This is the antepenultimate episode in the series. After this, we will go to the last of the Midwest, and then have a well deserved Media Californian vacation.
The Seventh Party System: Part LXV
Map of the United States
Part I - Metropotamia
Part II - Alta California
Part III - North Carolina
Part IV - New Jersey
Part V - Adams
Part VI - Alabama
Part VII - Rhode Island
Part VIII - Sequoyah
Part IX - Assenisipia
Part X - East Florida
Part XI - Tennessee
Part XII - Kansas
Part XIII - Dakota
Part XIV - Arizona
Part XV - Delaware
Part XVI - Oregon
Part XVII - Ozark
Part XVIII - New Hampshire
Part XIX - Western Connecticut
Part XX - New York
Part XXI - Santo Domingo
Part XXII - South Carolina
Part XXIII - Baja California
Part XXIV - Chersonesus
Part XXV - Canal Zone Territory
Part XXVI - West Florida
Part XXVII - Missouri
Part XXVIII - Colorado
Part XXIX - Trinidad and Tobago
Part XXX - Pennsylvania
Part XXXI - Wisconsin
Part XXXII - Lincoln
Part XXXIII - Deseret
Part XXXIV - Platte
Part XXXV - Kiribati
Part XXXVI - New Mexico
Part XXXVII - Maine
Part XXXVIII - Alaska
Part XXXIX - Hamilton
Part XXXX - Mississippi
Part XXXXI - North Virginia
Part XXXXII - Bioko
Part XXXXIII - Hawaii
Part XXXXIV - Louisiana
Part XXXXV - Seward
Part XXXXVI - Illinoia
Part XXXXVII - Georgia
Part XXXXVIII - Columbia
Part XXXXIX - Maryland
Part L - Texas
Part LI - District of Columbia
Part LII - Vermont
Part LIII - Yazoo
Part LIV - Jefferson
Part LV - Virgin Islands
Part LVI - Washington
Part LVII - Puerto Rico
Part LVIII - Kentucky
Part LIX - Massachusetts
Part LX - South Virginia
Part LXI - Arkansas
Part LXII - Saratoga
Part LXIII - Connecticut
Part LXIV - Nickajack
Labor Coalition
Republicans
Democrats and Social Credit
Hispanos Unidos and Allies
Political Positions of State Governments
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Original DeviantArt Post Here
The state of Indiana is almost universally seen as the least democratic of all the states in the USA, even less so than its segregationist neighbor Sequoyah, having been controlled unceasingly by the United Democratic Republican party ever since 1977.
The history of Indiana, starting out as a white settler split off of the Native American Sequoyah territory after oil was discovered near modern day Indianapolis has forever been based around fossil fuels. For the first half of the 20th century oil was the state's number one export and when the Dust Bowl ruined the state's agricultural industry in the 1930s the oil industry became the state's only export. While oil was quite the lucrative venture itself it was not until the 1940s when new technologies were developed to allow for the exploitation of natural gas. And when one man named William Koch discovered America's largest natural gas reservoir in the Anadarko Basin the history of Indiana would be changed forever.
Buying up exclusive rights to the entirety of the Andarko Basin Koch's Indiana Standard Oil company soon became the richest fuel extraction company in the nation, surpassing even the Cherokee Corporation. With this multi-billion dollar wealth came unlimited power over the state of Indiana, as William Koch began to bribe both Democratic and Republican politicians in the state to give his company unlimited tax breaks for perpetuity. This meant that regardless of whether the Republicans or National Union backed Democrats won Koch continued to influence the state's government.
In 1967 William Koch finally died, leaving the company to his only son, Dennis Koch. Growing up a sheltered life in a state his father owned Dennis Koch soon became infamous for his narcissism and arrogance, and began to turn the state into even more of a Koch family fief. However, Koch saw the continuing centralization efforts of LBJ as an existential threat to the mini-fiefdom he had created within the state of Indiana, and so Dennis made sure to spend tens of millions of dollars flooding the airwaves with pro-Nixon propaganda.
While across most of the country the Democratic Coup by Wallace drove an irreconcilable split between the Democratic and Republican parties in the state of Indiana the two state branches had long been nothing but puppets for Koch's influence. As such, Dennis decided in the wake of the coup to create the United Democratic Republican party, with an official platform of defending both social conservatism and economic conservatism. But in addition to these goals it's true goal remained that of securing the Koch empire and embezzling countless millions of dollars to his company through punitive taxes on every other business. Thus, similar to the case of neighboring Sequoyah soon every major business within the state of Indiana became nothing more than a subsidiary of the Indiana Standard Oil company.
The two pariah states of Indiana and Sequoyah have ever since been in constant competition with one another, with the "apparent suicide" of a high ranking member within the Indiana Standard Oil company or Cherokee Corporation being a common occurrence. Dennis Koch himself is suspected to have lived most of his life within an old abandoned missile silo, with his last known public appearance to have been three years ago for his eightieth birthday. Koch's Indiana Standard Oil company is also alleged to be behind the deaths of dozens of environmental activists, including one series of mail bombings in 1996 that left 12 dead. This case was one of the rare instances in which the Indiana Standard Oil company ended up in court, with the trail concluding in 1998 when Koch settled with the government for $206 million in damages and compensation for each of the victims, coming out to be over $2 billion in total. As a result, ever since 1998 elections the United Democratic Republican party has taken up an abstentionist program and refuses to send any of its congressmen or senators to DC. With the state police of Indiana having been long since privatized and contracted out to the Indiana Defense Force, a subsidiary of the Indiana Standard Oil company, those who dare to criticize Dennis Koch are immediately subject to police harassment or arrest for "traffic violations", and all of the most outspoken critics of the Koch empire in Indiana have simply "disappeared". As a result of this totalitarian far right police state most multi state parties have long since given up attempting to run candidates in Indiana. Only the Ecological Native Alliance and Constitution continue to running in the state, allegedly on the payroll as paid opposition, a fact denied by both parties despite their persistent hesitancy to criticize either the United Democratic Republicans or the Indiana Standard Oil company very much.
In fact, a number of parties in the past have been exposed to be nothing more than paid opposition, from the Communist Party of the United States of America, to most recently the Agriculture and Development party. With so many paid off opposition parties and constant propaganda praising the benevolence of the United Democratic Republicans, despite the fact that under UDR governorship Indiana has became a state with one of the lowest HDI levels of all American states, it is no wonder that Koch's party held on to their two thirds majority in the house for the 2018 elections. And to make matters worse, the Senate of Indiana is designed in such a way that all the districts are First-Past-The-Post with staggered elections every two years. Under such conditions the UDR consistently holds over three quarters of the seats in the senate, and in this 2018 election managed to gain 88% of the seats. So it remains unlikely that the state of Indiana will ever escape the grasp of Dennis Koch's iron fist.
Government:
United Democratic Republicans - The natural governing party of Indiana, they are the political mouthpiece of Dennis Koch and rule the state on his behalf. And with Dennis Koch being a well known "race realist" and fervent critic of the "gay agenda" all LGBT folk and people of color know to steer clear of this fascist state.
Opposition:
Constitution - The party of the Christian right, their adjacent political beliefs is one likely reason why the Indiana Defense Force continues to allow the party to operate within the state without harassment.
New Alliance - A social democratic party that claims to fight for the working class against the UDR's economic liberalism, many suspect they are little more than controlled opposition for the UDR, though nothing definitive has been proven yet.
First People's Party - The main party for Native Americans across the nation, they are a very centrist party that often doesn't even actively campaign. Yet they continue to gain seats that represent the Native American minority of Indiana, and have been active in the state legislature for passing motions to condemn the actions of the Native American Party for Industry.
Know-Nothing - A right wing party which claims to know nothing but their country, they also seem to know nothing about most other political issues besides their burning hatred of immigrants.
Commonwealth Land Party - A self described center left party which claims to fight for Georgist principles and the abolition of all taxes except a land rent, they do nothing within the state legislature but push for a land rent bill that never gets passed.
Anti-Robotic Party - A party started just last year by a former member of the Agriculture and Development party, their political platform on standing against robots which they claim have replaced the entire federal government has mysteriously won them a seat in both the House and the Senate despite their lack of any other political positions.
Communist League of America - The only communist party to hold seats in the Indianan legislature since the discovery that the CPUSA was paid opposition, they claim to be anti-revisionists who are different from the CPUSA in that they are not paid opposition and genuinely want to fight for revolution, despite their continual reluctance to ever do anything besides throw meekly criticism of UDR policy.
White Patriot Party - An openly white supremacist party, they continue to demand for an ethnostate within the state of Indiana and several people have been killed by their organization in mass lynchings which the WPP prefers to call "expressions of free speech" and "self-defense."
Natural Law Party - A "Transcendentalist Meditation" party which claims to fight for progressive policies through their use of healing crystals, their party leader currently sits in federal prison for child sex trafficking.
National States' Rights - A supposedly "centrist" and "classical liberal" party which also wants a state's right to an ethnostate, in practice they are indistinguishable from the WPP, except that for the fact that the WPP doesn't deny that the Holocaust ever happened.
Agriculture and Development - A agrarian right wing populist party which claims to fight for farmers, just last year their party leadership was discovered to have been on the payroll of the Indiana Standard Oil company, and while they deny these accusations strongly they also have decided to not run candidates this year and their sole senator has announced he does not plan to run for reelection.
Credit for the base map goes to Chicxulub.
Update produced by MoralisticCommunist and posted here with permission