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Lists of Heads of Government and Heads of State

The Wrong Brother

Leaders of the Labour Party

1994-2007 Tony Blair

2007-2010 Gordon Brown

2010-2012 David Miliband


-PARTY DECLARES BANKRUPTCY,DISSOLVES-

2010-2018 David Cameron (Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition,Conservative Majority after the 2012 General Election)

2010: David Cameron-Conservative [306],Gordon Brown-Labour [258],Nick Clegg-Liberal Democrat [57]
2012: David Cameron-Conservative [438],Alec Salmond-SNP [44],Ed Balls-Change [36],Alan Johnson-Progress [32],John McDonnell-SGP [25],Nick Clegg-Liberal Democrat [24],Jon Cruddas-British Democracy [21],Ieuan Wyn Jones-Plaid Cymru [6],Caroline Lucas-Green [3],George Galloway-Respect [3]
2014 Scottish Independence Referendum: 52,17% Against
2017: David Cameron-Conservative [410],Nicola Sturgeon-SNP [57],Ed Miliband-Change [35],Tessa Jowell-Progress [30],Nigel Farage-UKIP [27],John McDonnell-SGP [25],Jon Cruddas-British Democracy [21],Leanne Wood-Plaid Cymru [4],Caroline Lucas-Green [3],George Galloway-Respect [3]
2018 European Union Membership Referendum: 56,29% Out


2018-present day Michael Gove (Conservative Majority)
 
I was going to make a wikibox for this idea but I honestly couldn't be bothered to deal with formatting, so here's a list instead. I'll admit that I kinda started to lose steam past 76, but I think it's solid enough.

Ain't I Right?

1965 - 1969: Lyndon Baines Johnson (D-TX)/Hubert Humphrey (D-MN)
def. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ)/William Miller (R-NY)
1969 - 1977: Marty Robbins (R-AZ)/Ronald Reagan (R-CA)
1968 def. Hubert Humphrey (D-MN)/Edmund Muskie (D-ME)
1972 def. Ted Kennedy (D-MA)/George McGovern (D-SD)

1977 - 1981: Jerry Brown (D-CA)/Henry "Scoop" Jackson (D-WA)
def. Gerald Ford (R-MI)/Bob Dole (R-KS)
1981 - 1989: Jack Williams (R-AZ)/James L. Buckley (R-NY)
1980 def. Ted Kennedy (D-MA)/Walter Mondale (D-MN)
1984 def. Gary Hart (D-CO)/Jesse Jackson (D-IL)

1989 - 199X: James L. Buckley (R-NY)/Clint Eastwood (R-CA)

def. Michael Dukakis (D-MA)/Lloyd Bentsen (D-TX)
 
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Just another dream deferred
1961-1965:John F.Kennedy/Lyndon B. Johnson(Democratic)
1960:Richard Nixon/Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.(Republican)
1965-1969:John F.Kennedy/Gaylord Nelson(Democratic)
1964:Harold Stassen/William Scranton(Republican)
1969-1973:Hubert Humphrey/Fred R. Harris(Democratic)
1968:Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.(Replacing Barry Goldwater)/John Tower(Republican)
1973-1976:Nelson Rockefeller/Thomas J.Anderson(Republican)
1972:
Hubert Humphrey/Fred R.Harris(Democratic),George Wallace/Thomas J.Anderson(AIP)
1976-1977:Howard Baker/Vacant(Republican)
1977-1981:Howard Baker/Mike Gravel(Republican)
1976:Adlai Stevenson III/Mike Gravel(Democratic)
1981-1985:Alexander Haig/Jack Kemp(Republican)
1980:Mike Gravel/L. Richardson Preyer(Democratic)
1984:Geraldine Ferraro(Replacing John Glenn)/Wilson Goode(Democratic)
 
Just another dream deferred
1961-1965:John F.Kennedy/Lyndon B. Johnson(Democratic)
1960:Richard Nixon/Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.(Republican)
1965-1969:John F.Kennedy/Gaylord Nelson(Democratic)
1964:Harold Stassen/William Scranton(Republican)
1969-1973:Hubert Humphrey/Fred R. Harris(Democratic)
1968:Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.(Replacing Barry Goldwater)/John Tower(Republican)
1973-1976:Nelson Rockefeller/Thomas J.Anderson(Republican)
1972:
Hubert Humphrey/Fred R.Harris(Democratic),George Wallace/Thomas J.Anderson(AIP)
1976-1977:Howard Baker/Vacant(Republican)
1977-1981:Howard Baker/Mike Gravel(Republican)
1976:Adlai Stevenson III/Mike Gravel(Democratic)
1981-1985:Alexander Haig/Jack Kemp(Republican)
1980:Mike Gravel/L. Richardson Preyer(Democratic)
1984:Geraldine Ferraro(Replacing John Glenn)/Wilson Goode(Democratic)
oh wow that’s cursed
 
Just another dream deferred
1961-1965:John F.Kennedy/Lyndon B. Johnson(Democratic)
1960:Richard Nixon/Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.(Republican)
1965-1969:John F.Kennedy/Gaylord Nelson(Democratic)
1964:Harold Stassen/William Scranton(Republican)
1969-1973:Hubert Humphrey/Fred R. Harris(Democratic)
1968:Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.(Replacing Barry Goldwater)/John Tower(Republican)
1973-1976:Nelson Rockefeller/Thomas J.Anderson(Republican)
1972:
Hubert Humphrey/Fred R.Harris(Democratic),George Wallace/Thomas J.Anderson(AIP)
1976-1977:Howard Baker/Vacant(Republican)
1977-1981:Howard Baker/Mike Gravel(Republican)
1976:Adlai Stevenson III/Mike Gravel(Democratic)
1981-1985:Alexander Haig/Jack Kemp(Republican)
1980:Mike Gravel/L. Richardson Preyer(Democratic)
1984:Geraldine Ferraro(Replacing John Glenn)/Wilson Goode(Democratic)

Ah, ol' Wilson "Let's drop a bomb on a residential neighborhood, what could possibly go wrong?" Goode
 
1929-1931: Ramsay MacDonald (Labour)
1929 (Liberal Confidence & Supply) def: Stanley Baldwin (Conservative), David Lloyd-George (Liberal)
1931: Ramsay MacDonald (National Labour)
1931-1936: Stanley Baldwin (Conservative)

1931 (Coalition with Liberals) def: Arthur Henderson (Labour), Herbert Samuel (Liberal), Ramsay MacDonald (National Labour Organisation)
1936-1946: Tom Johnston (Labour, then Labour leading War Government)
1936 (Majority) def: Stanley Baldwin (Conservative), Leslie Hoare Belisha (Liberal), Kenneth Lindsay replacing Malcolm MacDonald (National Labour), Winston Churchill (Constitutionalist)
1940 Election Cancelled Due To War
1945 (Minority) def: Anthony Eden (Anti-Socialist Coupon; Conservative, Liberal, National Labour), Megan Lloyd-George (Radicals), Harry Politt (CPGB), Winston Churchill (Constitutionalist)

1946-1952: Anthony Eden (National)
1946 (Majority) def: Tom Johnston (Labour), Megan Lloyd-George (Radicals), Harry Pollitt (CPGB), Winston Churchill (Constitutionalist)
1950 (Majority) def: Philip Noel-Baker (Labour), Richard Acland (Radicals), Phil Pritain (CPGB), Winston Churchill (Constitutionalist)

1952-1953: Oliver Lyttelton (National)
1953-1959: Ronald Cartland (National)
1954 (Majority) def: Philip Noel-Baker (Labour), Richard Acland (Radicals), Duncan Sandys (Constitutionalist)
1959-: Ted Jolliffe (Labour)
1959 (Majority) def: John Profumo replacing Ronald Cartland (National), Honour Balfour (Radicals), Duncan Sandys (‘True’ Constitutionalist), A.K.Chesterton (‘Imperial’ Constitutionalist)

Ted Jolliffe’s journey from the son of Canadian Chinese Missionaries to Prime Minister of Great Britain is a long and storied one. The main cut and thrust of his political journey would start in Oxford where with his friend David Lewis, the pair would engage in numerous protests and direct action sorties with the Oxford Labour Club. It was the height of the Troublesome Thirties and protests & fights with Fascists and so called Constitutionalists would permeate Jolliffe’s final years at Oxford.

Whilst Lewis would head back to Canada and help guide the nascent Canadian Socialist Movement over there, Jolliffe would end up staying in Oxford, taking part in the highly toxic 1936 election standing for the Oxford University constituency and being beaten by independent A.P.Herbert. Despite it losing, Ted managed enamour himself with the big Labour intellectuals G.D.H.Cole and Harold Laski. Becoming firm comrades with some of the intellectual giants of Johnston’s ‘New Plan’ saw Jolliffe given a job in the new Operations Department which was handling much of the ‘New Plan’ projects from Dam building to the creation of Cooperative farms.

Plans to eventually retire from the Department were put on hold by the Second World War as he helped administrate the Home Front, in his free time he wrote a treatise on a Post War Socialist Britain called that became a rallying cry amongst the Left. Offered a Safe Labour Seat in the run up to the 45’ election many assumed he would given a prestige cabinet job which he was...in the Johnston Minority Government. With the Right and Centre having merged into the National Party (after the brief Anti-Socialist coupon) Labour were roundly trounced in the Spring of 46’ with Jolliffe losing his position as the President of the Board of Trade.

Labour would enter into the wilderness and the battle for the soul of the Labour Party would begin. Content to continue with writing and Shadow cabinet work, Jolliffe would stay out of the 47’ leadership contest in which the Centre candidate Philip Noel-Baker beat Nye Bevan and Herbert Morrison for the position.

The next 8 years were of Centrist rule by the National Government, as Eden would keep most of the projects that the Johnston Government had created, under new ‘impartial’ management before being followed by the awkward blip of Oliver Lyttleton (who’s attempt to introduce the Market yet again to British society went...poorly) before being replaced by the Red Tory Ronald Cartland who would achieve a landslide victory of 80 seats leading to Philip Noel-Baker’s resignation.

It was in the wake of this crushing defeat that Ted Jolliffe would thrust forward as the Left candidate as previous ideal candidate John Freeman lost his seat. Jolliffe ran against a weak field as Morrison was seen as a has been and Evan Durbin seen as too much of a policy wonk for his own good (the offer of a Shadow Chancellor’s position eventually caused Durbin to drop out).

Jolliffe would take to Labour leadership well, his ability to combine intellectual rigour with the ability of a firey barn storming speaker caused Labour climb once again in popularity with the party gaining the majorities in the Scottish and Welsh assemblies for the first time since there creation.

Even still, there was a feeling that as the 1959 election was called that Labour would maybe gain a minority government at best as Ronald Cartland’s popularity was still high and the Constitutionalist party having split in half meaning the Right vote was less divided.

Then Cartland’s Homosexuality was revealed when Robert Boothby was caught in the company of the Krays which lead to connections between the Krays underworld and some of the young bachelors that Cartland had been found with. An attempt to salvage the situation with John Profumo just made things worse, as he was caught in his own sexual scandal.

Jolliffe would raise above it all as the tabloids ripped into the National Government as he pitched his vision of a Socialists Britain to a public who lapped it up and elected a vision of clean government and Socialist values.
The Next Forty Years;

1959-1968: Ted Jolliffe (Labour)

1959 (Majority) def: John Profumo replacing Ronald Cartland (National), Honour Balfour (Radicals), Duncan Sandys (‘True’ Constitutionalist), A.K.Chesterton (‘Imperial’ Constitutionalist)
1963 (Majority) def: Quintin Hogg (National), Honour Balfour (Radicals), Duncan Sandys (Unionist)

1968-1971: Reg Freeson (Labour)
1968 (Majority) def: Reginald Maudling (National), Eric Lubbock (Radical), Duncan Sandys (Unionist)
1971-1977: Reginald Maudling (National)
1971 (Majority) def: Reg Freeson (Labour), Eric Lubbock (Radical), Dennis Walters (Unionist)
1975 (Majority) def: Norman Atkinson (Labour), John Freeman (Democratic Labour), Tony Greaves (Radical), Dennis Walters (Unionist)

1977-1984: Dick Marsh (National)
1979 (Coalition with Democrats) def: Norman Atkinson (Labour), John Freeman (Democrats), Tony Greaves (Radical), Dennis Walters (Unionist)
1984-1991: Brian Clough (Labour)
1984 (Majority) def: Dick Marsh (National), Reg Prentice (Democrats), Tony Greaves (Radical), Dennis Walters (Unionist)
1988 (Majority) def: Peter Walker (National), Robert Maxwell (Democrats), Peter Hain (Radical), Winston Spencer-Churchill (Unionist)

1991-1992: Illtyd Harrington (Labour)
1992-1997: Chris Patten (National)

1992 (Coalition with Democrats) def: Illtyd Harrington (Labour), Robert Kilroy-Silk (Democrats), Peter Hain (Radical), Winston Spencer-Churchill (Unionist)
1997-: Joan Ruddock (Labour)
1997 (Majority) def: Chris Patten (National), Robert Kilroy-Silk (Democrats), Kishwer Falkner (Radical), Nicholas Soames (Unionist)
 
"Unwanted, Unnecessary, Opportunistic"
Aka: The result of two cursed maps I did with my purchased UKElect map forecaster.
David Cameron (Conservative) 2010-2014
2010 [306, minority]: def. Gordon Brown (Labour) [258], Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat) [57]
Roger Godsiff (Democratic Unionist) 2014-
2014 [209, minority coalition w/ Labour]: def. David Cameron (Conservative) [154], Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat) [153], David Miliband (Labour) [111]
2019 [309, minority]: def. Theresa May (Conservative) [181], Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat) [126], Frank Field (Labour) [13]


The 2019 election was one that satisfied nobody. To Prime Minister Godsiff, it frustrated his aims at reaching a majority for his party, which just seemed to be within grasp all the way up until that exit poll. To ex-Home Secretary and (barely) Opposition Leader Theresa May, it was one of mixed feelings. The Conservatives was now firmly second place, but it dashed her promises of cutting deep within 2014 DUP seats. Jo Swinson may have made gains for the Liberal Democrats in votes, but it was cruelly clashed with a major fall back in seats. And as for Frank Field, already unpopular Labour leader who was seen by many as 'Godsiff-lite'? The first challenger emerged ten minutes after the exit poll.

The Prime Minister's survival of the Iranian attack seemed miraculous, but the gruelling War in Iran slowly eroded away the record-high approval ratings he had. Even as Theresa May and Jo Swinson ran weak campaigns, the bodies being brought back in bags were doing their job for them. And it came to the election night. The Prime Minister was definitely on far weaker grounds than before the election, even as he gained a hundred seats.

With Labour infighting and collapsing as a political force, and May (and her ultimate successor Rory Stewart) unwilling to prop up Godsiff's government, and the Liberal Democrats under Norman Lamb of the same mind, Godsiff was resigned to limping on as a minority. A wartime minority at that!

Plans for a new election was dashed by the arrival of coronavirus, which temporarily boosted Godsiff's government, but as 2021 continues, the polls return to that same dispiriting normal - a three-way tie between DUP, Tories and Lib Dems. The Prime Minister is rumoured to be planning his retirement...
 
Normal Politics...
1991-1996: Neil Kinnock (Labour)

1991 (Coalition with Liberal Democrats) def: John Major (Conservative), Paddy Ashdown (Liberal Democrats)
1996-1999: Michael Heseltine (Conservative)
1996 (Majority) def: Neil Kinnock (Labour), Paddy Ashdown (Liberal Democrats)
1999-2005: Michael Portillo (Conservative)
2000 (Majority) def: Tony Blair (Labour), Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrats), John Swinney (SNP)
2005-2010: Alistair Darling (Labour)
2005 (Majority) def: Michael Portillo (Conservative), Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrats)
2010-2017: Andrew Lansley (Conservative)
2010 (Majority) def: Alistair Darling (Labour), Vince Cable (Liberal Democrats), Robert Kilroy-Silk (UKIP), Lynne Jones-Caroline Lucas (Greens)
2014 (Liberal Democrats Confidence & Supply) def: Ed Balls (Labour), Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrats), Robert Kilroy-Silk (UKIP), Caroline Lucas (Greens)

2017-: Wendy Alexander (Labour)
2017 (Majority) def: Andrew Lansley (Conservative), Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrats), Mike Hookem (UKIP), Beki Adam-Rachel Maskell (Greens)
2021 (Majority) def: Penny Mourdaunt (Conservative), John Leech (Liberal Democrats), Carla Denyer-Rachel Maskell (Greens), Steven Woolfe (Community)


Full Throttle Kinnockism/Brownism never ends, the Europe question hangs eternally over British politics like a bad fart, no grand Lib Dem reinvention under Kennedy (though Leech is trying, bless him), the Greens become the home of the awkward British Left and the SNP and UKIP burn very bright and very fast before shrinking/collapsing into a hundred different pieces.
 
Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
1917-1921: Vladimir Lenin (Bolshevik)*
1921-1927: Felix Dzerzhinsky (Bolshevik)
1927-1930: Yemelyan Yaroslavsky (Rabkrin)
1930-1937: Sergo Ordzhonikidze (Rabkrin)
1937-19??: Nikolai Uglanov (Bolshevik)

Narkom of the Russian Workers Committees
1922-19??: Alexander Antonov (Union of Working Peasants)

Supreme Ruler of All Russia
1920-1921: Alexander Kolchak (caretaker military junta)
1921-19??: Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich (House Romanov)

Supreme Military Commander of All Russia
1921-1938: Vladimir Purishkevich (Black Hundred)
1938-19??: Andrey Vlasov (Black Hundred)

Fathers of Makhnovia
1920-1925: Bat'ko Makhno (Anarchist)
1925-1934: Viktor Belash (Anarchist)
1934-19??: Peter Gavrilenko (Anarchist)

Very late response but I think "Enver Pasha-led Basmachist Bukhara" would fit in like a glove here
 
TLDR: What The PRO Act Does To A MF

Getting extremely sick of writing about modern politics, in large part because of how bleak everything were presented with seems to be, so here's some uncharacteristic optimism from the poster who made Elon Musk Pres

2021-2025: Joseph 'Joe' Biden / Kamala Harris
2020 def. Donald J. Trump Sr./Mike Pence (Republican), Various Others
August 9th, 2021: The 'American Jobs Plan of 2021' narrowly passes both houses of Congress. Despite the Protect the Right to Organizing Act failing to pass in its entirety when attempted in a early-July vote, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders quietly includes many crucial provisions of the PRO Act into the American Jobs Plan.
Late September, 2023: Over the course of two years, pro-labor provisions included in the American Jobs Plan, namely the restoration of the NLRB's abilities to levy large fines for employers caught engaging in union busting activity, spur on a revival in union organizing unseen in decades. Fueled by a renewed since of urgency amid a worsening Climate Collapse and the "serfafcation" of the American labor market via the expansion of the 'Gig Economy', a newly militant trade union movement goes on the offensive. Through many historical victories and losses alike, American Labor succeeds in over doubling union density in the United States, with BLS estimates suggesting a rate of 16.8% in the fall of 2023. Driving up average wages and giving millions of workers, namely in previously disastrously under-unionized industries like restaurants, greater benefits and job security, high rates of unionization would become a
defining characteristic of 'Bidenomics' and is generally cited as one of the better parts of the overall fairly lukewarm Biden Administration by many.

2025-2029: Kamala Harris / John Fetterman (Democratic)
2024 def. Mike Pence/Vernon Jones (Republican), Various Others
Election Season, 2023-2024: With Trump six feet under following a certain McDonald's related incident in a Mara-Lago men's bathroom, the Republicans are instead faced with a frankly disappointing field mainly comprised of former Vice President Pence, Ted Cruz, and Nikki Haley. Faced with the other alternatives, the ideologically and tactically discombobulated Republicans opt to put Pence on the ticket over his competitors and soon find that this was maybe not the best decision to have made. While not nesecarily popular, Biden's approval ratings had remained around a stable average 51% since January 2022 and his succesor, Harris, was both broadly associated with the best parts of the Administration and had made the smart choice to appeal to her party's growing left wing following a surprisingly strong primary challenge from Boston's Mayor "Green New Michelle Wu". Meanwhile, as Pence had demonstrated just recently, the former Vice President was far from the firebrand conservative radio host he was back in the 1990s. Setting aside his rather wooden style of campaigning, which his opponent Cruz very hypocritically hit him heavily for during the debate, Pence was precieved by much of the party's most active and loyal base (the Trump contingent, still kicking it despite the death of their Dear Leader) as a RINO at best and a treasonous traitor at worst. Not even selecting Georgia's Governor Jones, a MAGAhead who had taken out Trump enemy Brian Kemp in a 2022 primary challenge, was enough to placate the base. This is ultimately what killed Pence's campaign more than anything else, the conservative holdover from another generation failing to excite conservative voters enough to drive high turn out and subsequently handing the Republicans a loss in an election that should have been a fairly easy victory for them if played correctly.

2029-2033: John James / Josh Romney (Republican)
2028 def. Kamala Harris/John Fetterman (Democratic), Various 'MAGA' Tickets, Various Others

2033-2041: John Fetterman / Varisha Kahn (Democratic)
2032 def. John James/Josh Romney (Republican), Lucky Narain/Christina Tobin (Independent), Various 'MAGA' Tickets, Various Others
2036 def. Penny Schwinn/Dusty Johnson (Republican), Various Others


2041-20xx: Amara Enyia / Chloe Maxmin (Democratic)
2040 def. Abby Huntsman/Janelle King (Republican), Various 'Compact' Tickets, Various 'DemSoc' Tickets, Various Others
 
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Late September, 2023: Over the course of two years, pro-labor provisions included in the American Jobs Plan, namely the restoration of the NLRB's abilities to levy large fines for employers caught engaging in union busting activity, spur on a revival in union organizing unseen in decades. Fueled by a renewed since of urgency amid a worsening Climate Collapse and the "serfafcation" of the American labor market via the expansion of the 'Gig Economy', a newly militant trade union movement goes on the offensive. Through many historical victories and losses alike, American Labor succeeds in over doubling union density in the United States, with BLS estimates suggesting a rate of 16.8% in the fall of 2023. Driving up average wages and giving millions of workers, namely in previously disastrously under-unionized industries like restaurants, greater benefits and job security, high rates of unionization would become a defining characteristic of 'Bidenomics' and is generally cited as one of the better parts of the overall fairly lukewarm Biden Administration by many.

Hmmmm

Which states in the US are the more unionized ones by the late twenties?
 
Hmmmm

Which states in the US are the more unionized ones by the late twenties?

mostly the former 'rust belt' states, which have become hubs for the renewable manufacturing and high-tech service industries. Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Georgia, the film capitol of America after the 25' Epstein Investigations by California AG Karla took out a number of film producers/execs in Hollywood, boast the highest unionization rates currently, with Massachusetts, Iowa, Vermont, California, Washington, Nevada, and Indiana all close behind
 
Presidents of Argentina: 1938-2021

(Notes: The material up until ca. 1990 comes from a series of worldbuilding posts I made for the excellent Washington Wouldn't, Grant Couldn't back on the other site, what comes after is newly written)


Roberto Ortiz (National Democratic)
1938-1942


Dead Man Walking

Heavily diabetic and fraudulently brought into office by the very establishment forces he promised to fight, President Ortiz’s administration was both mercifully brief and deeply controversial. What reformist agenda the President had was quickly vetoed by his conservative backers, and by the time he resigned to die in peace (having spent a full half of his time in office in a sickbed) the country let out a collective ”finally”.


Ramón Castillo (National Democratic)
1942


A Bridge Too Far

Having already served as acting President since 1940, Vice President Castillo was as prepared as they came when he finally took over from the dying Ortiz. More conservative than his predecessor, he immediately provoked the outrage of the opposition when he tapped a sugar magnate to run to succeed him in the upcoming election (the Argentine constitution barring the President from succeeding himself). Having already provoked the pro-Axis military leadership by bringing the country closer to the US (who favored Argentine joining the Allies), the implosion of what popular support the government had gave a clear path forward for the military to clean house, and on December 2nd 1942 General Pedro Ramirez, the Minister of War, had loyal troops occupied Buenos Aires and declared the President deposed.

Pedro Ramirez (Independent)
1942-1949


El Generalissimo

Although aligned with the Germans through both marriage and ideological inclination, President-General Ramirez was not entirely without political acumen. To keep OSS funding and guns away from any intrepid opposition groups he kept towing the neutrality line, and was as gracious as can be towards Ambassador Collins, all while discreetly telegraphing to all affected parties that Argentine had an excellent climate, a friendly people, large German and Italian communities, an underdeveloped extradition program and wouldn’t ask any questions of immigrants with capital, military or scientific experience and a sudden need to relocate. On the domestic front, Ramirez’s agenda would be increasingly dominated by the Secretary (later Minister) of Labor, Colonel Juan Peron. Peron quickly established close relations with all major trade unions, and in exchange for industrial peace (and, it would turn out, personal loyalty) he promised government recognition, support and a pro-labor social program. Ramirez went along at first, since he frankly didn’t need any more enemies, but as events progressed and Peron came to increasingly eclipse his peers and his boss as the most prominent man in politics, the President decided to act. Turning to Peron’s ideological counterpoint within the administration, the fiercely pro-German (even by the standards of the uniformly Germanophile junta) General Perlinger for support, the President launched a (mostly) bloodless self-coup against his own government in March 1947 to remove “anti-state elements”. A number of labor and left wing leaders were arrested, Peron was driven into exile, his supporters within the junta were purged and much of his program was rolled back. The reminder of Ramirez’s time in office would be spent in an increasingly paranoid hunt for enemies, both real and imagined and would come to an end after General Perlinger finally put an end to years of speculations and retired his master.


Luis Perlinger (Independent)
1949-1950


Too Fascist By Half

“Not exactly a nazi, but” is about the best that can be said for Luis César Perlinger. Having seized power with his hard-right faction mostly thanks to the general disillusionment of the rest of junta, the general spent his seven months in power trying to “eradicate international communism” and making a hash of it, offending his domestic supporters and terrifying his international backers. Anti-communism is all well and good, but when you’re doing more to drive the Argentine people into the arms of Stalin than any dastardly agitator ever could something has to be done. The wheels started to turn in both Washington and Buenos Aires, and the days of the Perlinger regime were counted.


Domingo Mercante (Independent)
1950-1951


The People's Placeholder

Just as for his two immediate predecessors, the end of the Perlinger Presidency came in the form of an armed putsch. On the morning of March 21st 1950 the President, his cabinet and the military high command (the same people, really) found themselves under arrest, and as key locations in Buenos Aires came under military occupation the city and the country held their breaths. The unions kept quiet, the liberal opposition kept quiet, and they all held their breath as the plane of the new President made its way up from Ushuaia. Colonel Domingo Mercante had not been the mastermind of the coup (that honor fell to a troika consisting of the General Staff, the US State Department and the General Confederation of Labor), but as a respected military officer untainted by the worse parts of the Junta and whose connections to the unions could only be rivaled by the Big Man himself he made a perfectly suitable figurehead. An old associate of Juan Peron who had been exiled to a dead-end assignment down south after the ‘47 purge, he was well in the clear that his mandate began and ended with the calling of free elections as soon as possible. President Mercante did just that, and while his own government would among the shorter ones in national history he paved the way for perhaps the most influential Argentinian politician since the war of independence.

Juan Peron (Labor)
1951-1974


The Peron

1951: def. Ricardo Balbin (Authentic Radical Civic Union), Vincente Lima (National Democratic)
1957: def. Ernesto Bravo (Communist)
1963: def. Arturo Frondizi (Radical Civic Union)
1969: def. Ricardo Balbin (Radical Civic Union), Silvio Frondizi (Popular Republican)

Having gone into exile in Mexico after being forced from office in 1947, Colonel Juan Peron had nevertheless managed to preserve a major presences in Argentine politics. Although not a socialist by any means, he had used his position within the military government to maneuver himself into the position as the premiere champion of the large Argentine labor movement. Nominated for the presidency by the newly formed Labor Party he united the unions, the left and reform-minded liberals into an unstoppable coalition that gave him a landslide victory in the 1951 election, the last Argentinian election in the 20th century to go by without serious controversy or allegations of fraud.

The first term of the Peron Presidency would be dominated by the first, and most ambitious of the Argentinian Five Year Plans. The central bank was nationalized, followed by a number of infrastructures and industries. Favorable policies saw a massive expansion of union membership. Social security reached widespread coverage and through a mix of public, union and employer insurances Argentine would become the first country in Latin America to archive something close to universal healthcare. As the five years approached their end the strong post-war economy and the nation’s unbombed industrial base even allowed Peron to boast of the achievement of full employment without fudging too much with the numbers. Far more controversial was the proposed Constitution of 1956. It guaranteed a number of civil, political rights such as freedom of speech, the right to vote (enfranchising Argentinian women for the first time), the right to organize and the right to social security, education and healthcare. While most of this of course would be dismissed as more socialistic drivel by the usual suspects it was more-or-less in line with the “social democracy with the red rose badly painted over” thing the Labor Party had going for it and was far less controversial than the rest of the constitution. Authority was further centralised into the office of the Presidency, and the sacrosanct one-term limit was removed, enabling Peron to set himself up as President for life (or so the opposition claimed). The outrage grew so large that all serious opposition parties boycotted the 1957 elections, declaring that they would lend no legitimacy to the dictatorially inclined President. And thus Juan Peron won his first reelection by a overwhelming margin (if with an embarrassing turnout), facing only token resistance from the communists.

The protests surrounding the constitution and the election made the surviving anti-Peron faction within the military smell blood. Minister of Defense Mercante had replaced most of the high command, but within the officer corps at-large not much had changed since the days of military government. Clandestine meetings were held and feelers were sent out to the opposition and the Americans. Ambassador Wetherby and the major Argentine financial interests were on board for a coup, but as the set date approached someone within the liberal opposition or the US State Department got cold feet (documents declassified last year points to Secretary Douglas himself), and the plan leaked. What followed would not be pretty. With a well organized coup of the menu a series of minor risings, mutinies and attacks took place as the government struck back hard. President Peron abolished the army-aligned Gendarme by decree and created a new National Guard, whose Laborite members soon had arrested over seventeen thousand individuals suspected of treason and sedition. Most were soon released, but by 1965 the number of Argentinians who had sought political asylum in Stroesser's Paraguay, Franco's Spain and von Thadden's Germany could be counted in the tens of thousands. A third of the officer corps was dismissed, and the trials that were held against the thousand or so accused conspirators (a mix of the more annoying opposition figures and actual coup-plotters) could have carried out with more attention given to judicial procedures. The low-water mark would be Bloody Friday, October 28 1960, when nineteen men and three women were executed by firing squad at the National Penitentiary in Buenos Aires. The Red Years of the late fifties and early sixties did more than anything to secure Peron’s position as the Great Satan of the Argentine right. They also made him all but untouchable, with an opposition so browbeaten that not even a clearly aging President, a stagnating political project where each five year plan turned out less ambitious than the last and a political party which grew increasingly fat and corrupt could do much to prevent him from defeating the Radicals in crushing landslides in both 1963 and 1969.

During his quarter-century reign he had not only for better or worse reshaped Argentine society, he dominated it so thoroughly that to this day the one political question that matters is if one is for or against him. He was hated, and not unjustly so, by a large section of his people, not only by the special interests but also by liberals and democrats disgusted by his authoritarian leanings. But to another demographic, among the rural poor and the urban working class, he is revered almost as a saint. On the international stage he clad himself in the mantle of the third world hero, a champion of the global south in general and Latin America in particular against imperialist machinations, but in practice he would always work hard to maintain strong relation with the United States behind the scenes, a fact which surely contributed to the survival of his regime (rumors of UNIT blacksites on Tierra del Fuego are just that, no you’re not allowed to see those documents and that picture of Nixon saluting the President's grave is both slanderous and taken out of context). On August 8, 1974 President Juan Domingo Peron, the Father of the Nation, entered immortality. Argentina will never see his like again.


Deolindo Bittel (Labor)
1974-1975


The People's Placeholder 2.0

As the Big Man’s health had begun to deteriorate in the late 60’s, the Labor Party nomination for Vice President suddenly became very attractive. With bitter factional lines deepening within the ruling party a compromise was hashed out. The left, upset about the increasingly centrist leanings of the government, would get the position to tide them over, but only if they could put forward a man who would be no threat to anyone in the big free-for-all everyone planned for once Peron was safely in the ground. That man was Deolindo Bittel, and he knew his place. A longtime Senator and former Governor from the northern Chaco province, he had been a staple of the socialist-ish wing of the party for decades and had no ambitions whatsoever for national power. As what in a more peaceful country would have been the fight of the century took place in every union hall, province capital and party headquarter in the country he oversaw the daily affairs of the nation, and when the time came to step aside he did so happily.


Ricardo Cano (Labor)
1975-1981


Too Little, Too Late

1975: def. Rogelio Julio Frigerio (Radical Civic Union)

Although originally of the same ideological leanings as his predecessor, President Cano could not have been more different from President Bittel. A surprisingly skilled inter-factional knife fighter, the Cordoba governor had not only united the left around him but also defeated the more right-wing elements of the party which had dominated the later Peron years. In the general election he dispersed the fears that without Peron the liberal right would see a resurgence (and that the Peronist right would bolt the party) by defeating the the old centrist warhorse the Radicals put up after a nomination contest whose bitterness was rivaled only by its Labor equivalent. In office he would do his best to revive the old quasi-social democratic Labor ideals of full employment and social justice, and for the first time in at least a decade some signs of life and renewal could be seen in the bloated corpse of the Labor Party. Unfortunately for him, signs were all they were. Ricardo Cano might have been of the left, but despite claiming the party’s nomination he still existed within a party and government bureaucracy dominated by men like Lorenzo Miguel, the conservative chief of the General Confederation of Labor. Single payer healthcare died after the unions told him to back off, universal child benefits perished in the Social Welfare Ministry’s consultative committee and the very impressive Southern Irrigation Board was very quickly forgotten when the IMF got nervous about how its funding would impact Argentines credit rating. As the term progressed, what momentum existed turned into a slow crawl towards reelection. A stagnating economy, the wear and tear of four decades of government and the candidacy of perhaps the most formidable poltician since Peron’s glory days would crush and crush hard any plans Labor might have had to retain power. Ricardo Cano would become the first Argentinian President to lose reelection, and he did it in a landslide.

Ernesto Guevara (Radical Civic Union)
1981-1987


The Reformer

1981: def. Ricardo Cano (Labor)


Doctor Ernesto Guevara first rose to prominence during the last days of the military regimes of the 1940’s, when he had been a leader of the student opposition to President Pellinger in Buenos Aires. Like most of the rest of the liberal intelligentsia he had supported Peron’s return and first landslide election, but by the time of the President's reelection he had become thoroughly entrenched in the Radical Civil Union. Bouncing back between the Chamber of Deputies and the Cordoba governorship, Guevara first became a contender for the Presidency in 1969 and would remain one from that point on. Dismissed as too left-wing by party powerbrokers he would be exiled to the position of internal opposition leader throughout the 70’s and before the introduction of a Radical primary election ahead of the 1981 Presidential contest he was expected by everyone to stay there. The replacement of the selection convention with a primary election was the result of the tireless work of the reform movement within the Radical Civic Union, and allowed Guevara to swamp his opponents with grassroots support. An all-night party conference prevented any major split, and with a united party and an electrifying campaign of renewal and change he crushed President Cano, 57% to 38%. The President Guevara that took office in 1987 was a very different man than the quasi-socialist troublemaker that had first entered politics four decades earlier. While he didn’t fiddle with the tax rate as much as some of his more conservative supporters might have wanted, his labor reforms, deregulations and privatizations of publicly held industries did much to attract the foreign investments that helped kick off the Argentinian Miracle of the 1980’s. Growth skyrocketed and a new generation of young, educated and well-off professionals would turn Buenos Aires the cultural and nightlife capital of Latin America (or so the Ministry of Tourism claims). A restructured civil code prove less popular in some quarters, but despite pressure from the Church and other political and social groups the President would insist on carrying on with both the introduction of no-fault divorces and strengthening the de-facto legalization of same-sex relations which had been on the books since 1887. With approval ratings in the low 60s, it’s likely that the President would have been easily reelected but with his health failing and an old promise to reintroduce the one-term limit resurfacing (the proposed constitutional reform died in committee in 1985 and was not resurrected), Ernesto Guevara decided to not seek a second term.

Antonio Cafiero (Labor)
1987-1999


The Great Adapter

1987: def. Alejandro Armendáriz (Radical Civic Union), Agustin Tosco (Authentic Labor)
1993: def. Facundo Lastra (Radical Civic Union), Guillermo Estévez Boero (Broad Patriotic Front)



The 1987 election season would go down as one of the more chaotic and farcical in Argentine history. Two bloody, free-for-all nomination contests provided as much fodder for the tabloids as all of the Guevara administration had. The President of the Bank of Argentina was arrested for taking cash from French and Spanish businessmen, as were half a dozen senior labor leaders. The bosses then leaned on half a dozen more who got caught embezzling millions. The original frontrunner to the Radical nomination shot himself after his wife left him for his mistress and fled to Europe with his undisclosed Swiss bank account. The Labor convention crashed after a delegation of leftists unionists and activists simply up and left and sat up shop across the street to nominate their own candidate. The eventual major-party nominees, two senior, serious and centrist political veterans were so boring in their own right that all attention fell on the mud-slinging their far more interesting supporters engaged in. The three-way slugfest came down to the wire, with Labor (or Orthodox Labor, as they were commonly known) and the Radicals clocking in at just under 40% each. The result would be a disappointment for Agustin Tosco’s Popular Movement (Authentic Labor), which when the final vote was counted and Governor Cafiero was declared the victor had proved unable to break out of its base of socialist union workers into the left-liberal middle class or the broader working class. President Cafiero, a pragmatic man if there ever was one, did what was expected of him and after he had reinstated all the right people from the right organizations to the right jobs he went on to do not much at all. Why fix what’s not broken, he wondered, and while the labor movement might complain that they weren’t getting quite the same say as before and more ideologically committed Laborites wonder why the renationalizations aren’t proceeding like they had hoped Antonio Cafiero couldn’t care less. He have foreign investors to keep happy and generous and a boom he can’t afford to end. What’s good for the companies is good for the economy, says President Cafiero, and what’s good for the economy is good for the workers.

And it worked, more or less. How much of that comes down to Cafiero's leadership is debatable, with even the man himself accepting that the opening up of new markets after the admission of the Soviet bloc into the United Nations and the US construction and IT boom was key. But he was a steady hand on the rudder of state, maneuvering his divided country through the end of the first cold war and the start of the second. Although hated (as any Labor President is) by the pro-Franco-Chinese right and despised by the socialist left his death in 2014 would prove a surprisingly genuine moment of collective grief. In a nation marked primarily for its bitter political divide, he would in the end become the closest thing Argentina had to a broadly respected statesman.

Mario Negri (Radical Civic Union)
1999-2005


The Protege

1999: Felipe Solá (Labor), Aldo Rico (Realignment), Patricio Echegaray (Communist)

Mario Negri had always been President Guevarra's man, and while it might've been an insult coming from the mouths of Laboristas or the growing Catholic, anti-UN/pro-ROC right the young President embraced it. He had been his senior aide back in Cordoba since the late 70s, he had organized Dr. Guevarra's victory in the Radical primary back in 1980 and in 1984 he would become the youngest cabinet minister in living memory. Throughout the Cafiero years he had been the champion of the liberal wing of the URC and after a valiant (if failed) stint as Lastra's running mate in 93 he had paid enough dues to take a serious shot at the Radical nomination. On the young side for Argentine politics, he nevertheless (or perhaps thanks to) emerged as the natural successor to what was now being called the Guevarra-Cafiero or Post-Peron consensus. With the right mix of dynamic, safe, fresh and experience he cleaned the board with his far grayer Labor competitor (who had to face off a surprisingly strong communist challenger to his own left) and could waltz into the Casa Rosada with an enviable mandate.

What happened then is a tale that can be told in two ways. One is that of a competent, reform-minded statesman whose many accomplishments in transforming a mid-century economy into one ready to face the internet era and reestablishing Argentina as a serious and constructive player on the international scene (Negri got on particularly well with President Ivins, and would deliver a eulogy on her 2009 funeral) was swept aside by economic forces outside of his control and an almost outright anti-democratic opposition. The other tells the story of an arrogant and elitist technocrat more interested in making fancy friends in Washington, New York, Berlin and Tokyo than looking out for the common man. A man who failed to see the natural consequences of two decades of deregulations. Perhaps if the Labor candidate had been literally any other man government might've been able to sell its own version of events. But he wasn't, so they didn't.



Diego Maradona (Labor)
2005-2021


The Diego

2005: def. Mario Negri (Radical Civic Union - 'Unity for Democracy'), Aldo Rico (Realignment)
2011: def. Gustavo Obeid (Realignment - 'For the Course of the Nation), Roy Nikisch (Radical Civic Union)
2017: def. Marcos Peña (Radical Civic Union - Opposition Labor), Margarita Stolbizer (Radical Civic Union - Socialist), Gustavo Obeid (Realignment)

“In Argentina there is only one God, and His name is Diego,” a Canadian journalist once wrote, and while that’s obviously not correct it does get the general point across. The greatest football player of his generation, possibly ever. An icon by the age of 20, his profile would only grow over the years as he carried Leeds United to back-to-back victories in what was then the Grand League, became the uncrowned king of Sevilla and spearheaded the team that turned A.C. Milan into the champions of european football through the late 80s and early 90s. Then came los hermosos cinco, the five final minutes that turned the outplayed and outmatched Argentinian national team from sure losers to clear winners at the 1990 world cup finale against the gigantic German team. In the words of another commentator, Diego Maradona walked in as a hero among men and walked out the second son of God.

Politically he had always aligned with the Labor Party and the left (in that order), but between a somewhat extravagant and indiscreet lifestyle and a lack of interest in the more serious matters surrounding political life it was probably destined to stay as a general interest. That is, until the machinations of the Labor Party intrigue turned their eyes on him. At the dawn of the 21st century the Peronista left had been on the defensive for a generation. They technically held a plurality of party offices, legislators and Labor-controlled provinces but between infighting, a few unfortunate splits and the tight alliances between the party technocrats, the state bureaucracy and the union leadership they always fell just about short. Tired of the post-Peron consensus (or just of being shut out of serious power) a clique of young(-ish) and ambitious left-leaning laborista politicians began to plot. An attempt to push senior union chief and powerbroker Raimundo Ongaro in 1999 had ended in disaster and none of them had the clout to make a run of their own, so they were forced to think outside the box. The idea to approach the football legend is commonly credited to the talented wife of a then-obscure provincial governor associated with the group, but no matter who supplied the suggestion feelers were sent out, and Maradona proved somewhat open to the idea. Getting him through the Labor nominating convention would prove hard, with both masterful backroom maneuvering and a spontaneous stampede by technically hostile delegates to Maradona after he made it clear that he would accept the Labor Party candidacy if selected.

Despite - or perhaps thanks to - a number of gafes which would kill any other candidate (the first in a long, long line) getting the most popular man in the country to destroy one of the least would prove an easy task. El Diego delivered a message that hadn’t been heard in Argentina with quite that fervor for 50 years that it made the great mass of voters ignore the warnings of Sensible Men in the media regarding his actual qualifications to run a nation and the integrity of the men behind him. And they were right, to a point. No one would ever claim that Diego Maradona was ever very involved with the actual running of government. He made public appearances (never with any cocaine in his bloodstream, that’s Radical slander), interacted with his people, played football with the Pope and Chancellor Stoiber, shook hands with President Huan, joked around with President Petty Wolf and publicly embarrassed Premiere Pugo. Public policy? He had people for that, all he had to do was fight for the people and the cause of old Juan and his Evita. And he did have people for that. First came Cabinet Chief Kirchener, then after his death (with his widow safely posted as Ambassador to Dublin) came Vice Presidents Bongiorno and the Gang of Three. They pursued a - in the non-partisan sense - radical agenda of renationalising much of Argentina’s natural resources, empowered the labor movement (run by their allies), oversaw a relatively consistent rise in the standard of living and effectively eliminated child poverty. That their economic policies missed almost as often as not, or that they lined their own pockets wherever they could (all charges dismissed by the supreme court) would not matter as much as one would expect. Perhaps it was because of the real results they delivered for the Argentinian working class, or perhaps it was due to the increasingly authoritarian methods and rank populism employed by the ruling party, but the Labor Party have enjoyed consistent majorities since 2005 and reelected President Maradona time and time again. The Radical line that all the government needs to do in the face of any scandal or difficult election is simply to send out the President to kick some ball is perhaps a tad unfair, but it’s not really inaccurate.

Unfortunately, building a political movement around a man with a at best distant relationship with his own health must always be a temporary project, and on January 21 2021 it came to an end. Diego Armando Maradona, a man loved and despised as few others faced his creator, and was escorted to his final rest by millions of mourners.


Juan Abal Medina (Labor)
2021-


The Partisan

Juan Medina have the movement in his blood, quite literally. His father was a key member of the last Peron administration, and he won his first election to the Chamber of Deputies at the age of 25. A junior member of the original Maradonaista clique, he had served loyally throughout several Major Domos (as the person holding real power in the Maradona governments were called) until he, as Government leader in the lower chamber took part in a coup against Vice President Bongiorno and took her place on the 2017 ticket. Forming the Gang of Three with the Goija brothers, he had already served as the de-facto leader of the country at the time of his ascension. But the role of the man behind the throne is quite different from that of the man who wears the crown, and few would call him a favourite for next year's Presidential election.
 
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1860 (with Hannibal Hamlin) def. Vice President John C. Breckenridge (Southern Democratic), Senator John Bell (Constitutional Union), Senator Stephen Douglas (Democratic)

• 1861 Secession of the Confederate States of America
• 1863 Army of the Potomac Coup D'etat - Succession of George B. McClellan to the Presidency

1863 - 1864: General George B. McClellan (Military)
• 1864 Surrender of the United States - Confederate Independence

• 1864 Recapture of the United States Government by Lincoln Loyalists - Succession of Lincoln to the Presidency - Second Inauguration

1864 - 1872: Fmr. President Abraham Lincoln (National Union)
1864 (with Benjamin F. Butler) def. Fmr. Governor Thomas Seymour (Democratic), President George B. McClellan (Independent)

1868 (with Benjamin F. Butler) def. Senator Andrew Johnson (Democratic), Mayor Fernando Wood (Independent)
• 1869-70 Free City of New York Rebellion - Arrest and execution of Fernando Wood - tightening of Presidential emergency powers
• 1871 Assassination of President Lincoln by New York "Freedom Fighters" - Succession of Benjamin F. Butler to the Presidency - state of emergency declared
• 1872 election delayed to February '73

1872 - 1875: Vice President Benjamin F. Butler (National Union)
1873 (with Benjamin Wade) def. Governor Charles F. Adams (Democratic), Fmr. President George B. McClellan (Independent)

• 1875 Death of Vice President Wade
• 1875 Impeachment and Removal of President Butler - Succession of Henry B. Anthony to the Presidency

1875 - 1875: P.P.T. Henry B. Anthony (National Union)
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Confederate States of America

1861 - 1868:
Senator Jefferson Davis (Non-Partisan)
1861 (with Alexander Stephens) def. unopposed
• 1861 Secession of the Confederate States of America
• 1864 Surrender of the United States - Confederate Independence
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1868 - 1874:
Secretary John C. Breckenridge (Independent - Pro-Administration)
1869 (with Judah P. Benjamin) def. Governor Zebulon B. Vance (Independent - Anti-Administration), Vice President Alexander Stephens (Independent), Rep. Robert Rhett (Independent - Fire Eater)
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1875 - 1875:
Vice President Judah P. Benjamin (Independent - Pro-Administration)
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