AHC: Create an exotic party system

[Deleted member 139407]

Exitus acta probat: A Washingtonian Party system

When the new republic of the United States was formed under the Constitution of 1787, soon-to-be-elected-President George Washington was startled to find American society forming into two distinct cliques. We know them, historically, as the Federalists, and the anti-Federalists (or the Anti-Administration and Republican parties). What Washington feared was that over time, the Constitution, and American society, would fall victim to partisan bickering and factionalization. So, with that and the evidently nonpartisan manner of the Constitution, President Washington went to the people with an idea: banning political parties. Many figureheads and politicians were quick to denounce this idea, in private, with the President as outwardly tyrannical and as an attack on both the Federalist Party and the Anti-Administration Party. So, through working with these same critiques, what would become colloquially known as the Washington Amendment was introduced for ratification. The Amendment would officially "ban" political parties at the Federal level allowing for state level apparati to function fully. While some republics to the modern day would only ban political parties in name by refusing to acknowledge them, this amendment effectively banned "parties" at the Federal Government. In the 1898 Supreme Court Case Debs v. United States, however, the amendment did not ban "Conferences" or "Political Action Committees" as rallying groups. While nonpartisan independents are still the majority force in Congress with the Senate being the only nonpartisan body (full-stop), since the 1898 ruling, "Conferences" of statewide parties have become a growing and prominent force. Below, you will see a representation of the House of Representatives as of the 2026 Midterm elections listed from most seats to least:

• Nonpartisan League - The Nonpartisan League is the second oldest conference in the United States. The League was founded in 4 March, 1919 with the election of the 66th Congress of the United States. It effectively serves as the officiation of the centuries long history of nonpartisanship. The official ideology of the League is "Big-Tent" ranging from Centrist Liberal to staunch Conservative. It currently holds 315 seats in the House, and the Presidency.
• Conference of Progressive and Labor Parties - Formed on 1 May, 1920 by Progressive and Laborites in the Nonpartisan League dissatisfied by the Presidential nominee that year, the CPLP has been the primary opposition to the Nonpartisan League. It has had the most amount of Presidencies outside of the League at four. The ideology of the committee, while originating in the Progressive Labor movement of the time, it has drifted slowly, but surely, to the right towards neoliberalism, though laborism is still a strong force. At the statewide level, its affiliates holds majorities in Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Wisconsin. It holds 50 seats federally.
• America First Committee - Formed in 1936 by disaffected populists and anti-war conservatives, the AFC was formed as a direct response to murmurings that the United States would potentially join the Second Great War. While support for the Triple Alliance never evolved past a lend-lease program, and the political alignments of these Congressmen and the Kaiserreich have been continuously debated, the AFC has maintained a right-wing ideological hold since its founding. Statewide affiliates hold majorities in Dakota, Mississippi, South Carolina, and West Florida. It holds 41 seats.
• Christian Democratic Committee - The CDC, formed in June of 1973, is the second youngest conference in the union. Formed from the alliance of liberal conservative Billy Graham and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights movement, the Committee represents a Distributist economic position and a socially big-tent ideology. It holds majority power solely in Georgia. It holds 17 seats.
• Greens Political Action Committee - The GPAC is the youngest conference as it was only formed on 19 September, 1992. The Committee, despite its fresh status, has numerous factions committed to its environmentalist message; the Centrists, the Eco-Socialists, and the Agriculturalists (attributed name to environmentally-centered populists) are its most prominent factions throughout the conference and state-level parties. It holds eight seats.
• Communist League of America - The CLA is the oldest conference in the United States, as well as being the most controversial. It holds an orthodox Marxist doctrine while tying itself to the political writings of Frederick Douglass, William Z. Foster, Charlotta Bass, and its current President, Chris Smalls. Distinct from other Communist Parties, its colour is purple due to the nationwide, but scarcely enforced, ban of the iconography of the red star and red banner. It holds three seats.
• Home Rule Committee - The HRC, formed in 1963, is the only conference to represent an ethnic group; indigenous Americans. The HRC is also the only conference to not have any party privy to its founding and, instead, formed statewide parties afterwards. Home Rule parties have elected representatives from the Lakota Confederacy, Cheyenne, Cherokee, Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and the Lower Sioux. Its sole ideological pillar is the representation of this group in the federal government. It holds a single seat federally and its representative is from the Lakota Confederacy.

 

[Miranda Brawner]

It would be interesting to see a party system made up of single-issue parties. Maybe in a timeline where multi-issue parties are distrusted, because they're seen as compromisers who are insufficiently passionate about anything.

 

[Born in the USSA]

It would be interesting to see a party system made up of single-issue parties. Maybe in a timeline where multi-issue parties are distrusted, because they're seen as compromisers who are insufficiently passionate about anything.

The Anti-Masonic Party did invent the party platform 🤔

 

[Born in the USSA]

The party system in my King in Yellow TL has evolved to be pretty interesting!

• The Independence Party is still Georgist/nationalist/technocratic/socialist, though as we go into the 80s their traditional anticommunism is going to erode with the Entente-American Split and they're going to move toward rapprochement with the Comintern under Scoop Jackson.
• The Populist Party remains the party of faith and rural interests, though their isolationism fell by the wayside under Earl Long and Billy Graham largely succeeded in purging the Dixiecrats and racists from the party after the disastrous (Gerald L.K.) Smith presidency. I have a surprising president in mind for them in the late 80s who's going to further move the party in the direction of a basic income and environmental stewardship.
• The Liberty Party is technically just a media name for a collection of like-minded political independents that has grown out of the American individualist anarchist tradition. They're also big on a UBI, traditionally focused on soft over hard power, and obsessed with the labor theory of value, though they've only held the presidency once so far.
• The American Workingmen's Party is the drain trap catching all the racists and reactionary conservatives being shed by the big two parties, though in the Age of Fear they'll undergo a major schism between the Shaverites and the Christian Dominionists. They've never held (and will never hold) any serious political influence but given the two-round presidential election system TTL they've swung a couple of elections by vote splitting.

 

[Born in the USSA]

Based on a random idea I had over in the flag thread* I came up with another party system inspired by the capitalism/socialism/distributism political triad.

• The Republican Party stays just as pro-business as ever, having shed most of its liberals and progressives in the wake of an alternate Progressive era and World War I.
• The Socialist Party has taken a page out of Germany's book, adopting councilism instead of the Bolshevism they turned to OTL.
• The Commonwealth Party is the most divergent, the result of a scenario where the individualist anarchist strain in the US** survives to run head first into a progressive movement that takes to Georgism more readily. The third pillar of the party is distributism that grows in popularity among the world's Catholics as a reaction against industrial capitalism and council communism.

*For a Mutualist/Georgist/Distributist synthesis.
**Which historically favored mutualism.

If anybody hasn't seen it I decided to make a thread over in Current Politics exploring my "neopopulist" synthesis fusing Georgism, mutualism and distributism! It's in my signature under "Commonwealth Party" if anybody wants to explore the idea with me and get in their two cents!

 

[The Ranger]

White People's Party-Formed in the 1870s in the Deep South from whites that opposed Reconstruction and feared that blacks would gain civil rights and land and jobs that had belonged only to whites. Had many KKK members in their ranks, but only a minority of members were/are active KKK, just as only a minority of Sinn Fien members were/are active IRA. In the 1920s with the Klan at it's height, they actually sent four congressmen and two senators to Congress from Mississippi and Alabama. After Civil Rights were granted in the 1960s, they lost most of their voters, but they still survive in some of the more "backwards" part of the South and have a few local government posts and small-town mayors. Officially, they repudiated the Klan in the 1970s, but still have more or less covert links with what remains of the Klan today. They have an anti-civil rights, pro racist party program

 

[Born in the USSA]

In a world... where the Progressive party lingered better after the 1924 election and Roosevelt flat out ignored the Supreme Court on the National Recovery Administration...

• The National Recovery Alliance is the successor to the New Deal coalition formed in the wake of the successful Democratic-Progressive alliance to elect Upton Sinclair governor of California. President Roosevelt's brave action to defy the reactionary Supreme Court saw the new party quickly swell as the common people came out in support of the only man willing to do what was necessary to save the nation. Under the banner of the blue eagle the American people are on the march, labor is booming, and without the distractions of German and Italian declarations of war the country will fulfill its destiny and make the Pacific Ocean an American lake. To dictatorship if needs be!
• The American Liberty League began life as a collection of reactionaries and businessmen opposed to the New Deal but found new life as a political party opposed to the president's "tyranny" and more than willing to absorb elements of the moribund Republicans and other anti-administration groups such as embittered southern Democrats who agreed with the League that Roosevelt's proposed Second Bill of Rights was a bridge too far. True to its name the League uses the liberty bell as its symbol.

 

[omnidirectional]

Parties from a California Republic that never joined the US, had Johann Sutter as a somewhat autocratic second President and ended up having a Spanish Civil War style conflict in the 1930s. The Republicans defeated General Salvatierra, the Franco/Santa Anna like caudillo narrowly, and had to give regional autonomy to some anarchist collectives that helped them and the main party became heavily socialist. Los Angeles never got big since its not in the US and without the film industry, it did not develop. SF, here still called Yerba Buena, San Jose and Monterey are the biggest cities, and San Diego is still a big port city and along with Santa Barbara, the biggest southern cities.

Liberal-Socialist Party:

Largest political party, supported among urban liberals, intellectuals and working class in Yerba Buena, Monterey, San Jose and San Diego, the nation's largest cities.

Popular Party:

Second largest political party, populist, favors farmers in the Central Valley and smaller cities, favors mandated water distribution to farmers and smaller towns.


Nationalist Party:

Extreme right wing party formed by supporters of General Salvatierra after he narrowly lost the Civil War. Somewhat fascist influenced, but mainly dominated by members and officers and veterans of the military.

Unionist Party:

Favors joining the United States for economic and trade reasons. Since this TL's US never annexed California or Texas, its not as well off and never had the Civil War and isn't overall as good, so a smaller party, popular in the heavily Anglo norte regions.

Anarchist Alliance:

Party representing the group of anarchist commune run regions formed during the Civil War in the Dirty 30s such as the Santa Cruz Anarchist Collective, and their supporters in other regions.

 

[Sir William Jol]

Exitus acta probat: A Washingtonian Party system

When the new republic of the United States was formed under the Constitution of 1787, soon-to-be-elected-President George Washington was startled to find American society forming into two distinct cliques. While we know them, historically, as the Federalists, and the anti-Federalists (or the Anti-Administration and Republican parties). What Washington feared was that over time, the Constitution, and American society, could fall victim partisan bickering and altercation. So, with that and the evidently nonpartisan manner of the Constitution, President Washington went to the people with an idea: banning political parties. Many figureheads and politicians were quick to denounce this idea, in private with the President, as outwardly tyrannical and as an attack on both the Federalist Party and the Anti-Administration Party. So, through working with these same critiques, what would become colloquially known as the Washington Amendment was introduced for ratification. The Amendment would officially "ban" political parties at the Federal level allowing for state level apparati to function fully. While some republics to the modern day would only ban political parties in name by refusing to acknowledge them, this amendment effectively banned "parties" at the Federal Government. In the 1898 Supreme Court Case Debs v. United States, however, the amendment did not ban "Conferences" or "Political Action Committees" as rallying groups. While nonpartisan independents are still the majority force in Congress with the Senate being the only nonpartisan body (full-stop), since the 1898 ruling, "Conferences" of statewide parties have become a growing and prominent force. Below, you will see a representation of the House of Representatives as of the 2024 Midterm elections listed from most seats to least:

• Nonpartisan League - The Nonpartisan League is the second oldest conference in the United States. The League was founded in 4 March, 1919 with the election of the 66th Congress of the United States. It effectively serves as the officiation of the centuries long history of nonpartisanship. The official ideology of the League is "Big-Tent" ranging from Centrist Liberal to staunch Conservative. It currently holds 315 seats in the House, and the Presidency.
• Conference of Progressive and Labor Parties - Formed on 1 May, 1920 by Progressive and Laborites in the Nonpartisan League dissatisfied by the Presidential nominee that year, the CPLP has been the primary opposition to the Nonpartisan League. It has had the most amount of Presidencies outside of the League at four. The ideology of the committee, while originating in the Progressive Labor movement of the time, it has drifted slowly, but surely, to the right towards neoliberalism, though laborism is still a strong force. At the statewide level, its affiliates holds majorities in Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Wisconsin. It holds 50 seats federally.
• America First Committee - Formed in 1936 by disaffected populists and anti-war conservatives, the AFC was formed as a direct response to murmurings that the United States would potentially join the Second Great War. While support for the Triple Alliance never evolved past a lend-lease program, and the political alignments of these Congressmen and the Kaiserreich have been continuously debated, the AFC has maintained a right-wing ideological hold since its founding. Statewide affiliates hold majorities in Dakota, Mississippi, South Carolina, and West Florida. It holds 41 seats.
• Christian Democratic Committee - The CDC, formed in June of 1973, is the second youngest conference in the union. Formed from the alliance of liberal conservative Billy Graham and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights movement, the Committee represents a Distributist economic position and a socially big-tent ideology. It holds majority power solely in Georgia. It holds 17 seats.
• Greens Political Action Committee - The GPAC is the youngest conference as it was only formed on 19 September, 1992. The Committee, despite its fresh status, has numerous factions committed to its environmentalist message; the Centrists, the Eco-Socialists, and the Agriculturalists (attributed name to environmentally-centered populists) are its most prominent factions throughout the conference and state-level parties. It holds eight seats.
• Communist League of America - The CLA is the oldest conference in the United States, as well as being the most controversial. It holds an orthodox Marxist doctrine while tying itself to the political writings of Frederick Douglass, William Z. Foster, Charlotta Bass, and its current President, Chris Smalls. Distinct from other Communist Parties, its colour is purple due to the nationwide, but scarcely enforced, ban of the iconography of the red star and red banner. It holds three seats.
• Home Rule Committee - The HRC, formed in 1963, is the only conference to represent an ethnic group; indigenous Americans. The HRC is also the only conference to not have any party privy to its founding and, instead, formed statewide parties afterwards. Home Rule parties have elected representatives from the Lakota Confederacy, Cheyenne, Cherokee, Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and the Lower Sioux. Its sole ideological pillar is the representation of this group in the federal government. It holds a single seat federally and its representative is from the Lakota Confederacy.

I would be very interested to see a list of US presidents in such a world. Very interesting and intriguing idea for an alternate history.

 

[Born in the USSA]

Almost forgot! Here are the party systems of the major alliances of my King in Yellow TL, packed to the brim with political party deep cuts!

View attachment 754588
-Symbol of the Five Eyes. Source: David Larocca​

Properly considered, by the start of the Age of Fear the Providence Pact is something closer to three separate alliances that share a common set of goals rather than a single monolithic bloc. At the top of the heap are the Five Eyes, commonly referred to in conversation as the Big Five or the Five Ayes, since a veto from enough of them basically sinks your initiative stone dead. Made up of the United States of America, the Republic of China, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Brazilian Estado Novo and the Republic of the Congo, the Five Eyes have earned their position through a combination of large size and population and high levels of industrial and military development. The other two alliances are not subordinate to one another, rather acting as coequal regional power centers. La Hermandad is an alliance of the Hispanophone powers of the Americas, while ASEAN, the Alliance of South East Asian Nations, is made up of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Nusantara and the Philippines.

As the most powerful single member and undisputed heart of the Pact, the politics of the United States of America have played an outsized role in the development of political culture within the alliance more broadly. As a quirk of the historical context of Philippine independence that nation is the only one with cadet branches of the American parties, with the other members having affiliate parties to one or more of the American ones.

• As the oldest explicitly Fascist party in the world, the Independence Party still goes a long way toward establishing the broader Fascist overton window. Still a party devoted to materialism (in the philosophical sense), cultural development, Georgist resource principles and urban interests, some within the party have called for a reappraisal of the Pact's stance toward the Comintern, having come to view the two blocs as economically similar enough (and the new Comintern culture sufficiently refined sixty years on) to warrant closer ties in the face of escalating Alliance bellicosity. Affiliates:
  • Bolivarian Republic of Colombia- Radical Party of Columbia
  • Bolivarian Republic of Ecuador- Radical Party of Ecuador
  • Brazilian Estado Novo- Integralist Party of Brazil (maintains cadet branches in Portugal, Angola and Mozambique)
  • Caribbean Confederation- Progressive Action Party
  • Central American Republic- Progressive Action Party
  • Dominion of Canada- Social Credit Party of Canada (factions)
  • Dominion of Oceania- Justice Party (factions)
  • Franco-British Union- Popular Republican Rally (factions)
  • Kingdom of Persia- Laborer's Party (factions)
  • Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth- National Democracy
  • Republic of Argentina- Radical Civic Union
  • Republic of Bolivia- Revolutionary Nationalist Party
  • Republic of Cambodia- Democratic Party
  • Republic of China- Nationalist Party (factions)
  • Republic of Liberia- Republican Party
  • Republic of Laos- People's Revolutionary Party
  • Republic of Mexico- Progressive Constitutionalist Party
  • Republic of Paraguay- Liberal Party
  • Republic of Peru- Independent Civil Party
  • Republic of Nusantara- New Order Party
  • Republic of the Congo- African Solidarity Party (factions)
  • Republic of Vietnam- Constitutional Party
  • Republic of Uruguay- Colorado Party
  • Second Atlantean Empire- Freethinker's Party
• Though the Populist Party remains centered on rural interests and religious faith, the party has perhaps evolved the most from its original form under President Bryan, with the isolationism advocated by Huey Long gradually chiseled away in favor of a sort of humanitarian pacifism, an accommodation with the Fascist welfare and land policies and the complete purging of the last of the racists and unreconstructed Democrats from the party. Affiliates:
  • Brazilian Estado Novo- Republican Party
  • Dominion of Canada- Social Credit Party of Canada (factions)
  • Dominion of Oceania- Justice Party (factions)
  • Franco-British Union- Popular Republican Rally (factions)
  • Kingdom of Persia- Laborer's Party (factions)
  • La Hermandad- Liberation Army of the South (Zapatista)
  • Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth- Polish People's Party
  • Republic of Cambodia- Social Republican Party
  • Republic of China- Nationalist Party (factions)
  • Republic of Liberia- True Whig Party (back to its rural roots)
  • Republic of Laos- National Progressive Party
  • Republic of Nusantara- Nationalist Party
  • Republic of the Congo- African Solidarity Party (factions)
  • Republic of Vietnam- Personalist Labor Party
  • Second Atlantean Empire- Agrarian Party
• Though not a political party in the traditional sense, the Liberty Party label adopted by politically unaffiliated Rational Anarchists is going strong, with a record presence in Congress since the start of the Thompson presidency. Although it lacks actual affiliates in the rest of the Pact, several Rational Anarchists in other countries remain aligned with the broader movement, particularly the Nihilists thriving in the Comintern, and it has also come to shape the Fascist and Populist movements abroad, especially as expressed in La Hermandad. Affiliates:
  • Empire of Japan- Commoner's Party (Heimin tō)
• Ever the black sheep of the American political scene, the American Workingmen's Party is beginning to show its age, with decreasing membership rolls, a growing rift between the Esoteric Fascists and the Christian Theocrats, and persistent rumors it is being illegally funded by the Entente Renewal Front in a bid to destabilize the American political system. Affiliates:
  • Dominion of Canada- Canadian Renewal Front
  • Franco-British Union- Entente Renewal Front (de facto)
  • La Hermandad- National Synarchist Union

The politics of the broader Alliance for Democracy are a symptom of its nature, with a domineering superpower at the center and a mix of loyal Dominions and subservient though theoretically independent vestigial empires on the periphery. As such, the party line of the Franco-British Union within the Alliance is the overwhelmingly dominant one, and the party systems of the bloc's members have adapted accordingly. Unless otherwise noted, those parties belonging to the Dominions are cadet branches of the major parties of the Union, with far less independence of thought than is tolerated in the affiliates located in independent member states, much less those the United States tolerates within the Pact. As integral Union territory Scotland, Wales, Newfoundland, Entente Honduras, Madagascar, Singapore and Hong Kong all have official branches of the major parties, though Ireland is no less integral but is allowed minor leeway in this regard.

• The Entente Conservative Rally/Rassemblement Conservateur de l'Entente is the party of perpetual government in the Union, having formally merged from a wartime partnership of the New-Conservative Alliance, the Liberal Party, and the Bonapartist Party following the creation of the Franco-British Union. The party of panopticon, paternalism and one-nation conservatism, the Rally is the party of the status quo, more than willing to make use of opportunistic reforms, bread and circuses and, if needed, political crackdowns to keep winning elections. Although every recognized party in the Union is required to mandate both preservation of the FBU and royalism as official party doctrine the Rally is strongest in both of these regards. Affiliates:
  • Dominion of Algeria- Algerian Unity Party
  • Dominion of Canada- Liberal Conservative Party
  • Dominion of Guyana- Guyanese Unity Party
  • Dominion of Ireland- Irish Parliamentary Party
  • Dominion of Oceania- Fusion Liberal Party
  • Dominion of South Africa- National Party (factions)
  • Dominion of the Central African Confederation/Dominion of the East African Confederation/Dominion of the West African Confederation- African Liberal Party
  • Dominion of the West Indies Confederation- People's National Party
  • Kingdom of Italy (Sardinia)- Liberal Union Party
  • Kingdom of Sweden- Clerical People's Party
  • The Netherlands- Rexist Party
  • Portuguese Empire- Falange
  • Republic of Greater Egypt- National Party of Egypt
  • Rhenish Republic- Centre Party
  • Spanish State (Sahara)- Falange
  • United Kingdoms of Danubia- Constitutional Party
  • United Kingdoms of Denmark-Norway- Conservative People's Party
• Regularly painted as a Marxist-Trigonist front group, Labour/Labeur forms the official Left Opposition within the Union. Formed out of a merger of the British Labour and Co-Operative Parties and the French Communard Movement (hearkening back to the short-lived Paris Commune of the Franco-German War), Labour advocates for increased power to the anemic unions and increased democratic accountability in the government, a far cry from the councilist system and triumval power structure embraced by the Comintern. One interesting deviation from this platform of social democracy was the adoption of the Rational Anarchist World as Myth tactic of proselytizing, with the party boasting of numerous artists and writers among its ranks eager to churn out politically charged fiction while evading the Union censors.
  • Dominion of Algeria- Algerian Socialist Party
  • Dominion of Canada- New Democratic Party
  • Dominion of Guyana- Guyanese Socialist Party
  • Dominion of Oceania- Australian Labor Party
  • Dominion of the Central African Confederation/Dominion of the East African Confederation/Dominion of the West African Confederation- African Labour Party
  • Dominion of the West Indies Confederation- Caribbean Socialist Party
  • Kingdom of Italy (Sardinia)- Constitutional Democratic Party
  • Kingdom of Sweden- Social Democratic Party
  • The Netherlands- Labour Party
  • Portuguese Empire- Worker Peasant Alliance
  • Republic of Greater Egypt- Ba'ath Party (de facto)
  • United Kingdoms of Danubia- Social Democratic Party of the Danube
  • United Kingdoms of Denmark-Norway- Venstre
• The Entente Renewal Front/Front de Renouvellement de l'Entente forms the Union's official Right Opposition. Made up of the right fringe of Mosley's New Party, the Front is awash in conspiracies about a secret cabal between the Pact, the Comintern and disloyal elements at home to undermine the Union and its component nations alongside the traditional trap about aliens and mysticism. Originally outnumbered by rival French and British nationalist groups, four decades of the new status quo has allowed the Front to leave its one-time rivals in the ashes of history. Embracing an even more radically royalist platform than even the Rally, the Front advocates for the replacement of the FBU with a genuine Franco-British Empire, and has established official branches in Portugal, the Rhenish Republic, and the Kingdom of Italy (Sardinia) in pursuit of this goal on historiographically dubious grounds. Adamant that they are not Esoteric Fascists, the only real difference they can point to is that they have the Mosley Memoranduminstead of Some Repetitions on the Times among their canon.
  • Dominion of Algeria- Algerian Renewal Front
  • Dominion of Canada- Laurentian Renewal Front
  • Dominion of Ceylon- Ceylon Renewal Front
  • Dominion of Oceania- English Socialist Party (EngSoc)
  • Dominion of Rhodesia- Rhodesian Renewal Front
  • Dominion of South Africa- National Party (factions)
  • United States of America- American Workingmen's Party (de facto/factions)
• Officially banned for refusing to embrace royalist principles, the Popular Republican Rally/Rassemblement Républicain Populaire continues to soldier on. The fusion of French and British republican movements that have churned under the surface since the First Conflagration, the PRR is agnostic on the Union itself, though they are adamant that the royal family has got to go. Already long suppressed, there's not much more the government can do to them despite the strong suspicion the United States has adopted them as a front group. Although it has allied with republican groups throughout the Dominions they are regarded as affiliates rather than cadet parties, though they are all by their very nature suppressed by their respective governments and forbidden from standing for election.
  • Dominion of Algeria- National Liberation Front
  • Dominion of Canada- Social Credit Party of Canada
  • Dominion of Guyana- Guyanese Liberty League
  • Dominion of Ireland- Sinn Féin
  • Dominion of Oceania- Justice Party
  • Dominion of South Africa/Dominion of the Central African Confederation/Dominion of the East African Confederation/Dominion of the West African Confederation- African National Congress (factions)
  • Dominion of the West Indies Confederation- Caribbean Liberty League
  • Portuguese Empire- Integralist Party of Portugal/Angola/Mozambique (de facto)
  • United States of America- Independence/Populist Parties (de facto)

While the Pact and the Alliance have multiparty democracies, the Comintern and the Great Powers are defined by either officially entrenched single-party systems or by overwhelmingly strong dominant-party systems. Sometimes this is the result of the fact that the largest political force is a big tent or catch-all party, able to accommodate diverse tendencies into a single cohesive whole, while in other cases this state of affairs is maintained either through state power or as an aftereffect of an opposition too small and fractious to amount to a credible electoral threat. Aside from this political tendency, the three Great Powers are set apart by their large amount of regional and global clout and de facto independence from the three ideological blocs of the Strange Aeon, though the OTO and the GEAC-PS are nominally observers (but not members) in the Alliance for Democracy.

The Comintern has perhaps the most unusual electoral landscape on Earth, an outgrowth of the tenets of Marxist-Trigonism. While the vanguard party has been maintained as a political necessity, inherent distrust of the ossification of the Party, born out of an observation of the Soviet Union under Lenin, the Spartacist Republic under Goebbels and the Social Republic under Mussolini, has seen restrictive rules put in place to ensure proper obedience to the social base and the active cultivation of alternative centers of power to check and balance it. The erosion of political boundaries between the Comintern members has seen the gradual replacement of more traditional national legislatures with proportionally representative councilist ones arranged along linguistic lines, with these nested councils carrying out the necessary business of government from the local level upwards. The government of the Comintern proper is made up of members elevated from these national councils, setting policy for the bloc as a whole and conducting its business entirely in Esperanto. This level is open to Marxist-Trigonist parties existing outside the bloc, such as the Persian Tudeh Party and some factions of the African National Congress who, in the name of proletarian solidarity, are allowed to fully participate in the setting of Comintern policy* more broadly in proportion to their membership.

• The Monda Komunista Partio is the only sanctioned political party within the bloc, originally formed through the fusion of the various communist and anarchist parties and factions of the Soviet Union, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and Spain. As the most conventional electoral branch of the Comintern political system, the World Communist Party best illustrates the divide within society between the Continentalists, who favor a focus on domestic issues and the final eradication of the few remaining remnants of bourgeois repression, and the Internationalists, who favor the expansion of the Comintern and a robust foreign policy. The Continentalists contain the majority of the Rational Anarchist-aligned Nihilists undergoing a renaissance within the bloc, giving them the numerical strength to outmaneuver the Internationalists, who, barring Mussolini's acquisition of Libya, have few successes to point to.
• Solidareco is the umbrella organization for the Comintern's diverse ecosystem of cooperatives and labor unions. Organized on a hybrid one big union-industrial union model pioneered by the IWW, Solidarity has staked an aggressive claim on outlining and directing the Comintern economic policy.
• The result of the grand Vorticist experiment, the Monda Akademia functions as a combination of a humanist church, a comprehensive education system, and a series of research laboratories analogous to the American Science Cities. Aside from providing for the education needs of the Comintern member states at all levels, the World Academy also operates an international network of free colleges and education programs abroad and provides the bloc with the majority of its technological research and development.

The Indian Union is listed first among the Great Powers because in spite of being two years old the new nation's sheer size and impressive potential for rapid material development have already placed it on a trajectory to reach the level of the Five Eyes within a matter of a generation. Add to that a military larger than any single other Great Power and its placement on this list is secure. Officially a multiparty democracy, the nation is a defacto dominant-party system in the face of the vast Indian National Congress, a scenario unlikely to change soon. As a result of the party's size, internal fractions within in it are large and active enough to be considered parties unto themselves, with the fractions unified on the broad domestic goals of the Union but divided largely around foreign policy.

• The Requisitionist faction is the faction of Premier Gandhi, favoring an official alliance with the Comintern, the devolution of power to the labor unions, and the adoption of an educational system modeled on the Monda Akademia, properly adapted to the Indian national character. Most popular in the south of the Union, proximity to Kumari Kandam has given the region the most strident opposition to the Franco-British Union and has cultivated an outspoken disgust of their island neighbor's Objectivism.
• The Organization faction is the resident pro-Fascist bloc in the country, advocating a less sweeping nationalization regime than the Requisitionists while still wholeheartedly supporting massive land reforms, a broad social safety net, a massive increase in the size of the Indian Army, and the development of domestic Science Cities. Broadly popular in the center of the Union, this fraction has made a point of reaching out to ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities to its north to broaden its base of support and suppress the specter of nationalist factionalism.
• The Irredentist fraction is the odd man out, not only for its advocacy of an alliance of equals with the FBU but also for its uncomfortable tolerance of ethnoreligious nationalism within the broader Union. Membership of this fraction is the smallest, ensuring they are kept far away from power, though their support is strongest in the northern parts of the Hindi Belt and they maintain small branches catering to Muslims in East and West Bengal and Sikhs in Punjab who agree on the fraction's central goal of increased ethnoreligious segregation and autonomy. There is a real concern they are receiving covert funds from the Entente Renewal Front in a bid to weaken the former Dominion, further limiting their broader appeal.

The Oriental Treaty Organization is the largest political faction formally outside the three superpowers. Political development in this bloc has been largely shaped by the experiences of the Ottoman Empire, which has capitalized on a sixty year reputation of neutrality to carve out a niche for itself and its allies on the international stage.

• The largest political party in the Ottoman Empire, the Committee of Union and Progress has been the central driver in the Empire's sweeping half-century of reforms and has become the model for like-minded parties in the OTO. Occupying the political center, the CUP advocates for the preservation of the current constitution and the monarchy's role in it and pursues a growth-oriented agenda focused around modernization and the shrewd management of oil and other vital resources. Affiliates:
  • Emirate of Jabal Shammar- Committee of Union and Progress
  • Empire of Ethiopia- Ethiopian Democratic Union
  • Sultanate of Somaliland- Committee of Union and Progress
• Forming the official opposition, the Ba'ath Party is a secular social democratic party advocating for an expansion of the social safety net and public works programs, greater democratic accountability, and an increased voice for the Empire's ethnic minorities. Affiliates:
  • Emirate of Jabal Shammar- Ba'ath Party
  • Empire of Ethiopia- Nationality Democratic Association
  • Republic of Greater Egypt- Ba'ath Party
  • Sultanate of Somaliland- Ba'ath Party

The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere has fallen quite a long way from its height during the Second Clash of Civilizations and consists of only two members at present, the Empire of Japan and the Kingdom of Thailand. The Japanese Liberal Party and the Thai People's Party exercise defacto one-party control over their respective states, with a broad set of policies similar to the CUP. While the Thai opposition is too fractured to matter much, the Japanese Empire faces recurring opposition from the Heimin tō, the electoral arm of the Heiminshugi branch of Rational Anarchism largely centered in Korea. While the majority of political parties have paramilitary wings, the Liberal "Special Unit" is particularly feared, seeing itself as the last bastion against anarchy in the Empire.


*This was inspired by an OTL suggestion by Amadeo Bordiga that the USSR, as the bastion of the global proletariat, should be ruled collectively by the world's communist parties. TTL the American affiliate is the Socialist Labor Party, though their membership is so anemic they don't have many votes and have never been elevated to the Comintern's Central Committee.

 

[Born in the USSA]

Here's a Fourth Party System for a short ASB project I'm working on!

I'm working out ideas for a series in the Flag Thread called A Lighter Shade of Black that'll be a take on the 20th century of Green Antarctica! Aside from making some tweaks to the early stages of the TL to moderate some of the later horrors it'll mainly be an exercise in eliminating some of the unlikely modern parallelism, exploring my love of divergent political systems, going into detail about the Tsalal in America, and will culminate in an offramp to sanity at the end of the Cold War analogue! Based on the precedent that Arthur Gordon Pym was a historical person in-universe I thought it would be funny to make the list (with one exception) entirely out of characters or descendants of characters from related media 😂

• Edgar Pym (1897-1905)[1]- Descendant of polar explorer A.G. Pym, shipping magnate.
• Howard Lake (1905-09)[2]- President of Miskatonic University.
• Julian Jeorling (1909-17)[3]- Namesake descendant of Kerguelen naturalist J. Jeorling, Governor of Wisconsin.
• Beekman Winthrop (1917-25)[4]- Governor of Jamaica.
• Louis Castaigne (1925-33)[5]- Army officer.
• Carl Denham (1933-49)[6]- Film producer.
• Pat Hendry (1949-53)[7]- Air Force officer.
• Hannibal Castaigne (1953-69)[5]- Nephew of L. Castaigne, Army officer.
• Wilford Blair (1969-77)[8]- Aerospace engineer.
• Hadrian Castaigne (1977-85)[5]- Son of H. Castaigne, financier.
• R.J. MacReady (1985-93)[8]- Special Forces operative.
• Holt Castaigne (1993- 2001)[5]- Son of H. Castaigne, actor.
• Shane Schofield (2001-09)[9]- Special Forces operative.
• Sonia Danforth (2009-2017)[2]- Secretary of State.
• Louise Lovegrove (2017-25)[10]- Senator of Rhode Island, first Tsalal-American president, AH twin of my own Emily Lovecraft.

1. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838)
2. At the Mountains of Madness (1936)
3. An Antarctic Mystery (1897)
4. Real person, referenced in The King in Yellow (1895)
5. The King in Yellow (1895), with references to The Yellow King RPG (2020)
6. King Kong (1933)
7. The Thing From Another World (1951)
8. The Thing (1982)
9. Ice Station (1999)
10. Green Antarctica (2010)

Since the events in Antarctica would begin producing butterflies in the early years of the 19th century, it stands to reason that the American political system would be affected given that the period was the crucible that birthed the concept of organized political parties in the US. Let me know if you have any questions!

Extant parties:

• The Federalist Party considers itself the natural governing party of the United States, and is the oldest political party in the world. Originally the party of a strong central government and the Hamiltonian system of tariffs and internal improvements, opposition to the War of 1812 and to the failed attempt to invoke the Monroe Doctrine in the wake of the 1816 Tsalal incursion of Patagonia would see the party expand its holdings. The Federalists would take a strong stand against slavery, but the further expansion of the Tsalal and the party's own protectionism and opposition to bimetallism in the wake of the Civil War would lose them ground to the American Party. In the wake of the War of Civilizations, the Federalists in the Fourth Party System have pivoted hard to a bellicose policy of containment aimed at both the Tsalal and the European Sorelians, though this opposition has actually eroded the party's commitment to civil rights given the high proportion of black citizens with Tsalal ancestry that have faced lingering discrimination through the 20th century.
  • Electoral symbol- black/white/black roundel.
  • Electoral color- black
• The American Party is seen as something of an upstart, having begun in the North as a populist republican party in the lead up to the Civil War. Founded on a deep opposition to immigration from essentially everywhere that wasn't Britain and alleging a vast conspiracy masterminded by the Tsalal to undermine the country, the party underwent a serious split over the issue of slavery, with the Northern faction eventually absorbed by the Federalists and the Southern faction successfully absorbing the Nullifiers. Opposed to Federalist tariffs and coming to adopt the policies of bimetallism, this new Southern form of the Americans initially downplayed* the idea of the Tsalal conspiracy, though in the Fourth Party System that has all come roaring back, only receding in the wake of a backlash against the authoritarian overreach of the Castaignes. Since the Denham administration the party has focused on electing populist candidates with strong credentials in national defence to create a contrast with the perceived elitism of the Federalists, while the more racially tolerant attitudes of the later American presidents would pave the way once again for the suppression of anti-Tsalal bigotry and long-delayed progress on civil rights.
  • Electoral symbol- red/white/blue roundel.
  • Electoral color- light purple

Extinct parties:

• The Nullifier Party was founded on the principles of Jacksonian democracy, opposition to tariffs, and defense of the peculiar institution. These policies regarding the tariff and slavery questions would play a key role in setting the stage for the Civil War, and following the reassertion of Federal control the party fell into disarray, eventually being absorbed by** the Southern branch of the American Party.
  • Electoral symbol- turquoise/yellow/turquoise roundel
  • Electoral color- turquoise
• The Readjuster Party began life as a Southern affiliate of the Federalists focused on building interracial solidarity among Southern smallholders and agricultural laborers against the political machines and large landowners catered to by the Americans and would come to embrace and absorb the nascent American Socialist movement and finally gain branches in the North and West. The Fourth Party system saw the Readjusters become more radical as a direct consequence of the Federalist shift away from civil rights, with the party adopting a more aggressive stance on integration and the balance of power within the party shifting further toward the Sorelians despite state persecution. Outreach from presidents Blair and MacReady would gradually pave the way for a rapport between the Readjusters and the Americans, a rapport that would mature under president Schofield into an unlikely fusion of the two in the wake of the end of the Dread Calm.
  • Electoral symbol- hive monkey***
  • Electoral color- orange

*Based on the OTL precedent that the American Party in the South downplayed their traditional allegations of a grand Papist conspiracy 🤔

**Or parasitizing, depending on your view.

***Hive monkeys were imported in large quantities into the antebellum South in Green Antarctica and I've had the party adopt what was originally a spiteful slur assigned by their opponents as a symbol of agricultural labor that has evolved into one for collective action, communal principles, and civil rights.

 

[Born in the USSA]

I've been having tons of ideas for my little project (including the Tsalal version* of the classical elements I'm pretty excited about!) so I decided to do another political party post to limit the sheer amount of lore I'd have to pack in the actual flag posts. Without further ado, have some parties for the other major blocs!

• The Europan Syndicalist International, colloquially known as Indivisible, is the dominant political force in the Republic of Europa. Founded on the ideology of Marxist-Sorelianism, the ESI is not actually a political party in the traditional sense (rooted in Sorel's rejection of Blanquism), but rather a paneuropean syndicalist labor movement. Operating on a hybrid industrial union-one big union model (like the International Workers of the World), Indivisible connects workers from all strata and walks of life, including areas that aren't traditionally unionized such as peasants, prostitutes and university students. Melding a harkening to the mythologized shared cultural history of Europe with the power of the general strike, the ESI exerts influence over all walks of life in the Republic, and though elected offices are officially nonpartisan the fact that union membership is mandatory makes anyone of any prominence by definition a card-carrying ESI partisan. Originally one party out of many, the consolidation of the European federalist experiment in the wake of the Second Cold War coincided with the group effectively mobilizing its base, marshalling a massive share of votes and the Damoclean sword of the general strike to consolidate control and refashion the new Republic of Europa into the world's first internationalist socialist state.
  • Electoral symbol- eagle gripping a fasces
  • Electoral color- dark red
  • International affiliation- Syndicalist International (Syndintern)
• The Albionic Machtist Front is the only legal party in the Directorate of Albion, and has maintained ironfisted control of the country since before the outbreak of the Second Cold War. Born in the chaotic aftermath of the First Cold War and the fall of the British Empire, the Machtist movement satisfied the angry demands of the British public for a change to the system that had so catastrophically failed them. Advocating a brutally clear-eyed and totalitarian utilitarianism with the window-dressing of a republican government, the AMF was the driving force of the Second Cold War, and following the failure of the European campaign has taken the country into "Glorious Isolation". The system festering in Albion has refined itself, generation after generation, but despite being denounced far and wide the popular will does not currently exist for what would surely be a horrendous invasion and an open-ended occupation.
  • Electoral symbol- stylized diamond/lightning bolt ("vajra")
  • Electoral color- dark purple, white
  • International affiliation- Crystal Pact
• The Tsalal Hegemony doesn't have much experience with political parties in the modern sense, being a relatively recent addition to Tsalal politics. That being said, as a continental political/economic union the various caucuses within the organs of state have gradually coalesced into what we might recognize as parties. These caucuses are largely divided into two camps, with minor groups floating around the edges.
  • The Carmas represent the maximalist position, favoring constant expansion and confrontation with the Atlantropan and Pacific powers of the Old World, and a consequent expansion of military spending and mandatory conscription.
  • The Shaghut favor a policy of consolidation and defense, arguing that gains should be held but that expansion was unnecessary in the face of the certainty that their enemies would see the error of their ways and come around to the Tsalal way of thinking. This group favors containment rather than a rollback of the lower world peoples.
  • The Hive Monkeys are the largest of the minor factions, advocating for the adoption of Marxist-Sorelianism adapted to Tsalal conditions. Most popular in the Knaaresh Confederacy of all places.
  • The Albatross focus on importing American-style democratic capitalism and opening up trade ties with the other blocs. Most popular in the Regency of Hali.
  • The Cluster Worms are the resident environmentalist party, advocating peace with the northerners as the necessary first step to forging the international cooperation needed to deal with climate change. Originally the smallest faction, they have begun to grow rapidly as rising temperatures and ozone depletion ravage the Antarctic ecosystem.

*Suitably alien I promise, but rooted in the material from the OG thread all the same!

 

[Aluma]

Originally the party of a strong central government and the Hamiltonian system of tariffs and internal improvements, opposition to the War of 1812 and to the failed attempt to invoke the Monroe Doctrine in the wake of the 1816 Tsalal incursion of Patagonia would see the party expand its holdings

I figure Brazil, if it exists, isnt all too happy about having tsalal neighbours...

The Hive Monkeys are the largest of the minor factions, advocating for the adoption of Marxist-Sorelianism adopted to Tsalal conditions. Most popular in the Knaaresh Confederacy of all places.

Best name for a ideology, period

 

[Born in the USSA]

I figure Brazil, if it exists, isnt all too happy about having tsalal neighbours...

Yeah, they're a serious patron of the Republic of Argentina (Greater Buenos Aires) and are a major mover and shaker in the Pacific Pact.

Best name for a ideology, period

It sounds like a band name 😂 Their reason for choosing the animal is basically identical to the reason the Readjusters picked it, though the latter came to it first.

 

[Born in the USSA]

I'm kinda curious how the party system would evolve if the House and Senate picked the president instead of having an Electoral College but I'm not exactly sure how it would shake out 🤔

 

[Aluma]

I'm kinda curious how the party system would evolve if the House and Senate picked the president instead of having an Electoral College but I'm not exactly sure how it would shake out 🤔

Or the Supreme Court appointing the Prez rather than the other way around in a judiciary-led Republic

 

[Born in the USSA]

Or the Supreme Court appointing the Prez rather than the other way around in a judiciary-led Republic

I'm not sure, there'd probably be all sorts of hell raised about conflicts of interest. In any case a Legalist regime where the judiciary and executive are so intertwined would be somewhat outside the scope of a political party thread 🤔

 

[Aluma]

Oh right! Sorry its just that I saw your notification and was like "oh time to come up with a wacky ideology!"

 

[Born in the USSA]

Oh right! Sorry its just that I saw your notification and was like "oh time to come up with a wacky ideology!"

I've painted myself into a corner 😂😂😂

 

[AltoRegnant]

I've been toying around with my own parties for the US, primarily based on the idea of "what if no jackson." Maybe an 1812 POD in general. I'm not the most knowledgeable about this part of American history. But, here's what i've been partial to. the broad ideas are that the federalists wind up picking up populism through the 1820s, having survived 1812 due to it going worse for the union.

After the War of 1812 ended in the United States paying reparations to the British Empire, dropping claims north of Massachusetts (now Maine,) and the demilitarization of the Great Lakes, the Democratic-Republican Party was in a very rough state. During this time period, the Union also saw large amounts of Populism, hoping to expand the franchise to poor white men, limit land minimums for civic engagement, and expand west into what was seen as more desirable land. As a result of this unrest, starting in 1820, a few DRs and Federalists began to embrace this idea, pushing for a more expansive franchise and pushing westward- however, importantly, the DRs were from the upper south, and were more amicable to protectionism than the typical party position.

While the Federalists remained a prominent force in congressional and state-level elections from 1816-1824, It did not take long for this loose coalition to begin taking the place of the Federalists. As a result, the informal bloc became known as the Union Party, based primarily on populism, protectionism, and expansion of civil liberties. Their first presidential nomination outside the Federalist Party was in 1828, pitting Martin van Buren against James Monroe. Van Buren was defeated, but achieved second place, after Rufus King's second bid as the Federalist candidate. The Federalist Party would continue to decline or see defection to either the Democratic-Republicans, or the NRP, and was officially disbanded on July 17th, 1831.

This formalized the Second Party System, the shortest in the history of the United States- the UP vs DRP. The DRP at this point had won big with President James Monroe, who had overseen quite a bit of expansion. After a border dispute in New York had spiraled into the Third Anglo-American War, or the War of 1830, Monroe had managed to take over the Toronto Isthmus, and push Maine to the north. However, this left the south wanting more, and many were upset by Monroe's protectionism to fund the war. As Monroe himself was not a partisan man, this radicalization only furthered when he again won the nomination.

John C. Calhoun, a staunch nationalist, and unionist, was still a more southern firebrand and ran a strong campaign attacking Monroe's northern sympathies and the UPs. While an independent, Calhoun did quite well at the election- with many senators and representatives acting more in line with his own ideals than Monroe's, even if Monroe also oversaw the successful conquest of the Seminoles. However, he still split the DRP vote, leading to Union Party man Nathan Sanford's presidency.

Sanford was one of the most instrumental presidents in US history, as he oversaw the Dominica War, which started under Monroe's last few weeks in office. Officially, it was due to piracy attacking American ships, but most people understood it was really to appease the south. However, Calhoun's cannibalization of the southern vote meant that fell to Sanford. The Dominica War was the brutal subjugation of Eastern Hispaniola, but what truly mattered at the time was that Sanford used it as leverage in the Arkansas Compromise, pushing the line wherein slave states would be accepted to Arkansas' southern border, which would obviously have massive impact on the shape and territory of the US going forward.

However, the 1832 Election would see quite a change. While officially, the 2PS refers to the UP and DRP, this 'system' only had one presidential election, and about 12 years congressionally, if one counts the UP's history as a Federalist splinter. As a result, many academics consider the 1832 election the real switch, as Calhoun officially formed the American Liberal Party (ALP.) Calhoun had, by this point, transitioned away from his ardent nationalism, though he was hardly a secessionist. Calhoun had become an opponent of the national bank and most tariffs, but believed that any use of national services should have a tax associated- roads, post, schools, etcetera, that would be collected at point of use.

Now, the ALP failed at seizing the presidency in 1832 or 1836, largely due to corruption and the vestiges of the Democratic-Republicans using every trick in the book, but it was clear that they were only delaying the inevitable, and handing the country to their opponents. As a result, DR membership dropped dramatically, and the ALP finally won under George M. Dallas in 1840. Dallas was an expansionist, who wanted to expand America's reach across the Caribbean and the Pacific. As a result, he waged the Mexican American War from 1840-1846, resulted in the American conquest of the Southwest. However, Dallas would run into trouble with his Caribbean expansion. Knowing he needed a stronger navy to threaten Spain, he tried to get congress to ascend, but was unable to do so due to one very simple reason- texas was too large and broke the Arkansas Compromise. dealing with how to break up Texas would eat the rest of Dallas's term, and he was unable to win re-election.

The United States in 1848, at the end of George Dallas's term in office.