It's been a long time since I've done an American Federation TL post, but I just made one, so here we go.
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The Republic of Wabash, sometimes described as a key part of the gateway between the North and the South, is also sometimes known as the original home of American socialism, since it was the home of the first socialist party in an AF member state to control the government (and the second one in the world after Australia). For 11 years, Wabashian voters gave three terms in government to Eugene Debs as Prime Minister, a charismatic populist who managed to hold together the disparate socialist-inclined base of the country despite intense factionalism between pro- and anti-immigrant groups, and between trade unionists and anti-capitalists, to accomplish common goals. Even after the party failed to form a government in 1918, Debs was re-elected Prime Minister handily.
(Incidentally, this is a good time to bring up Wabash's odd electoral system, sometimes described as a 'super-separation of powers'. Like in a presidential system, the executive and legislature are elected separately, but the two biggest parties in Parliament advance to a runoff and nominate a member from their caucus, usually their leader, to be candidate for Prime Minister; potentially this can lead to a wrong-winner result of sorts where the PM is from the smaller of the two parties.)
After Debs's death in 1921, however, the Socialists lost their unifying figure and in his absence the Republicans and Liberals (the old two parties that had dominated Wabashian politics before the Socialists came along) took power the following year allied behind a particularly repugnant figure- David Curtiss Stephenson, a Southerner who had moved north and gained support as an advocate of Wabashian nationalism, enacting a program of civil rights suppression towards residents who weren't WASPs (white Anglo-Saxon Protestants) that lasted for decades (another thing that leads to comparisons between Wabashian and Australian politics).
Despite this, after Stephenson's rape and murder convictions, allegations of corruption in the coalition and of course the onset of the Great Depression, the Socialists were able to return to power in 1930 under the leadership of James Oneal, a former personal friend of Debs who enacted numerous public works schemes, though he was unable to ever get enough support to abolish the so-called 'Stephenson Laws'. Around this time, however, developed the big political rivalry of Wabashian politics that lasted until the 1950s, between Oneal and businessman Wendell Willkie, who opposed the expense of Oneal's social programmes and retained considerable personal popularity within the Republican base, though ironically once Willkie came to power he proved a moderate figure until his death in 1944.
In the decades after, Wabashian politics proved to be dominated by colourful socialist and conservative figures who often exchanged between PM and head of the Opposition without their parties trying to get them to resign, both due to personal popularity and since Wabash does not have term limits. The most notable 'rivalries' were between Republican Homer Capehart, who led his party until 1966, and the young 'upstart' Socialist Vance Hartke, under whose administration from 1962-70 Wabash finally abolished its 'Stephenson Laws' and introduced universal healthcare; and between former Mayor of West Fork (Wabash's capital) Richard Lugar's Republicans and Birch Bayh's Socialists, with Bayh taking power in 1974 in a close contest and introducing the Equal Rights Act to reduce sex discrimination and provide affirmative action.
At this point, however, the two-party system of Wabash became more complex: a former Republican, Dan Quayle, managed to capitalize on anti-establishment opposition from both parties to the ERA (which he took to calling 'the error') and the disillusionment of young people to the squabbling nature of Wabashian politics, and established the Wabash National Party (WNP), a right-wing populist group that shocked observers by winning the popular vote and the most seats in the 1982 election and further shocked them when Quayle beat Bayh in the Prime Ministerial runoff election. While the group's momentum faded as far-right entryism became a huge problem for it and Quayle established his incompetence with the voters of Wabash in his two terms (mostly winning in 1986 due to personal popularity despite the Socialists overtaking the WNP in Parliament), it established an anti-establishment undercurrent in Wabash that has never since gone away.
The Republicans would regain power under Robert Orr in 1990, but in 1998 the defining figure of left-wing Wabashian politics since then, Birch Bayh's son Evan, came to power in a landslide. He would go on to win two further terms before being ousted by Republican Dan Coats in the midst of the Great Recession, and many argue that the Socialists have been unable to find a charismatic leader of even close to the same calibre since. A party that has found success in the absence of a big chunk of the voter base for the two strongest parties, however, is the Wabash First Party of another ex-Republican, Mike Pence. Despite being considered quite mockable by the Wabashian left- not least because of the infamous logo for his 2018 Prime Ministerial campaign where it appeared the M of his initials was fellating the P- Pence built up a populist appeal that has been compared to Stephenson a century before, advocating for a burkha ban, withdrawal of contraceptive, abortion and sex education funding, and massive cuts in public spending (beyond even what Coats had been doing for eight years).
The deep divide between right-wing voters in the 2018 election led to a lot of counties (and of course the four of the seven Wabashian constituencies that tend to vote Republican) being very close and the Socialist-inclined areas of the northwestern steel belt cities in Calumet, the White Valley mining regions and cosmopolitan West Fork seeing inflated margins for them, but the Socialists narrowly failed to come through the middle, winning as many seats as the Republicans but being behind both them and Wabash First in the popular vote and thus failing to advance to the runoff.
The runoff itself, of course, proved intensely close in no small part due to the utter disillusionment with both Coats and Pence from left-wing Wabashians, many of whom simply didn't vote; the 2014 runoff between Coats and Socialist Pete Viclosky saw a turnout of 63.8%, but the 2018 runoff saw only 39.5% of voters turn out. Despite (or perhaps because of) Coats proposing a Republican-Socialist coalition if he won, Pence managed to pull ahead by a margin of less than 1%; the Republicans almost instantly ditched Coats as leader and jumped into bed with Wabash First, with the rump of the WNP (which by now is functionally a far-right nationalist grouping) joining him.
This move has badly poisoned the well for the Republicans, with Wabash First reaping most of their strength while the Socialists appear to be solidly in second now, with their party platform devoted to scrapping the 'Pence Laws' and consistent comparisons between Pence and Stephenson to try and encourage voters against the current administration. For his part, Pence has stressed the chasteness of his personal life to try to diffuse the comparison, though policy-wise the disdain for minority groups is something the two administrations do share. Recently, Wabash First's lead has been completely eroded away in the wake of the Wabashian government's incompetent handling of the Coronavirus pandemic, refusing to even force businesses to close or masks to be worn (not to mention its hardline advocates comparing masks to burkhas and the like), with Pence declaring in a speech detailing his response that 'the show must go on'. (Libertarian leader Pete Buttigieg, the leader of the modern successor to the Liberal Party, gained considerable publicity for remarking that 'Mike Pence's 'show' would probably get a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes'.)
It remains to be seen whether the show will go on come 2022- or if Wabash will still have the Coronavirus going on by then and have to postpone elections, for that matter.
*
The Republic of Wabash, sometimes described as a key part of the gateway between the North and the South, is also sometimes known as the original home of American socialism, since it was the home of the first socialist party in an AF member state to control the government (and the second one in the world after Australia). For 11 years, Wabashian voters gave three terms in government to Eugene Debs as Prime Minister, a charismatic populist who managed to hold together the disparate socialist-inclined base of the country despite intense factionalism between pro- and anti-immigrant groups, and between trade unionists and anti-capitalists, to accomplish common goals. Even after the party failed to form a government in 1918, Debs was re-elected Prime Minister handily.
(Incidentally, this is a good time to bring up Wabash's odd electoral system, sometimes described as a 'super-separation of powers'. Like in a presidential system, the executive and legislature are elected separately, but the two biggest parties in Parliament advance to a runoff and nominate a member from their caucus, usually their leader, to be candidate for Prime Minister; potentially this can lead to a wrong-winner result of sorts where the PM is from the smaller of the two parties.)
After Debs's death in 1921, however, the Socialists lost their unifying figure and in his absence the Republicans and Liberals (the old two parties that had dominated Wabashian politics before the Socialists came along) took power the following year allied behind a particularly repugnant figure- David Curtiss Stephenson, a Southerner who had moved north and gained support as an advocate of Wabashian nationalism, enacting a program of civil rights suppression towards residents who weren't WASPs (white Anglo-Saxon Protestants) that lasted for decades (another thing that leads to comparisons between Wabashian and Australian politics).
Despite this, after Stephenson's rape and murder convictions, allegations of corruption in the coalition and of course the onset of the Great Depression, the Socialists were able to return to power in 1930 under the leadership of James Oneal, a former personal friend of Debs who enacted numerous public works schemes, though he was unable to ever get enough support to abolish the so-called 'Stephenson Laws'. Around this time, however, developed the big political rivalry of Wabashian politics that lasted until the 1950s, between Oneal and businessman Wendell Willkie, who opposed the expense of Oneal's social programmes and retained considerable personal popularity within the Republican base, though ironically once Willkie came to power he proved a moderate figure until his death in 1944.
In the decades after, Wabashian politics proved to be dominated by colourful socialist and conservative figures who often exchanged between PM and head of the Opposition without their parties trying to get them to resign, both due to personal popularity and since Wabash does not have term limits. The most notable 'rivalries' were between Republican Homer Capehart, who led his party until 1966, and the young 'upstart' Socialist Vance Hartke, under whose administration from 1962-70 Wabash finally abolished its 'Stephenson Laws' and introduced universal healthcare; and between former Mayor of West Fork (Wabash's capital) Richard Lugar's Republicans and Birch Bayh's Socialists, with Bayh taking power in 1974 in a close contest and introducing the Equal Rights Act to reduce sex discrimination and provide affirmative action.
At this point, however, the two-party system of Wabash became more complex: a former Republican, Dan Quayle, managed to capitalize on anti-establishment opposition from both parties to the ERA (which he took to calling 'the error') and the disillusionment of young people to the squabbling nature of Wabashian politics, and established the Wabash National Party (WNP), a right-wing populist group that shocked observers by winning the popular vote and the most seats in the 1982 election and further shocked them when Quayle beat Bayh in the Prime Ministerial runoff election. While the group's momentum faded as far-right entryism became a huge problem for it and Quayle established his incompetence with the voters of Wabash in his two terms (mostly winning in 1986 due to personal popularity despite the Socialists overtaking the WNP in Parliament), it established an anti-establishment undercurrent in Wabash that has never since gone away.
The Republicans would regain power under Robert Orr in 1990, but in 1998 the defining figure of left-wing Wabashian politics since then, Birch Bayh's son Evan, came to power in a landslide. He would go on to win two further terms before being ousted by Republican Dan Coats in the midst of the Great Recession, and many argue that the Socialists have been unable to find a charismatic leader of even close to the same calibre since. A party that has found success in the absence of a big chunk of the voter base for the two strongest parties, however, is the Wabash First Party of another ex-Republican, Mike Pence. Despite being considered quite mockable by the Wabashian left- not least because of the infamous logo for his 2018 Prime Ministerial campaign where it appeared the M of his initials was fellating the P- Pence built up a populist appeal that has been compared to Stephenson a century before, advocating for a burkha ban, withdrawal of contraceptive, abortion and sex education funding, and massive cuts in public spending (beyond even what Coats had been doing for eight years).
The deep divide between right-wing voters in the 2018 election led to a lot of counties (and of course the four of the seven Wabashian constituencies that tend to vote Republican) being very close and the Socialist-inclined areas of the northwestern steel belt cities in Calumet, the White Valley mining regions and cosmopolitan West Fork seeing inflated margins for them, but the Socialists narrowly failed to come through the middle, winning as many seats as the Republicans but being behind both them and Wabash First in the popular vote and thus failing to advance to the runoff.
The runoff itself, of course, proved intensely close in no small part due to the utter disillusionment with both Coats and Pence from left-wing Wabashians, many of whom simply didn't vote; the 2014 runoff between Coats and Socialist Pete Viclosky saw a turnout of 63.8%, but the 2018 runoff saw only 39.5% of voters turn out. Despite (or perhaps because of) Coats proposing a Republican-Socialist coalition if he won, Pence managed to pull ahead by a margin of less than 1%; the Republicans almost instantly ditched Coats as leader and jumped into bed with Wabash First, with the rump of the WNP (which by now is functionally a far-right nationalist grouping) joining him.
This move has badly poisoned the well for the Republicans, with Wabash First reaping most of their strength while the Socialists appear to be solidly in second now, with their party platform devoted to scrapping the 'Pence Laws' and consistent comparisons between Pence and Stephenson to try and encourage voters against the current administration. For his part, Pence has stressed the chasteness of his personal life to try to diffuse the comparison, though policy-wise the disdain for minority groups is something the two administrations do share. Recently, Wabash First's lead has been completely eroded away in the wake of the Wabashian government's incompetent handling of the Coronavirus pandemic, refusing to even force businesses to close or masks to be worn (not to mention its hardline advocates comparing masks to burkhas and the like), with Pence declaring in a speech detailing his response that 'the show must go on'. (Libertarian leader Pete Buttigieg, the leader of the modern successor to the Liberal Party, gained considerable publicity for remarking that 'Mike Pence's 'show' would probably get a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes'.)
It remains to be seen whether the show will go on come 2022- or if Wabash will still have the Coronavirus going on by then and have to postpone elections, for that matter.
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