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Tibby's Graphics and Grab-Bag Thread.

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Red Dead Roosevelts: Dynastic Nightmare

Theodore Roosevelt (Progressive) 1913-1923*
1912: def. Woodrow Wilson (Democratic), William Howard Taft (Republican) and Eugene V. Debs (Socialist)
1916: def. Champ Clark (Democratic) and Charles Evans Hughes (Republican)
1920: def. Leonard Wood (Independent) and William Jennings Bryan (Democratic)
Herbert Hoover (Progressive) 1923-1929
1924: def. Al Smith (Democratic)
Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democratic) 1929-1947*
1928: def. Herbert Hoover (Progressive) and Upton Sinclair (Socialist)
1932: def. Robert M. La Follette Jr. (Progressive)
1936: def. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (Progressive)
1940: def. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (Progressive)
1944: def. Robert Taft (Progressive)
Henry A. Wallace (Democratic) 1947-1949
Kermit Roosevelt (Progressive) 1949-1957
1948: def. Henry A. Wallace (Democratic) and Harry F. Byrd (American)
1952: def. Estes Kefauver (Democratic)
James Roosevelt (Democratic) 1957-
1956: def. Alice Longworth (Progressive)

Progressives: Broadly can be called the "conservative" party, at least compared with the other party. Very middle-class, patrician, reformist. Tends to be big at rural matters, allowing them to dominate the Plains. Is the party of the Oyster Bay branch of the Roosevelt family and has close ties to the Roosevelt Corporation that has a major role in the media, including many newspapers in it. Has slowly started to swallow the South.

Democrats: Broadly can be called the "populist" party, at least compared with the other party. Very working-class in make-up but middle-class in leadership, big on empowering labour unions up to a point and can be described as rather "corporatist". Is the party of the Hyde Park branch of the Roosevelt family and has close ties to the Hearst-Roosevelt media association that has a major role in the media, including many newspapers. Has slowly started to swallow parts of New England and the West Coast, in keeping with their "urban" aspect, while losing the South.
 
Where the World Will Lead (American Archive)
Where the World Will Lead (British Archive)

Archives of an election game I made. There's a lot to read in both of them, so I posted them here so that if you want, you can read about how a fascist America became a liberal/libertarian one, and how Nordic Britain persisted yet became less Red and more Pink

Or in more simpler terms: Charles Lindbergh to Stephen King and James Maxton to Stephen Kinnock. And don't be deceived, the fact it's an election game does not mean it is not also a very respectable timeline of its own and a lot of words go in it
 
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By 1972, the situation was shit. Urban rioting, lots of protests, the economy in recession, the rise of the "Baby Boomers" leading to a new wave of student movements, had led to a chaotic election, perhaps the most chaotic in American history.

And in it stepped Sam Yorty, who stood athwart America and shouted "stop!" to radicals like the student communists and libertarians, to the civil rights movement and to the people rioting in the streets. The great "silent majority" of Americans clearly did not want this, he claimed. Hamstringing him a bit was the fact his party had its own student movement [it was the thing to have one, apparently] called the "New Left" and they were just as "hippie" as the New Right. Thankfully for his quest at the nomination, they decided to withdraw after firehoses and attack dogs were set on civil rights protesters, only to form their own campaign led by quixotic Michigan Governor Zolton Ferency.

But even though the Democrats split horribly, the Republicans had it worse. Dogged by an unpopular president's legacy, they had an exhausting convention where it took several ballots to get a nomination and this was someone who wasn't even in the primaries. They chose to embrace the New Right and work with them, unlike the Democrats' hostility, which would help transform the party. But in 1972, they nominated "compromise candidate" Governor Mitchell Melich of Utah who was a firm "Goldwater conservative". Running with George Bush of Connecticut to re-assure the liberals, he ended up uniting the party and distancing it a bit from President Kennedy, but the damage was already done.

Sam Yorty's "silent majority" [including many "Republicans for Yorty"] had won.
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In 1976, the situation was considerably better. The economy was recovering, the student movements weaker [or at least the New Left...] and society overall felt safer [well, apart from people of colour, but who cares about them in 1970s America?]. President Yorty was set for a strong victory, but the chaos at the Republican convention enabled him to win another landslide.

The Republican Party was struggling to incorporate the "New Right" that they welcomed into their ranks in 1972, and in 1976 the expected win of an establishment figure who would unite the party and take the fight to Yorty and stop his authoritarian manner that reminded many of the fascist era of the party [which Democrats would like you to know firmly ended in the late 1950s]. However, the party ended up nominating by a slim hair the New Right champion Congressman Roger MacBride of Virginia. The party establishment panicked and as "Republicans for Yorty" grew once more, MacBride was pressured into accepting a more establishment running mate, that of the Senator from Rhode Island.

Governor Zolton Ferency was of course also running. MacBride cared none about the people who was "passed over" by Yorty's presidency and his student support was mostly from middle-class people who wanted less government in their lives, not the working-class students who wanted the government to be more left, both socially and economically. And the less said about Yorty, the better. Still, the people who fuelled his 1972 campaign was rather more thin on the ground by 1976 as a good chunk of them left to get jobs and settle down with new families. Nevertheless, Ferency continued to fight for what he believed in and still brought into millions of voters and the 21 electoral votes of Michigan.

With the Republicans nominating a wide-eyed radical who pushed away suburban Republicans and Ferency's votes being smaller than it once was in 1972, Yorty gathered his 1972 coalition together and won a second thumping landslide.
 
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If any of you remember the "Warhammer but it isn't grimdark"/"Space-sorta-British Empire" thing I did three years ago, it's now back ^^

Here's an infobox of a Premier of that twenty thousand years long Empire, Skylar Scuttle. I did her first instead of the many, many others because she's a good example of the political culture of a ridiculously huge Empire - "your loyalty belongs to your planet first, your Empire second". She very much identified as a Coralian, a person hailing from the tropical autonomous High Kingdom of Coraly, first and Symphonian second

Also shown here is some nice ministry positions. She first entered the cabinet in the ceremonial position of Protectress of the Moon Flower, something heavily related to the environment of Akadel [the planet her home orbits as a moon] as the Moon Flower is something heavily worshipped by the Akadeli. It's exclusively women who are appointed to that position because Akadeli religion insists on it. The reason it's something appointed by the Premier is because of arrogant Imperial soldiers invading it to "establish order" and declaring that the Moon Flower was now Imperial property. Even after several decades of bloodshed, they still held on to that claim and millennia later it's mostly ceremonial

Minister of Nekomimi Affairs is a cabinet spot specifically dealing with the Nekomimi. Yes, the catgirls and catboys from anime, me 3 years ago was kind of obsessed with them and I don't particularly want to erase them from the timeline. It is a heavy convention that no Nekomimi be appointed to the post, that it be primarily Basic Human or at least not a Nekomimi, so to avoid any pro-Neko bias. The Nekomimi enjoy their devolved former Empire as a part of the Symphonian Empire and this deals with that primarily, but it has grown to cover any Nekomimi, no matter where they live

Minister Perambulator is a major cabinet spot, and it deals with borders and with foreign countries, namely keeping the borders peaceful and having the Empire be in other countries' good books, or at least making sure they're afraid enough of it so to not fight. She was expected to get a major cabinet spot once she got the MPs' vote to be Deputy Chief of the Pioneer League. After the Pioneers' defeat in 7465, she stood for and won the leadership election, winning a clear majority of MPs' support

The Pioneer League is a sorta regionalist, frontier-based, rural-y populist-ish party that does well in the "Outer Ranges" which includes Coraly. The "Outer Ranges" are the areas primarily conquered or annexed in the early heyday of the Empire of the 2500s to 5000s. They also enjoy support from the Nekomimi lands due to the quite right-wing (and vaguely nekomimi-supremacist) Neko Interest party allying with them. They're not a party that wins in city seats, that's the Municipalist Reform Alliance, their rival which is basically a Macron-esque "liberal" party

Scuttle is a "foundling". The huge Empire means a lot of people fall through the gaps, and Scuttle is one of them. Her parents were probably poor and couldn't afford to bring her up, or was too ashamed of their poverty to do so. Poverty is one issue that the Empire can never quite defeat. The constant wars leads to many wounded warriors, families without their main "breadwinner" or war orphans. It's entirely possible Scuttle was a war orphan. The Pioneer League is overall a party that knows this very well and so push hard for less expansion and more time in investing in local communities, while the Municipalists seek to appease the core region's unquenchable desire for more resources. Politics of this era is rather geographical-based, but in other eras it can very much be class or race based, politics in the Empire is ever-shifting and dynamic

After resigning as Premier, she was appointed by the High Queen of Coraly to be the Lightbearer of Summerset, one of the major religious titles and enabling her to sit in the Noble Assembly as a Lady Spiritual. In 7501, she "ascended" to a higher plane of existence while in the Temple of Light, finishing her life in the present universe and moving on to the next. Or she just disintegrated. It's still unknown
 
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More British stuff from W3L ^^

After four years of economic prosperity under Prime Minister Joseph Godber and Chancellor of the Exchequer Enoch Powell (not to forget the Liberal leader and Lord President of the Council Michael Winstanley), it all came crumbling down. Powell's monetarist policies delivered prosperity but also a general strike that brought Britain to its knees and an economic recession that particularly hurt the working-class. Godber argued for a more Keynesian direction that got Powell's bitter opposition. Monetarism would bring Britain out of this crisis, he maintained. In the end, the tension between Godber and Powell brought down the whole government less than sixteen months after it won re-election

Labour under Denis Healey was ready to take charge. Healey rejected the firm socialism of past Labour leaders in favour of a more "pragmatic" working-class-oriented politics that got some on the former ILP [now Independent Socialist Party] and Labour left outraged at the abandonment of what got James Maxton, Stafford Cripps, Nye Bevan and Richard Crossman elected

But "Healeyism" was popular with the British people who sought stability and found it in the Natural Party of Government, the Labour Party. And the people were glad to reject the "experiment" with monetarism in favour of tried and true Keynesianism. Godber knew he was unpopular, so he elected to resign as leader (but not as Prime Minister) and give it to a trusted and stable man (and son of the NDP's second leader) Maurice Macmillan. Macmillan led the NDP to defeat, but a respectable one that many credited to "Godber's sacrifice"

On the other right-wing party, Powell wouldn't hear any word of him resigning, especially from the "High Tory" part of his party that was always unsure about his curious beliefs regarding sexual deviancy and economic "freedom". He would lead the party into the election, and that was that. Unsurprisingly, he led it to a humiliating defeat and after the election, the NUP overwhelmingly chose to return to traditionalism, rejecting Powell's legacy in favour of a High Tory perspective of ancient rights for Englishmen and a more... "corporatist" economic policy

The third coalition party, the Liberals, were led into the election by Michael Winstanley, the oft-quipped "third amongst equals" of the coalition leaders. Winstanley found himself and his party shackled to the post, blamed for the monetarist recession because of the prominence of classical-liberals supporting Powell's policies in the cabinet, and lost a lot of their votes in the process. The party reacted by deciding that the coalition was a mistake and that they should seek to work more with Labour, under new leader David Steel

Eric Heffer's Independent Socialists were standing in their third election as a separate party, and the first under the new "Independent Socialist" label that fully rejected any association with the Labour Party. Riding the anger many felt about the economic recession and the doubt many had about Healey's moderation, the ISP more than doubled its 1976 results and came out a considerably bigger party, certainly a contester

But Healey would be the first Labour Prime Minister without a majority since Clynes in the 1920s. Healey, known for his brash nature and "counter-schmoozer" reputation, was not expected to adroitly manage it. But he would be underestimated by his critics
 
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The Empire was in a period of tension, not an ideal way to start the second millennium of existence off. Human supremacism was on the rise, especially in decaying industrial planets that felt that the Empire was growing too fast and that it was losing what made it "human". The far-right Victory and Justice Party faced a split between its two most dominant figures, the elder Lenz Beringer who adhered to Human Imperialism and the younger and charismatic demagogue Anzor Park who argued for isolationism and dealing with "integrating" minorities. In the end, Park left and set up a party that rapidly acquired alliances with other parties, rapidly blossoming into the Association of Human Regions, a rural/industrial alliance based around Human supremacism, intense protectionism and an end to trade deals, and "bringing jobs back". Park's rise in Imperial recognition culminating in his party's foundation, terrified many of the Empire's most distinct minority - the Nekomimi.

Often the target of angry Humans who blamed them for the loss of jobs, the Nekomimi generally voted for their own parties - the Social Democrats on the left and Nya Democracy on the right - but before Park's rise, they were gradually starting to vote for more Empire-wide parties, such as the centrist liberal Future Movement and the broadly conservative One Nation. The Future Movement were glad to incorporate them in their ranks, and Premier Hawking was starting to talk of "One Nation of many races". But as the AHR rose and rose, Hawking stepped back and started to talk of preserving Symphonian values and ensuring that further expansion would be placed in review. This panicked many Nekomimi who turned back to their parties, the SDP and ND. The Future Movement condemned Hawking's "embrace of xenophobia" and in turn lost centre-right "polite xenophobia" Human middle-class voters to AHR. Park's rise was seemingly inevitable.

Surprisingly enough, the People's Labour Party, a party often seen as one of demagogues and corruption, and led by a man who has a dubious civil rights record [he is on record as having said in the 80s that "those damn Nekos can look after their own, this party should be a Human one"], has voted the previous year to fully work with the Nekomimi SDP in an electoral alliance distinct from their standard federated structure.

The Technocrats, lambasted for their unpopular coalition with One Nation, fell in popularity and predictably enough lost a lot of their seats back to the Future Movement. While the Big Three all lost votes and seats to AHR, it primarily split One Nation votes and enabled the Future Movement to win a clear and decisive plurality. Freya Thorburn would be confirmed as Premier by Emperor Leonidas XIV once she entered in a coalition with the People's Labour Party and thus got a majority. Her policies, tempered by the socialist sentiments of the PLP, could be allowed to go through.

Anzor Park left the election triumphant. Human supremacism and ultra-isolationism were now topics of debate and slowly entering the mainstream. Soon, soon it would be time for a government that stood for the true values of the Empire. They were ascendant!
 
So Ron Paul did it and made Anime Real?

That's actually a pretty fun read, even though it's not my usual cup of tea.
 
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Here's another election, I guess. Might have a cabinet coming, or something. Quick write up because I can feel my mood going bad again. Woo, hormones, they're doing wonders with my head as is...

The Empire was founded in Year 1 of the Imperial Era with the coronation of Emperor Nicholas I "the Awesome". Nicholas declared that there was to be an Election to form an Imperial Assembly. The logistics of having an election in several Solar Systems meant that interesting solutions had to be established, solutions that would form the Rule Book of Symphonian elections. In order to maximise their influence, the various interests and political parties of the Empire grouped together into three "federations", aka the first imperial parties. Also running was a party set to oppose Nicholas and the whole Imperial Experiment, arguing that there should instead be more decentralisation

The first "federation" was born in the clouds of cigars and the quaffing of champagne, a party born out of aristocratic interests and a desire to have a stable government, one of business interests and social tradition. This was the Conservative Party and it sold itself on being the Party of the Emperor, pointing out that Nicholas came from an old family going back eons and would want a party that supported him to the hilt

The second federation was born in the chaos of public halls and the shouting of the masses, a party born out of proletariat interests and a desire to have a workers' government, one of social equality and economic justice. This was the Labour Party. Curiously enough, it shunned anti-monarchism and instead argued that it was indeed the Party of the Emperor, pointing out his social beliefs that poverty was the greatest evil in the universe and that should be eradicated, and so that a party that supported those views would be very welcome indeed

The third federation was born in the counting halls and the middle-class assemblies, a party born out of bourgeois interests and a desire to have a government that worked for business, one of fiscal liberalism and social "fairness". This was the Liberal Party. And of course, like the other two, it argued that it was the Party of the Emperor, pointing out the Emperor's preference for free trade

The fourth contester was born in the alienation of those who didn't believe in the Empire solving everything, and instead thought it was a very dangerous thing indeed, one that would just destroy everything and stifle diversity of culture. This was the Anti-Imperial Party and it certainly did not sell itself as the Party of the Emperor, in fact it attacked the others and promised an "Opposition Government" to keep the Emperor on his toes

In the end, no party formed a majority, something much unexpected as the outcome was hoped to be a stable start to the whole Empire in which a party wins a majority and chooses a Premier. The Liberals refused to work with the "socialistic" Labour after falling out on economic grounds, the Tories refused to work with the Liberals citing disagreement on trade and social views, while Labour and the Tories couldn't stand each other. And none of them wanted to work with the Anti-Imperials. In the end, after a month of debating and disagreement, the impatient Emperor said enough and sent for his childhood friend the Duke of Chalmesford, ordering him to form a three-party government

In the end, Chalmesford's proposed cabinet was enough to win over the newly-chosen leaders of the three parties [the three "unofficial" leaders, now properly put in their place as full leaders] while getting the AIP's condemnation. The first ministry of the Empire began...
 
And on the other side of that 20,000 year era...
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Sapphire Moon is known galaxy-wide as the last Premier of the Symphonian Empire and the one who oversaw the end of 20,000 years of history. This is all true, but people tend to miss the full context which paints her in a much less harsh light

The Empire was under a military junta for decades after the Parliament was suspended "in the interests of national order" due to a series of military defeats. Even before that, it was under a political consensus of pro-military funding. And yet everything was falling apart. Solar systems after solar systems fell out of the Crown's grasp and as Premiers were replaced by Premiers, nothing seemed to stop the decline

The aging George XVI knew that something was rotten within the state of Symphonia, and after a few sleepless nights, finally accepted that perhaps the Empire's days were over. Its enemies were too strong and too numerous, its forces too weak, its people too disenchanted. There needed to be peace, and peace needed to be secured with honour and dignity, not by fighting like cornered cats [no offense to the Nekomimi troops still fighting for Symphonia, of course]. Hence he dismissed the military government and appointed a non-partisan civic Premier which he charged with "getting a peace with honour, one that we can tell our grandchildren that we managed to win"

This nonpartisan civic Premier was Sapphire Moon. Moon was known as a prominent civic bureaucrat and an advocate for ending the war with dignity [as much as you could while the military ran an authoritarian ship...], and perhaps most crucially, was the Emperor's Monday chess opponent which brought her into his awareness. One day over a particularly boring game, the Emperor offered her "the chance to fix all of this, to put it right", which she accepted believing it was a joke offer, but once it was made real, she jumped in it with gumption

Opening diplomatic channels with the invading forces, she invited their top diplomats to the Technicolour Hall and over the next year, haggled out a peace deal in which the invading forces would have victory, the Empire would dissolve, but the invading forces would have to adhere to a list of basic points in terms of occupation, leading to the set up of several small states that would likely be under their influence. The Technicolour Conference was thrown in chaos when George XVI died and his young grand daughter Elizabeth became Elizabeth XXII. In the end, the deal was agreed to and signed on the dawn of 1 January 20000, perfectly twenty thousand years to the day after the coronation of Emperor Nicholas the Awesome

Of course, some jingoists accused Moon of having divided loyalties, of being more loyal to Nekomimia than to Symphonia, which she firmly rejected the idea of, pointing out that while she did have Nekomimi citizenship, she has consistently served Symphonia to its dying day. Her defenders lambasted the attacks as "classic nekophobic slanders on one of the greatest Premiers we ever had". After Symphonia wound up, she chose to return to her birth place and eventually entered politics there as a member of the Nya-Liberal Party, before being appointed First Minister by Queen Turquoise IV, making her one of the rare examples of being head of government of two different space-empires. She served it for six years, then chose to retire. The Queen rewarded her with an appointment to the High Council as a "Lady of the Land" as Marquise of Templeton, which she served in before she died in 20047 at the age of 71, receiving many obituaries reflecting on her life and legacy all over the galaxy
 
Afon Uggeri (Democratic majority, then “National” Democratic-Unity-Liberal-War Socialist-Patriotic War Coalition) 884-893
Miron Seuss (“National” Democratic-Unity-Liberal-War Socialist-Patriotic War Coalition) 893-897
Cristina Sarkozy (Unity-“National” Democratic-War Socialist-Liberal-Patriotic War Coalition) 897-902
Joaquin Marszalek (Unity-“National” Democratic-War Socialist-Liberal-Patriotic War Coalition, then Unity minority) 902-906

The First Stellar War lasted 20 years and ended with a clear, but exhausting, Symphonian victory. In a bid for national unity, Premier Uggeri announced that she would be forming a War Cabinet of her social-liberal Democrats, the conservative Unity Party, the classical-inclined Liberals, the nationalistic Patriots and the socialist Agrarian and Industrial Workers' League. However, the war proved too much for the pacifists in the Democrats which split off as the "Opposition" Democrats [hence the pro-war side being the "National" Democrats] and for the hardline AIWLers which declared the AIWL was dead and that they were now the Pacifist Socialist Party. The rump AIWL increasingly became known as the War Socialists in contrast

In 893, Uggeri announced that due to old age and increasing dementia, she was resigning from office, handing over to her deputy leader the awkward and bespectacled Miron Seuss. Seuss was not the charismatic icon that Uggeri was, but he was a talented administrator something that the war sorely needed. Under Uggeri, it turned sour and the Unionists were increasingly critical of her leadership. With Seuss in charge, they were glad to continue the War Coalition. This was the first time the Empire entered a major space war, with previous wars being mainly regional ones. The talent of Miron Seuss pushed mountains in order to deliver victory, but even for him, it proved too much and after a series of defeats, the Emperor [against the advice of many of his advisors and even the Unity leader] called a general election which he believed would elect strong leaders for the war

The general election was a mess, the parties reluctant to criticise each other, the Opposition Democrats and PSP gleefully tearing apart the "imperialists", and in the end, the Unionists came out on top thanks to Democratic splintering, leading to the Emperor sending for Cristina Sarkozy the Unity leader. Sarkozy did not want to be Premier at this time, she was indeed content to led Seuss lead it, but if the Emperor wills it... Seuss was appointed Minister of War and essentially became the "Co-Premier" for the rest of the war, even after he stepped down from the party leadership in 904 due to health complications from an attempted assassination. Sarkozy was an individual that struggled with what she called "dark moments" and with huge amount of stress placed on her as the Premier in the war, those just escalated. She weathered it well, but in 902 she tearfully resigned from all offices citing "a collapse in my mental health". However, the Sarkozy years held many of the most significant victories in the First Stellar War and she's credited with significantly turning the tide for the Empire

Then came Joaquin Marszalek. A military man and veteran of a previous war, he was the fourth Premier of a war that was seemingly everlasting, even if more optimistic for the Empire than before. Marszalek brought a military viewpoint to the whole matter, and famously told his cabinet "This is a military matter, and I expect you all to obey my orders like my soldiers did. No lollygagging, no talking back, no disobedience." Marszalek oversaw the final victory of the war and in his time was celebrated as "the Man Who Won Us The War" but history has been less kind to him, pointing out his authoritarianism, his attempt to interfere in possibly successful fronts, and the fact that the war was turning around thanks to Sarkozy and Seuss. Still, Marszalek oversaw the final end, and after the war finished, he called an election, sure of electoral rewards

His defeat to the Democrats running on "Homes Fit For Heroes" was an upset and he proved a sore loser, talking of "spite voting", and settled down unhappily as the Opposition Leader. He would return to the Premiership, but his eight years then would be mostly one of little impact
 
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