Official "Retrospective History of the United States" Challenge Thread

[Nerdlinger]

Official Rules for "Retrospective History of the United States" Challenge

The challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to make the results of the Retrospective US Presidential Elections into a plausible timeline. Post your timelines here. For your reference, the dedicated Results Thread is here.

The overarching focus of your ATL should be on plausibility, despite the unnatural convergence inherent in the project. Make it as realistic as you can within the limitations below. You should strive to be politically neutral. (The TL should also be well-written and organized, but that should go without saying.) The format of the TL is up to you -- e.g., date-by-date timeline, history book style, etc. Your POD should be either during or before the 1788-89 election, since John Jay was elected VP instead of John Adams. To fulfill the challenge, your TL should cover the whole period from your POD to the present (in however much depth you wish).

The most fundamental difference between the ATL and OTL (besides the different election results of course) is the political opinion of the average American voter. Throughout history, this will obviously be very similar to the political opinion of the average voter here on AH.com. As such, parties and candidates considered "leftist" in OTL may be considered "centrist" in the ATL (and "centrists" can be considered "rightists," etc.) without needing to change the OTL political stances of those parties and their candidates.

Presidential and vice presidential candidates must act in character; that is, they should have the same personal politics as in OTL (with few exceptions*) even if faced with different issues than in OTL. If this weren't the case, then AH.commers who participated in the project would have voted for candidates who were not the same people as the participants thought they were voting for. The periods of service for presidents and vice presidents should be the same as in the Master List. (* For example, if Eugene Debs actually was not willing to serve as president in OTL, he would have to be willing to do so in the ATL, since he was elected three times.)

The poll results of for each election represent the popular vote results for that election in the ATL. Therefore, national popular vote percentages in each ATL election must be the same as in the percentages the candidates receive in polls here. Note that in the pre-Civil War South, you may assume that most if not all of the slave states did not hold popular elections for president but instead just had their electors choose candidates. (This helps account for the huge popular vote percentages received by Fremont and Lincoln.)

The number of electoral votes a candidate receives need not exactly align with the numbers shown in the Wikiboxes (except for 1789-1800*), nor do they need to have the same geographic distribution as shown on the map in the Wikibox. However, the candidates with the plurality or majority of the popular vote should still win the election, and the other candidates should place roughly in the same order in the EC as they did in the original poll. (* Since we simulated the EC vote for the four elections from 1789-1800, the percentage of EVs each candidate receives must be the same as in the Wikibox, although the geographic distribution of each candidate's votes may differ from the map in the Wikibox.)

Each participant can post his/her TL in chunks as s/he writes it, and at the end they can be compiled into one big post which contains the whole timeline. There is no specific time limit (yet) on getting your TLs done. Once all the entries are in and complete, I'll post a poll wherein AH.com can vote for the best TL.

Good luck, and have fun.

[metastasis_d]

Should they post here, or in a separate thread in pre-1900?

[Nerdlinger]

Originally Posted by metastasis_d

Should they post here, or in a separate thread in pre-1900?

Post them here. Everyone's going to have to share a thread, per Glen's recommendation.

[Turquoise Blue]

OK. I'm going to copy-paste my official timeline type-ups here, and then type more later. The official SEO is Blueverse. Please can nobody else type that word here.

[Turquoise Blue]

Originally Posted by Nerdlinger

OK, I won't....

Just... Could you edit it out of the quote? I need it to optimize the search engine...

[The Red]

Originally Posted by Turquoise Blue

Please can nobody else type that word here.

On condition that mines can be the Redverse.

[Nerdlinger]

Originally Posted by Turquoise Blue

Just... Could you edit it out of the quote? I need it to optimize the search engine...

Yeah, I was being mischievous. I deleted my post.

[Turquoise Blue]

Originally Posted by The Red

On condition that mines can be the.

Sure, your SEO can be that.

[Nerdlinger]

Originally Posted by The Red

On condition that mines can be the [redacted].

That's fine. Everyone can call their TL a different name so as to make finding of it easier.

[Turquoise Blue]

From Washington to Mesplay: The Tales of Fifty Presidents of the United States

Madison, King, Clinton: The Last Presidents of a Dying Political System

Most historians agree, the fall of the First Political System started with the election of 1808. In 1808, Charles C. Pinckney became president due to a split in the Democratic-Republican Party between the Madisonians, those who supported James Madison and a strict adherence to the Constitution, and the Monroeists, which supported James Monroe and a relaxed attitude to the Constitution. Both factions nominated their own leader, and the party was split. Upon seeing the victory of C. C. Pinckney, the Dem-Reps agreed to re-unite, with an compromise, Madison was to run in 1812, and Monroe in 1816. This showed the American people how fragile the Dem-Rep Party really was. But if the Federalists hoped to stay united, they were to be disappointed, as the typical Federalist politician, Rufus King, which commanded half of the Federalist Party, fell out with DeWitt Clinton, the mavericky former Democratic-Republican politician, which had managed to win over the other half of the Federalist Party to his side. The Clintonites left the convention after the official nomination was announced to be King, and they nominated Clinton as their choice for president. The American people went to the polls in 1812, and due to a split Federalist Party, it was no surprise Madison won the election. King, upon seeing the possible fall of the Federalist Party, made amends with Clinton, and came to an gentleman's agreement with him. The Clintonites would support King's nomination in 1816, and then in 1820, the Kingists would support Clinton's nomination. As per the Madison-Monroe agreement, Monroe was the Democratic-Republican nomination. However, against Rufus King, a strong candidate with the support of the Clintonite Federalists, Monroe was found lacking, and the Federalists returned to the Gray House (It was not painted blue until Adams' second term) However, in 1820, Monroe thought he had a chance, since King lost control over his supporters, which refused to support Clinton's nomination, and instead nominated King for a second term. He refused to run for president, and then the Federalist Party was thrown in disarray. The Kingists eventually relented, and nominated Clinton, but by this time, he was already running, as an independent. He did, however, say that the choice of the running mate was up to the Federalists. They nominated Richard Stockton as Clinton's running mate. He accepted, and since the Federalists was relatively united, if only tenuously, and Monroe's unpopularity in the North meant that he only won the South, which supported him, or at least the electors did, Clinton won the election. The American people saw the split of both main parties, and the almost collapse of one. The Federalist Party was to collapse, and all its members joined the Democratic-Republican Party. However, the Dem-Rep Party was not to enjoy an unanimous election, as they in turn collapsed in 1824, after four candidates made it clear that they was going to run for the presidency. The factions that grew in the Dem-Rep Party since the Federalists' collapse, the Adamsians, the Clayites, the Jacksonians and the Crawfordians, all declared that their leader was the official nomination of the Democratic-Republican Party. After this election, we all know what happened. John Quincy Adams won, and formed a party with Henry Clay, the National Republicans, which was to evolve into the Whigs, and ultimately, the Republicans. Meanwhile, Andrew Jackson and William Crawford worked together to create a party, the Democratic Party. The First Political System was over and the Second was only just beginning...

SEO: Blueverse. EarlyYears.

[Glen]

Originally Posted by Nerdlinger

Post them here. Everyone's going to have to share a thread, per Glen's recommendation.

I agree that they should all be in the same thread. However, I think the thread might be more appropriate in the Before 1900 section (or ASB given some of our results and having Bush and Obama even BORN in this timeline!).

[d32123]

Originally Posted by Nerdlinger

The overarching focus of your ATL should be on plausibility, despite the unnatural convergence inherent in the project.

Don't see how that's possible. This project is all about massive butterfly genocide. If it were plausible at all every single person born after the PoD would be butterflied away.

[metastasis_d]

Originally Posted by d32123

Don't see how that's possible. This project is all about massive butterfly genocide. If it were plausible at all every single person born after the PoD would be butterflied away.

It's a bit of a conundrum.

[d32123]

I mean, theoretically one could come up with a well-written ASB TL of this that's worth reading, but I don't see how you could make it plausible in any way.

[snerfuplz]

Originally Posted by d32123

Don't see how that's possible. This project is all about massive butterfly genocide. If it were plausible at all every single person born after the PoD would be butterflied away.

All too true but what can you do. I find comfort that these individuals are far different then our own OTL

[OAM47]

I shall make an effort, but it'll be a date-event format, as I don't have the time on me to work with prose on another project. I shall title my attempt The Myth of American Consensus.

[stefanbl]

Originally Posted by Nerdlinger

Post them here. Everyone's going to have to share a thread, per Glen's recommendation.

That's going to be heavily awkward.

[metastasis_d]

Originally Posted by stefanbl

That's going to be heavily awkward.

That's why they were going to use those SEO.
Then again, they could all simply start actual timelines in their own pre-1900 threads and link to the updates here, in order to avoid clutter. That can encourage people who didn't participate to read.

[Turquoise Blue]

Originally Posted by stefanbl

That's going to be heavily awkward.

I'm using a SEO to make sure my posts can be found easier, I recommend you do the same.

From Washington to Mesplay: The Tales of Fifty Presidents of the United States

January 20, 2017 (Inauguration of Kent Mesplay)

The inauguration of the first non-Democratic president since Gerald Ford left office. It was a nice, sunny, day, almost like Mother Nature itself was congratulating us. We all saw him place his hand on the Green Book, the book that the Green Party uses as an ideological basing, and heard him utter the famous oath said by many before. Then Kent Mesplay, the first Green president of the United States, came up to the stage, and started to give a great speech, first congratulating his opponents, Brian Schweitzer and Rand Paul, for giving great campaigns, then he started to give a speech perfectly detailing what the Green New Deal his campaign promised, would be. We all stood in awe at his passionate speech and how far-reaching this Green New Deal would be. The Democratic Party's long hegemony of the electoral system was over. Now, the sun is rising for the Green Party...

SEO: Blueverse. GreenFuture

[The Red]

Originally Posted by Turquoise Blue

We all saw him place his hand on the Green Book, the book that the Green Party uses as an ideological basing,

I see that the McKinney wing of the party remained dominant.