Democratic)
2004-2004: Cassandra Paulson (non-partisan)
2004-2004: Cynthia Greene (Social Democratic)
2004-2005: Rayfield Peters (National Liberal)
'04 def. Clark MacAulay (People's Democratic), James Fisher (Party for Justice), Cynthia Greene (Social Democratic)
2005-2006: Cassandra Paulson (non-partisan)
2006-2006: Rayfield Peters (National Liberal)
2006-2008: Maria Stone (People's Democratic)
'06 def. Rayfield Peters (National Liberal), Barbara Monroe (Party for Justice), Cynthia Greene (Social Democratic)
2008-2010: Rayfield Peters (National Liberal)
'08 def. Maria Stone (People's Democratic), Ramesh Narayan (Party for Justice), Pablo Guerrero Chavez (Social Democratic)
2010-2014: Juan Diego Herrera Menendez (National Liberal)
'10 def. Maria Stone (People's Democratic), Ramesh Narayan (Party for Justice), Pablo Guerrero Chavez (Social Democratic)
'12 def. Walt Doolin (People's Democratic), Tom Ellison (Party for Justice), Pablo Guerrero Chavez (Social Democratic)

2014-2016: Layne Brooks (People's Democratic in coalition with Independent Liberal Alliance and Party for Justice)
'14 def. Juan Diego Herrera Menendez (National Liberal), Leonor del Castillo Rivera (Independent Liberal Alliance), Florence Chin (Party for Justice), Pablo Guerrero Chavez (Social Democratic)
2016-2018: Layne Brooks (People's Democratic in coalition with Alliance for National Unity and Party for Justice)
'16 def. Juan Diego Herrera Menendez (Juntos Haremos Movimiento), Leonor del Castillo Rivera (Alliance for National Unity), Maximiliano Lima Suarez (National Liberal), Florence Chin (Party for Justice), Julian Greene (Social Democratic)
2018-2022: Vijay Rampersad (National Liberal)
'18 def. Layne Brooks (People's Democratic), Kenneth Scott McCormick (Party for Justice), Leonor del Castillo Rivera (Alliance for National Unity)
'20 def. John Baptist Tompkins (People's Democratic), Peter Ingraham (Alliance for National Unity), Kenneth Scott McCormick (Party for Justice), Matthew Roberts (Alliance for Change)

2022-2022: Demetrius Dodd (non-partisan)
2022-: John Baptist Tompkins (People's Democratic in coalition with Party for Justice)
'22 def. Vijay Rampersad (National Liberal), Peter Ingraham (Alliance for National Unity), Vidia Narayan (Party for Justice), Matthew Roberts (Alliance for Change), Valeria McCoy (Social Democratic)

Rising From The Swamp
The State of Florida technically fought in and lost the Great American War, but it might as well not have. The land wars in California, Texas, and the Border States were far away from her, and her troops were neither numerous nor well-trained - indeed, Floridan soldiers had the largest single reject rate, in part due to pervasive nutrition issues like pellagra. Moreover, while Floridan territory played a vital role in bottling Texas up in the Gulf of Mexico, the Florida Navy was a lot better at running blockades than enforcing them - the ships that patrolled the Cuban Strait were Mexican, Georgian, South Carolinian, and Alabaman, but they were very rarely Floridan. Then the worm turned, and Allied troops overran the Keys, then up and down the coast, then penetrated deep into the dense vegetation of the interior to arm the slaves and farmworkers - and they took care of the rest.

The Republic of Florida was born in that context: the end of a liberatory war brought in from outside but led by Black slaves and, in a subsidiary role, Caribbean migrant farmworkers. West Florida was split off into the new and fractious Republic of West Florida, Tombigbee, and Escambia, and serious thought was given to dividing Florida into a Black north and an increasingly-Caribbean south, but in the end divorce would have been too much of a hassle. Instead, Floridan local government boundaries were revised heavily to allow different cultural groups a degree of autonomy, and a unicameral proportional (to combat gerrymandering) legislature was established on the national level. Out of fear of personalist dictatorship, the nation would be run on parliamentary grounds.

A People's Democracy?
At first there were two parties: the National Republican Alliance, the remnants of the antebellum establishment who wanted to secure a voice in the new nation and their almost-monolithically-Anglo supporters, and the People's Democratic Party, everyone else. (There were also some far-right abstentionists, but those groups were generally banned pretty quickly.

The first thing the People's Democratic Party had to deal with was leadership. There were two main candidates. One was Lorenzo Clark, self-freed general who had fled into the interior after killing an overseer two years before the war, rose to command a band of "Seminoles" deep in the wilderness of Bradford County, and led the taking of Pilatka and the Raid on St. Augustine. The other was Alan de Burgh, who had stowed away on a phosphate ship as a teenager, made his way from factory work in Montréal to law school at St. Andrew's to the Trinidadian civil service, and resigned at the outbreak of war to join the Texian Foreign Legion, then to unite the dozens of tiny militias of the 'Antillean Coast' into a Free Floridan Army. Both were highly respected, had loyal followings, but were also despised by small but vocal factions: Clark as a brutal war criminal whose militia had done as much harm to Black Floridans as Anglos and wanted to govern Florida as a warlord, and de Burgh as a soft-handed coward whose position owed more to skills at political maneuvering than directness and would make Florida a colony of the foreign powers he had grown up in and owed his loyalty to.

In the end, a deal was made: Clark would serve as the first First Minister and serve for three terms, and de Burgh would draft the Constitution and the party platform, as well as overseeing infrastructure. The system worked, long enough to build up a nation - roads and railroads built for passengers, not cash crops, were driven through and around the dense forest and swampland (one of Clark's few demands, made out of paranoia and a desire that if Florida were ever under threat her people should have redoubts to strike back from, created the most expansive National Park system east of the Mississippi, with even a conscious effort to allow some land scarred by agriculture and chemical defoliants to return to its primordial state), a welfare state backstopped by export tariffs and de facto Texian-American subsidies built everything from schools and hospitals to flush toilets, and a syncretic culture began to blossom into civil society. Moreover, for all the differences between Clark's and de Burgh's political bases, the men themselves regarded each other with respect or even envy.

Then tragedy struck. Clark had regularly used painkillers since the war to push through despite almost debilitating pain from his constellation of wartime injuries, with persistent health implications. On September 15, 1979, something went wrong, and though the details are unknown due to medical privacy laws, Clark had to be flown to Charité Hospital in New Orleans. Accounts vary over whether he died there or en route; either way, Chief Justice Carlos Hastings was sworn in as interim First Minister the next day.

Things Fall Apart
Under normal circumstances, de Burgh would have been sworn in as the next First Minister after a pro forma caucus vote. But the sudden circumstances of Clark's death and de Burgh's visible ambition led to rumors spreading that de Burgh had had Clark poisoned, or participated in or turned a blind eye to a foreign assassination attempt. Moreover, the next tier of federal government figures - people like Commerce Minister Leon Porter, who resented de Burgh as a condescending, unprincipled machiavel who stuck would-be rivals with politically poisonous jobs and lied about his religion and morals as a matter of course (up to believing, probably falsely, that de Burgh was personally having an affair with his wife) - wanted to get rid of de Burgh both personally and politically.

In the end, de Burgh saw where the wind was going, allowing himself to be sidelined with a university presidency rather than split the party. But de Burgh himself was not what the Porterites were afraid of - they were more worried about demographic change, in particular migration from the Caribbean to Florida, making the descendents of Floridian slaves a minority in (what they viewed as) their own country or allying with the remaining Anglo population. Middle-class Cubans (and, to a lesser extent, Granadines, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans) looking for a lower cost of living in a growing economy were moving to Pinellas, Louverture, Caliban, and other booming Southern cities; so were working-class Afro- and Asian-Caribbeans, many working for relatively low wages in farms and factories and sending big sections of their paychecks home as remittances. An attempt at dealing with the issue by restricting immigration led to widespread protests, pervasive illegal immigration, an economic crash, and finally an intra-party coup by Foreign Minister Joseph Robinson. Porter responded by attempting a party schism; less than a dozen Representatives left, and most were either bought off with porkbarrel spending or defeated in the 1984 election.

But Robinson's tenure was troubled in its own right; his attempts at dealing with the financial crisis by selling off state-owned enterprises was unpopular in and of itself, and he was viewed with suspicion by all major factions. De Burgh, by now an elder statesman, attempted a comeback before being brought down by sex scandals and the publication of offhand derogatory-bordering-on-slanderous comments he had made about basically everyone in Florida politics during lectures; meanwhile, a bunch of local politicians wildly overestimated how many people outside their counties had ever heard of them, and Robinson went on to a third term despite Milton Greene of the Social Democratic Party posing the greatest threat to PDP hegemony in Floridan history. His third term was occupied with a whole lot of nothing in particular; viewed another way, he made himself busy holding back Americo-Texian capitalists, crypto-socialists within his own party, rural conservatives, young urban liberals, and everyone in between. For his troubles, he became the first First Minister of Florida to leave office on his own terms, and lived three more decades as a Floridan elder statesman to die at the age of 93.

Among other things, he chose not to micromanage the succession; his party's rural base beat back challenges from all comers to anoint Minister of Justice Ulysses Shelton, best known for reforming the prison system and vigorously prosecuting vice laws. Though many voters in the South saw him as parochial and provincial, his ecumenical conservatism and distributist sympathies actually helped the party grow in many Antillean communities. At the same time, though, the growing urban middle class - both Hispanophone and Black Floridan - distrusted him.

This created an opportunity for the Liberal Party, once a liberal-Anglo splinter group of the National Republican Party, now beginning to realize the ambitions of its founder John Grady to build a genuinely interracial non-leftist opposition. Grady, who had assumed almost dictatorial control over the party in order to stamp out even the slightest hint of revanchism, turned it over to Rómulo Blanco Zaragoza, a Havana-born journalist and mystery author who had made himself into a community leader and influential conservative commentator since his de facto exile. Together, the two of them formed the National Liberal Party - chiefly a coalition of liberal Anglos and middle-class Hispanophones, as well as others alienated from the increasingly stagnant and clientelist People's Democratic machine. The People's Democratic Party, now with serious opposition to compete against, shifted - in response to the social permissiveness, pro-corporate economics (as well as consumer rights activism), and urban focus of the National Liberal Party, they leaned into social conservatism, pro-worker economics, and a focus on rural areas. It wasn't enough - the rural areas didn't comprise enough of the country to make such a base a sure shot at power, not anymore, and after a decade of uninspired hegemony people were ready for a change, particularly after the shambolic relief effort after Cyclone 89F.

Crossing Blue Water
Like Clark, Blanco Zaragoza's legacy is written all across the map of Florida. No longer autarkic and resource-based, Florida's economy diversified -it became a tourist destination thoroughly competitive with the Caribbean economies around it, its call centers and services sector play a vital role in the Western Hemisphere's system and even as far as India and China, and its tech sector is nothing to sneeze at. It was under his tenure that Floridan music, film, art, and design began in earnest to become well-known, and his support for a policy of deliberate and purposely-fostered diversity and integration was a breath of fresh air after the mix of segregationism and assimilationism that his predecessors too often brought about. Under his tenure, women gained an unprecedented presence on the economic and political stage, contraception and homophilia were decriminalized, high-speed rail was built from Caliban to Spartacus and Tallahassee and linked up with the North American network, food prices fell by half, and Floridan teams won the All-American Test and the Inter-American Cup.

There were other legacies, of course. Homelessness doubled, a casualty of gentrification and megaprojects alike. Sprawl stretched deep out in every direction from Florida's great cities, and megaprojects like the Union Games Stadium in Pinellas were built with cut corners and over budget, destroying entire neighborhoods to funnel money to foreign companies. The largest refinery in North America belches its toxic fumes across South Spartacus, and thousands of square kilometers of old-growth forest and wetland were cut down and drained. Income inequality has skyrocketed. The demands of tourism have had pernicious effects on Floridian culture, and the end of "community-based government" has left many poor communities with unique cultures in the lurch. The end of the alcohol-licensing regime has brought down smuggling, but also contributed to an epidemic of alcoholism. Cuts in taxes and the pegging of the Floridan piastre to the Texian dollar left big holes in the federal budget and obstacles to industrial policy, while new types of bonds encouraged municipalities to make unsustainable investments that would come back to bite them later.

Still, in the moment, Florida was booming, and he with it. Unlike the clientelist People's Democrats, the more ideological factions and dynamics of the National Liberals helped resolve the debate over the party's direction after Blanco Zaragoza stepped down in 1996. Despite spirited campaigns by status-quo supporters in Minister for Health Arthur Rowe and Minister for Trade Gonzalo Hernández Aguirre, the race was won by a candidate from the party's left wing in Minister for Employment Harry Maharaj, a labor reformist and grandson of Guyanese farmworkers who believed that, given the right institutions, union wage demands could be made sustainable without Texian-style corporatism or Cuban-style repression. Maharaj's style contrasted sharply with his predecessor - less polished and more gaffe-prone but considered more charming and genuine, Maharaj was liked among the public that respected but did not quite like Blanco Zaragoza, and his frank willingness to criticize aspects of his own party was, to many, considered a breath of fresh air after Blanco Zaragoza's sharp message discipline.

There was, however, only so much he could do. With regard to the power of foreign creditors and the new domestic upper class, the genie could not easily be put back into the bottle - an attempt to devalue the piastre in 1997 was stopped by flat refusals in Chicago and internal party revolt in Tallahassee. The same was true of the boondoggle projects, like the 1998 Union Games in Pinellas and the new Richard Chin International Airport in Caliban, which begun under Blanco Zaragoza; Maharaj entered into fewer of these (though he did begin some new ones like the modernization of the Port of Laval). And as much as the National Liberals had been built on anti-corruption activism, the realities of dealing with local clientelist governments and corporate power brokers had begun to get to them.

The turning point for Maharaj's government came in his second term. Prompted both by a desire to clean up local governments by making them more competitive and a desire to reduce the influence of ethnic politics, Maharaj made reforming local governments, including reforming their borders and imposing federal control over some of their powers, his main priority. When elements of his own party opposed it, he staked his government on it, threatening to leave the party with his supporters if the bill failed. It failed; he left.

Just One First Minister
It swiftly became clear that, of the four parties represented in the Florida House of Delegates, no two of them large enough to form a stable coalition would. Maharaj's new Party for Justice demanded a set of good-government reforms that neither the remnant National Liberals nor the People's Democrats were willing to agree to; meanwhile, the latter two parties, defined in opposition to each other, certainly could not form a government together, and the Social Democrats were not quite large enough to form a government with any one party alone. A brief government led by former Minister for Education and National Liberal leader Jacob Powers, formed due to constitutional quirks, held together briefly but could not do anything in particular, and was followed by the appointment of respected longtime Postmaster General Thompson West, who would govern by consensus until the elections in April 2000.

Hopes for a conclusive result in that election were dashed fairly quickly - Floridans wanted a government, but didn't agree in the slightest on which one. Though the Social Democrats' increase in seats was relatively strong, it still put them two seats away from a hypothetical and stable coalition with anyone else. After a long series of negotiations, Maharaj hammered out a deal with Gerald Palmer, a young reformist from within the People's Democratic machine who had executed a coup against the 'dinosaur' sitting leader Theophilus Andrews after the election, and Social Democratic leader Cynthia Greene. Their platform would include anti-corruption efforts without centralized reform, more investment in welfare programs, limited renationalization of state-owned enterprises, and maintaining the status quo on social and foreign policy.

Certainly the economics kept the government busy, especially with hammering out the details of those broad planks. But those were at least popular enough to get Maharaj to another term, helped by Texian inflation de facto leading to moderate devaluation and economic good times. The 2002 election gave Maharaj's government enough seats to drop the People's Democrats altogether, giving the party the space to take solid positions on social and foreign policy. On the former, Maharaj was a fairly standard North American secular liberal, legalizing abortion (though it is generally not covered by national healthcare programs), laying the groundwork for homophilic civil partnerships, and reducing alcohol taxes. On the latter, Maharaj tried to split the difference between traditional People's Democratic isolationism and the National Liberals' cultivation of regional ties by conducting shuttle diplomacy with the Old World - in addition to his Shaivism (albeit rather syncretic) and his Awadhi ancestry giving him an in with governments in India and parts of Anglo-Africa, he worked closely with France, Persia, and China, among other nations, to build stronger ties.

An Era of Weak Feelings
By the end, though, Maharaj was tired - despite being the first First Minister too young to fight in the War, he was showing his age by the end of his tenure, and a health scare in 2004 prompted him to decide to leave on his own terms. For his last trick, he directed and whipped his own party members to vote for his coalition partner Cynthia Greene as First Minister going into the election, part of a long-term plan to unite the internationalist, socially-liberal, economically-left parties. In one sense, this worked - around half of Social Democrats would vote for the Party for Justice in that election, nearly squeezing the party below the threshold. But the Social Democrats would survive, cut down to its most radical members, those who resented Maharaj and the Party for Justice for their history in the National Liberals - Greene, daughter of longtime leader Milton Greene, saw radicalism as the party's way back to relevance. Moreover, the negotiations made both parties look rather slimy, and many Floridans wanted a return to the status quo - but not under the People's Democrats, whose recriminations over losing power in 2002 were still ongoing and still toxic. That Rayfield Peters, businessman and onetime Minister for Commerce and Revenue (for about two months under Powers), was elected for who he was not rather than who he was would, in some ways, define his tenure.

Perhaps the greatest problem for his government was that, for all that the party had been a vital force on the Floridan political stage when it was formed fifteen years prior, by 2004 all the low-hanging fruit had been plucked; the party was a victim of its own success, both under Blanco Zaragoza and, in some ways, under Maharaj. Peters trudged forward, with his most notable legacy being selling the rights to supersonic flight over a corridor of sparsely-populated Middle Florida south of Agricola, allowing Texian airlines to avoid going around Florida or risking death at the hands of jumpy Cuban anti-aircraft artillerymen; opinions vary on whether the extra funding is worth the irritation and broken windows. Even an attempt at political drama, Daniel Robertson's attempt at a hard-right party coup against the government, ended in farce as Robertson withdrew from the race three days before the caucus vote after a promise to reintroduce the death penalty, one which was not carried out before the 2006 election.

In fairness, matters did intervene. Tensions between Jacksonia and Kanawha spiraled into a brief slapfight over the Line of Actual Control, a failed coup in Haiti led to saber-rattling with Cuba and Santo Domingo, and Conference governments across the south discovered that high-level communications had been penetrated by Free Mississippi - the spring of 2006 looked to many like the prelude to another Great American War. These prospects were good for the People's Democrats, both more trusted on military matters and able to capitalize on fears that even a war that did not draw Florida in directly might bring in new waves of immigrants.

Stone was a nearly ideal candidate for a People's Democratic Party uncertain of its identity. Party liberals could take comfort in the fact that, as a woman, she represented a rebuke of the chauvinist and masculinist establishment in her very person; not only that, she had gotten into politics as a Palmeresque reformist, and supported him to the bitter end. Meanwhile, party establishments noted the fact that she had gotten to the House of Delegates through loyalty and constituent service, that as Minister for Public Education she had quietly killed efforts to end zero-tolerance vice policies in upper gymnasia but stuck sharply to the party line on social issues, and that she had promised to give the Army and Navy a blank check to modernize, professionalize, and prepare.

But the skills that got her her name within the party alienated her to many non-members. She was viewed as a political chameleon, willing to take any position to get ahead, and monstered as both a reactionary and fundamentally unprincipled. Moreover, her term saw a run of terrible luck that also showed some of the fundamental inequalities in her government; the recovery from Hurricane 06A, which flooded much of Pilatka and Darnielle, was vigorous but largely funnelled through local power brokers in ways that often seemed corrupt, while the increasing threat of citrus blight, which disproportionately affected the South, was often put on the backburner. Overall, not only did it seem clear that the People's Democrats cared more about the North than the South, even their efforts in the North ended up sketchy at best. So it was that Rayfield Peters, sharpened by opposition and given another chance to be elected, returned to the First Ministership.

He didn't waste any time. New pesticides were legalized and deregulated to kill the citrus psyllid wherever it was seen. As for disaster relief, Peters' Attorney General, Bernardo Ramchand Cruz, ordered prosecutions against a swathe of local officials of all parties, and Peters was one of the seven heads of state or government to form the Gulf Coast Standing Emergency Relief Organization. That dovetailed with other new objectives, as Peters pursued integration, economic and social, with the rest of the Southern American Community - in part because, with economic slumps in Fredonia and Free Mississippi, Florida seemed likely to become the main economic power east of Texas and south of Illinois, and in part because those who saw integration as inevitable saw the late 2000s as the best opportunity Florida would get to have that happen on her own terms. For similar reasons, however, the bid for a unified currency, the "SAC dollar", failed: policymakers in Vicksburg and Charleston saw the possibility of such an agreement hampering near-term devaluation as dangerous, and figured that it would be just about as easy to join after the crisis as during it. They did, however, take the opportunity to liberalize, on mutual agreement, trade and travel barriers, leading to unprecedented migration from the other SAC countries south, encouraged by economic crises across the South and increasing nativism in the United States.

This helped divide the National Liberals. It had been needless, previously, to divide the National Liberals supportive of immigration in general from those supportive of immigration from the Caribbean and Latin America in specific - there was never any particular reason for it to be a wedge issue. But unlike the lion's share of the prior migrants, the new ones were considered likely to vote for the People's Democratic Party, which had long leavened its nationalism with a sense of "common destiny" with the other nations of the Black South. Moreover, beyond petty politics, the clientelism that the National Liberals had tried to leave behind still led many of its representatives to a dual mandate as both leaders of a diverse, multiracial nation and representatives of their de facto segregated communities, most of them Cuban or other Caribbean (Peters, born and raised in Gadsden County, was an exception). There was not quite enough space to make any revolt seem like more than petty communalism - but the debate would linger. Meanwhile, concerns about migration, about urban unemployment, and about the "cleaning house" of corrupt local machines replacing qualified and skilled administrators with neophytes, also festered. In 2010, Peters, seeing the way the wind was blowing, would decline to stand for re-election. His successor, Juan Diego Herrera Menendez, would represent the other wing of the party from his, and opinions vary over whether that was barely enough to prevent a People's Democratic victory (in coalition with the Party for Justice) or almost but not quite enough to cause one.

Reaction and Counter-Reaction
Herrera Menendez, a telecom oligarch from the suburbs inland of Pinellas, combined media acumen and high name recognition with hard-right views on both economics and social issues to pull off a narrow victory in the National Liberals' leadership election. He took advantage of quirks of both Floridan election law and National Liberal bylaws - by the time his victory for the leadership was assured, new parties could not register for national elections, and would-be delegates out of tune with the new direction of the party had no choices but to hang on or resign and be replaced by some loyalist. Nor could those very delegates coordinate their decision - many took the latter route, leaving their compatriots who stayed more in the lurch. With their traditional opponents divided on whether to outflank or swing to the center, and the Party for Justice increasingly seen as a sectional party no better than its opponents and uncertain whether to lean into that or work to combat it, a working majority of Floridan voters chose the one party that seemed to know what it was about.

In one sense, Herrera Menendez's tenure achieved its goals. He reshaped the party in his own image, slashed welfare programs deeply, and deregulated and privatized much of the economy. There were many factors in his 2012 re-election: Walt Doolin's attempt to unite the non-conservatives only succeeded in alienating much of his own base, two schismatic factions from the National Liberals kept each other below the waterline, and - perhaps most importantly - the deregulated news media allowed Vesperian-style foldettes like the Pinellas Independent to grow quickly and push their audience to the right.

But the latter factor could not work forever. As the impact of austerity became clearer - persistently understaffed public services, rising costs of utilities, a bulky, expensive, and growing penitentiary service, and despite everything a growth rate no better than before - it was too much to expect them not to report on it, or on the steady drip of corruption scandals affecting the federal government as well as local machines. Moreover, Walt Doolin was replaced by Layne Brooks - an outsider from an academic background whose avuncular, unthreatening aura hid an effective political operator who had cut his teeth in student protests against Robinson (reports that de Burgh considered Brooks a protégé are, however, substantially exaggerated) and come back into the limelight in the movement against cuts to university funding and hikes to tuition fees. Additionally, the schismatic National Liberals had sloughed off their most controversial members to unite under one flag, led by the undistinguished but well-liked Leonor del Castillo Rivera. When the chips finished falling, the three parties of the center and center-left had a strong working majority.

In public, Herrera Menendez accepted the result; privately, he seethed and raged about conspiracies. Both versions of himself took it as a given that he would return, ideally (but, perhaps, not necessarily) by election. Others within the party had other ideas, and when it became clear that he wasn't leaving of his own accord, his former protégé Maximiliano Lima Suarez, previously Minister for Health, took the opportunity to use parliamentary tactics to remove him from the leadership. That got his dander up, and provided cover for Brooks to enact his own policy changes.

Barely enough. An effort to go beyond merely reversing austerity to enshrining rights to education, healthcare, and housing into the Basic Law was defeated - not merely by conservatives, but also by liberals and leftists who worried about the risks of future conservative governments using such provisions as social control, or the precedent of allowing the Constitution to be so freely changed. But austerity was reduced, the public universities were given autonomy and dedicated funding, already-strong privacy laws were reshaped into legal protection for women and minorities on the one hand and a weapon against lightsheet journalists on the other, and environmental laws were tightened. Respected for his effectiveness but feared and disliked as a centralizer and machiavel, the writing was on the wall for Brooks' premiership by 2018 regardless of his successes, as his coalition partners increasingly drifted away.

Indeed, for a hot second, the prospect of a reunited National Liberal movement seemed to be in the cards. It would be dishonest to lay that entirely at the feet of Vijay Rampersad, but neither would it be totally unwarranted. A quiet retail politician with administrative experience from both local government in Laval and a tenure as Minister for Urban Development under Herrera Menendez, who had stayed on good terms with both him and Lima Suarez throughout the split, Rampersad married a quiet but thoroughgoing conservatism with a moderate enough image not to scare off the suburbanites who had made and then broken Herrera Menendez.

In office, those dynamics fettered him but also freed him by giving him an out from some of the less popular policies the backbenchers sought. He would not interpose himself between Constitutional Court decisions ordering gender self-identification or recognition of same-sex marriage and their implementation, nor would he conduct any more unpopular cuts. Instead, he would pay deep attention to the polls, use local corruption scandals and the Attorney General's office to backstop support for cuts that he felt could be made, and firm up the National Liberals' new "potential partner to all, permanent friend to none" foreign policy through both trade deals with the United States and some tentative, minor, and deeply controversial talks with Jacksonia and Tennessee.

That controversy was overshadowed, not least by the People's Democratic Party in disarray. Brooks had left the leadership, but had done his level best to anoint a successor in John Baptist Tompkins, his Minister for Community Affairs. Tompkins, a bilingual Francophone who had been born and raised in Acadiana before moving to Florida as a Catholic seminary student, later dropping out to go to law school before leading the Floridan Catholic Legal Aid Board, was viewed as sort of intrinsically foreign by many People's Democratic members, and his support for massive cuts to military spending were viewed with deep skepticism. Matthew Roberts, a longtime backbencher who had become the de facto leader of a clique of old-school People's Democratic delegates who saw themselves as unjustly passed over for ministerial roles, led a walkout at a caucus meeting with the tacit support of many local machines. While at the time many periodicals, within and without Florida, praised him for his principled move - aside from the pure drama, Roberts' three decades in politics had gotten him a lot of connections with reporters - after the election, and as time ticked on, it became increasingly clear that the project was one of pure vanity.

Rampersad's bid for a third term very nearly succeeded. The resolution of the internal tensions within the People's Democratic establishment certainly hurt; so, too, did his attempt to steal swing voters by promising military cuts, which both angered the top brass and made Tompkins seem more reasonable. Efforts to use Tompkins' foreign background against him were viewed as "dirty", and while the right-wing news media had somewhat revived, so too had a left-wing complement organized in large part through InfoSys and portable radio, strengthening both Tompkins and the revived Social Democrats. Even with that, the result was genuinely unclear in 2022, with both parties within striking distance of a majority; in the end, the Party for Justice chose to partner with the People's Democratic Party, but it was a near-run thing, helped by the long-term rightward drift of the party's aging, rural base.

Floridan_genelex_2024.png


Now, two years into John Baptist Tompkins' tenure, can we draw any conclusions? He has not fundamentally reshaped Floridan politics - indeed, this election had the least change from a previous one since 1994. Funding for public services, in particular housing, has been increased, and the government has begun to work with national civil society in a more organized and transparent way, but many of the more radical changes have been stopped in House of Delegates subcommittees or tied up in administrative law. Still, Tompkins remains personally quite popular, indeed one of the most popular heads of government in North America, and many analysts have taken note of a few recent photo ops with his aging predecessor Harry Maharaj. But who knows what'll happen?

...Oh, and to be clear, "Floridan" isn't a typo. It started out pronounced FLORidən, but that got melted down to the incomprehensible FLRRDnn, so now it's a regional shibboleth - Northerners say FLURidan (rhymes with "pan", sometimes even "pain" or "Malayan"), Southerners say FLORRidawn. Most Anglophone foreign media goes with the latter, but it's not at all consistent.
 
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Mere Anarchy - A McGovern vs Goldwater '68 TL
1961-63: Hubert Humphrey/Hale Boggs (Democrat)
1960: Richard Nixon/Henry Cabot Lodge Jr (Republican)
1963-65: Hubert Humphrey/ (vacant) (Democrat)
1965-69: Hubert Humphrey/Robert Wagner Jr. (Democrat)
1964: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr./Gerald Ford (Republican), George Wallace/Albert Watson (Independent)
1969-73: George McGovern/Terry Sanford (Democrat)
1968: Barry Goldwater/Ezra Taft Benson (Republican)
1973-81: Ed Gurney/Charles Percy (Republican)
1972: Terry Sanford/Henry Jackson (Democrat)
1976: Ted Kennedy/Tom Eagleton (Democrat)

1981- : Tom Turnipseed/Jack Gilligan (Democrat)
1980: Spiro Agnew/Bill Brock (Republican), Eugene McCarthy/ various (New Liberty)
1984: Dick Cheney/Ed Zschau (Republican), Eugene McCarthy/David Bergland (NLP)
1989-91: Edward J. King/Carol Campbell (Republican/Fusion NLP)
1988: Jack Gilligan/Les AuCoin (Democrat), Hunter S. Thompson/Andrew Young (Continuity NLP)
1992: Joe Biden/Jeanne Kirkpatrick (Democrat), Harold Washington/Jack Gargan (Alliance '90)

1997-2001: Jan Brewer/Fred Thompson (Republican)
1996: Mike Gravel/Barney Frank (Alliance '90), John Silber/Dave McCurdy (Democrat)
2001: Jim Hightower/Ron Brown (Democratic Alliance)
2000: Jan Brewer/Fred Thompson (Republican)
 
1976: Gerald Ford Republican Bob Dole
Def: James Earl Carter Democratic Walter Mondale

1980; Charles Percy Republican Howard Baker
Def; Alan Cranston Democratic Gary Hart

1984:Edmund Brown j.r. Democratic Lloyd Benson
Def: Wally George Republican Paul Laxalt


1988:Edmund Brown j.r. Democratic Lloyd Benson

Paul Laxalt Republican Pete Dupont
 
Presenting one of those collaborative list things from my test thread on the Old Country that I said I'd do a writeup for and then proceeded to ignore and do fuck-all with. Don't ask me what happened here, because I honestly don't know.

I Just Wanted a Hearst Presidency List, TBH

1905-1909: William Randolph Hearst / Henry G. Davis (Democrat)
1909-1913: Elihu Root / Henry Cabot Lodge (Republican)
1913-1921: Claude A. Swanson / James M. Cox (Democrat)
1921-1925: James M. Cox / Peter G. Gerry (Democrat)

1925-1930: Hiram Johnson / William Howard Taft (Republican)
1930-1933: Hiram Johnson / VACANT (Republican)
1933-1937: George Norris / Arthur Vandenberg (Republican)

1937-1945: Franklin D. Roosevelt / Paul V. McNutt (Democratic)
1945-1947: Fiorello La Guardia / Harold Stassen (National Union)
1947-1949: Harold Stassen / VACANT (National Union)

1949-1953: Robert Taft / Richard Russell Jr. (Conservative)
1953-1961: Claude Pepper / Wayne Morse (Progressive)
1961-1969: Richard Nixon / Everett Dirksen (Conservative)
1969-1975: Frank Church / Philip Hart (Progressive)
1975-1977: Hubert Humphrey
/
Howard Baker (Progressive/Conservative)
1977-1985: Mo Udall / Bella Abzug (Progressive)
1985-1993: Bob Casey / Bill Clinton (Farmer-Labor)
1993-1997: Shirley Temple Black / Jack Kemp (Conservative)
1997-2001: Max Baucus / Marcy Kaptur (Farmer-Labor)
2001-2009: Mickey Leland / Russ Feingold (Progressive)
2009-2017: Marcy Kaptur / Jim Hood (Farmer-Labor)
2017-present: Bob Iger / William McRaven (Independent)
 
Guess the analogue

1917 - 1921: Justice Charles E. Hughes (Republican)
1916 (with Charles W. Fairbanks) def. Pres. Woodrow Wilson (Democratic)

1921 - 1924: Asst. Sec. Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democratic)
1920 (with Albert Ritchie) def. Pres. Charles E. Hughes (Republican)

1924 - 1929: Vice Pres. Albert Ritchie (Democratic)
1924 (with Herbert Hoover) def. Fmr. Postmaster General Will H. Hays (Republican), Governor Charles W. Bryan (Progressive)

1929 - 1933: Fmr. Sec. Jesse H. Jones (Democratic)
1928 (with William Hasting) def. Fmr. Gov. Gifford Pinchot (Republican)

1933 - 1945: Senator Hiram W. Johnson (Republican)
1932 (with Bertrand Snell) def. Pres. Jesse H. Jones (Democratic)
1936 (with Bertrand Snell) def. Speaker William H. Bankhead (Democratic)
1940 (with Henry A. Wallace) def. Businessman Edsel Ford (Democratic)
1944 (with Roscoe C. Patterson) def. Governor George Creel (Democratic)

1945 - 1953: Vice Pres. Roscoe C. Patterson (Republican)

1948 (with Wallace H. White Jr.) def. Governor George Creel (Democratic), Governor George T. Mickelson (Progressive)

1953 - 1961: Ret. General George C. Marshall (Democratic)
1952 (with Henry Jackson) def. Governor Herbert Hoover Jr. (Republican)

1956 (with Henry Jackson) def. Fmr. Gov. Herbert Hoover Jr. (Republican), Progressive Faithless Elector

1961 - 1963: Senator John Davis Lodge (Republican)
1960 (with Everett Dirksen) def. Vice President Henry Jackson (Democratic), Progressive Faithless Electors

1963 - 1969: Vice President Everett Dirksen (Republican)
1964 (with George Romney) def. Senator Eugene McCarthy (Democratic)

1969 - 1974: Fmr. Vice Pres. Henry Jackson (Democratic)
1968 (with Paul Sarbanes) def. Vice Pres. George Romney (Republican), Governor Tom McCall (Third Force)

1972 (with Paul Sarbanes) def. Senator Evan Mecham (Republican)
1974 - 1977: Vice President Stewart Udall (Democratic)

1977 - 1981: Fmr. Gov. Winfield Dunn (Republican)

1976 (with Jon Huntsman Sr.) def. President Stewart Udall (Democratic)

1981 - 1989: Fmr. Gov. Kirk Douglas (Democratic)
1980 (with Ted Kennedy) def. President Winfield Dunn (Republican), Rep. Larry MacDonald (Independent)

1980 (with Ted Kennedy) def. Fmr. Vice President Jon Huntsman Jr. (Republican)

1989 - 1993: Vice President Ted Kennedy (Democratic)
1988 (with Rick Perry) def. Governor Michael Bilirakis (Republican)


1993 - 2001: Governor Mike Huckabee (Republican)
1992 (with Buddy Roemer) def. President Ted Kennedy (Democratic), Businessman Ted Turner (Independent)
1996 (with Buddy Roemer) def. Senator Walter Mondale (Democratic), Businessman Ted Turner (Alliance)

2001 - 2009: Governor Ted Kennedy Jr. (Democratic)
2000 (with Warren Christopher) def. Vice President Buddy Roemer (Republican)

2004 (with Warren Christopher) def. Senator John McCain (Republican)

2009 - 2017: Senator Claude Allen (Republican)
2008 (with Mitch McConnell) def. Senator Joe Kernan (Democratic)
2012 (with Mitch McConnell) def. Fmr. Governor Ron Reagan (Democratic)

2017 - 2021: Businessman Steve Harvey (Democratic)
2016 (with Ted Strickland) def. Fmr. Secretary Janet Huckabee (Republican)


2021 - present: Fmr. Vice President Mitch McConnell (Republican)
2020 (with Rachel Paulose) def. President Steve Harvey (Democratic)
 
So today was my final day of classes for Junior year and to celebrate here is a list I made in a day. I hope it's not too awful.
1977-1981 Ronald Reagan (R-CA)/Richard Schweiker (R-PA) [1]
1976 def. Jimmy Carter (D-CA)/Walter Mondale (D-MN) [2]
1981-1989 Ted Kennedy (D-MA)/Adlai Stevenson III (D-IL) [3]
1980 def. Ronald Reagan (R-CA)/Richard Schweiker (R-PA) [4], Larry MacDonald (D-GA)/Bob Dornan (R-CA) [5]
1984 def. Richard Schweiker (R-PA)/Lamar Alexander (R-TN) [6]

1989-1993 Adlai Stevenson III (D-IL)/Richard Bryan (D-NV) [7]
1988 def. Bob Dole (R-KS)/Kay Orr (R-NE) [8]
1993-2001 Lewis Lehrman (R-NY)/Terry Branstad (R-IA) [9]
1992 def. Adlai Stevenson III (D-IL)/Richard Bryan (D-NV) [10]
1996 def. Mike Lowry (D-WA)/Buddy Roemer (D-LA) [11]

2001-2005 Terry Branstad (R-IA)/Mike Castle (R-DE) [12]
2000 def. Mark Dayton (D-MN)/Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) [13]
2005-2013 Elizabeth Holtzman (D-NY)/Lee Fisher (D-OH) [14]
2004 def. Terry Branstad (R-IA)/Mike Castle (R-DE) [15]
2008 def. Joe Barton (R-TX)/Ernie Fletcher (R-KY) [16]

2013-2021 Mike Huckabee (R-AR)/Bob Smith (R-NH) [17]
2012 def. Lee Fisher (D-OH)/Max Cleland (D-GA) [18]
2016 def. Alex Sink (D-FL)/Tom Udall (D-NM) [19]

2021-present Andrew Romanoff (D-CO)/John Kennedy (D-LA) [20]
2020 def. Bob Smith (R-NH)/Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) [21]

[1] The poisoned chalice goes to the Former Governor of California this time around. Barely winning the presidency, and not even with the popular vote, Reagan was not well-liked from the start. His proposed Reaganomincs fell flat to Congressional opposition, and the way he handled strikes from groups like the UMW was downright cruel. It didn't help that his hardline in Iran led to multiple wars scares in one year as everything fell apart. The fall of Iran, an awful situation at home that wasn't helped, and a Conservative base angry and demoralized, Reagan didn't stand a chance, especially with his opponent.

[2] Jimmy Carter's failure made the Dems have a deep introspection on who they should pick next, and they realized they needed a new man. But before that, the fate of the ticket: Carter would still be famous for his contributions to orgs like Habitat for Humanity and Senate Majority Leader Mondale would be essential in passing Holtzman's agenda. This would also be an intense what-if for Alternate History nerds as they speculate about what this "dream team" could have accomplished

[3] Ted Kennedy's term would be defined by a return to Keynesian economics in a big way. With gigantic majorities, Ted Kennedy defined the 1980s as a political comeback for liberalism after 12 years in the desert. Reagan couldn't really compete with a, while tarnished, still active Kennedy mythos that helped appeal to the baby boomer generation developing during this period. Kennedy revived and put in place the Humphrey-Hawkins legislation and helped implement it fully, along with this he invested much into the industries that were dying and making deals to have the dream of a co-opt in Youngstown a reality in order to fight the Rust Belt. To help with this Taft-Hartley was repealed and unions experienced a renaissance in the 1980s. The biggest two initiatives came in 1982 and 1983 with the American Energy Act, which reformed energy by attempting a comprehensive energy plan that would expand on the small solar and wind productions in order to invest more into them, which would eventually develop into a huge energy boom in both the Southwest and countries around the world. The 1983 passing of "Kennedycare" also established universal healthcare. However, even with all this, there were many challenges. The Soviet Union didn't have much trust in the Kennedy government and the Cold War trudged on with no end in sight. There was also Kennedy's major problems of alcoholism that plagued him throughout his time in office and would be the subject of ridicule of the republicans throughout everything. And even though he froze out Apartheid, he still supported the military regimes in places like Chile. Kennedy is remembered so fondly because boomers like him for his connection with the old Camelot that came before

[4] Ronald Reagan's re-election campaign was an utter disaster, being attacked on the left and the right, Reagan tried to entrenched himself as the only moral choice, but with an awful economy and the world almost in flames, people would rather stick with Kennedy

[5] The horrific ticket of MacDonald and Dornan was a subject of right-wing backlash from people who thought Reagan was being too soft on communism, and not right-wing enough for them. This ticket was an insane attempt to revive the AIP into a new organization, but even though they won over 7% of the vote. They could never capitalize again, mostly because both MacDonald and Dornan were primaries out and didn't have the same prestige again

[6] By 1984 the GOP didn't have much, everyone was either too old or too new, so they went with the one with the most pull. A moderate who can be seen and appreciated by the Reaganites, which seemed like a winning combination... in the primaries. In the general, he just couldn't get through Kennedy even with all of his flaws, and it resulted in a very bad landslide for the GOP.

[7] His father and grandfather couldn't do it.... but he did. After getting picked to shore up electoral heavy Illinois, Stevenson had 8 years of being Veep and finally letting his family into the White House. However, by that time he had to deal with a recession, and even though passed through a successful stimulus, people were tired of the Democrats and wanted someone with new ideas

[8] Bob Dole was the Conservative Plains champion, like an 80s version of Alf Landon. Well-liked by the base and he lost a close election to Stevenson. Dole would be an icon of the conservative movement for decades to come and the Plains Republicans in the Senate would always try to model themselves off of Dole, he would even influence the VP selection in 1992 with a man who tried to frame himself as a new Dole in the early 2000s

[9] Just like Kennedy defined the Democratic party. Lehrman defined the Republicans, to them he was the slick governor of NY who was the perfect synthesis of Reagan and Nixonian ideas. Thanks to 12 years of work, Republicans finally had the House and Senate and would use it to help pass their economic agenda, the ambitious cut in taxes was tampered down a bit, but a 25% cut across the board was well welcomed by everyone. Lehrman also embraced a new "War on Crime" through harsh sentencing, trying to legalize the death penalty again, which got him into a huge conflict with the Supreme Court, and welfare fraud. He would also be supportive of efforts to cross religion with schools by supporting prayers in schools and connecting with those religious righters who have been out in the cold since Reagan. His economic plan also called for a revival of the Gold Standard, but that was struck down even with support from Governor Ron Paul of Texas. But what Lehrman would be the most well-known for was his image. He cultivated his image through blankets of ads, appearances, and charisma. This is what helped him to power in 1982, and it helped again in 1988 and 1992. He is one of the most famous presidents and is often parodied even into the 2020s. Lehrman also helped cultivated many new activists that the party sorely needed before then and would help define the GOP in his image, as the party of Lehrman

[10] Stevenson, while doing the best he can with an economic recession, just wasn't good enough for the public. They were tired of 12 years of Democratic rule and wanted something different, and it was almost impossible to convince them otherwise. Especially with the mass amount of ads that defined the Lehrman campaign, sadly Stevenson couldn't keep up

[11] The former Governor and Senator from Washington was an interesting pick by the Dem base in order to combat Lehrman, he was used mainly to try and shore up Dem support in the West while arguing against Lehrman's economic policies. Roemer was used also to shore up the South, but both of these efforts just failed with a strong re-election campaign from Lehrman

[12] The VP and the "successor to Bob Dole", Branstad got the short end of the economic stick. The 90s boom created a tech and housing bubble that would pop with disastrous consequences in 2002, this would stifle any more attempts for keeping the books balanced, especially as Democrats, increasing in size post-2002 clamored for Keynesian reforms. They wanted a throwback to the 1980s, and they were going to get it.

[13] The poison chaliced didn't fall on the Dems, and they are thankful for Mark Dayton for failing in his mission. Dayton was a great politician and candidate, but people did like Lehrman's reforms and didn't feel that there was any need to change as they wanted another term of low taxes and continuing the "War on Crime" that had been stifled by the Supreme Court.

[14] Holtzman would be the claimed as the 2nd FDR, from NY, combatting a new depression, and using Keynesian economic reforms that had worked over the last 60 years. Holtzman would support this by raising taxes, creating a new jobs program in order to combat effects of climate change, and just government spending on infrastructure and releasing the restrictions put in place during the welfare reform era that helped define Lehrman. Holtzman would continue her liberal agenda with education and immigration reform throughout her time in office. She would also really emphasize climate change and fighting against it, which would put it into conflict with the GOP, and especially parties that rely heavily on their oil supply such as Texas. However, Holtzman is now looked at as quite favorable for saving the sinking ship that was the United States during 2004 and helping it get back on track. However, this didn't mean there wasn't a backlash waiting in the wings, and the GOP would strike back with a new machine in place.

[15] Branstad would not be looked at as favorably, maybe not in the Herbert Hoover tier, but certainly not good. His failure to really respond strongly to the 2nd Great Depression and the failure to pass any of his ideas to help balance to budget and run the surplus up hurt even more among conservatives. Overall, he is looked at quite poorly by both historians and the general public.

[16] The backlash to Holtzman's embrace of the "Green New Deal" led to backlash from oil and coal states, which would culminate in the nomination of Senator Joe Barton, and him doubling down with the selection of Governor Ernie Fletcher. While this was a failure, it helped move a lot of the unions in these more fossil-fuel heavy sectors away from the Democrats and towards the GOP, which would create the new coalitions that we see today

[17] The backlash to Holtzman all culminated with the election of her successor, Mike Huckabee. Huckabee managed to shockingly fight and win against the strong Clinton machine in Arkansas and led the GOP to victory in 2012. He was the person who really took the "culture war" into politics. As he used culture war issues like gay marriage and abortion into hot button issues again. This was the final form of the new religious right, and it would finally find a home in the GOP that had abandoned it after Reagan and only started up again over Lehrman. Huckabee also tried to put Lehrman's policies of re-regulation, cutting taxes, and being tough on crime back in place and was mildly successful on all fronts. Huckabee was the new GOP taken form, libertarian on economics while trying to create cultural issues to galvanize the base, with sometimes success. He would be remembered semi-fondly by the GOP, but his culture issues approach would be his downfall in 2014 and would create and very strong opposition that suffocated his legislative agenda, and the Supreme Court still being a very liberal branch of government, which caused rumors of court-packing among the right and trying to destroy the power of the Court when they hold both branches of government again. These ideas could happen soon, it all depends on how the new Democratic president steers the ship of state.

[18] Fisher had the support of the unions, which is why he was selected in 2004, but even with this strong performance in the Rust Belt, his performance in the South doomed him even with Cleland on the ticket. This would create fears that the Democrats would define themselves throughout the 2010s, trying to get these 2012's Huckabee Democrats back into the fold.


[19] Sink was a perfect example of this, as she campaigned as being a Southern successor to Holtzman, but it would all fail in the end. Huckabee would win again thanks to a strong economy and even though cultural issues made both sides angry, the moderates decided to throw their lot in with Huckabee.

[20] The young face of the Dems, he would win somewhat surprisingly in a close 2020 election and his Progressive policies of student loans, family aid, and a continuation of the GND policies have all been continued. However, the future is very uncertain with him usually being neck and neck with any GOP challengers in 2024. Even with a good economy, there are fears that it will crash and he will be the first Democrat to have only 4 years in office since James Buchanan. These fears, along with trying to keep a worryingly flipping Southern wing, are what will define the Dems going forward. Will they keep this coalition intact? Or will it finally fall apart? Only time will tell.

[21] After a long 8 years, a blandly named Bob Smith would be up to the plate, and as his bland name would suggest he couldn't really rile up the base as Huckabee did. While he did easily clear the primary, he wasn't really a great figure to turn out a base that was riding high on Huckabee's rhetoric and it would all fall apart. Where will the Republican party go from here? It's hard to tell with a Huckabee-inclined wing and a Lehrman-inclined wing. It's up to future nominees to walk this tightrope
 
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1620585569821.png


2007 - 2008: Gordon Brown (Labour)

2008 - 2010: Gordon Brown (Government of National Unity)

2010: Theresa May (Government of National Unity)

2010 - 2012: Theresa May (One Nation coalition)

2012 - 2013: Nigel Farage (Great British Party)

2013 - 2015: Jacob Rees-Mogg (Great British Party)

2015 - xx: Angela Rayner (One Nation Party)


The Crossed outbreak finally 'burned out' after thirty-seven days and fifteen million people, with most of northern England left barely habitable; due to international quarantine, only British forces were able to hold the "thin red lines" around Nottingham and the Tyne or put down the outbreaks elsewhere, leaving said forces barely existent by the end of it.

Brown's unity government had to take once-unthinkable measures to keep the country afloat, with the nationalisation of all major utilities and infrastructures including all commercial banks and generally 'ignoring' that the pound's value had plummeted; a military draft, mixed with the permanent withdrawal of all British military power from abroad; temporary suspension of powers belonging to the devolved administrations; seizure of all second homes to house the millions of refugees; and sweeping powers to local government overseers, the Regional Emergency Administrators ("viscounts" to the press).

As time went on, this became near-impossible for parts of the coalition - or even Labour - to support, as the "emergency" did not end even as the SAS reported the last Crossed had been killed. A terrified world, including Northern Ireland, would not allow anyone to leave the country and the economic impact of Britain ceasing to exist as a financial player had supercharged the global recession anyway. Britain could not rebuild and was forced into a command economy state to keep afloat, something Brown abhorred but could not escape. The stress took a heavy medical toll and he had to be relieved from office by the king.

With Brown gone - turned into Britain's second Churchill in public consciousness - the political divides could finally break loose. Theresa May, who had rapidly become one of the key Tory allies, did not have the stature or personal charisma to keep it together (and many Tories were angry she'd "ratted") and so ruled for two more years with the self-proclaimed One Nation coalition. She proclaimed she'd do "whatever it takes" to rebuild the country but it became obvious that was not, in fact, possible to do before the elections. And every bit of inefficiency or problems in the nation from pre-Crossed was spreading all its poison in the mud; worse for the country's identity, it was clear Northern Ireland was seperating itself from the 'mainland' and Westminster couldn't stop it, the United Kingdom now two seperate countries with a shared monarch and airspace no matter how both One Nation and DUP claimed otherwise. May was able to get the country more opened up to the world but with the economic collapses, it didn't really help and the millions of immigrants & holiday-makers trapped during the Crossed outbreak, who she hoped would leave to free up space and food rations, had now become imbedded into the country and most remained.

Nigel Farage's Great British Party stormed into the political vacuum, helped by two factors: a) Farage wasn't an MP and so had always been free to criticise the GNU more openly, leaving him the natural leader for the dissident right-wing b) He could point to how the rest of the world had "abandoned us", tying into his pre-war politics in a way other politicians could not. (The SNP, for example, were irrelevant when almost a million Scotsmen were dead and the country would starve if on its own) He just about won a minority government...

...and the scale of the crisis proved too much for his big plans. Leaving the EU caused localised economic damage and little attention; "immigration reform" was irrelevant when few would come in and attempts to kick people out led to riots; economic reforms and privatisations were a hash, and food and rent riots broke out. His party swiftly couped him but while Rees-Mogg (popular as an eccentric 'toff' figure when many politicians were haggard men and women) had a better grip on things, he couldn't get around the fact that the party's policies just weren't working in a traumatised, impoverished nation. Eventually, he couldn't find any non-GBP MPs to work with and the government fell.

Rayner did, to be fair, inherit an improved international trade situation from her foes - the rest of the world was improving and was a market again. She also had the charm, the union background, and the work ethic to get a "lib-lab" One Nation through, and the personal backstory to quieten opponents and win voters over despite having only been an MP for a few years: she was from the north, the Crossed outbreak had hit her personally, and she had served as a "viscount" for the Manchester desolation before her MP selection. Under her, Britain celebrated the anniversaries of VE Day and the Battle of Britain, highly necessary moments of national celebration, and mourned the tenth anniversary of the Crossed.

Since 2018, Britain has started to push for large state infrastructure programmes and other reforms to get it to at least become a middle-income nation in the next decade. Northern Ireland is formally part of a centralised UK but de facto a seperate EU member-state. (Whether to rejoin the EU or not is being heavily debated) Rayner and One Nation won the 2020 election and hope to win 2025 over "Dishy Rishi" and his rebranded GBP.
 
1968: George Romney Republican Spiro Agnew
Def:
Hubert Humphrey Democratic Edmund Muskie
George Wallace American Independent Curtis Lemay
Edmund Muskie Democratic Terry Sanford
Def:Incumbrant
1976: Edmund Muskie Democratic Terry Sanford
Def: Charles Percy Republican Robert Taft j.r

Richard Nixon stays in retirement.
Romney wins 1968.president Romney gets blame for the fall of south Veitnam as u.s. troops leaves the region.
Prc is never recognized.

President Muskie gets rehab job program for returning Veitam vets. Alternative energy act of 1977 passed by congress.
 
I finally wrote something properly optimistic

Presidents of the United States
2021-2029: Joe Biden/Kamala Harris[1]

def. Donald Trump/Mike Pence
def.
Ron DeSantis/Daniel Cameron
2029-2033: Erin Stewart/Julia Letlow

def. Kamala Harris/Gretchen Whitmer[2]
2033-2041: Chokwe Antar Lumumba[3]/India Walton

def. Erin Stewart/Julia Letlow
def. Josh Hawley/Torren Ecker, Ricky Dale Harrington Jr./Elinor Swanson[2]
2041-2049: Francis X. Suarez[4]/Dusty Johnson
def. Andrew Yang/Ruben Gallego
def.
Carlos Ramirez-Rosa/Park Cannon
2049-2053: Javon Price/Mallerie Stromswold

def. Jennifer Foy/Geo Saba
2053-present: Mauree Turner[5]/Ugo Okere
def. Javon Price/Mallerie Stromswold

[1] Despite his many, many, many flaws, Biden winning the presidency was a blessing in disguise for the socialist movement. Bernie was free to use his position as Senate Finance Chairman to force through or sit on any legislation with near-anonymity, bending the often listless Biden administration to many positions from his own posthumous campaign. Minimum wage was raised, labor powers were expanded, billionaires were even taxed more - but only after the President got a second term.

[2] '28 was an exciting year for radlibs, since both tickets were all-female, purely by coincidence, allowing compassionate conservatism to win out over Biden-era stagflation with little hubub. In a first, a Republican administration put forward pragmatic and bipartisan policies, taking great lengths to combat homelessness and climate-change. Stewart is often credited by Daily Show Democrats with putting the GOP "on the right track", despite a small relapse following her jarring loss in the early thirties. Hawley won that with his Apple-Pie Populism, but was siphoned by Harrington's third party candidacy.

[3] The younger Lumumbada started off as a southern Obama-lite but became more and more radical as the thirties dawned. In the first hour of his presidency, executive orders for a 10% value-added tax on business transactions, a 0.1% tax on financial transactions, a 2% tax on every dollar of net worth above $50 million, and $40/ton carbon tax were signed with a blue ballpoint pen and put into effect the next day. Minority leader Bassaro, trying his best to emulate the late McConnell, lead walkouts in order to further stonewall vacant SCOTUS seats, only for the Prez to use the Constitutional Appointments Clause to confirm judges Kruger, Gupta, Koh, Jackson and Twitty. Any petty terminations Amazon committed to try and call Lumumbada's bluff resulted in stronger, more aggressive Unions. By the end of his second term, monopolies that gripped the global industry were on the verge of collapse.

[4] The American Overton window had now been firmly shoved to a further left. President X, as they called him, made combating climate change his #1 priority in his first 100 days - a fitting caveat, considering how his home state of Florida had become the new, trashier Venice. Oil rig workers were recalled to the mainland in their millions and given new jobs as windmill farm maintenance. Disenfranchised assembly workers suddenly found the jobs at the plant had returned, tho now they'd be putting together EVs instead. New York City quickly found its skyline dotted with towering vertical farms that employed hundreds of Liberal Arts students. Fun fact: only 21,250 square miles of solar panels are needed to power the entire continental United States, and that's exactly how many American businesses made with government grants, payed for by corporations and multinationals being grabbed by the neck and forced into paying absent tax revenue.

[5] The current president, an Enby Oklahoman who usually wears a hijab the same shade of blue as their John Lennon glasses, sits at the head of a rather calm collection of 52 States. Commonsense legislative reform has allowed for the passage of the NPVIC, allowing the Electoral College to be shuttered and congress to erupt into a calliope of new parties. Soldiers haven't been sent overseas in decades, and police exist only as municipal Civilian Defence Forces. The massive network of solar panels, wind turbines, hydroelectric ocean engines and algae blooms has left America energy independent and net carbon neutral. Employees even own small shares in the industries they work for. The real issue for them to face is a social one, as old-world racism and sexism still exist in small pockets. But they all have time for it now, especially since their social war is against class struggle as a whole.
 
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I got this idea last night, and kinda had to do this list as a baseline. I will 100% develop it, but I kinda just wanted to put it out there. So the PoD is that Ike is more decisive when Nixon gets caught in the fund scandal. Ike decides to dumb him and replace him with Lodge Jr. on the ticket. This results in worse coattails for the GOP, and the butterflies flap from there.


1953-1961 General Dwight Eisenhower (R-KS)/Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (R-MA) (replacing Richard M. Nixon (R-CA))
1961-1969 Senate Majority Whip Lyndon Johnson (D-TX)/Senator Stuart Symington (D-MO)
1969-1977 Senator/Fmr. Gov. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ)/Senator George Romney (R-MI)
1977-1985 Senator Fred Harris (D-OK)/Senator Vance Hartke (D-IN)
1985-1993 Senator James Buckley (R-NY)/Gov. Jack Eckerd (R-FL)
1993-2001 Gov. Gar Alperovitz (D-OH)/Senator Lester C. Hunt Jr (D-WY)
2001-2005 Senator Lester C. Hunt Jr (D-WY)/Gov. Nick Theodore (D-SC)
2005-2013 Fmr. Gov Richard Viguerie (R-VA)/Speaker of the House Donald Rumsfeld (R-IL)
2013-2021 Senator Les AuCoin (D-OR)/Mike Hatch (D-MN)
2021-present Fmr. Gov./Senator Bill Weld (R-MA)/Gov. Steve Scalise (R-LA)
 
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this is posted right after you posted the nice American future history in your thread and i just got the image that whenever you try to do a nice future history you wake up ten days later in a ditch somewhere with a page long dissertation on climate change and a new tl where the world has broken

this is excellent btw, wish i had your creativity
writeup in-progress

Oh no
 
1964 William Scranton Republican William Fong
Def: John Fritzgerald Kennedy Democratic Lyndon Baines Johnson

1964 William Scranton Republican William Fong
Def: Henry Jackson Democratic Terry Sanford

1968: George Wallace American Independent Curtis Lemay

Def: Hubert Humphrey Democratic Edmund Muskie
Def: Nelson Rockefeller Republican Robert Taft j.r


Oswald killed general Walker
Kennedy is caught in a sex scandal.

President Scranton pass s civil rights.
President Wallace bombs Hanoi .
 
IF LORD SELBORNE WAS RIGHT


Jameson, Leander Star: Associate of Cecil Rhodes, 2nd Chief Magistrate of Southern Rhodesia & Administrator General for Matabeleland. Implicated in 'December Plot' to invade ZAR on behalf of Johannesburg Reform Committee. Backed down in unclear circumstances, but movement of troops to the border made Southern Rhodesia vulnerable, leading to the Second Matabele War and Jameson's death. See Rhodes, Cecil; Zambezi Genocide...

South African National Biographical Dictionary,
1994.


Presidents of the South African Republic

Paul Kruger: 1883-1897

Piet Joubert: 1897

Francis Reitz: 1897-1898

Joseph Robinson: 1898-1900

John Hays Hammond: 1900-1902

Samuel Marks: 1902-1906

Presidents of the United Republics of South Africa

William Schreiner: 1908-?


Paul Kruger's long reign became more and more unstable in the 1890s. As the republic boomed, the rule of a small rural minority over a commodities-based, rapidly urbanising society became increasingly untenable. In early 1896, Kruger moved against the Johannesburg Reform Committee for allegedly plotting a revolution on behalf of the Uitlanders; the trial was a disaster, and the defendants were acquitted among heavy international condemnation of Kruger's government. In 1897, after the Volksrad blocked one of his proposals, he threatened to resign; to general astonishment the new member of the house, Louis Botha, immediately moved to accept it. To Kruger's dismay, the conservatives refused to fight for him, believing it was time for younger and more energetic leadership.

Piet Joubert, Kruger's vice president, held the Presidency for three months. Recognising that concessions had to be made to the Uitlanders before the ZAR lost control of Johannesburg, he proposed the 'Joubert Compromise' that would have progressively enfranchised non-Boer whites. The volksrad refused to countenance it; a special election was called and the Boer nationalist Francis Reitz was elected.

Reitz- who had been President of the Orange Free State until 1895 before moving to Pretoria- embarked upon an aggressive program of administrative modernisation and pan-Dutch nationalism. A defender of ZAR sovereignty, he abandoned the Joubert compromise. Though willing to tolerate some Uitlander enfranchisement, his proposals would have penalised the use of English in government and private life. This was unworkable. In 1898, the Reform Committee seized Johannesburg, and a force of Uitlanders was raised to march upon Pretoria.

Faced with a choice between immediate reform, or a civil war which would doubtless lead to an invasion by the British, Reitz folded. A new election was held with full Uitlander enfranchisement.

Joseph Robinson was elected as a compromise candidate: Cape British, but a veteran of the Free State's militia in the Basuto War. A Randlord, but uninvolved with the Reform Committee. He governed, somewhat unenthusiastically, for two years. To general surprise, the Boer settlers were largely left in peace- Robinson continued Kruger's policy of acting as an independent state without formally claiming sovereignty. By 1900, tensions were beginning to calm.

Then the Rhodes Brothers, still stepped in Matabele blood, launched their coup attempt. It successfully brought down a government; unfortunately the government in question was in Capetown. To the horror of the brothers, the Randlords had no interest in overthrowing the Republic now they had a stake in it; nor were British Uitlanders unduly bothered at the absence of the Crown. Robinson was taken hostage by the rebels, and somehow slain in the government's rescue attempt. Frank Rhodes was hanged in Pretoria, and Cecil Rhodes died in mysterious circumstances in his London exile; his last act had apparently been to burn his private correspondence.

Joseph Chamberlain did not attend the funeral.

The American John Hays Hammond was another compromise leader: an Uitlander but an American, without worrying links of loyalty to the British crown. He had previously been employed by Rhodes, but in the aftermath of the coup rather ruthlessly moved that the ZAR government seize and break up the DeBeers group- with generous allocations to patriots who had put down the rebellion. Having thus bought off the wavering Boer leadership, Hammond retired to the United States in 1902. His presidency is thus often described as one careful scheme to move his money safely out of the country.

Samuel Marks should not have been successful; a Jew in a country of militant protestants, a Lithuanian surrounded by Dutch and British, he nonetheless had a tremendous gift of charm. He built a mixed cabinet; young Boer leaders like Louis Botha and Jan Smuts served alongside Randlords like Lionel Phillips and Max Michaelis. In 1906, the crisis that had been building for a decade finally broke when Natal went bankrupt. The colony's finances were almost entirely dependent upon the customs revenue from goods moving from the ZAR to Durban; once the Transvaal had completed a rail link with Portuguese Delagoa Bay, Natal had been in a mounting spiral of debt. Desperate to recover, the Colony's parliament moved to hold a public vote on joining the ZAR. The bill was immediately vetoed by the Governor, but the Campbell-Bannerman government in London was now faced with the prospect of fighting a war to put down a British democracy. Conscious of the disastrous effect this would have upon relations with the Dominions and the United States, the British instead offered a referendum in both the Cape and Natal. Voters would be offered a choice between consolidation into a single Dominion, continued autonomy, or accession to the ZAR. The plan to split the vote failed; Cape and Natalese Afrikaners overwhelmingly voted for unity, and even most British South Africans recognised that the laws of economic gravity bound them to Pretoria.

In 1908, William Schreiner became the first President of a United South Africa. It would not be an easy government....
 
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Yes. I don't think it was a likely outcome, but I was struck, rereading my material on the South African War, how much of the build-up was motivated by the British fear that they were losing ground.

It's an interesting theme in history: powerful states who become convinced of their own weakness, and therefore prove it. Both the USA and USSR at different times in the Cold War, for instance....
 
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