Trying to develop the specifics of the worldbuilding a bit more —
Looking at the Big Sky is ostensibly set in 2338, but i’ve never been very consistent with the level of technology and state of geopolitics, so hopefully doing this might help a bit.
Alternative introduction: Please to announce that i have finally gone insane.
Presidents of the United States in Looking at the Big Sky, 1981–2025
1981–1989. Ronald Reagan, “Ol’ Gipper” (Republican)
(with George Bush)
- Presided over the crumbling of the Soviet Union; was once caught on live-mic saying “Well it’s about time the bastards rose up”
1989–1997. George Bush, “The Reconciliator” (Republican)
1988
(with John Sununu) def.
Michael Dukakis / Lloyd Bentsen (Democratic)
1992
(with John Sununu) def.
Paul Tsongas / Jerry Brown (Democratic)
- Signed the North American Free Trade Agreement into law and encouraged with open arms trade from the former Soviet Union, presiding over an economic boom
- Cordial (if still somewhat suspicious) relations with the government of the Confederation of Sovereign States led to near total nuclear disarmament of both countries
- Swears up and down the CIA had absolutely nothing to do with the fall of the USSR
- Passed the 28th Amendment, barring discrimination on the basis of sex
- Generally regarded as one of America’s best presidents
1997–1998. Bill Clinton, “Short in more ways than one” (Democratic)
1996
(with Al Gore) def.
Pat Buchanan / Alan Keyes (Republican),
Donald Trump / Jesse Ventura (American)
- Managed a thin victory against firebrand Pat Buchanan, helped in part by the spoiler candidacy of Donald Trump’s American Party
- Resigned midway through his term after a revelation of an affair with a congressional intern
1998–2005. Al Gore, “Captain Plan-It” (Democratic)
2000
(with Jim Clyburn) def.
Bob Dole / John McCain (Republican)
- Faced tough opposition and plummeting approval ratings in the wake of Mr Clinton’s scandal
- A perverse rally-around-the-flag effect would come when his government announced an invasion of the Republic of South Africa; already a pariah, protests were rising thicker and faster than ever, and intelligence agencies indicated that the apartheid government was planning to use nuclear bombs if necessary
- Mr Gore framed the invasion as a fight for equal rights around the world and in America, not just in one corner of the planet. He was reëlected in a landslide.
- In his second term, unburdened by a deadlocked congress, Mr Gore was able to pass landmark climate legislation, and signed (along with 120 other countries) the binding Addis Abeba Protocols which aimed to limit global warming to below 1.5°C
- Though controversial due to his obscene spending on both climate and defence, he later developed a partially ironic online fandom, which has come to rehabilitate his reputation; he currently serves as the Senate’s chief whip. Indeed, it is often said that “the Internet invented Al Gore”.
2005–2009. Howard Dean, “The Gaffer” (Democratic)
2004
(with Joe Biden) def.
George Bush Jr. / Dick Cheney (Republican)
- More remembered for his eccentric personality and unintentional “Deanisms” than any actual policy
- His term was marked by an economic stagnation that opposition Republicans blamed on consecutive D governments’ not-exactly-spendthrift budgetary habits
- Repealed “don’t ask, don’t tell”
- That’s literally it
2009–2013. Lisa Murkowski, “The Spacewoman” (Republican)
2008
(with John McCain) def.
Howard Dean / Joe Biden (Democratic)
- A moderate conservative and the first female president, Ms Murkowski took what she later recollected as “the most difficult decision i’ve ever made” to pull US troops from the Azania Republic, then still embroiled in conflict. She defended it as a necessary decision to reverse the “financial excess” of the Clinton–Gore–Dean years (which, by the time Dean left office, had actually fallen to the same level of the Reagan and Bush administrations, but shhhhhhh)
- Hopes of reallocating it to welfare or (as encouraged by more hardline Republicans in Congress) a balanced-budget amendment were dashed when Ms Murkowski made the announcement that the United States would be returning to the moon to stay; her speech invoked futuristic visions of billions of dollars in asteroid mining, an American flag on every planet, and, you know, that sort of thing.
- Allegedly wanted America’s first moon base to be named “New Whittier”, which thankfully never came to pass
2013–2017. Barack Obama, “Thanks Obama” (Democratic)
2012
(with Elizabeth Warren) def.
Rick Santorum / Gary Johnson (Republican),
Lisa Murkowski / Alexis Ohanian (Independent)
- President Murkowski was primaried from the right by Rick Santorum, who became the representative of all those Republicans enraged by her hypocritical spending and inaction on the cultural issues which had animated American conservatism for so long. Ms Murkowski, not having any of this, would run as an independent, hoping to hoover up the votes of America’s moderate conservatives. This, of course, led to the election of…
- …Barack Obama, the charismatic orator and influential senator who became America’s first black president. His government, egged on by VP Elizabeth Warren, reallocate a fair chunk of the outgoing administration's Nasa funding to welfare and a public option for healthcare insurance, but, in the face of China’s accelerating space programme and possible private competition, did not lay its eyes off the prize of a moon landing within the decade. Armstrong 3 would land in the Sea of Tranquility on the fourth of July, 2019, just in time for his promise to be kept.
- An agremeent was struck with a deadlocked, three-way-split Congress to work towards passing the 29th Amendment, which instated a nationwide runoff election for President and barring the use of first-past-the-post in congressional elections. In exchange for this, the Republicans and Ms Murkowski’s Liberty Party would grant certain policy concessions and confirm Jennifer Granholm to the supreme court. This was a decision Mr Obama would come to regret.
2017–2021. Rand Paul, “Polio Paul” (Republican)
2016
(with Marco Rubio) def.
Barack Obama / Elizabeth Warren (Democratic),
Lisa Murkowski / Andrew Yang (Liberty)
- Paul was perhaps the most ideological president since Bush. Barely ekeing out a victory in his runoff against Obama, he espoused a “cut, cut, cut!” strategy of austerity, slashing spending on the arts, welfare, and, most infamously, the CDC and Americare. Unfortunately for Mr Paul, the day before his budget passed Congress, a fishmonger in Louisiana acquired something of a nasty cough.
- America’s ability to contain the “Orleans pneumonia” outbreak was severly curtailed by Paul’s budget cuts, and what was an outbreak soon became an epidemic became a pandemic. A working vaccine would not enter mass production until the autumn of 2021, by which time tens of millions of people around the world had already succumbed to what the WHO had more sensitively renamed OrCoV-19. On the day he left office, his approval rating was hovering around 12%.
2021–????. Elizabeth Warren, “Thin Lizzy” (Democratic)
2020
(with Cory Booker) def.
Andrew Yang / Joe Manchin (Liberty),
Rand Paul / Ted Cruz (Republican)
2024
(with Cory Booker) up against
Marco Rubio / Will Hurd (Republican),
Eric Adams / Holden Karnofsky (Liberty)
- Elizabeth Warren won her runoff election against the Liberty Party’s anti-lockdown technocrat Andrew Yang. The days of OrCoV-19 lockdowns and masks seem to be in the rear-view mirror, and so is Paul’s austerity — though the Warren cabinet, who would rather not end up in another such mess, prefers to prioritise partnerships with private businesses. Particularly promising meetings have been held with Gwynne Shotwell (CEO of SpaceX), who wants to put humans on Mars and finish President Murkowski’s plans for a permament moonbase, and Elon Musk, the quixotic fintech billionaire CEO of the Magnet Company, who is quite interested in the prospect of a nationwide maglev system.
- Ms Warren will be facing off against the Republicans’ Marco Rubio and the Liberty Party’s Eric Adams in the upcoming 2025 election. Will she become the first two-term president in over thirty years, or will a conservative candidate puncture her pipe dreams? The polls are neck-and-neck-and-neck, and only time will tell where America is headed next…
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What i’m trying to do is get the “present day” state of American politics, whatever year that ends up being, to something like this three-party system:
| Republican Party (“The GOP”) | Populist, bioconservative, varies between left-wing and right-wing economically depending on the election cycle |
| Liberty Party (“The Libertarians”) | Libertarian, pro-free-market but not necessarily opposed to welfare and government competition, transhumanist |
| Progressive Democratic Union (“The Polar Bear Party”) | Varying degrees of centre-left, concerned about the environment, wants common sense regulations on all this genemod business |
