Fuchsia Red's American Party Explanations for Ignorant Foreigners
Alright, so we have a lot of parties now, it's 2080 after all! We're hardly the old party system of Democrats and Republicans! But as foreigners sometime pop in the thread asking "What's Gaia's Lament?" or "What the hell is a Municipalist?", a party rundown might be needed. I'm not as good as DaughterSideways when it comes to this thing, but I might as well try!
Circles
Basically all our parties are in six "circles". I'm going to order them from radical to establishmentarian, but I'm putting the fascists second-last because the fascists are basically just those that want the Old Ways back when America had the Right People in Charge, but not the Old Old Ways.
Green Circle
The greenies! Tends to get votes from the eco-communes up in the Appalachians and urban liberals in New New York, as well as Hawaii for some reason. They're divided in three parties, of varying associations with the eco-terrorists like the PPT that pops up in the news attacking some corporation or another for their supposed "crimes against the planet", including the murder of trillionaire Jackie Shears. However, the eco-terrorists are very popular in certain areas. Don't diss them in West Virginia for one.
- Gaia's Lament: The most radical of green parties, those are the ones that do Voluntary Human Extinction and insist all their nominees be sterilised to avoid any children. "Humanity is a virus" used to be a popular slogan of theirs. I think they nominated the actual leader of the Planetary Protection Taskforce once and lost all votes outside the eco-communes as she declared that if she was elected President, she would commit to destroying America's industry systematically so to ensure that America would be "sustainable".
- Soldiers of Mother Earth: The green party that while they do have ties to the eco-terrorists, avoid the radical stuff like VHE. They're very much green though, and dedicated to destroying American neo-capitalism in favour of eco-socialism and what they call the "Green Revolution". I think they really like the idea of agrarianism and making basically of America into eco-communes, like Gaia's Lament.
- Green Party: The "mainstream" [for what counts as mainstream] environmentalist party, they're often derided as "eco-lite" by the radicals. They are very clear in their denial of any connections with the eco-terrorists, and often votes in favour of tougher crackdowns on eco-terrorists. I think they have at times tried to sell themselves as "the only party that can both respect democracy and negotiate with the eco-terrorists". Which isn't much of a niche. If you like the eco-terrorists or think they have a point, you're gonna vote for the actual green parties.
Socialist Circle
"Socialist" in America basically just means "left, but likes unions", to be honest. It varies as a label, but the three here are all supported by unions and by cooperatives, which makes for strong fiscal support. The unions never can quite agree, though, on what they particularly want. This circle does great in the Midwest, especially when you get away from the Appalachians. And they can at times win Southern states, especially in Louisiana, where you basically have socialist governors for 12 years and counting. Oh yeah, and Alaska. That's a weird state.
- Communist Party: I think technically they're the "Communist Party of America (Marxist-Lincolnite-Reddite)". But nobody calls them that, not even the news. The actual Communist Party has to call itself the "Original Communist Party" now after a lawsuit. This one is big on calling for workers to control the means of production, and has in several states tried to push power from constitutional democracy to proletarian democracy via an assembly of soviets. ["Soviet" is a thing American lefties say to mean workers' councils. I think it's Russian in origin].
- Democratic Socialists: I think they're the oldest party in America. No, that's not the NRC, as much as they like to call themselves the "Grand Old Party". The Democratic Socialists of America [or DSA for short] likes to tout that it's the Party of Brace Belden, who was the first socialist president apparently. Odd, I thought that was like FDR? Anyway, President Belden was hugely popular in the socialist circle. His death the other year basically shut down the entire Midwest in mourning. The DSA has a huge pedigree, but not much lately to their name.
- Progressive Party: The moderates in the Socialist circle, they are known at times to work with other "moderate" parties to come up with a "grand bargain" that seems to piss off everyone not moderate. I think President Belden once called them "opportunist bandwagon jumpers" since they were the last on the left to hold on the label of "liberal" and refused to work with socialists until it was unavoidable. Of course now they deny that and insist they were always on good terms, pointing to examples of progressive-socialist cooperation... more than a century in the past.
Libertarian Circle
The libertarians are weird tbh. They do best in the West due to the West really liking the emphasis on "individual government" and whatnot. They also do well in suburbs sometimes, but that tends to be mainly either socialist or liberal depending on the particularities of the suburb in question. They're split in those that interpret "individual government" as either left or right. The two are basically wings of the same party and regularly work with each other, but there do exist times where the two split. Definitely a more coherent circle than normal.
- Municipalist Party: They're the "left" of the libertarians, apparently. Big on expanding the National Dividend [that's the American basic revenue], empowering local communities and decentralising laws, they do have some stuff they believe the national government should take charge on. Not a lot, but some. They basically made Colorado their stronghold over the last decade, all but making it safe Municipalist. Their governor got 52% last election!
- Libertarian Party: The "right" of the libertarian circle, and the one with the name everyone knows. Has a bit of a reputation for being the "illegal trafficking" party which basically makes them toxic to sensible voters. Unfortunately, that's a minority of Americans. Oh yeah, I should explain the "illegal trafficking" bit to non-Americans. Turns out the party was in the habit of trafficking heavily illegal drugs like tobacco, believing that because of some weird conspiracy theory that because some president in like, the 2020s refused to step down when his term was up, his successor and therefore all of the State's actions from that was actually illegitimate, including the ban on tobacco in 2047. Got basically all their leaders arrested.
Liberal Circle
"Liberal" in America basically just means "right, but likes the status quo of being a constitutional democratic republic". Do note that not all parties here like using the term "liberal". Especially the NRC, they refuse to use it, instead using "conservative". They do well in the South, but especially well in the Pacific Coast states and the North-East. Their safest state is basically Massachusetts, I think. That's definitely a very liberal state.
- Civic Democratic Alliance: They're the ones that say they're the party of FDR and all, being the actual legal continuation of the old Democratic Party. They like to emphasise "moderate cooperation" and "rising above old partisan divides". I'm not sure what they actually believe in apart from that, to be honest. Do they even have an ideology, or are they just the party of people who bemoan that politics has ideology in it?
- Our Tomorrow: A party funded by a multitrillionaire to promote unity between the CDA and the NRC. It just managed to split the liberal circle even more. The trillionaire died before she could change her will which gave all the money to Our Tomorrow. It's half a genuine political party trying to advocate "liberal-conservative fusion", half just a bunch of people keeping the facade going to keep the money. And yes, people do vote for this.
- New Republican-Constitution Party: The legal continuation to the old Republican Party. It likes to say it's the party of Reagan. It doesn't quite like to say that it's the party of Hawley, for obvious reasons, although they do derive more ideology from him than from Reagan. Vocally against socialism, it still rejects the liberal branding, calling liberalism "a mental disorder". The CDA and NRC's centuries-old feud continues and ensures the liberal circle is divided as ever. That's one thing you can count on in American politics, Dems and Reps hating each other.
Fascist Circle
Technically the "Nationalist Circle" according to political commentators, but fuck that. They're fascists and everyone knows it. They tend to do well in the White South and some parts of the Plains and pick up scarily lots of voters elsewhere. I won't spend a lot of words here because, ugh.
- American Nationalist Union: The """"moderate"""" fascists, they're nevertheless the ones clinging more to the idea of America being a white country and heavily dog-whistling against African immigrants, saying they will never "integrate" in American society. They're "moderate" because they don't openly desire the destruction of the constitution and the establishment of a "Volkstate". They do, though. They just think it can be slowly chipped away, slowly, one liberty after another until America wakes up and we're under the jackboot.
- American National People's Vanguard: They're rather odd. They think America should be organised under a system that's basically stolen from some old communist country, but with the one party being of course the ANPV. They want it to be an one-party totalitarian state, and basically openly admits that. Their ideology is "National Integrated Vanguardism" or something. They are big on the idea of America being a multiracial state, as long as all people unite behind the Flag and the Lost Greatness of America, unlike the more white-power ANU.
Monarchist Circle
To understand why America has significant monarchist politics, you have to understand the '50s and the great trauma it dealt on American culture as a whole. Some people basically came away from that with one conclusion set in their minds - America was a mistake. To those people, who proudly called themselves "Tories", America erred fatally when it rebelled against the English Crown. And that America will only find salvation and national stability when it returns to the fold and crowns King George VII as the rightful Monarch of America. Really nuts thinking, yeah, but it was popular once. Nowadays, this has cooled down, but there's still strong "Tory" communities scattered around America.
- New Tory Party: The main banner-holder of the Monarchist circle, it's mostly broad-tent, but tends right-wards. It depends on where the communities are, honestly. Some of them aren't that much different from the CDA and would be comfortably liberal if it wasn't for the monarchist belief, while others fit well within the ANPV, only that they want the Supreme Director to be a crowned head, not some jumped-up commoner. The New Tory Party tends to emphasise the aspects it can agree on, namely the crown, and a general discomfort with socialism.
- Social Monarchist Union: While the New Tories are firmly not in favour of socialism, the SMU is. Primarily based in Midwestern "Tory" communities, it fused monarchist beliefs with Midwestern liking for socialism to form a very bizarre ideology called "Monarchical Socialism", which basically argues that the ideal political system is an implementation and furthering of socialism, but with the monarch as a "guiding, stable hand". Some theorists, buried deep within their papers, even hypothesise the idea of "Absolutist Communism" where the state withers away to nothing but the King. Most of the SMU doesn't even touch that idea, though, and heavily deny ever planning on anything like that.
Electoral College
Our president is elected via this weird system. Non-Americans are probably familiar with it via watching our election nights. It's basically a winner-takes-all system apart from some states that do proportional, congressional district breakdown or instant runoff. The last time anyone got a majority was when President Skála ran unopposed back in 2060 due to the Social Crisis. Normally that sort of thing doesn't happen at all. You are expected to have parties be eliminated one by one in the election college voting one by one. The circles tend to back their own in that.
Some electors may decide that none of the remaining choices are worth their time and declare their vote to be "present", which basically means it's counted, but not for any of the candidates. The rounds go on, normally something like eight rounds, before a majority is decided, often with only two or three candidates left. If the "present" votes deny a majority with two candidates left, the state parties that originally won the electors are handed full control and are expected to decide rather rapidly who to cast the votes for after a round acknowledging their renewed electors.
If this second "last round" still has no majority, most likely by some state parties deciding to maintain the "present" voting, the Governors of the state in question are handed control and are expected to make a decision who to back. The third "last round" is the furthest any election has been, but there is constitutionally procedure for a fourth one in which the House of the People selects the nominee.
This is pretty messy, yeah, and I think it was cleaner before the convention of 2052 or so that established America's new multi-party democracy.