ATLF - Superman: Red Son
1953 - 1957: Dwight D. Eisenhower (Republican)
1952 (with Richard Nixon): Adlai Stevenson (Democratic)
1957 - 1965: W. Averell Harriman (Democratic)
1956 (with John F. Kennedy): Joe McCarthy (Anti-Communist), Harold Stassen (Republican), unpledged electors (States' Rights)
1960 (with John F. Kennedy): William E. Jenner (Anti-Communist), Nelson Rockefeller (Republican)
1965 - 1973: John F. Kennedy (Democratic)
1964 (with George Smathers): Ted Walker (Anti-Communist), Nelson Rockefeller (Republican)
1968 (with Terry Sanford): Ezra Taft Benson (Anti-Communist), George Romney (Republican), Martin Luther King Jr. (People's)
1973 - 1978: Alexander Luthor (Anti-Communist)
1972 (with J. Edgar Hoover): Terry Sanford (Democratic), Charles Mathias (Republican), Gus Hall (Superman), Ralph Nader (People's)
1976 (with William Westmoreland): Scoop Jackson (Democratic), Gus Hall (Superman), Elliot Richardson (Republican)
1978 - 1981: William Westmoreland (Anti-Communist)
1981 - 0000: Bruce Wayne (Democratic)
1980 (with Lloyd Bentsen): John K. Singlaub (Anti-Communist), Michael Harrington (Socialist), Gus Hall (Soviet)
1984 (with Lloyd Bentsen): Pat Buchanan (Anti-Communist), Carl Sagan (Socialist)
The emergence of the Soviet Superman in January, 1953 was the death knell for the Eisenhower Administration and the budding Russo-American Cold War. A nigh-invincible man, all under the control General Secretary Stalin, made a conflict with the Soviet Union unwinnable for the United States. Superman soon took to Korea and then Iran, and later Vietnam and knocked down three Cold War dominoes before spring began, humiliating Eisenhower in the opening months of his presidency. And then Stalin died in March. And Superman took his place as General Secretary.
The truth is a little more complicated than that and involves Stalin's lieutenants cutting each other down in the subsequent succession war until the military basically asked Superman to take control of the country at the end of the year. The Soviet people rejoiced, the perfect symbol of Soviet propaganda was now leading the country. Superman sabotaged American efforts in Guatemala and the Philippines and in 1955 helped China invade Taiwan. With the 'fall of Free China' American conservatives seethed and Senator Joe McCarthy waged a war against the 'fellow traveler' Eisenhower government as 'The Understanding' became the norm of geopolitics.
Eisenhower announced that he wasn't going to be running for a second term, completely disillusioned by the presidency. McCarthy and his nascent Anti-Communist Party rejoiced and gathered resources to fight a general election. Despite the funding and vitriol behind McCarthy, it would be the foreign policy expertise of Governor Averell Harriman that mattered most to Americans on election day. Harriman cemented 'The Understanding' as State Department and the United States turned inwards as social tensions began to boil over domestically.
By 1969, any pretense of a multipolar world was gone. Superman's Soviet Empire controlled all of Europe (except the UK), all of Asia (except China), all of Africa (except South Africa), and swathes of territory in Latin America. Meanwhile the United States desperately tried to hold itself together as President Kennedy found a way to piss off just about everyone through his fence-sitting civil rights policies. The 'Southern Troubles' occupied more American military manpower than any proxy war could have afforded. As the Democrats flailed trying to keep the country together and the Republicans continued their nosedive into obscurity, the Anti-Communists waited with bated breath.
Weapons magnate Alexander 'Lex' Luthor strove to use his fortune and two-decades worth of connections in far-right politics to seize the Anti-Communist Party presidential nomination. Luthor soared through the primaries and was rewarded with the party's nomination at the 1972 ACNC convention. The general election would be a cakewalk. Vice President Sanford struggled to defend his record, Mac Mathias barely campaigned, and nearly a tenth of Americans voted to have Superman take over the country.
Luthor's 'Second Cold War' reignited nationalist fervor across the nation. This would peak when Superman fought the American Superman clone known as 'Uncle Sam' in September, 1975. The fight, which nearly became a flashpoint for nuclear war between the United States and Soviet Union, was defused when Superman destroyed Uncle Sam at the cost of physical injury, sparing the continental United States from a retributive attack. Although Luthor's government was damaged by the affair they would be able to salvage their re-election campaign by saber-rattling over the recent Soviet annexations of China, South Africa, Argentina, and Mexico. In the 1976 presidential election Scoop Jackson and the Democrats would fail to match Luthor's jingoism and nearly a fifth of Americans voted to have Superman take over the country, even despite Luthor's crackdown on the domestic Superman movement.
By 1977 President Luthor knew that he was down to his last chance. The United States would begin a massive military build-up in the summer as Luthor brainstormed with his advisors to find a weakness of Superman's. In the spring of 1978 Superman denounced the American military buildup and threatened to intervene to 'save the American proletariat' and 'preserve world peace.' President Luthor challenged Superman to make good on his threats. In May, Superman gave the United States an ultimatum: disarm by July 1st or face the consequences.
July 1st, 1978 came and Luthor remained steadfast, the world was on the brink of war. The next day, Soviet shock troops poured into Alaska, Canada, and the Southwestern US. Superman himself flew to the White House himself, hoping to end the war immediately by dealing with Luthor directly. No one truly knows what happened at the White House that day but after a confrontation between Luthor and Superman in the evening, Superman ordered his armies to stand down before resigning as General Secretary and flying out of the atmosphere and Luthor announced his resignation by noon on July 4th. The world was shaken by the absence of Superman and the end of the Second Cold War. Within months Superman's Empire was divided by his lieutenants and a warlord period began throughout much of the former Realm of the Red Son.
Westmoreland, always a placeholder, could not placate a radicalized base disappointed by the anti-climax of the Cold War. But Westmoreland's intraparty opponents would not run the country in the 80s. New York City Mayor Bruce Wayne would become the Democratic Party nominee and later the President after the 1980 Presidential Election. Wayne, scion to a family of Republican donors, was elected mayor in 1977 and was able to alleviate the city's budget crisis and lower crime rates with the help of vigilantes likes the Batman. Wayne was popular across the country in the wake of World War III and moderate enough to receive both the Democratic and Republican nominations. The left were, of course, horrified by Wayne's fiscal conservatism and backed socialist leader Michael Harrington in his pursuit to lead Americans away from capitalism and Supermanism.
The world at the dawn of 1988 is very different from the world a decade before it. Waynonomics has given unprecedented government support for big business, now in the process of feasting on the various nations left behind by the fall of the Soviet Union. As the Democratic Party moderates and concedes to corporate power, the Anti-Communist Party radicalizes even deeper into proto-fascism without a clear antagonistic outlet. American interest in space has never been higher and the 1986 moon landing was a major victory for the Wayne Administration, still no trace of Superman though.