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Alternate Wikibox Thread

Love it - did you have specific MPs, Lords, & MSPs in mind for the PJP defections or is it more just general numbers?
The MPs I had in mind were, aside from Corbyn and Long Bailey: Diane Abbott, Tahir Ali, Apsana Begum, Richard Burgon, Dan Carden, John McDonnell, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Zarah Sultana, Sam Tarry, Claudia Webbe and Nadia Whittome.

Peers are Baronesses Clark and Primarolo. MSPs are Richard Leonard, Alex Rowley and Katy Clark (the Baroness).
 
The MPs I had in mind were, aside from Corbyn and Long Bailey: Diane Abbott, Tahir Ali, Apsana Begum, Richard Burgon, Dan Carden, John McDonnell, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Zarah Sultana, Sam Tarry, Claudia Webbe and Nadia Whittome.

Peers are Baronesses Clark and Primarolo. MSPs are Richard Leonard, Alex Rowley and Katy Clark (the Baroness).
I'm not sure we'd see Primarolo joining what is essentially the hardcore Corbynites of the SCG in splitting from the party. Instead, might I suggest Christine Blower, Pauline Bryan, or John Hendy?

I really doubt that the party's left (old left, at least) would ever seriously leave, they're too attached to the brand for it.
Given we don't know the context of how this happens, it's not unreasonable to say it could happen. I mean, the Labour Party leadership could decide to take Mandelson's advice/suggestion/wish of purging the party of the its hard left & trade union links combined with the internal party reforms that Evans wishes to marginalise the membership; it'd certainly put pressure on some to then argue "I didn't leave the Labour Party, the Labour Party left me". But I also can't speak on behalf of @ES1702 who created the work, although I am a fan of it.
 
I decided that the Kennedy Center looked like an authoritarian legislative building so I made it one.

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The Grand Old Man was dead. Vice President Vilsack succeeded him. The new Vice President was Senator Mark Warner. Chaos, yet expected in inner circles. And what did the Republicans decide to do 4 years later in the primaries? Well, they decided to have another brokered convention of course. 2000, 2008, and now 2012. There were seven contenders. Ron Paul, running for the third election in a row, was one of the big faces this time and was considered to actually have a chance this time around. There was Michele Bachmann, the intensely unpopular Vice Presidential nominee to Christine Todd Whitman in 2008, who wanted to galvanise the support of the grass roots Republicans. There was John McCain, the Senator from Arizona trying for the third time after having been dicked from the nomination by Bush in 2000, and then himself playing his part to dick Bush from the nomination in 2008. He had his momentum, but he wasn't expected to do as well as in 2008, and certainly not in 2000; he would be 80 if elected to a second term. There was John Kasich, running for a second time 12 years after his first bid, having come in third place behind Bush and McCain. He had his followers but his bid in 2012 was not entirely expected. There was Jeb Bush, the brother of George W. and son of George H. W, having a go in order to return the Bush family to the White House. George W. Bush was expected to make a fourth consecutive bid for the White House, but decided against it. Bush was one of the front-runners and was expected to do quite well indeed. There was Mitt Romney, the former Governor of Massachusetts, having his second go after having come sixth in 2008, but having won three states. This time, he was one of the two front-runners along with the brother Bush. Then, there was the Crazy Old Man. Born in Tennessee but associated with Georgia, he had briefly made a bid for President in 2000, before dropping out and endorsing Alan Keyes, who came in fifth behind former Vice President Quayle.

It was to moderate surprise that Michele Bachmann won Iowa, but it wasn't a completely unconceived hypothetical. However, it came as a shock when the Crazy Old Man won in New Hampshire, having been polling in single digits. Then, to the horror of the establishment Republicans rooting mainly for Bush but also some for Romney, he began to win the states leading up to Super Tuesday. He actually didn't win on Super Tuesday, But the momentum he achieved from the states that he did win on Super Tuesday was bigger than the momentum won by Romney and Bush. In the end, the primaries came down to three. Jeb, Mitt, and the Crazy Old Man. For the third time in twelve years, it soon became painfully apparent that there was going to be a brokered convention in the Republican Party. When the final delegate count was revealed, it was by far the most fractious of the three. While 2000 had been a 1012-1142 split ending up with Bush winning 1360-1142, and 2008 had been a 609-1111 split ending up with Whitman winning 1269-1111, this time the convention delegates had to endure a three way with the Crazy Old Man, Mitt Romney, and Jeb, with only a couple dozen delegates between them; 743-723-701. COM had a narrow lead of 20 delegates ahead of Romney, and 42 ahead of Bush. Former VP candidate Bachmann released her delegates to COM. Ron Paul gave his delegates to McCain. McCain released his delegates and gave them to Kasich. Kasich, against all expectations, actually gave his delegates, including McCain's released ones, to the delegate leader. The reason for this, however, would become apparent soon enough. The decider now, was Jeb Bush. It now being confirmed that the Bushes would not have a fourth Republican nomination so yet, Bush decided that after a lot of thinking that it would only do harm to the Republicans if they dicked the delegate and popular vote leader out of the nomination three times out of three of the last three times that the Republicans had had a brokered convention.

And so, in the end, Bush gave his delegates to the Crazy Old Man, securing the nomination for him. An absolute rank outsider, he announced that John Kasich would be his running mate. This had been arranged before the convention, but was only announced after the final vote. He had decided to do this to help woo over the establishment-inclined voters in the general election. With another disaster avoided, given the 2008 convention debacle widely being considered to have lost the Republicans the 2008 election in a landslide, the Republicans could take something of a deep breath, with some anxiousness to their nominee's platform and ability to win, and turned to the general election.


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The Crazy Old Man was consistently behind President Vilsack in the polls. It was at one point predicted that the President would win in a landslide similar in strength to that of his predecessor, the Grand Old Man. These kinds of predictions soon ceased as polling stabilised, but the President was consistently in the lead. The Crazy Old Man's campaign was lambasted as simply that; crazy, and the final polls before polling day suggested a three point lead for the incumbent President. If the election had been held in the days and weeks after the Grand Old Man's death, the Crazy Old Man would very likely have been condemned to irrelevancy and sent back to the fringes of the Republican Party. The Crazy Old Man, at worst, saw the opportunity to be something of a Goldwater figure, leading the way for a generation after him to follow in his footsteps in a new era of politics in about twenty years time. It was with this mindset that he found himself in as the returns started coming in.

And then, for the Democrats, shit hit the fan.


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Nobody knew how, but the Crazy Old Man was vastly overperforming expectations. Much, much more than the degree to which Kennedy exceeded expectations in 2004. Florida flipped red for the first time in twelve years. Wisconsin voted red for the first time since 1984. States like Indiana and Ohio came back home to daddy; the latter being helped by Kasich's presence on the ticket. The final result was a rather bizarre map, given trends, but the end result made the Crazy Old Man the President-elect of the United States, and left President Vilsack with a consession speech to give, as the first incumbent Democrat president to lose an election for 36 years. The President-elect was jubilant, but the Democrats were absolutely fuming. Vilsack had won the popular vote by a hundred thousand, and the Crazy Old Man would be entering the White House. Sure, the 2000 election was close, but at least Bush actually won the popular vote. For the first time in 124 years, the popular vote winner had been cheated out of the White House.

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The Crazy Old Man was destroying the country. At least, that is what the Democrats insisted. Four major candidates for the Democrats decided to contest the primary, the first contested primary since 2004. There was the Senator from New York, the Lady Predestined. There was the former Vice President, the Establishment's Man. There was the New York Representative, The Family Flagbearer. And finally, there was the Senator from Illinois, the Charismatic Pretender. In the beginning it looked like a four-way race, and in the beginning, it indeed was, at least in vote share. But with the Charismatic Pretender winning Iowa, the Establishment's Man winning in New Hampshire as well as Nevada (the latter above expectations), and the Lady Predestined winning in South Carolina, it would turn out that the starving of victories for her would leave the Family Flagbearer beginning to drop in the polls. On Super Tuesday, the Charismatic Pretender won *most* of the states on Super Tuesday, but it was not a blowout victory. In fact, the states that the Establishment's Man *did* win was spun as a bigger achievement than the Charismatic Pretender's spoils. As the primaries drew on longer, it became clear that the Family Flagbearer would not be winning the day, and she dropped out, endorsing the Lady Predestined. This endorsement allowed the Lady Predestined to win a big victory in New York. While this was expected, it gave her a rather sizeable, and very needed boost to keep her in the primaries for a good while longer. However, the remaining primaries went between the Establishment's Man and the Charismatic Pretender. It became painfully apparent that once again, for the third time in sixteen years, there would be a brokered convention in one of the two big parties.

This was becoming something of a trend, and the Lady Predestined desperately wanted to avoid it happening again. To that end, she dropped out and endorsed the Charismatic Pretender, who was in the lead, but with not enough. She hoped that this would give him enough to win outright, but it was not to be. In the end, the results were that the Charismatic Pretender had a lead of six hundred delegates over the Establishment's Man, and about a thousand over his new friend, the Lady Predestined, and short around 300 delegates for a majority. All sides were horrified, but given he was still in with a chance to win, the Establishment's Man stayed in and desperately lobbied for the Lady Predestined's delegates. She refused, and on the floor of the convention, the Family Flagbearer immediately released her delegates to the Lady Predestined, and the Lady Predestined then gave their combined delegates to the Charismatic Pretender, immediately handing him the nomination. A steal had been avoided, "Thank god", most sides cried. The Charismatic Pretender announced his running mate as being his fellow senator, the Massachusetts Environmentalist. He came in third when his friend and fellow Bay Stater, the late Grand Old Man, won the nomination in 2004. He was also the senior senator to the Grand Old Man's nephew, Senator Joseph P. Kennedy II. While the Crazy Old Man had faced a surprisingly strong challenge from a now-81-year-old Ron Paul, who had made a habit out of challenging incumbent Republican presidents, and while indeed he shockingly won a few states, the Crazy Old Man won the primary rather easily with 71% of the vote. The Establishment's Man, while disappointed, conceded gracefully and endorsed the new nominee, and the Democrats moved on to the General Election. However, while they remained ahead in the polls, the psychodrama of the Democratic convention did little to help them.


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Cain never led in the polls, not once. Not just on average, but never in a single poll. This did not mean much, however, as Cain had won the election without winning the popular vote before, indeed the first person to do so for over a hundred years. The Democrats had prepared for this, and pushed as hard as they could for the general election, they would not take anything for granted ever again after what happened in the previous year. Following Cain's renomination, an independent from Utah announced a third-party bid for the presidency. He was the Man in the Middle. With his stated aim being to win his home state of Utah, he hoped that he could make history, or at the very least cause something of a shock. What he did not want to see was the President being re-elected under any circumstances. With formerly Republican links, the Man in the Middle hoped at the very least to split the Republican vote in his home state, and at best to win it. The initial returns in the election were mixed. It did appear that the Charismatic Pretender was overperforming former President Vilsack, but it was not immediately clear that it would be enough. It was looking likely that the Charismatic Pretender at the very least would win the popular vote, but they well knew from experience that that would simply not be enough to become the President-elect of the United States. Soon, things became interesting. While the Democrats were outperforming in Michigan, the Republicans, confusingly, were outperforming in Wisconsin. It came to pass that Wisconsin flipped for the Republicans, and Michigan flipped for the Democrats. Virginia also flipped as widely expected for the Democrats. When the Utah results started coming in, things got remarkably interesting.

The Man in the Middle was in the lead, and the Republicans absolutely tanked. The results gave the Man in the Middle the state, and the Democrats a silver medal. The Republicans were reduced to an embarrassing sub-twenty percent finish what was usually an extremely strong state for them. By this time, a horrifying prospect began to rear its head. Was the general election heading for a contingent in the House of Representatives? It had only happened once before, and that was 216 years earlier, in the election of 1800, but with the returns that they had, it was becoming an ever more likely situation. The 21st century had seen five brokered conventions in the sixteen years it had had to that point, but this would be another league compared to that. Every camp's greatest fear soon became realised when the remaining returns made clear that neither the Crazy Old Man nor the Charismatic Pretender would get to the magic number of 270 electoral votes. The President pro Tempore of the Senate, at that time a gentleman from Delaware, muttered the now-famous words 'Dear fucking god.' as the situation was confirmed. The final numbers in the election were the Crazy Old Man on 269 votes, the Charismatic Pretender on 263 votes, and the Man in the Middle on 6 votes, all from his state of Utah. In the end, the Charismatic Pretender had indeed won the popular vote, this time by more than 1 percent over the Crazy Old Man compared to the 0.1 percent margin achieved by President Vilsack in 2020. The electoral college met, and they made their decision without any faithless actors. Congress met on January 6, 2017 to decide the entire presidential election. Given how many states each candidate won in the general election, and given the representative performances down ballot, there appeared to be only one winner.

The Man in the Middle could not hope to win the Presidency; only the Republicans and the Democrats would be going forward to the contingent election given the nature of the procedure and since all of Congress were members of either of those parties, or independents who were caucusing with them. In the end, the Crazy Old Man won 30 states in the contingent election, all the states he won in the general election, plus Utah, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, handing him a second term in the White House. The Charismatic Pretender, who had won the popular vote rather convincingly, was of the firm mind that this was a virulently unfair situation, but did not wish to cause a crisis, and conceded the election immediately after the contingent election. However, he may have had reason to have the last laugh, as his vice-presidential nominee, the Massachusetts Environmentalist, was elected Vice President in the Senate. This was an eventuality without any modern precedent. The last time opposing parties filled the presidential ticket positions was when the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, formed the National Union ticket in 1864 with Democrat Andrew Johnson. The Crazy Old Man became the only president in history to win two elections, and not win the popular vote in either contest. The Crazy Old Man and the Massachusetts Environmentalist were sworn in two weeks later, on January 20, with certainly many interesting moments to follow in its wake.


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YES! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in! “I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!” McConnell repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. “The Spirits of all Three, President Roosevelt, President Biden, President Ossoff, shall strive within me. Oh John McCain! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say it on my knees, old friend; on my knees!”

"God Bless Us, Every One!"


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George Herbert Walker Bush (June 12, 1924 – November 5, 2001) was an American politician, diplomat, and businessman who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1975 to 1985, roughly ten years. A member of the Republican Party, Bush also served as the 41st vice president from 1974 to 1975 under Gerald Ford, in the U.S. House of Representatives, as briefly U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under Richard Nixon. Domestically, Bush presided over the worst economy in the four decades since the Great Depression, with growing inflation and a recession during his tenure. However, he served during a period in American history referred to as the Satanic Panic, characterised by widespread moral panic, allegations of satanic ritual abuse, increased religious fanaticism and multiple domestic terror attacks, resulting in comfortable approval ratings during his two terms. Following the allegations levied against him and others in the Republican party in the early 90s, as well as his subsequent assassination by conspiracy theorist Milton William Cooper, however, contemporary public opinion remains mixed.

Bush was raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. His father, Prescott Bush, was one of many businessmen implicated by Major General Smedley Butler as part of a supposed military coup to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt. He attended Phillips Academy before serving in the United States Navy Reserve during World War II. After the war, he graduated from Yale and moved to West Texas, where he established a successful oil company. After an unsuccessful run for the United States Senate, he won the election to the 7th congressional district of Texas in 1966. President Richard Nixon appointed Bush to the position of Ambassador to the United Nations in 1971 and to the position of chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1973. In 1974, President Gerald Ford appointed him as Vice President of the United States following Nixon's resignation. Bush would assume the presidency on September 5, 1975 after Ford was assassinated by Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a member of the Manson Family cult. To date, this was the last intra-term U.S. presidential succession.

As president, Bush attended the inaugural meeting of the Group of Five (G5) industrialised nations in 1975 and secured membership for Canada. With the collapse of South Vietnam nine months into his presidency, U.S. involvement in Vietnam essentially ended. Major moments of his tenure included the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Regardless of his progress towards ensuring cooling of relations with the Soviet Union, Bush's most remarkable efforts came in the form of the Government's actions against cults and supposed ritual abuse cases. After minor federal investigation into possible links between New York serial killer David Berkowitz and the Process Church of the Final Judgement, largely at the recommendation of his Vice President, Abraham Beame, Bush established the Countercult Crimes Division within the FBI, marking an aggressive shift in domestic policy and aggravating hysteria from the evangelical population. As a result, more damning scandals for the administration, such as the rebuffing of the Rockefeller Commission and the Iran-Contra affair, were overshadowed by other highly-popularised incidents, such as the 1977 mass suicide of the Peoples Temple congregation in California, the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack in Oregon, and the rise of prolific serial killers, most notably John Wayne Gacy, Dean Corll and Elmer Wayne Henley, each of whom were suspected to have connections to trafficking rings.

Following the end of his Presidency, RNC Chairman Lawrence E. King and Republican lobbyist Craig Spence were arrested as suspected trafficking ringleaders following the Franklin Credit Union scandal. Bush, as well as former Chief of Staff Dick Cheney and former National Security Advisor Donald Gregg, were named directly in testimony supplied by Paul Bonacci. Bush vehemently denied the accusations, and the verdict for both him and other senior administration officials was rendered 'inconclusive' due to reported jury tampering and witness intimidation. Despite not being charged, public opinion of Bush and the Republican Party as a whole plummeted to single digits. Historians link the political fallout of this scandal as one of the probable causes that allowed both the 1993 Oklahoma City Bombing and the 1999 Columbine High School Bombings, as well as the public lynchings of Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin in 1994, to occur without proper investigation as other events earmarked by the Countercult Crimes Division beforehand.

On November 5, 2001, Bush was assassinated at his home in Dallas. Conspiracy theorist and former US Navy Officer Milton William Cooper was charged, but was shot and killed in a standoff with the US Marshalls service two days later. The FBI and the Lott Commission both concluded Cooper had acted alone in the assassination. President Ernie Chambers, following his election in 2000, publicly intended to reopen investigation into links between Bush and the Franklin Credit Union scandal, but was forced to abandon this following the September 11 Terrorist Attacks.
 
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I have updated FDR's box in Willing the Delano with a few quality improvements, as well as a new portrait which I hope is noticably improved from previous.
Looks less like an extra in a Romero zombie flick, and more like an immortal wizard, which is good - because the last “ancient man FDR” wiki photo you had creeped me out.
 
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