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Lists of Heads of Government and Heads of State

SoldierOfChrist said:
I could maybe see Long and Floyd Olson on one ticket (though that's also unlikely), but I'm not sure how you get Benson there.
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With Wheeler being President, Farmer-Labor’s assimilation into the Democratic Party has been much more expedient, and Benson, who’s pretty annoyed about that, decides this is his best chance at keeping a relevant left-wing third party alive.

This isn’t out of character for him (to my knowledge, I could be wrong about this) given his battles with the Hump over the state DFL in the late 40’s and his subsequent affiliation with Wallace’s Progressive Party, and with Olson being, y’know, dead, he seemed like a fine candidate.
 
The Strange Birth And Death Of Liberal America

1945-1945: Franklin D. Roosevelt (Second National Union)
1944 (with Wendell Willkie) def. Douglas MacArthur (Independent Republican), Harry F. Byrd (Independent Democratic)
1945-1945: Wendell Willkie (Second National Union)
1945-1949: Wendell Willkie (Liberal)
1949-1950: Douglas MacArthur (Republican)
1948 (with William O. Douglas) def. Wendell Willkie (Liberal), Richard Russell Jr (Democratic)
1950-1952: William O. Douglas (Democratic)
1952-1961: William O. Douglas (Liberal)
1952 (with Earl Warren) def. Dwight D. Eisenhower (Republican), Richard Russell Jr (Democratic)
1956 (with Earl Warren) def. Happy Chandler (Democratic), Howard Buffett (Republican)
1961-1965: Joel Broyhill (Conservative 'United Front')
1960 (with George H. Bender) def. Earl Warren (Liberal)
1965-1969: Earl Warren (Liberal)
1964 (with Hubert Humphrey) def. Joel Broyhill (Conservative)
1969-1974: George Wallace (Conservative)
1968 (with Frank Carlson) def. Hubert Humphrey (Liberal)
1972 (with James Carter) def. Ronald Reagan (Liberal)
1974-1977: James Carter (Conservative)
1977-1980: Nelson Rockefeller (Liberal)
1976 (with Ronald Reagan) def. James Carter (Conservative)
1980-1989: Ronald Reagan (Liberal)
1980 (with Lowell P. Weicker Jr) def. John Anderson (Conservative)
1984 (with Lowell P. Weicker Jr) def. Phil Crane (Conservative), John Anderson (National Front)
1989-1997: Paul Laxalt (Liberal)
1988 (with Joe Biden) def. Jack Kemp (Conservative), Jesse Jackson (Independent)
1992 (with Paul Tsongas) def. Al Gore (Conservative), Tom Harkin (Peoples')
1997-2005: Lamar Alexander (Conservative)
1996 (with Phil Gramm) def. Arlen Specter (Liberal)
2000 (with Phil Gramm) def. Joe Lieberman (Liberal)
2005-2009: Phil Gramm (Conservative)
2004 (with John Kasich) def. Joe Lieberman (Liberal)
2009-2013: Hillary Clinton (Liberal)
2008 (with Mitt Romney) def. Al Gore (Conservative), Ron Paul (Freedom)
2013-2017: Rick Santorum (Conservative)
2012 (with Gary Johnson) def. Ron Paul (Freedom), Bernie Sanders (Left), Hillary Clinton (Liberal)
2017-2021: Gary Johnson (Conservative and Freedom)
2016 (vacant) def. Danny Glover (Left), Rick Santorum (Conservative and Freedom), Jerry Brown (Liberal)

Very basic conceit here, that FDR and Willkie get their Liberal Party rolling. After over a decade of umming and ahhing, the political system effectively solidifies into two parties. The New Deal nevertheless becomes a post-war consensus with the Conservatives generally adopting populist economics rather than being fiscally conservative.

The distinction between American Conservatives and Liberals remains pretty distinct until Rockefeller's death in office in 1980. His VP, Reagan is saddled with an economic crisis and begins a radical project of drawing back the frontiers of the state. The Conservatives meanwhile have a bit of a crisis, and this allows the Liberals to fully implement 'Reaganomics'.

The Conservatives retake power for the first time in twenty years by steering toward the centre, but this is the first step toward America's great political crisis. The difference between Liberal and Conservative candidates seem to increasingly be as thin as tissue paper. This culminates in the economic crisis of 2007, in which a Conservative party which had marched to an even more Reaganomic position than the Liberals themselves. Their popularity collapses but the Liberals struggle to benefit, as populist movements on the left and right emerge.

In 2008, the breakthrough of the libertarian Freedom Party leads to a hung electoral college and Liberals and Conservatives are forced to form a coalition. This coalition doesn't tackle the economic crisis in a way which is perceived of as satisfactory. The Freedom Party surges, and the Conservative grassroots revolt and a radical wins the nomination in 2012. The result is an even greater upset than 2008, with the Liberals pushed to fourth place and the Freedom Party rising to second but there is no majority in the electoral college and a second coalition is formed, this time between the Conservatives and Freedom Party.

After four years of economic and social hardship, the left finally surges to first place, but as in previous elections there is no majority in the electoral college. With a war on Wall Street being threatened, Gary Johnson becomes Acting President with the backing of Conservatives, Liberals and the Freedom Party. This is not predicted to end well.
 
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Bob that is a damn fun take. I like the title too since I did a thing that went badly like that. I definitely think the splits and unions are fantastic. MacArthur Douglas is a hell of a but seems reasonable as a compromise ticket scenario gone to hell.
 
Japhy said:
Bob that is a damn fun take. I like the title too since I did a thing that went badly like that. I definitely think the splits and unions are fantastic. MacArthur Douglas is a hell of a but seems reasonable as a compromise ticket scenario gone to hell.
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Oh I imagined that was some hung college type deal to keep the Liberals from winning another election, then everything goes tits up over Korea, MacArthur is impeached for nuking Korea and nearly starting WW3, and Douglas takes over and defects to the Liberals anyway.
 
Japhy said:
Bob that is a damn fun take. I like the title too since I did a thing that went badly like that. I definitely think the splits and unions are fantastic. MacArthur Douglas is a hell of a but seems reasonable as a compromise ticket scenario gone to hell.
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I also enjoyed squeezing in a subversion of 'lefty-liberal reagan' by keeping him with the New Deal Democrats/Liberals, then getting him into power and then he just does what did in OTL anyway.
 
Mumby said:
Oh I imagined that was some hung college type deal to keep the Liberals from winning another election, then everything goes tits up over Korea, MacArthur is impeached for nuking Korea and nearly starting WW3, and Douglas takes over and defects to the Liberals anyway.
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Mumby said:
I also enjoyed squeezing in a subversion of 'lefty-liberal reagan' by keeping him with the New Deal Democrats/Liberals, then getting him into power and then he just does what did in OTL anyway.
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I figured the MacArthur/Douglas ticket was based on that kind of logic. I just mean that sort of logic rather then seeing the New Deal Dixiecrats be willing to work with the Liberals makes great sense but is off base none the less.

Also the Reagan move was great. In my Strange Death of Liberalism I liked playing with similar stuff by playing with what happens if the LBJ offer to Rockefeller gets taken up. Even if he's elected by the Democrats and even if he's to the left of a lot of Democrats on a lot of things, it's still The guy who made Henry Kissinger and sent the Troops into Attica guns blazing without a plan to save the hostages.
 
Zangara Doesn't Miss

1933-1937: John Nance Garner / vacant (Democratic Party)
1933: Herbert Hoover / Charles Curtis (Republican Party)
1937-1941: John Nance Garner / Paul V. McNutt (Democratic Party) [1]
1936: Thomas D. Schall / Styles Bridges (Republican Party), Huey Long / William Lenke (Share Our Wealth)
1941-1944: Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. / Lester J. Dickinson (Republican Party) [2]
1940: Paul V. McNutt / Cordell Hull (Democratic Party), Henry A. Wallace / Vito Marcantonio (Progressive Party), Fritz Julius Kuhn / Elwood A. "Chief Red Cloud" Towner (Share Our Wealth) [3]
1944-1945: Lester J. Dickinson / vacant (Republican Party) [4]
1945-1949: Lester J. Dickinson / James F. Byrnes (National Union)
1944: None
1949-1954: Vito Marcantonio / Helen Gahagan Douglas (Progressive Party) [5]
1948: James F. Byrnes / John Henry Stelle (Democratic Party), Robert A. Taft / Horace Hildreth (Republican Party)
1952: Douglas MacArthur / Simeon Willis (Republican Party), Richard Russell, Jr. / Richard J. Daley (Democratic Party)
1954-1957: Helen Gahagan Douglas / vacant (Progressive Party) [6]
1957- : Arthur B. Langlie / Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. (Republican Party) [7]
1956: Helen Gahagan Douglas / Ronald Reagan (Progressive Party), Gerald L.K. Smith / Walter Burgwyn Jones (Democratic Party)

[1] Though his first term was widely lauded, leading to a landslide re-election, by the middle of President Garner's second term his New Deal was largely regarded as a failure. The economy had slipped back into recession by 1938. Those on the right accused Garner of having implemented a socialist program that was doomed to failure from the start. Those on the left accused Garner or being a closet reactionary for not going far enough. President Garner's decision to violently break the Flint sit-down strike of 1937 did permanent damage to his relationship with labor, revealing splits that had been simmering under the surface within the Democratic Party for decades, and foreshadowing the further turbulence that was to come.

[2] As Teddy Jr.'s Patriotic Legion urged for greater American involvement in the growing war in Europe, it was the fall of France that catapulted the man himself first towards the GOP nomination and then the Presidency. Roosevelt took a dramatic shift from Garner's "loans not guns" policy, shipping large amounts of material aid to Britain. As German unrestricted submarine warfare continued to turn American public opinion against the Nazis, it was the invasion of Soviet Russia that drove the communist-influenced Progressives into the arms of the President's war party. Finally, with public support, Roosevelt declared war on Germany in October 1941.

[3] Long's pet party was taken over by pro-Nazi entryists in the lead up to the 1940 election. Kuhn and Towner decried what they perceived as Jewish and communist control over the major parties, calling for an end to all financial aid to Britain.

[4] President Roosevelt oversaw the climax of the war, the Anglo-American invasion of Persia and the shipping of Allied forces in to keep Baku out of German-Turkish hands. Dickinson oversaw the resolution, leaving western Germany in an atomic glow. By modern accounts, the Second Great War officially ended following the Truk Nuke and surrender of the Japanese as well.

[5] The labor strife that occurred in the two years following the end of the War would transform America forever. The United Front broke, with the Republicans, Democrats, and Progressives all at each others' throats. But it was the returning servicemen, fresh from the Eastern and Chinese Fronts, who backed the Progressive ticket in such overwhelming numbers as which would draw great suspicion from anti-Communists. Although they failed to secure the popular vote, the Progressives won the electoral college and governed with a shaky coalition of Progressive, CPUSA, and progressive-minded Democrats in Congress to pass the Second New Deal.

[6] President Marcantonio survived many Patriotic Legion assassination attempts only to succumb to heart disease, a fact which draws the suspicion many conspiracy theorists to this very day. Succeeding him was Helen Gahagan Douglas, America's first woman President. Douglas attempted to crack down on the PL as part of her general failed civil rights offensive. With evaporating institutional support, President Douglas' final years in office were mostly marked by her joint-intervention with the Soviets against the "Titoite-Fascists" in Yugoslavia --- a war that would last far longer than any of the parties in involved would have ever anticipated.

[7] While President Langlie publicly disavowed the PL assaults on Progressive Party and CPUSA offices, in practice neither his administration nor local officials shed many tears over it. In practice the return of the GOP to office was less of a counter-revolution and more of a consolidation of the establishment forces. The Progressives were here to stay, with rising stars like Illinois Governor Ronald Reagan and Former Secretary of Peace Virginia Durr waiting in the wings. The Democratic Party was less fortunate in its fate.
 
To be that guy, Kuhn wasn't eligible.

I do like the decent into madness that is the Patriotic League though. Seems very possible.
 
Presidents of Russia

1991-1996: Boris Yeltsin (Independent)
1996-2000: Anatoly Sobchak (Our Home-Russia)
1996: Gennady Zyuganov (Communist)
2000-2010: Vladimir Yakovlev (Svoboda)
2000: Vladimir Putin (Our Home-Russia)
2004: Gennady Zyuganov (Communist), Ivan Rybkin (Independent)
2008: Gennady Zyuganov (Communist), Vladimir Zhirinovsky (Liberal Democrat)
2010: Dmitry Medvedev (Svoboda)
2010-2018: Boris Nemtsov (People's Freedom)
2010: Dmitry Rogozin (National Front), Grigory Yavlinsky (Yabloko)
2014: Dmitry Rogozin (National Front), Grigory Yavlinsky (Yabloko)
2018-: Mikhail Kasyanov (People's Freedom)
2018: Sergei Glazyev (Independent), Dmitry Rogozin (National Front

In 1995 Boris Yeltsin, struggling with both immense unpopularity and ill health, decides not to run for another term as President. In his place St. Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak runs and narrowly beats Gennady Zyuganov in the second round of the election. However, Sobchak is hurt by the poor economy (including the financial crisis of 1998) and corruption issues. Recognizing that he will not be able to win a second term Sobchak makes Vladimir Putin his Prime Minister and prepares him for succession. This alienates his other top deputy, Vladimir Yakovlev, who breaks with Sobchak and forms his own party to run in the election. After a tough fought election Yakovlev barely defeats Putin.

Yakovlev's first two terms are a resounding success. Due to rising oil prices the economy recovers, and in the Caucasus Russia manages to largely defeat the Chechen rebels. In 2007 the constitution is changed, allowing Yakovlev to run for a third term. Unfortunately for Yakovlev a worldwide economic crisis occurs in 2009. The government's response to the crisis is poor, including a series of unpopular taxes to raise state revenue (which low oil prices are hurting). The luxury Yakovlev lives in also doesn't endure him to the population. In August of 2010 a protest by shopkeepers is violently put down by the police. This proves to be the breaking point, and the protests demanding Yakovlev's resignation break out across Russia. When the military declines to support him Yakovlev flees to Belarus, leaving Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as Acting President.

The collapse of the regime throws the Russian political system into chaos. The Svoboda party is quickly disbanded, while numerous other parties are discredited due to their ties with the regime. In the 2010 election Boris Nemtsov easily wins. Unfortunately Nemtsov's support for democracy quickly disappears once he is in power. While the more unpopular policies of the Yakovlev regime are repealed the new regime turns back to the old tools of kompromat, physical intimidation, and voter fraud to remain in power, as evidenced by Nemtsov receiving 70% of the vote in the 2014 election. In 2018 Nemtsov leaves office for his handpicked successor, Mikhail Kasyanov, who makes him Prime Minister. The question for Russia now is if Nemtsov will decide to run for a third term in 2022.
 
The Hot War re-envisioned

1949-1951: Thomas E. Dewey / Earl Warren (Republican)
1948 def. Harry S. Truman / Alben W. Barkley (Democratic), J. Strom Thurmond / Fielding L. Wright (Dixiecrat)
1951-1953: James V. Forrestal / office vacant (Democratic)
1953-1955: James V. Forrestal / Joseph McCarthy (Second National Union)
1952 def. Henry A. Wallace / Vito Marcantonio (Progressive)
1955-1957: Hubert H. Humphrey / office vacant (Independent)
1957-0000: Henry A. Wallace / Leo Isaacson (Progressive)
1956 def. Hubert H. Humphrey / Albert Gore (Reform), Douglas MacArthur / Richard Nixon (Third National Union)

This was a silly idea I had to see if the US could be swung into a fully pacifist nation in the Cold War, and then I realised I could combine that with elements of Turtlesove's Hot War series to make... whatever this is. ITTL Dewey narrowly beats Truman thanks to a strong Dixiecrat showing and, crucially, Forrestal stays on as Secretary of Defense. The Korean War ends up starting as IOTL, but in this world Forrestal persuades Dewey to let MacArthur use nuclear weapons and as in the Hot War series the war quickly unfolds into a nightmare Third World War: Paris is Nuked, the Soviets cross the Elbe and then even the Rhine until they're blasted back by American tactical nuclear weapons and the Red Army is beaten into submission. A last ditch Soviet attack destroys D.C. and the whole cabinet but Forrestal die. Forrestal continues the war and manages to make serious headway in Europe, driving the Soviets back into Poland and then back to an agreed upon truce line in Ukraine and Belarus. However the post-War world is much worse than many had imagined - Europe is starving and ravaged by atomic warfare, and Germany falls to an authoritarian nationalist regime, whilst the Soviet Union implodes and an atomic civil war spills over into China. By 1955 A reconstructed Congress has had enough of Forestall's plans to rebuild Europe and, pinning the blame on the President and Vice President to the war's horrendous loss of American lives and material, impeach both as the cabinet resigns en masse, leaving only the erstwhile and reluctant Secretary for European Relief Hubert Humphrey in the line of succession. Humphrey becomes President for one miserable year until Henry Wallace is elected in 1956, promising an America which will return to looking after her own people as the UK and France alone desperately try and hold a war torn Europe together and prevent the new American sponsored governments in Eastern Europe fro, collapsing and as a Polish-German war seems ever more likely...
 
ATLF: Inglourious Basterds

Chancellors of the German Reich

1933-1944: Adolf Hitler (National Socialist German Workers)
1933 Mar (Coalition with DNVP) def. Otto Wels (Social Democrat), Ernst Thaelmann (Communist), Ludwig Kaas (Centre), Alfred Hugenberg (German National Peoples'), Heinrich Held (Bavarian Peoples')
1933 Nov (Sole Legal Party) def. unopposed
1936 (Sole Legal Party) def. unopposed
1938 (Sole Legal Party) def. unopposed
1944-1944: Franz von Papen (Independent leading Armistice Government)
1944-1945: Helmuth von Moltke (Independent leading Constitutional Convention)
1945-1945: Helmuth von Moltke (Christian Social Movement)
1945 ('Two Party Coalition' with Communists) def. Wilhelm Pieck (Communist), Hjalmar Schacht (National Democratic Front)
1945-1949: Erwin Rommel (Independent leading War Government with Christian Social Movement and National Democratic Front)
1949-1960: Albert Kesselring (National Democratic Front)
1949 (Majority) def. Otto Grotewohl (United Left), Konrad Adenauer (Christian Social Movement)
1953 (Majority) def. Hans Pichler (United Left)
1957 (Majority) def. Hans Pichler (United Left)
1960-1961: Gerhard Krueger (National Democratic Front majority)

Presidents of the United States of America

1933-1945: Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democratic)
1932 (with John N. Garner) def. Herbert Hoover (Republican)
1936 (with John N. Garner) def. Alf Landon (Republican)
1940 (with Henry A. Wallace) def. Wendell Willkie (Republican)
1945-1949: Douglas MacArthur (Republican)
1944 (with Everett Dirksen) def. Henry A. Wallace (Democratic), James F. Byrnes ('National' Democratic)
1949-1953: Douglas MacArthur (Second National Union)
1948 (with Francis E. Walter) def. James Roosevelt (Democratic)
1953-1961: James Roosevelt (Democratic)
1952 (with Hubert Humphrey) def. Robert A. Taft (Republican), Francis E. Walter (National)
1956 (with Hubert Humphrey) def. Richard Poff (Republican)

Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

1940-1945: Winston Churchill (Conservative leading War Government with Labour, Liberal Nationals, Liberals and National Labour)
1945-1949: Winston Churchill (Conservative leading War Government with Liberal Nationals, Liberals, and National Workers')
1949-1954: Aneurin Bevan (Labour)
1949 (Majority) def. Winston Churchill (National Government - Conservatives, Liberal Nationals, National Workers'), Archibald Sinclair (Liberal)
1954-1956: Anthony Eden (Union)
1954 (Minority, with Liberal confidence and supply) def. Aneurin Bevan (Labour), Archibald Sinclair (Liberal), Edmund Ironside (National)
1956-1960: Aneurin Bevan (Labour)
1956 (Majority) def. Anthony Eden (Union), Edmund Ironside (National), Archibald Sinclair (Liberal)
1960-1961: Michael Foot (Labour majority)

Leaders of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

1925-1947: Joseph Stalin (Communist)
1947-1949: Georgy Zhukov (Communist)

Premiers of the Russian State

1949-1949: Ivan Konev (Independent leading Constitutional Commission)
1949-1950: Mikhail Suslov (Social Revolutionary)
1949 (Popular Front majority) def. Aleksandr Solzhenitysn (National Unity)
1950-1952: Anastasy Vonsiatsky (National Revolutionary leading Military Government)
1952-1961: Anastasy Vonsiatsky (National Revolutionary)

So my logic here is that a Nazi Germany that is forced to seek terms in 1944 is one that is able to get rather more favourable terms out of the Western Allies and it all feeds into a more reasonable looking plan for Operation Unthinkable.

Von Moltke doesn't really want to go along with the rearmament that is asked of him and is junked in favour of Rommel, leading a National Government of quiescent conservatives and continuity fascists. This ultimately leads to the collapse of the USSR in nuclear bombardment, and the establishment of the Fourth Reich, not quite the continent spanning Greater Germany of Hitler's fever dreams but more like the Mitteleuropa fantasy of Kaiser Bill, conjoined to an emasculated and humbled (for now) Russia. Technically democratic, Germany is dominated by the NDF, which is crypto-fascist in a distinctly creepy way, especially considering Western Europeans never quite uncovered Holocaust and they have been rather too successful at pinning certain atrocities in Eastern Europe on the former Soviets.

In America, victory in '44 leads to Roosevelt standing aside and as Wallace makes his go for the Presidency, MacArthur takes his plans for an anti-Bolshevist crusade to the country. While he wins two elections in a row, he also decimates a generation in the bloodbath of Russia and condemns the Republicans to irrelevance for at least a decade. A realignment is taking place however and the New Deal coalition can only be retained for so long.

In Britain, fourteen years without a general election and a wildly unpopular war in Russia to boot leads to Labour winning a thumping majority under Bevan but the combative style of his premiership leads to him losing his majority five years later. Eden is too hopped up drugs to efficiently manage a fragile minority government however and after a fevered outburst about the Russians invading Turkestan (at American acquiescence, better them than Red China, eh?) his government crumbles and Bevan's back at least until he dies of cancer.

And finally Russia. For a good bit of time, it looked like the Russians might push the US and her Allies back to the Rhine. But the judicious use of nuclear weapons saw Stalin overturned and after a bloody scramble to Moscow, Zhukov finally gave in. The Russian State tried democracy, but elected Communists in defiance of American bludgeoning and the CIA co-sponsored a fascist coup with the Germans. For a long time, both America and Germany have seen Vonsiatsky's Russia as an ally, even a puppet. But with the old Russian Empire's border restored in Central Asia, she begins to flex her muscles and look to Eastern Europe, to the rickety principalities established in the Second Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

And as for the Basterds. Well, they could not abide the alliance America made with the Nazis to bring down the Russkies, no they could not. Some say Aldo Raine fought for the Reds, not in defence of communism but just because he had more Nazi scalps to bag. Where they are now, nobody knows for certain, though rumours emerge now and again. The guerrilla campaign that the Turkestanis have kept up since the Russians came in is bloody and unrelenting, baring no small resemblance to certain events in Germany a couple of decades ago. Yet more rumours say they never really left Germany and wait in the shadows for a moment to strike.

The year is 1961 and Europe stands on a knife edge. Kesselring is dead and Germany has a new and radical leader who finds even the current generous peace settlement unsatisfactory. Britain has a left-wing government that may not be willing to wait for American go ahead if hostilities do break out. And in the German puppet state of Poland, some middle aged Jews with a grudge the size of the continent have got some ideas.
 
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