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Tibby's Graphics and Grab-Bag Thread.

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Verward Tibby
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Since everyone else is doing it, might as well. Although I do question why we don't have an united graphics thing where people can post their graphics and everyone else can comment on it. I feel that would encourage a sense of discussion rather than "this thread is mine" etc.

Anyway, for The Blessed Sunlight, here's an election, the first one to take Labor to power.
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In 1850 things were unhappy in the United States. Slavery was tearing apart the country between North and South as people called for the end of people being in chains. There was a long economic depression as well that made people call for a new way - socialism? In 1850, things came to a head, as incompetent Buchanan went up against a broken Republican Party divided between those who wanted to damn all abolitionists, led by Calhoun, and those who wanted to keep it all together, led by Cass.

Buchanan, Calhoun, Cass. What terrible options! The American people lamented. And then they realized that they didn't have to choose any of those. There was another party, one that came second last time!

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And hence the American people elected Franklin Pierce and the Labor Party to power, the first country in the world to elect a socialist government. Hardline conservatives rapidly embraced Calhoun's Nullification idea and worked to undermine Pierce's government, dividing people on if the Union was to be preserved, or if action had to be taken to stop Pierce ruining it.

They would eventually split between the dominant secessionists arguing that the Union was too ruined by Pierce and his socialism to salvage, and the rump unionists who joined with anti-nullifier conservatives and anti-socialists to form the new opposition to the Labor Party, the National Party, in 1851. By that time, the Civil War was gearing up to be born. It would last until 1857.
 
And here's a later election, one I admit had its write-up heavily influenced by the last American election.

In a particularly troublesome election, the incumbent party decided to go with a respected person who had an impeccable record to them. A very qualified candidate to succeed a very successful president, indeed! Sure, there was the rabble-rousing Senator from a very white state who strongly opposed Governor Tilden, but who listened to James G. Blaine from the State of Maine anyway?

The opposition party had other ideas, and in the end, they chose a populist demagogue who appealed to people's darkest fears, who stoked their anger against a minority and made strong avowals that "the Chinese must go!". Yes, Governor Denis Kearney was a very, very dangerous man. Despite attempts at a "Not-Kearney Labor" ticket, the Labor voters got on board. Anything to stop the Nationals!

It was a filthy campaign in which Kearney's statements regularly got into press and Tilden's honesty was attacked at every turn by Labor newspapers. When a newspaper alleged that Kearney killed a man in cold blood, he declared it "false news!" In the end, the American people chose to vote for Tilden and for another four years of the Nationals. The Electoral College, however, had other ideas...

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Welcome, folks, to the Kearney Administration and the 1880s, an era of fear, danger and menace.
 
And in terms of graphics, I sincerely feel that this one [from my Azul Chronicles punk-world thing] is the best I've ever done. I tried to capture that distinctive feel of a Canadian wikibox, so that it would scream "Canadian" without explicitly saying it.

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Original basemap created by "Imperator Frank" over on alternatehistory.com and used with permission.

And the write-up. [Don't worry, it'll make a little more sense when I upload all my Azul Chronicles things here.]
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After the scandal in which the Prime Minister resigned in disgrace when it turned out that he was not nice to someone, the Non-Partisan League dreaded that the voters would kick them out.

With the Liberal Democrats gearing up for a return to power after a decade in third place and the PCs angling for the post after eight years of NPL government, it was not popular to be a Peeler those days. Especially as the Progressive-Greens were getting popular with traditional NPL demographics [i.e. the students who really like weed]

With Eastern regionalism at a record low, the Eastern Namada Concept was not looking forward to a good election. They could lose all of their seven seats! Meanwhile, Action, a classical-liberal splitter off the Lib Dems, was hoping to win over people who didn't think the Liberal Democrats really cared about fiscal solvency.

In the end, the PCs did well and gained nine seats, but the big winner of the night was the Lib Dems, who went from 18 seats to 127 seats, netting them a bare majority. "Meangate" ended up fatal for the Non-Partisan League, as they fell from government down to a paltry 24 seats. Action gained another seat while the ENC lost five seats, leaving them with only three.

The Progressive-Greens had a very good night, as they won two seats, one in Seiyo and one in Atarashi [they actually topped the popular vote in Atarashi!], entering Parliament with a bang!

But the real winners of this election are the Liberal Democrats. So why don't we go and meet their leader, who'll be sworn in as Prime Minister?

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The Lib Dem leader and Prime Minister-designate, Doug MacKenzie, here with his wife Darcy.

"Gee, it's a great day for us Lib Dems! From eighteen seats to a majority! How aboot that, eh? I will try to be the nicest Prime Minister I can be and continue Namada being the most polite country in the world!"
- Prime Minister-designate Doug MacKenzie (Liberal Democrat, Mooseton Central–Beaumoré West), speaking at the LD victory celebration.
=====
Now, of course, you probably want to see that snazzy map up close, so here.
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And just to answer your question: About a day of faffing around with MS Paint went in this. I didn't use any easy shortcuts.
 
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Pierce is an... Interesting pick for a Labor candidate.

I know there aren't a lot of good options for an 1850 election of course but it's still a weird one. Still cool.
 
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The "Ideal Parliament" according to this poll.

I've replaced UKIP and BNP with OneNation and For Britain respectively because UKIP and BNP are basically dead.

So... yeah. Chaos. Clearly something went terribly wrong here, even worse than Hard Brexit.

Headcanon resulting government is Corbyn leading a traffic-stop coalition propped up by the Nats.
 
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The "Ideal Parliament" according to this poll.

I've replaced UKIP and BNP with OneNation and For Britain respectively because UKIP and BNP are basically dead.

Holy crap what a mess.

One Nation is not really getting started. Maybe D&V?

Surely you're right. A broad progressive alliance is the only way that could end, right?
 
I've done a few election infoboxes for the excellent election game over on AH.com Where the World Will Lead, which is coming up to an end after two long years. Some of those are cheeseburger, so I'll get those out of the way.

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McAdoo dies before inauguration, leading to Alfalfa Bill Murray ending up President. He makes a mess of it.

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After a year of Acting President Hugh Johnson, Murray is finally confirmed as President for a second term.

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And after those eight years, the Republicans finally win with "Lucky Lindy".

Yes, at this period in time W3L [as it's shortly called as] was really into fascism and corporatism. You had William McAdoo who Al Smith feared would exclude Catholics from the Democratic Party, "Alfalfa Bill" Murray who campaigned against corporations, carpetbaggers and African-Americans, Hugh Johnson the Mussolini fanboy, and Lindbergh the hardline non-interventionist and possible fascist sympathiser. It does get better. Eventually.

Now, skip forward a bit, and we get to the Democratic primaries in 1964. It's a fairly contentious one.
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As you can see, by this time, fascism and corporatism is on its way out, and the liberals and conservatives are battling for the party's soul. Orson Welles [yes, that Orson Welles] leads the liberals that was recently empowered by Humphrey's 1960 run and Sam Ervin leads the conservatives. Welles wins the primaries, but Ervin wins the convention. And goes down in a landslide in November to popular Republican president Joe Foss.

After all that, the 1970s had a huge New Left and New Right that tore American politics apart, and the Democrats were led through it by Sam Yorty, but after Yorty left, the Democrats started absorbing the New Left over time, ending up becoming actually pretty left-wing compared to OTL, while the Republicans end up essentially the Libertarian Party with some conservatives as well. There's also a major socialist third party.

But anyway, enough America stuff, W3L has British stuff as well, which I have done two infoboxes of.
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Basically Clynes holds on against MacDonald in 1923, ends up PM 1923-1927 before the Tories get back in. Labour ends up going to the hard-left after Henderson is perceived as too moderate for Depression-era Britain. Hence you end up with Prime Minister James Maxton.

Then there's a lot of story between it and the next infobox, which I'll admit was my fault as I was too focused on the American side of it. But the short of it is: Cripps leads Britain through WWII, Tories split in 1950s, Labour dominate 1960s, Tory-led coalition brings neoliberalism and STV in 1970s, Denis Healey leads in 1980s, Robin Cook abolishes the monarchy in the late 1990s, there's a grand coalition in the 2000s that ends up unpopular.

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Now, there's oodles of history and story, but I'll try to explain the parties here.

Labour: The "Natural Party of Government", essentially. Provided most of Britain's 20th century PMs, oversaw devolution, the abolishment of the House of Lords and of the Monarchy, It has gone from radical left under Maxton and Cripps to pragmatic reform under Healey to working with the Tories in the early 2000s. Now they've gone back left under Blunkett.

National Democrats: One of the two results of countless splits and mergers of the British right-wing since the Tory right walked out in protest at Rab Butler's working with the Liberals on an anti-socialist pact in 1956. Since then, the "New Democrats" merged with the original splitter, the National Unionists, but a NUP splitter called the Democratic Unionists left, but ended up merging. Then there was another splitter...

United Socialists: Maxton's radicalism didn't last long in the Labour Party and was instead replaced with a more pragmatic left-wing streak that came to a head under Richard Crossman in the 1960s. His alliance with the Spanish government against left-wing rebels led to the Independent Labour Party splitting off. They ended up splitting in the 1990s, but merged back together a decade later as the USP.

National Front: The previously-mentioned DUP splitter was Neil Hamilton's British Democratic Party, which ended up being taken over by ex-Labourite Robert Kilroy-Silk and rebranded the NF. They're basically UKIP.

Reform: Basically an latter-day Social Democrats, they split from Labour when Labour negotiated a Red-Red-Green coalition with the USP and Greens. They ended up killing off the Liberals by taking their votes.

Green: Basically the Greens, only unitary due to stronger presence in Parliament earlier.

Then there's other parties not mentioned in the infobox because they weren't in the top six...

Scottish Republican: Split off the SNP once it went ultra-right-wing under Ian Smith (yes, that Ian Smith), they're essentially a left-wing Scottish nationalist party decidely rooted in socialism. (15 seats, 1.9%)

Communist: Marxism-Leninism. Basically the USP's time in coalition hurt them with zealous "never compromise" voters which went and voted for the next best thing. (12 seats, 3.4%)

Liberal: Often seen as the "Natural Party of Coalitions" due to their ability to work with both sides, they've nevertheless relied way more on the Tories than Labour. They imploded this election due to Reform providing a much more coherent alternative that appealed more to Liberal voters than their party did. (12 seats, 2.6%)

Plaid Cymru: Wales essentially didn't get devolution until the remaining bits of Britain did in 1999. Which ended up driving a bunch of soft nationalists to Plaid in protest at this. Plaid ended up in government from 2002 to 2010, but lost the Assembly election in 2010 to Labour. Overall, they're still very much the alternative to Labour, at least for the moment... (11 seats, 1.2%)

Unionists (Scotland): Remember I mentioned Ian Smith's SNP? Well, they ended up merging with the Scottish Tories to form the Unionists after realising that their "nationalism" was more soft-regionalism than anything and that they were only splitting the vote and allowing Labour to dominate Scotland and whatnot. They sit with the NDP. (10 seats, 1.2%)

I'll try to explain more about the story via wikiboxes, but if you have an AH.com account, I recommend reading the British and American archives I set up. I'll try to finish the British one eventually, I promise you.
 
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While it's not necessarily something that wouldn't happen (because real life doesn't have to be consistent), those constituencies seem a bit uneven in size--OTL, Sheffield elects 5 and a half MPs, whereas Derby elects only 2, Tower Hamlets and Newham would be 4, Westminster and Camden would be 3 and a half, and I'm not sure about South Lanarkshire because the definition is often applied a bit vaguely when it comes to Scottish counties.

Of course, it might be that some of these constituency names are not self-explanatory, e.g. "Derby" might include more of the surrounding hinterland in what are other constituencies in OTL.

What about rural areas--are they single-member AV, or what?
 
While it's not necessarily something that wouldn't happen (because real life doesn't have to be consistent), those constituencies seem a bit uneven in size--OTL, Sheffield elects 5 and a half MPs, whereas Derby elects only 2, Tower Hamlets and Newham would be 4, Westminster and Camden would be 3 and a half, and I'm not sure about South Lanarkshire because the definition is often applied a bit vaguely when it comes to Scottish counties.

Of course, it might be that some of these constituency names are not self-explanatory, e.g. "Derby" might include more of the surrounding hinterland in what are other constituencies in OTL.

What about rural areas--are they single-member AV, or what?
It's all STV, and I presume there's not one standard number, it varies for some reason.

And your last thing about "not self-explanatory", I think that's probably part of it as well.
 
It's all STV, and I presume there's not one standard number, it varies for some reason.

And your last thing about "not self-explanatory", I think that's probably part of it as well.
Ignore @Thande - STV constituencies in the Republic of Ireland vary between 3 and 5 seats, and serious STV proposals for the UK have gone as high as 7 and as low as 2, I believe.

Constituencies in List PR systems also vary in size, of course.
 
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Basically Clynes holds on against MacDonald in 1923, ends up PM 1923-1927 before the Tories get back in. Labour ends up going to the hard-left after Henderson is perceived as too moderate for Depression-era Britain. Hence you end up with Prime Minister James Maxton.

Then there's a lot of story between it and the next infobox, which I'll admit was my fault as I was too focused on the American side of it. But the short of it is: Cripps leads Britain through WWII, Tories split in 1950s, Labour dominate 1960s, Tory-led coalition brings neoliberalism and STV in 1970s, Denis Healey leads in 1980s, Robin Cook abolishes the monarchy in the late 1990s, there's a grand coalition in the 2000s that ends up unpopular.
While I know obviously election game election game election game, the implications on a Simon-led Liberal Party in a TL is astounding, particularly in regards to what happens to the Free Trade Samuelites of OTL; while the question of free-trade and tariffs are bit, the real question becomes one of who Simon sides with. Three Party Britain simply can't continue; an Alliance with the Tories would have seen an anti-socialist coalition win an eye-watering 55% of the vote. Simon would almost certainly jump at the chance of some kind of pact with the Tories, and with a stronger Liberal Party that has 'held its own' despite the odds, would almost certainly be treated more as an equal than simply having his body hollowed out for Tories to dress around in. This would, however, lead to a question of what happens to the Samuelite Free Trade Liberals, the New Liberal Fabian's who were pro-Labour; they would likely split if Simon did anything to potentially threaten their independence, and if the policies he peruses while Leader are Simonite through and through and supportive of tariffs, then they would almost certainly walk out the door.

My mind if turning a bit at the staggering possibilities this leaves.
 
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More W3L, this time it's the most recent cheeseburger election.

The Dems and GOP are... complicated. I'll try to explain them, but to be honest, I think my Simpsons/Bob's Burgers one works the best, so I'll paste that in as a spoiler below the actual explanation.

The Democrats nominating King here is a very, very new thing. He's a "Northern Liberal", not a Westerner or Southerner like the party nominated for... basically all the game excepting Sam Yorty who was very much a break from the "norm". Well, him and Peter Gerry who lost in a landslide in 1928.

Democratic New England too, is a fairly new thing, the region has been normally Republican, but since the Bergland years [the Nineties. Basically think a mix of Reagan Revolution and reverse-"End of History" with Soviets winning] the region has gone more and more blue. With a New Englander at the helm, they swept the region apart from libertarian New Hampshire.

I would describe the Democrats here as "blue-collar liberalism". Not particularly socialist, but hardly conservative either, they are distinctly to the left of OTL's Democrats on economics, but is way more broad-tent socially [but still tends liberal].

And yes, this is the same party that was all in for fascism in the 1930s and conservatism in 1964. They've changed quite a lot.

So have the Republicans. They shift from libertarianism under Bergland and Paul, to "compassionate conservatism" under Bonilla in the 2008 election which he lost, then with Johnson they go back to libertarianism. Before Bergland was Manuel Lujan, who was fairly like Bonilla, so you could say that the Republicans are generally of two "camps" - the libertarians and conservatives. They used to have a very strong liberal faction that led them to victory in the 1950s and 1960s under Henry Lodge and Jack Kennedy, but those days they're essentially dead. Kinda like OTL.

Johnson isn't a new thing in the party either, but his Internet appeal is. However, that Internet appeal has as much voters as Ron Paul did in 2012. So, not much of an impact overall, but certainly a big splash. Most "Millennials" voted King because they're way more economically left-wing than the "yuppie" Republican Generations X and Y which ended up controlling the GOP.

And yes, this is the same party that was all in for fascism in the 1940s and liberalism in the 1950s and 1960s. They've changed a lot. :p

There's a third party, the Socialist Unity Party. They're basically pro-Soviet socialists [with anti-Soviet socialists presumably Democrats] and arguing for reconciliation with the USSR since they won the Cold War and we should learn from their successful economic policies and all. They were a consistent presence since 2000, reaching a high when the Democrats nominated the moderate Echo Hawk in 2004 and re-elected him in 2008. But since the Democrats nominated Stephen King, someone very much to Echo Hawk's left, the SUP has the wind out of their sails.

You know what, here's the better explanation.
Thinking this over way too much, but I think the distinction between the Democrats and Republicans here are essentially the distinction between the Simpsons and Bob's Burgers.

The Simpsons are a suburban middle-class family that broadly tends against big government and overall has fairly judgy neighbors, but a lack of any real state social conservatism present, instead it's more society and whatnot. Homer starting a lot of jobs represents the enterprise spirit that Bergland etc. loves. There's an acute lack of representation of LGBT people, they're more pushed to the sidelines because they're awkward to deal with. The Simpsons rarely face financial stress, more middle-class concerns. Racial diversity is something the Simpsons famously struggle with.

Springfield represents a well off suburban dominated city that would definitely vote Republican.

Meanwhile, Bob's Burgers sets itself in an unnamed community, unofficially dubbed Seymour's Bay by the writers, that is not a huge city, just a shore town. The Belchers are working-class and has their own business, a burger place, that they pitch in and work to keep afloat. Sexuality is something Bob's Burgers is much more comfortable with discussing than the "push to the side" Simpsons, especially with the Belcher family and the fact that the whole family might be not straight. Trans representation is present as well, and genderfluidity as well. It's very much blue collar, but that doesn't make it conservative at all. And in terms of race, it's definitely more diverse than the Simpsons.

Seymour's Bay, or whatever it is, represents the sort of small coastal working-class town that definitely would vote Democratic.

In terms of social issues, the Democrats are more liberal than the Republicans, or at least has a more liberal platform. We saw them go from Murray to King, they're no longer conservative any more. People like Lindsey Graham is really the equivalent to the liberal Republicans. Meanwhile, the Republicans might not hate LGBT people, but they won't do anything to make their lives better. They're the type of 'ally' that goes "I'm sorry a business has fired you for being LGBT, but we believe in free enterprise and not oppressing the job creators."
 
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