Harry Byrd? Lester Maddox? Absalom Richardson? Ross Barnett? Orval Faubus? George Smathers?
Alternate Wikipedia Infoboxes VI (Do Not Post Current Politics or Political Figures Here)
- Status
Harry Byrd? Lester Maddox? Absalom Richardson? Ross Barnett? Orval Faubus? George Smathers?
Yes but we get a Brady vs Favre Super Bowl!>Patriots get 19-0
>No Giants miracle run
Disgusting
Who is cast as who in Superman?Continuing my film infoboxes, here are two late 70s blockbusters. The previous infoboxes are Jaws (1975), the Legend of King Kong (1977), Flash Gordon (1976), and Buck Rogers (1976).
The Seventh Party System's infoboxes
Kentucky
South Carolina
Oregon
Media California [Mandarin LB]
MC approved of me doing an unique look at a city election in his Seventh Party System. Enjoy!
After the 2018 Mississippi election, the Reform-Pirate-Green coalition got to working on transforming Mississippi into their vision. As every party was tainted with corruption apart from the government parties, the polls went irresistibly higher and higher for them. Nobody could defeat them. Nobody.
Enter Jack Dayton. Incumbent Labor mayor of Bismarck, the capital of the state, for two terms, he was from a very old political dynasty and the son of a Governor in the 90s. He was the epitome of what the United Left portrayed disparaging as ‘labor aristocracy’. Union to his bones, he grew up on his father’s knee learning of the importance of helping other people out. Or at least that’s what he says to voters.
Affably known by the city as “Bismarck Jack”, he was before all the scandals sank Labor an unbeatably popular mayor who seemed set for a third term. As he looked at his polling, he realised one cold hard fact – if the people was voting for the party, he would lose. Labor was seen as too corrupt. But if they were voting for the person, well that would be a different story.
Local parties at a city level is not an unknown phenomenon in America. But since the collapse of the Bismarck German-American Bund in the 40s due to an embezzling scandal, it was not present in Bismarck. Dayton chose to move quickly, and pulled in a few contacts in the city council, and declared in one snowy day in February 2019 that he was leaving Labor to found a party that would work ‘for all’ - Bismarck for All.
In his speech, he peppered in some suitable criticism of the state Labor Party but carefully chose to avoid any of the city’s own politicians, even those under assault by the Pirate hackers in their quest to take over the city. Then he announced he would run for a third term under that party label.
Even as Pirates and Reformists lambasted Dayton’s new party as ‘Labor with a new coat’, they knew that Dayton was a formidable beast who held the treasure that the Pirates so desperately sought, that of the title of Mayor of Bismarck. The state was one thing, but if they could deny Labor their last statesman, they could complete the revenge on the party they left.
The polling showed Dayton, shorn of the unpopular Labor brand, surging from 13% to 19% and leapfrogging the Republican, Reform and Green candidates in the bargain. Of course, those three, and the Pirate one even, was generic candidates, but it had ill portents for the coalition’s chances. But they would win! After all, the voters wouldn’t re-elect a Labor man! He’s too corrupt! They would see sense, and the hackers would make sure of that.
The first of the main four opponents to Dayton to be nominated was the Green Andy Gordon. Andy Gordon was a long-time Green politician since he first won election to the Bismarck City Council in the 1980s. Gordon was of the more centrist bend in the Green Party, more influenced by the southern Missouri Greens than any more left-wing variety, and this showed in his rhetoric where he pledged “a more progressive and renewable Bismarck”.
The second of the four was Reform, hot on the heels of the Green announcement. And they picked a “star” candidate in former Senator Fred Quie. Quie was ex-Labor and often bemoaned of the growth of ‘identity politics’ in America as a whole. His curmudgeonly rants would prove popular on the radio and get many old heads nodding along sagely to his incoherent wisdom. “The one thing I will say to the youths of this great country of America – you didn’t build it! We did! We need a leader who respects elders!”.
The Pirate ‘establishment’ [for lack of a better word] was concerned about Quie. After all, his rants were often more directed at bemoaning the youth, which tended Pirate, than parties like the Republicans or Labor. But surely those worries weren’t concrete. It was too soon for the coalition to fray. Polling still had them with a strong lead in the preferences.
The Republican candidate was announced in April. The Bismarck branch seriously considered just endorsing the Libertarian candidate and focusing on securing as many council seats in the anti-establishment wave as possible. But then the twenty-something scion of a multi-millionaire confectionery family Matt Cawthorn promised to fund their entire campaign, including down-ballot, if he was the mayoral candidate.
With the national and state Republican Party withdrawing funding from Bismarck proper in favour of the outer metro, the local branch agreed to nominate Cawthorn. Once he was introduced as the candidate and took the stage to speak, they realised just what an utter out-of-touch loon he was. He kept talking about ‘small million-dollar loans’, ‘ensuring that every poor person is able to set up a start-up with a wealthy investor’ and the most damning - ‘the trains would be sold to my father who would manage them well’.
The Republicans scrambled to replace him, but with many of their local candidates already accepting his money it was clear that it was Cawthorn, or oblivion. In the end, the head of the Bismarck Republicans decided to give Cawthorn a ‘crash course’ on politics to salvage their chances.
After one too many hair pulling moments, Cawthorn finally was pushed back on the stage for a ‘relaunch’ and this time sounded more like the average wealthy Republican. Bit too Dewey-like for some tastes, but this wasn’t rural Mississippi, this was Bismarck. As long as the state party isn’t giving them funding, they would skew more moderate if it was necessary.
While the saga of Matt Cawthorn’s rocky start in electoral politics was going on, the Pirate Party held their e-primary in June, and in the end chose Facetuber and blogger Sophie Osnes in a landslide. Her acceptance video was exquisite and well-choreographed, just like what people grew used to expecting from her. Her message was of course oriented around ‘cleaning out City Hall’, listing the city Labor Party’s many crimes, including some that was floating around to be Dayton’s. She was a candidate well-suited to the Pirate base of young people desiring an alternative to establishment corruption.
With the line-up of the five major candidates completed – Cawthorn, Dayton, Gordon, Quie and Osnes – the campaign entered the second phase, that of an intense few months of feet on ground and big rallies, with a solitary debate near the end between the five despite attempts by the Libertarian, Black Panther and Asian Action candidates to enter.
This hectic period was always the hacker’s paradise, and they had one target in mind, that of the Mayor. A key part of Dayton’s message was that he was not like state Labor, that he had clean hands and could be trusted to look after the city well. This message, to the hackers, had to be shattered.
The hackers released sources that alleged that Dayton was embezzling the city’s funds and released ‘statistics’ that showed money ‘mysteriously’ disappearing from the balance each month, presented in a very biased and ‘scandalous’ light. They thought they got him. This attack was a tried and true one that would take down many politicians.
But as ‘Bismarck Jack’ walked to the podium, he held up a huge black folder, overflowing with bookmarks and groaning under the weight of the papers stuffed into it. Putting it on the podium, he began “Now, you may have heard concerning stuff about some statistics, so I’ve got the budget book out. I have got permission from the treasurer to show this to you, the voters, since you deserve to know the truth.
I almost believed those news, don’t get me wrong, but then I realised one thing that this city under my leadership has never done. It has never uploaded the budget to the Internet! You can’t hack a piece of paper!”. This was said with a light laugh, then he pledged to release the year’s budget statistics as a summary to every voter so they could judge for themselves.
The hackers seethed. ‘Bismarck Jack’ came out of it smelling of roses.
Meanwhile, Fred Quie was seemingly zeroing in his favourite target, the youth, with a radio rant all about how ‘the internets are addling our youth’s brains’, laced with not too subtle implications about Osnes’ mental health. This got Ross Ventura [under urging by his Pirate cabinet members] to phone him and ask him to ‘settle down about the young people’. This just led Quie to explode at Ventura and question him ‘how much of those cockamamie Pirates have ever had a proper job? Answer me that, Ross. Answer me!’.
Faced with this, all the Governor could do was hang up and shrug helplessly. At this point for the Pirates, they concluded the mayoral election was less a cherry on the sundae of victory and more a poisoned apple that threatened to collapse the entire thing.
The campaign continued. Matt Cawthorn was, to the surprise of everyone including himself, a good campaigner once he was shook into sense. The fact that when he saw a person with a problem, he acted like he did to any problem he encountered, he promised to throw money [either his own or the city’s] at it, helped to inflate the GOP vote beyond what it normally would have been, even if the more ideological aspect of the party bemoaned this ‘socialism’ and a few voters trickled to the Libertarians.
The below is one such example of the sort of campaign that appealed to people who wouldn’t normally have voted Republican.
"I've been struggling to look for a home. What will you do to fix the homing problem?"
"Well, I'm sure we'll find something. Money is no object when it comes to helping people after all."
"So that means you'll promise to spend more on housing?"
"Sure. I'll even phone up a friend of mine, heard of Dennis Lath? He's good at building houses. I'll ask him to build houses here and cover the expense on behalf of the council if I'm elected."
"... You are truly a great candidate."
"Thanks! Mother said that too."
Andy Gordon was unlike the others, a rather boring candidate. Unlike the bombastic rhetoric of ‘Bismarck Jack’, the choreographed personality of Osnes, the incoherent rants of Quie and Cawthorn the man rich in money but poor in sense, Gordon was just a simple man. He would promise well-funded services, point out they would be balanced in his budget plan, highlight his long years as a local politician, and promise to be an honest Mayor.
But when has that ever been appealing? But Andy Gordon wouldn’t give up, that much has to be said. Getting out of bed every morning, even to stagnating polls, he would regularly meet voters, shake their hands, and even throw a barb at a fellow candidate here and there. But he preferred a ‘bread and butter’ campaign on ‘the basics’ than whatever the others did.
The debate came in October. By then, the city was sort of roused up by the intense campaigning, and wanted to see what the five were like in a debate. Osnes was by that point still leading in polls, even if the preferences in the second round was slimming as more and more Reform voters put Dayton above Osnes. This debate had to be crucial for her.
In the end, a campaign ran entirely out of prepared videos, fervent students and mudslinging hackers failed entirely to hide the one weakness of Osnes. That she was crap at speaking ‘from the hip’. The charisma fell apart as she began mumbling incoherently and failed to provide anything but rehearsed soundbites. You could just swear that over the course of the debate, Dayton’s smile got even wider than before. Meanwhile, Dayton and Quie exchanged banter as the two got on very well as the ‘elder’ candidates in the race.
The hackers panicked and ended up releasing their ‘Mother of All Bombs’ a few days after the debate, hoping to salvage their candidate’s victory. It was lurid, graphic, and tried to portray Dayton as a man who exploited his staffers for his personal sexual gratification.
The Mayor stood at the podium once more, with his wife next to him and people sat behind him, and stated, with the utmost confidence – “We have had lies and statistics. Now we have damn lies. There’s nothing true about those allegations, and in fact those staffers are here today to give their side of the story, not what some sicko in a mask says. I believe women, not hackers.”
The ‘Mother of All Bombs’ was a dud. They believed Dayton would react like other politicians would have, hide away even if it was false. The hackers were chewed out by people back on the Pirate Galleon [what they called the HQ, yes you can tell they’re mostly students] for being utterly lazy and treating Dayton repeatedly like a normal politician when he was nothing of the sort.
Despite all of that, the polls were still tight, even as Dayton took a lead in the preferences for the second round. Osnes released much more videos, each of them designed to look ‘casual’, and her students became so fervent in their campaigning that some even fell asleep on the street. There would be one final event related to this before the voting happened.
The Mayor was looking out of the window as his guard drove, and he noticed a young man sleeping face first on the pavement. Ordering the car to stop, he smelled a new PR win for him, and gently shook the young man awake. Upon getting an explanation of why the young man was there, the Mayor asked the guard to take him home, and he himself would walk the rest of the way to his destination.
This was of course frontpage news the next day. And arguably sealed his victory, dashing the final fragile hopes of an upset.
The make-up of his second-round victory, surprisingly enough, came primarily from Reform and Republican voters. The Reform voters became increasingly second-preference Dayton after the warm exchanges between him and Quie, but the shift, as poll analysts would say, ultimately began with the budget fiasco when Dayton declared he preferred to do it paper, rather than online.
And the ones who went Cawthorn first, Dayton second? They were mainly people who were primarily middle-aged and struggling, and appreciated a politician who seemed to speak to their concerns, even if one was just promising to throw money at it, and the other already had eight years to fix it.
There were political commentariats afterwards that were sure of a possible extrapolation of the ‘Bismarck case’ to the whole of Mississippi, or even suggested a merger of Labor and Populist to form ‘Mississippi for All’, but this was quickly shot down by people on the ground there who pointed out that Bismarck was an unique case and Reform’s greater strength elsewhere would doom any ‘Mississippi for All’ endeavour.
====
Flag is that of a modified proposal for Minneapolis I found on Reddit, produced by mattcscaz that I recoloured in Imperial German colours.
Pictures are, as always, courtesy of FaceApp.
Kentucky
South Carolina
Oregon
Media California [Mandarin LB]
MC approved of me doing an unique look at a city election in his Seventh Party System. Enjoy!
After the 2018 Mississippi election, the Reform-Pirate-Green coalition got to working on transforming Mississippi into their vision. As every party was tainted with corruption apart from the government parties, the polls went irresistibly higher and higher for them. Nobody could defeat them. Nobody.
Enter Jack Dayton. Incumbent Labor mayor of Bismarck, the capital of the state, for two terms, he was from a very old political dynasty and the son of a Governor in the 90s. He was the epitome of what the United Left portrayed disparaging as ‘labor aristocracy’. Union to his bones, he grew up on his father’s knee learning of the importance of helping other people out. Or at least that’s what he says to voters.
Affably known by the city as “Bismarck Jack”, he was before all the scandals sank Labor an unbeatably popular mayor who seemed set for a third term. As he looked at his polling, he realised one cold hard fact – if the people was voting for the party, he would lose. Labor was seen as too corrupt. But if they were voting for the person, well that would be a different story.
Local parties at a city level is not an unknown phenomenon in America. But since the collapse of the Bismarck German-American Bund in the 40s due to an embezzling scandal, it was not present in Bismarck. Dayton chose to move quickly, and pulled in a few contacts in the city council, and declared in one snowy day in February 2019 that he was leaving Labor to found a party that would work ‘for all’ - Bismarck for All.
In his speech, he peppered in some suitable criticism of the state Labor Party but carefully chose to avoid any of the city’s own politicians, even those under assault by the Pirate hackers in their quest to take over the city. Then he announced he would run for a third term under that party label.
Even as Pirates and Reformists lambasted Dayton’s new party as ‘Labor with a new coat’, they knew that Dayton was a formidable beast who held the treasure that the Pirates so desperately sought, that of the title of Mayor of Bismarck. The state was one thing, but if they could deny Labor their last statesman, they could complete the revenge on the party they left.
The polling showed Dayton, shorn of the unpopular Labor brand, surging from 13% to 19% and leapfrogging the Republican, Reform and Green candidates in the bargain. Of course, those three, and the Pirate one even, was generic candidates, but it had ill portents for the coalition’s chances. But they would win! After all, the voters wouldn’t re-elect a Labor man! He’s too corrupt! They would see sense, and the hackers would make sure of that.
The first of the main four opponents to Dayton to be nominated was the Green Andy Gordon. Andy Gordon was a long-time Green politician since he first won election to the Bismarck City Council in the 1980s. Gordon was of the more centrist bend in the Green Party, more influenced by the southern Missouri Greens than any more left-wing variety, and this showed in his rhetoric where he pledged “a more progressive and renewable Bismarck”.
The second of the four was Reform, hot on the heels of the Green announcement. And they picked a “star” candidate in former Senator Fred Quie. Quie was ex-Labor and often bemoaned of the growth of ‘identity politics’ in America as a whole. His curmudgeonly rants would prove popular on the radio and get many old heads nodding along sagely to his incoherent wisdom. “The one thing I will say to the youths of this great country of America – you didn’t build it! We did! We need a leader who respects elders!”.
The Pirate ‘establishment’ [for lack of a better word] was concerned about Quie. After all, his rants were often more directed at bemoaning the youth, which tended Pirate, than parties like the Republicans or Labor. But surely those worries weren’t concrete. It was too soon for the coalition to fray. Polling still had them with a strong lead in the preferences.
The Republican candidate was announced in April. The Bismarck branch seriously considered just endorsing the Libertarian candidate and focusing on securing as many council seats in the anti-establishment wave as possible. But then the twenty-something scion of a multi-millionaire confectionery family Matt Cawthorn promised to fund their entire campaign, including down-ballot, if he was the mayoral candidate.
With the national and state Republican Party withdrawing funding from Bismarck proper in favour of the outer metro, the local branch agreed to nominate Cawthorn. Once he was introduced as the candidate and took the stage to speak, they realised just what an utter out-of-touch loon he was. He kept talking about ‘small million-dollar loans’, ‘ensuring that every poor person is able to set up a start-up with a wealthy investor’ and the most damning - ‘the trains would be sold to my father who would manage them well’.
The Republicans scrambled to replace him, but with many of their local candidates already accepting his money it was clear that it was Cawthorn, or oblivion. In the end, the head of the Bismarck Republicans decided to give Cawthorn a ‘crash course’ on politics to salvage their chances.
After one too many hair pulling moments, Cawthorn finally was pushed back on the stage for a ‘relaunch’ and this time sounded more like the average wealthy Republican. Bit too Dewey-like for some tastes, but this wasn’t rural Mississippi, this was Bismarck. As long as the state party isn’t giving them funding, they would skew more moderate if it was necessary.
While the saga of Matt Cawthorn’s rocky start in electoral politics was going on, the Pirate Party held their e-primary in June, and in the end chose Facetuber and blogger Sophie Osnes in a landslide. Her acceptance video was exquisite and well-choreographed, just like what people grew used to expecting from her. Her message was of course oriented around ‘cleaning out City Hall’, listing the city Labor Party’s many crimes, including some that was floating around to be Dayton’s. She was a candidate well-suited to the Pirate base of young people desiring an alternative to establishment corruption.
With the line-up of the five major candidates completed – Cawthorn, Dayton, Gordon, Quie and Osnes – the campaign entered the second phase, that of an intense few months of feet on ground and big rallies, with a solitary debate near the end between the five despite attempts by the Libertarian, Black Panther and Asian Action candidates to enter.
This hectic period was always the hacker’s paradise, and they had one target in mind, that of the Mayor. A key part of Dayton’s message was that he was not like state Labor, that he had clean hands and could be trusted to look after the city well. This message, to the hackers, had to be shattered.
The hackers released sources that alleged that Dayton was embezzling the city’s funds and released ‘statistics’ that showed money ‘mysteriously’ disappearing from the balance each month, presented in a very biased and ‘scandalous’ light. They thought they got him. This attack was a tried and true one that would take down many politicians.
But as ‘Bismarck Jack’ walked to the podium, he held up a huge black folder, overflowing with bookmarks and groaning under the weight of the papers stuffed into it. Putting it on the podium, he began “Now, you may have heard concerning stuff about some statistics, so I’ve got the budget book out. I have got permission from the treasurer to show this to you, the voters, since you deserve to know the truth.
I almost believed those news, don’t get me wrong, but then I realised one thing that this city under my leadership has never done. It has never uploaded the budget to the Internet! You can’t hack a piece of paper!”. This was said with a light laugh, then he pledged to release the year’s budget statistics as a summary to every voter so they could judge for themselves.
The hackers seethed. ‘Bismarck Jack’ came out of it smelling of roses.
Meanwhile, Fred Quie was seemingly zeroing in his favourite target, the youth, with a radio rant all about how ‘the internets are addling our youth’s brains’, laced with not too subtle implications about Osnes’ mental health. This got Ross Ventura [under urging by his Pirate cabinet members] to phone him and ask him to ‘settle down about the young people’. This just led Quie to explode at Ventura and question him ‘how much of those cockamamie Pirates have ever had a proper job? Answer me that, Ross. Answer me!’.
Faced with this, all the Governor could do was hang up and shrug helplessly. At this point for the Pirates, they concluded the mayoral election was less a cherry on the sundae of victory and more a poisoned apple that threatened to collapse the entire thing.
The campaign continued. Matt Cawthorn was, to the surprise of everyone including himself, a good campaigner once he was shook into sense. The fact that when he saw a person with a problem, he acted like he did to any problem he encountered, he promised to throw money [either his own or the city’s] at it, helped to inflate the GOP vote beyond what it normally would have been, even if the more ideological aspect of the party bemoaned this ‘socialism’ and a few voters trickled to the Libertarians.
The below is one such example of the sort of campaign that appealed to people who wouldn’t normally have voted Republican.
"I've been struggling to look for a home. What will you do to fix the homing problem?"
"Well, I'm sure we'll find something. Money is no object when it comes to helping people after all."
"So that means you'll promise to spend more on housing?"
"Sure. I'll even phone up a friend of mine, heard of Dennis Lath? He's good at building houses. I'll ask him to build houses here and cover the expense on behalf of the council if I'm elected."
"... You are truly a great candidate."
"Thanks! Mother said that too."
Andy Gordon was unlike the others, a rather boring candidate. Unlike the bombastic rhetoric of ‘Bismarck Jack’, the choreographed personality of Osnes, the incoherent rants of Quie and Cawthorn the man rich in money but poor in sense, Gordon was just a simple man. He would promise well-funded services, point out they would be balanced in his budget plan, highlight his long years as a local politician, and promise to be an honest Mayor.
But when has that ever been appealing? But Andy Gordon wouldn’t give up, that much has to be said. Getting out of bed every morning, even to stagnating polls, he would regularly meet voters, shake their hands, and even throw a barb at a fellow candidate here and there. But he preferred a ‘bread and butter’ campaign on ‘the basics’ than whatever the others did.
The debate came in October. By then, the city was sort of roused up by the intense campaigning, and wanted to see what the five were like in a debate. Osnes was by that point still leading in polls, even if the preferences in the second round was slimming as more and more Reform voters put Dayton above Osnes. This debate had to be crucial for her.
In the end, a campaign ran entirely out of prepared videos, fervent students and mudslinging hackers failed entirely to hide the one weakness of Osnes. That she was crap at speaking ‘from the hip’. The charisma fell apart as she began mumbling incoherently and failed to provide anything but rehearsed soundbites. You could just swear that over the course of the debate, Dayton’s smile got even wider than before. Meanwhile, Dayton and Quie exchanged banter as the two got on very well as the ‘elder’ candidates in the race.
The hackers panicked and ended up releasing their ‘Mother of All Bombs’ a few days after the debate, hoping to salvage their candidate’s victory. It was lurid, graphic, and tried to portray Dayton as a man who exploited his staffers for his personal sexual gratification.
The Mayor stood at the podium once more, with his wife next to him and people sat behind him, and stated, with the utmost confidence – “We have had lies and statistics. Now we have damn lies. There’s nothing true about those allegations, and in fact those staffers are here today to give their side of the story, not what some sicko in a mask says. I believe women, not hackers.”
The ‘Mother of All Bombs’ was a dud. They believed Dayton would react like other politicians would have, hide away even if it was false. The hackers were chewed out by people back on the Pirate Galleon [what they called the HQ, yes you can tell they’re mostly students] for being utterly lazy and treating Dayton repeatedly like a normal politician when he was nothing of the sort.
Despite all of that, the polls were still tight, even as Dayton took a lead in the preferences for the second round. Osnes released much more videos, each of them designed to look ‘casual’, and her students became so fervent in their campaigning that some even fell asleep on the street. There would be one final event related to this before the voting happened.
The Mayor was looking out of the window as his guard drove, and he noticed a young man sleeping face first on the pavement. Ordering the car to stop, he smelled a new PR win for him, and gently shook the young man awake. Upon getting an explanation of why the young man was there, the Mayor asked the guard to take him home, and he himself would walk the rest of the way to his destination.
This was of course frontpage news the next day. And arguably sealed his victory, dashing the final fragile hopes of an upset.
The make-up of his second-round victory, surprisingly enough, came primarily from Reform and Republican voters. The Reform voters became increasingly second-preference Dayton after the warm exchanges between him and Quie, but the shift, as poll analysts would say, ultimately began with the budget fiasco when Dayton declared he preferred to do it paper, rather than online.
And the ones who went Cawthorn first, Dayton second? They were mainly people who were primarily middle-aged and struggling, and appreciated a politician who seemed to speak to their concerns, even if one was just promising to throw money at it, and the other already had eight years to fix it.
There were political commentariats afterwards that were sure of a possible extrapolation of the ‘Bismarck case’ to the whole of Mississippi, or even suggested a merger of Labor and Populist to form ‘Mississippi for All’, but this was quickly shot down by people on the ground there who pointed out that Bismarck was an unique case and Reform’s greater strength elsewhere would doom any ‘Mississippi for All’ endeavour.
====
Flag is that of a modified proposal for Minneapolis I found on Reddit, produced by mattcscaz that I recoloured in Imperial German colours.
Pictures are, as always, courtesy of FaceApp.
I need to make a wiki page, where we get bears vs jets in super bowl 45
The cast was as follows:
Superman/Clark Kent: Christopher Reeve
Lex Luthor: Anthony Hopkins
Pa Kent: Hal Holbrook
Perry White: Robert Stack
Lois Lane: Meryl Streep
Ma Kent: June Allyson
John Corben: Christopher Walken
(does not become Metallo in this film)
Jimmy Olsen: Mark Hamill
Lena Thorul: Barbara Rhoades
Kristen Wells: Carrie Fisher
(small, but important part as it sets up the story for the sequel)
In case, you were wondering why Coppola was making Superman instead of Apocalypse Now. He had already made in 1971. It this movie's lack of success that lead to the Godfather, instead of our timeline's THX-1138.
Also, the murder mystery aspects of what became Annie Hall work in TTL. So, instead of reviving romantic comedies, we see Woody Allen reinvent the screwball comedy.
As a bonus, we see Smokey and the Bandit as it was initended, a Jerry Reed vehicle.
Other films in this series:
1975: Jaws
1976: Flash Gordon
1976: Buck Rogers
1977: The Legend of King Kong
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IMO I could see a repentant George Wallace still running for office, he'd try to get poor southern whites aligned with the Democratic Party, as this would prevent the southern strategy from ever being realized
Since it's now past the date it would've happened in my China TL, here's the 2020 presidential election.
*
Held at the end of one of the most tumultuous years in modern Chinese history, the 2020 presidential election saw incumbent President Wang Yang running for re-election to a record fourth consecutive term. From the beginning, however, it was clear the Progressives would not allow him an easy victory as they had in 2015. The party had regrouped and spent the last 5 years organizing tactical voting plans with other leftist parties, particularly the Communists (whose leader Leung Kwok-hung promised would not field a presidential candidate), in an effort to break the Kuomintang's hold on power once and for all.
In the run-up to the election year, things looked promising, as the party capitalized on unrest towards President Wang's protectionist trade feud with US President Rubio and social unrest from non-Han groups in China, as well as seeming to present a more united front against the Kuomintang than past elections. However, in early 2020 this was suddenly and unexpectedly stopped in its tracks with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Wang and his allies made a point of emphasizing the virus emerged in Wuhan in Hubei Province, long a Progressive stronghold, to try to discredit the party, and initially this did have a major knock-on effect on the Progressives' polling numbers; by late March, when Progressive leader in the National Congress Jiang Jielian was confirmed as the party's presidential nominee, Wang was leading by double digits once more.
Despite this setback, the Progressives remained undeterred. Jiang convinced Hubei's Premier, Zhou Xianwang, to resign in favour of Li Tie, who adopted a more radical approach including expanding the province's welfare provisions, increasing wages and other conditions to make the province's lockdown more sustainable and bearable. On top of this, blaming Hubei for the coronavirus made Wang even more detested in Hubei than most Kuomintang figures, and slowly began to be seen as a below-the-belt and partisan remark. This perception increased once it became clear that the most prominent Kuomintang provinces, like Fujian, Zhejiang, and (most damning given their island nature) Hainan and Taiwan were experiencing far worse rates of infection and standards of living in lockdown.
With distaste for the Kuomintang government rising, Jiang went on the offensive, using new technology like hologram speeches (a measure borrowed, despite the stark ideological difference between them, from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi) and video calling to speak to voters despite the need for lockdown measures. These proved more inspiring, and demonstrated the sizeable age gap between him (at 48) and Wang (at 65). They were also perceived as less reckless than Wang's traditional campaigning methods of touring the country, particularly at a well-publicized rally in Shenzhen where he was shown not wearing a mask while addressing a crowd. A well-timed jab from Jiang, who remarked that 'the President just wants to share his message with the people, and a few other things too', chimed with many voters, who started to see him as more personable than Wang.
As the year went on, major issues continued to play into Jiang's hands; he spoke supportively of the plight of non-white Americans after the Minneapolis police killings in a way which endeared him to the Progressives' non-Han supporters and garnered him positive press internationally, and when police brutality occurred during protests by non-Han people in provinces like Xinjiang/East Turkestan, Inner Mongolia and Tibet, Jiang condemned 'lawmakers who think themselves above the law' while Wang largely took the side of the police and tried to stir up fear of separatist movements, which was received poorly aside from by the Chinese right (particularly with the Xinjiang/East Turkestan and Tibetan governments repudiating his claims).
Two of the most damning moments for Wang, however, came late in the campaign in November. The first was when the US presidential race ended with his rival, President Rubio, losing to Elizabeth Warren; when Wang declared he would be 'eager' to work with Warren, she shrugged off his endorsement and admitted she would be happier working with Jiang, citing Wang's 'antagonistic relationship to the United States' and 'reactionary views'. The second came during the presidential debates a couple of weeks later, as Jiang was widely agreed to have won them easily. In the penultimate week of the campaign, Wang got a late boost as it was announced a vaccine had been found for COVID-19, and that it was to be rolled out across China early the following year, but this was only enough for him to be able to deprive Jiang of a double-digit lead.
When the returns came in on the evening of the 4th December, it was clear Jiang had won easily, flipping eight provinces (including Guangxi, which had never voted Progressive before) and the cities of Shanghai and Tianjin; ultimately Jiang won 18 of China's provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions to just 12 for Wang. But what was even more striking about the result was the drastic rise in turnout compared to past elections. The 70.4% turnout was the highest in China's history, and the 20.2% increase in turnout was the second-biggest rise in China's history after 1990. Analysts have cited this as not just being down to the more competitive nature of the contest, but also due to the emphasis (particularly by the Jiang campaign) on helping voters gain access to postal ballots, with a rise from 3.1% of votes being cast by post in the 2015 presidential contest to 18.5%.
At 1am CET (China Eastern Time, UTC +8), Wang conceded the election, and Jiang addressed a crowd in his home district of Haidian, Beijing, declaring, 'Tonight is a historic victory for China, and it's a night I didn't know if I'd ever live to witness. After 92 years, we have finally achieved a democratic handover of power from the Kuomintang to the Chinese people! When I marched on Tiananmen Square with my allies 31 years ago, I hoped that someday I might live to see it, and now it's happened, I don't think I've ever been happier or more proud of my people. Thank you to every last one of you, and I promise, whether you voted for me or not, I will be a president for all Chinese people!'
Whether Jiang's speech is more hubristic than accurate has yet to be seen, but it is important to note that until the National Congress elections in October 2021, he will have to deal with a majority-Kuomintang legislature. Its leaders have made their disagreement with Jiang and his policy agenda very clear, and it is likely many policies he wishes to implement will at best be watered down considerably or at worst simply be blocked from implementation. Notably, though, polls suggest the majority of the public is not favourable towards the possibility of Kuomintang filibustering, with 71% of those surveyed in exit polls agreeing with the statement 'Jiang should be allowed to implement his policies by the National Congress if he wins'.
In any case, the future of China looks more uncertain than it has at any time since the Tiananmen Square Revolution. In 2025, the country Jiang runs for re-election in might plausibly have a different flag, a more left-wing legislature than ever before, have granted independence to East Turkestan/Xinjiang and Tibet, greatly expanded affirmative action programmes and have become the first country in Asia and the largest in the world to legalize gay marriage, at least in most of its provinces. Alternatively, Jiang's ascention to power might easily become, like the Democratic government in Japan in 2009-12, a case of 'a change in government without a change in policy' that becomes nothing more than an aberration in China's political history, especially if the National Congress remains overwhelmingly hostile to him and his policies. The only thing that's certain is that, at least for now, the Kuomintang's 92-year grip on the highest office in China has come to an end.
(I couldn't really find a suitable picture of Jiang for obvious reasons, so Charles Djou will have to stand in for him at this age.
)
*
Held at the end of one of the most tumultuous years in modern Chinese history, the 2020 presidential election saw incumbent President Wang Yang running for re-election to a record fourth consecutive term. From the beginning, however, it was clear the Progressives would not allow him an easy victory as they had in 2015. The party had regrouped and spent the last 5 years organizing tactical voting plans with other leftist parties, particularly the Communists (whose leader Leung Kwok-hung promised would not field a presidential candidate), in an effort to break the Kuomintang's hold on power once and for all.
In the run-up to the election year, things looked promising, as the party capitalized on unrest towards President Wang's protectionist trade feud with US President Rubio and social unrest from non-Han groups in China, as well as seeming to present a more united front against the Kuomintang than past elections. However, in early 2020 this was suddenly and unexpectedly stopped in its tracks with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Wang and his allies made a point of emphasizing the virus emerged in Wuhan in Hubei Province, long a Progressive stronghold, to try to discredit the party, and initially this did have a major knock-on effect on the Progressives' polling numbers; by late March, when Progressive leader in the National Congress Jiang Jielian was confirmed as the party's presidential nominee, Wang was leading by double digits once more.
Despite this setback, the Progressives remained undeterred. Jiang convinced Hubei's Premier, Zhou Xianwang, to resign in favour of Li Tie, who adopted a more radical approach including expanding the province's welfare provisions, increasing wages and other conditions to make the province's lockdown more sustainable and bearable. On top of this, blaming Hubei for the coronavirus made Wang even more detested in Hubei than most Kuomintang figures, and slowly began to be seen as a below-the-belt and partisan remark. This perception increased once it became clear that the most prominent Kuomintang provinces, like Fujian, Zhejiang, and (most damning given their island nature) Hainan and Taiwan were experiencing far worse rates of infection and standards of living in lockdown.
With distaste for the Kuomintang government rising, Jiang went on the offensive, using new technology like hologram speeches (a measure borrowed, despite the stark ideological difference between them, from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi) and video calling to speak to voters despite the need for lockdown measures. These proved more inspiring, and demonstrated the sizeable age gap between him (at 48) and Wang (at 65). They were also perceived as less reckless than Wang's traditional campaigning methods of touring the country, particularly at a well-publicized rally in Shenzhen where he was shown not wearing a mask while addressing a crowd. A well-timed jab from Jiang, who remarked that 'the President just wants to share his message with the people, and a few other things too', chimed with many voters, who started to see him as more personable than Wang.
As the year went on, major issues continued to play into Jiang's hands; he spoke supportively of the plight of non-white Americans after the Minneapolis police killings in a way which endeared him to the Progressives' non-Han supporters and garnered him positive press internationally, and when police brutality occurred during protests by non-Han people in provinces like Xinjiang/East Turkestan, Inner Mongolia and Tibet, Jiang condemned 'lawmakers who think themselves above the law' while Wang largely took the side of the police and tried to stir up fear of separatist movements, which was received poorly aside from by the Chinese right (particularly with the Xinjiang/East Turkestan and Tibetan governments repudiating his claims).
Two of the most damning moments for Wang, however, came late in the campaign in November. The first was when the US presidential race ended with his rival, President Rubio, losing to Elizabeth Warren; when Wang declared he would be 'eager' to work with Warren, she shrugged off his endorsement and admitted she would be happier working with Jiang, citing Wang's 'antagonistic relationship to the United States' and 'reactionary views'. The second came during the presidential debates a couple of weeks later, as Jiang was widely agreed to have won them easily. In the penultimate week of the campaign, Wang got a late boost as it was announced a vaccine had been found for COVID-19, and that it was to be rolled out across China early the following year, but this was only enough for him to be able to deprive Jiang of a double-digit lead.
When the returns came in on the evening of the 4th December, it was clear Jiang had won easily, flipping eight provinces (including Guangxi, which had never voted Progressive before) and the cities of Shanghai and Tianjin; ultimately Jiang won 18 of China's provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions to just 12 for Wang. But what was even more striking about the result was the drastic rise in turnout compared to past elections. The 70.4% turnout was the highest in China's history, and the 20.2% increase in turnout was the second-biggest rise in China's history after 1990. Analysts have cited this as not just being down to the more competitive nature of the contest, but also due to the emphasis (particularly by the Jiang campaign) on helping voters gain access to postal ballots, with a rise from 3.1% of votes being cast by post in the 2015 presidential contest to 18.5%.
At 1am CET (China Eastern Time, UTC +8), Wang conceded the election, and Jiang addressed a crowd in his home district of Haidian, Beijing, declaring, 'Tonight is a historic victory for China, and it's a night I didn't know if I'd ever live to witness. After 92 years, we have finally achieved a democratic handover of power from the Kuomintang to the Chinese people! When I marched on Tiananmen Square with my allies 31 years ago, I hoped that someday I might live to see it, and now it's happened, I don't think I've ever been happier or more proud of my people. Thank you to every last one of you, and I promise, whether you voted for me or not, I will be a president for all Chinese people!'
Whether Jiang's speech is more hubristic than accurate has yet to be seen, but it is important to note that until the National Congress elections in October 2021, he will have to deal with a majority-Kuomintang legislature. Its leaders have made their disagreement with Jiang and his policy agenda very clear, and it is likely many policies he wishes to implement will at best be watered down considerably or at worst simply be blocked from implementation. Notably, though, polls suggest the majority of the public is not favourable towards the possibility of Kuomintang filibustering, with 71% of those surveyed in exit polls agreeing with the statement 'Jiang should be allowed to implement his policies by the National Congress if he wins'.
In any case, the future of China looks more uncertain than it has at any time since the Tiananmen Square Revolution. In 2025, the country Jiang runs for re-election in might plausibly have a different flag, a more left-wing legislature than ever before, have granted independence to East Turkestan/Xinjiang and Tibet, greatly expanded affirmative action programmes and have become the first country in Asia and the largest in the world to legalize gay marriage, at least in most of its provinces. Alternatively, Jiang's ascention to power might easily become, like the Democratic government in Japan in 2009-12, a case of 'a change in government without a change in policy' that becomes nothing more than an aberration in China's political history, especially if the National Congress remains overwhelmingly hostile to him and his policies. The only thing that's certain is that, at least for now, the Kuomintang's 92-year grip on the highest office in China has come to an end.
(I couldn't really find a suitable picture of Jiang for obvious reasons, so Charles Djou will have to stand in for him at this age.
)
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For one of my favorite modern American heroes: Colin Powell
The 2000 United States presidential election was held on November 3, 2000. Republican candidate Colin Powell, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and one of the commanders of American forces during the Gulf War, defeated Democratic Vice President Al Gore of Tennessee. Colin Powell became the first African-American and first Vietnam War veteran to become President of the United States.
Vice President Al Gore secured the nomination with no serious opposition, while General Colin Powell fought Texas Governor George W. Bush, son of former President George Bush, in a close primary. Powell would secure the nomination after a series of victories following Super Tuesday and selected Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson as his running mate. Vice President Gore selected Florida Senator Bob Graham as his running mate.
Both major-party candidates focused primarily on domestic issues, such as the budget, tax relief, and reforms for federal social insurance programs, although foreign policy was not ignored. Due to President Bill Clinton's sex scandal with Monica Lewinsky and subsequent impeachment, Gore avoided campaigning with Clinton. Republicans denounced Clinton's indiscretions, while Gore criticized Bush's lack of experience. On election night, Powell swept the northeast, the midwest, and the west, while Gore held onto the southeast. Powell received 55,000,000 votes and 384 electoral votes against Gore's 46,000,000 votes and 153 electoral votes. Powell flipped 18 states that had voted Democratic in 1996: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington. Despite this, Gore managed to flip Georgia from Republican to Democrat. Colin Powell became the third president to win the presidency despite losing his home state, however he would flip New York in 2004.
The 2000 United States presidential election was held on November 3, 2000. Republican candidate Colin Powell, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and one of the commanders of American forces during the Gulf War, defeated Democratic Vice President Al Gore of Tennessee. Colin Powell became the first African-American and first Vietnam War veteran to become President of the United States.
Vice President Al Gore secured the nomination with no serious opposition, while General Colin Powell fought Texas Governor George W. Bush, son of former President George Bush, in a close primary. Powell would secure the nomination after a series of victories following Super Tuesday and selected Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson as his running mate. Vice President Gore selected Florida Senator Bob Graham as his running mate.
Both major-party candidates focused primarily on domestic issues, such as the budget, tax relief, and reforms for federal social insurance programs, although foreign policy was not ignored. Due to President Bill Clinton's sex scandal with Monica Lewinsky and subsequent impeachment, Gore avoided campaigning with Clinton. Republicans denounced Clinton's indiscretions, while Gore criticized Bush's lack of experience. On election night, Powell swept the northeast, the midwest, and the west, while Gore held onto the southeast. Powell received 55,000,000 votes and 384 electoral votes against Gore's 46,000,000 votes and 153 electoral votes. Powell flipped 18 states that had voted Democratic in 1996: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington. Despite this, Gore managed to flip Georgia from Republican to Democrat. Colin Powell became the third president to win the presidency despite losing his home state, however he would flip New York in 2004.
Note: I'll remove this post if it is considered current politics. I don't think it counts as such since both candidates are no longer active and the two running mates are fairly uncontroversial.
The counties (and the city of Copenhagen) correspond to the ones between 1793-1970, except that Southern Jutland's counties are merged and that Copenhagen County has been split to add Roskilde County.
There are 203 votes in total. 179 for each member in Folketinget and 24 for each county's member in Landstinget. Seats in the Folketing are apportioned relative to each county's population with each county having at least two seats and at least as many seats as it did in 1920. This affects Maribo, Svendborg, Randers and Thisted. Each county has 1 member of the Landsting. There is the President of Landstinget, who is elected by the electoral college and thus essentially runs in the same campaign as their respective candidate.
There are 203 votes in total. 179 for each member in Folketinget and 24 for each county's member in Landstinget. Seats in the Folketing are apportioned relative to each county's population with each county having at least two seats and at least as many seats as it did in 1920. This affects Maribo, Svendborg, Randers and Thisted. Each county has 1 member of the Landsting. There is the President of Landstinget, who is elected by the electoral college and thus essentially runs in the same campaign as their respective candidate.
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This is a pretty good list, I am skeptical Smathers would lead a breakaway ticket seeing as he was loyal to Truman in 1948, a member of Senate leadership, and loyal to both JFK and LBJ, but I could definitely see the rest leading a breakaway ticket.
So, the basic premise here is that the POD is more or less the same as Turtledove's short story Must and Shall, in which Lincoln is killed in '64 and the victorious North is much more vindictive and harsh in their treatment towards the former Confederacy, resulting in continued underground resistance to the Northern authorities. It's for an upcoming short story I'm writing (the one inspired by @Time Enough's In The Time of Lead) called Autumn in Dixie. Obviously, they're meant to be representative of a pro-Confederate/Southern Red Army Faction, with the Dixie Autumn being analgous to the German Autumn of OTL.
The Knights of the South are an American hate group and terrorist organization primarily based in the American South, though there have been allegations by government officials that they are clandestinely supported by foreign organizations and rogue governments. Claiming to represent the true interests of Southerners, the Knights are virulently anti-American in nature, with members reportedly referring to the South as the "Confederate States". Furthermore, when said members manage to be taken alive by Federal officials, they refuse to comply during interrogations, only stating their rank and "commando unit" and referring to themselves as "Sovereign Citizens", showcasing their steadfast belief in the "Lost Cause" myth of Confederate defeat. Based off of official communiques sent prior to and after their attacks, as well as reports by the Pinkerton Investigation Agency, Federal investigators have determined that the Knights claim descent from the historical Southern nationalist and anti-American groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Black Legion, with the stated goal of reestablishing Southern independence through violent means.
While the numbers of the Knights of the South are currently unknown, further investigation has revealed that they were formed from the merger of a number of Southern nationalist and anti-American groups, including the Tejano Liberation Front, the Friends of Free Cuba, and the Children of the Confederacy. This would seemingly explain the rather diverse ethnic makeup of the group, which contains white Southerners as well as a number of Tejanos, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans of Confederate descent. With the exception of their Hispanic members, who are considered equals thanks to their Confederate descent and perceived racial purity, the Knights are primarily Protestant. Despite this, they aren't particularly anti-Catholic in nature, with their hatred primarily reserved for African-Americans, Federal officials, Biracial individuals (who they derogatorily refer to as "Miscegenists"), and Southerners who refuse to take up arms against the Federal government.
During the ongoing Dixie Autumn, which began in 1970 with the Rawweather Incident, the Knights have committed a number of high-profile terrorist incidents, including:
The Knights of the South are an American hate group and terrorist organization primarily based in the American South, though there have been allegations by government officials that they are clandestinely supported by foreign organizations and rogue governments. Claiming to represent the true interests of Southerners, the Knights are virulently anti-American in nature, with members reportedly referring to the South as the "Confederate States". Furthermore, when said members manage to be taken alive by Federal officials, they refuse to comply during interrogations, only stating their rank and "commando unit" and referring to themselves as "Sovereign Citizens", showcasing their steadfast belief in the "Lost Cause" myth of Confederate defeat. Based off of official communiques sent prior to and after their attacks, as well as reports by the Pinkerton Investigation Agency, Federal investigators have determined that the Knights claim descent from the historical Southern nationalist and anti-American groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Black Legion, with the stated goal of reestablishing Southern independence through violent means.
While the numbers of the Knights of the South are currently unknown, further investigation has revealed that they were formed from the merger of a number of Southern nationalist and anti-American groups, including the Tejano Liberation Front, the Friends of Free Cuba, and the Children of the Confederacy. This would seemingly explain the rather diverse ethnic makeup of the group, which contains white Southerners as well as a number of Tejanos, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans of Confederate descent. With the exception of their Hispanic members, who are considered equals thanks to their Confederate descent and perceived racial purity, the Knights are primarily Protestant. Despite this, they aren't particularly anti-Catholic in nature, with their hatred primarily reserved for African-Americans, Federal officials, Biracial individuals (who they derogatorily refer to as "Miscegenists"), and Southerners who refuse to take up arms against the Federal government.
During the ongoing Dixie Autumn, which began in 1970 with the Rawweather Incident, the Knights have committed a number of high-profile terrorist incidents, including:
- The 1970 assassination of Christian Rawweather, Head of the Truth and Reconciliation Agency (TRA), along with his chauffeur and Federal bodyguards, by the "Black Knight Commando". Rawweather was killed for his harsh measures against Southern businesses who refused to pay Black employees their full wages.
- The 1972 kidnapping and murder of Perley A. Thomas Jr., head of the Perley A. Thomas Car Works, and his family by the "Grey Ghost Commando". The family was targeted merely because the Car Works "collaborated" with the Federal government by providing TRA officials with cars for transportation.
- The 1974 failed kidnapping-turned-murder of George Ponto, director of the Richmond Federal Bank by the "War Horse Commando".
- The 1975 American Embassy Massacre in Havana, Cuba by the "Stonewall Commando", an attempted siege undertaken in order to force the release of several imprisoned and captured Knights of the South members.
- The 1977 assassination of newly-appointed Federal Governor Jesse Jackson and the crippling of Lieutenant Governor Walter Fauntroy by the "Forrest Commando", the first of a series of violent and increasingly-brutal attacks against African-Americans in the American South continuing until 1980.
- The 1981 assassination of Secretary of State Alexander Haig and his bodyguards by the "Marse Lee Commando", done in response to the promise of increased crackdown against Southern terrorism by incumbent-President Jimmy Carter, who they decried as a race traitor and arch-collaborator.
- Status