What a beautiful work. Can you do some more? I wanna ask how's the Russia and Germany looks like in TTL?
A Tale of Two Len(non/in)sA classic Richard Nixon the Used Car Salesman switch-a-roo"Soldier, I need you to bring me this man."
"Got it." [...] "Found him, Sir."
"Wha- who- No, not Lennon, Lenin! The Russian communist- WHAT?! Why would I need a Beatle?! Lenin: the Russian communist; he was exiled to Switzerland! You know what, I'll just do it myself."
An apocryphal exchange between a German general and a German soldier.
John Winston Lennon FBA (9 October 1940 - 14 June 1997) was a British-American Marxist philosopher, author, sociologist, psychologist, and political and peace activist. His most influential works include The Worker & You, a psychoanalysis of the common worker in Anglo-American spheres, and Revolutionary Society & the Common Man, an analysis and comparison of capitalistic and communistic societies and the place of the worker in said societies. Ideologically, Lennon aligned himself with Marxist-Luxemburg thought, but many believe Lennon was an ideologue of libertarian or utopian socialism.
Born in Liverpool, Lennon developed an early interest and ambition in socialist thought when he received a set of philosophical books for his birthday in 1957 from his mother, Julia. He initially had an affinity for music, having borrowed a guitar from his friend, but later stated in a biography that "Music wasn't for me [...] I couldn't play the guitar for the life of me." Lennon campaigned for the Labour Party in the elections of 1964 and 1966, being an early supporter of Harold Wilson, but later became critical of his soft left policies. He studied at the University of Liverpool, majoring in sociology and psychology. He later attended Oxford University, but later transferred overseas to Princeton University, where he earned his doctorate in 1968. He married his close friend, Cynthia Powell, in 1962, but divorced her in 1968.
Lennon became an outspoken critic and opponent of American imperialism, especially during the Vietnam War in the 1970s, resulting in a long-winded attempt by the Nixon administration to deport him which ended in failure. He rose to national stardom for his anti-war essay "Give Peace a Chance" (1971), which featured his acerbic and caustic wit in his works. During the 1972 election, Lennon endorsed Democratic candidate George McGovern; in 1976, he supported independent candidate Eugene McCarthy. He often switched residences between Liverpool and New York City, eventually establishing a permanent residence in Manhattan in 1979. He sharply criticized the election of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister in 1979. Lennon was closely associated with the American New Left, and was arrested multiple times for his activism and earned a spot on Nixon's master list of opponents. Under the Jackson administration in 1980, Lennon received American citizenship. In 1986, Lennon became a professor of sociology at Harvard University, stepping down after seven years in 1993.
He published his first book, The Worker & You, in 1982. The book was a psychoanalysis of the American worker and their place and evolution in American society, and was compiled after seven years of research and travel across the United States. His next major work, Nations & Nationalism, was published in 1989. In 1994, Lennon published his final major work before his death, Revolutionary Society & the Common Man, realizing a utopic, socialist world and the roles of people in said society. Revolutionary Society & the Common Man is often cited as Lennon's most famous and best work.
Lennon committed suicide with a revolver on the morning of June 14, 1997 at his home in New York City. Prior to his death, Lennon had been working on another book, titled The Vices of Capitalism, which was published posthumously and unfinished in 2004 by his roommate, Walter Bachman. He remained a staunch critic of American imperialism and neoliberalism and a strong supporter of racial and social equality until his death.
Lennon is considered to be one of the most significant and influential figures of the American New Left, and was subject to a personality cult which peaked at the turn of the 21st centuries. However, reassessment about his legacy has occurred, with newfound allegations of misogyny and abuse by his various partners, among other controversial actions. Despite this, Lennon remains widely popular as a socialist figure in the United States.
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Russian: Владимир Ильич Ульянов; 22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1870 – 3 July 1913), better known by his alias Vladimir Lenin (Russian: Владимир Ленин), was a Russian composer and pianist of the Classical period. Lenin was influenced by such composers as Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Mozart, and Rimsky-Korsakov, as evident in his early works.
Born to a moderately prosperous middle-class family in Simbirsk, Lenin developed an affinity for the piano after watching a pianist's performance in Tsaritsyn. He graduated from the Imperial Kazan University in 1892, and subsequently enrolled at the Moscow Conservatory, graduating from it in 1897. His first few works were notable enough to garner him a reputation, and after the publication of his most famous work, Piano Concerto in C minor (1899), Lenin gained national stardom. However, the failure of his later pieces, especially that of Symphony No. 2 in F minor (1902), caused him to enter a three year long melancholy that was ended when he was invited to play for Tsar Nicholas II at the Bolshoi Theatre.
Lenin went on a national tour in 1909 and later performed for several high-profile individuals, such as monarchs Wilhelm II and Edward VII, French prime minister Georges Clemenceau, and former President Theodore Roosevelt. He never returned to Russia after 1910, residing in several hotels in many European cities and in fellow composers' homes at times. On 3 July 1913, Lenin was assassinated by Ulrich Bischof in his hotel room at the Hotel Adlon in Berlin, Germany.
Lenin's legacy is widely seen as positive, with many composers seeing Lenin as an early champion of a series of Russian composers. However, he was largely overshadowed by his fellow contemporaries, such as Rachmaninoff, Scriabin and Prokoviev, with his biographer Max Adler writing, "No one was more famous during their lifetime, and few were more quickly ignored after death."
Alternate Wikipedia Infoboxes VI (Do Not Post Current Politics or Political Figures Here)
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More from my "TR as Ludendorff" idea, no points for guessing what this is an allusion to...
Yesterday got a hankering for a Eugene Debs as President TL, and figured I'd try my attempt at a Wikibox for what the first altered election would be. My thinking is that, if you want to propel the Socialist Party (and thus Debs) up the political ladder, you need to start with the 1912 election. So everything in OTL happen, save for Wilson suffering a stroke roughly six years early, leading Debs to be the most active campaigner in the race. He manages to come in third, beating Taft, creating a fairly substantial platform for the future of the party. Might make a series out of this, I dunno.
Easy. Have Taft assassinated at the Diaz summit in Mexico on October 26, 1909 making Sherman President. Then Sherman defeats TR for the GOP nomination. TR is assassinated by John Flammang Schrank on October 14, 1912 while campaigning for President, President Sherman drops dead on October 30, 1912, a week before the election, and Governor Wilson dies in a train crash on November 1, 1912 just days before Americans head to the ballot box. All this leaves Debs as the only major candidate that has had the whole campaign season to campaign. Marshall, Johnson, and whoever replaces Sherman don't have much time to campaign for themselves in the lead up to the election and Johnson might simply drop out of the race out of fear of splitting the vote. But by that point Taft is just too unpopular and most progressives turn to Debs. Progressive Democrats turn to Debs as well after Wilson's death and Debs narrowly wins the election. Boom! President Debs in 1912!
Based on the recent episode of The Simpsons When Nelson Met Lisa.
The Carter-Cleveland ticket was shown in the credits.
The Carter-Cleveland ticket was shown in the credits.
A silly scenario based on a Campaign Trail modded game I played a while back:
What if Stevenson picked Humphrey as his running mate?
Only difference between this and the game is that in the game California voted for Ike by 0.5% and gave the Dixiecrats everything they wanted by deadlocking the EC.
What if Stevenson picked Humphrey as his running mate?
Only difference between this and the game is that in the game California voted for Ike by 0.5% and gave the Dixiecrats everything they wanted by deadlocking the EC.
Return of the Taft pt.6:
Sorry Bill, guessing you're doomed to lose in a landslide in my wikiboxes
Sorry Bill, guessing you're doomed to lose in a landslide in my wikiboxes
I played the new campaign trail and used my results from two games as the results, with the names being changed.
The 2022 German election was held on the 5th June 2022 to elect the 20th Bundestag, with the ‘revolving Chancellors’, the SPD’s Olaf Scholz and the CDU’s Ursula von der Leyen, running for re-election under the banner of the grand coalition formed by the two parties.
The policy agenda of the government during the preceding term had been largely based on seeking consensus in contrast to the contentious far-right agenda of the Republicans and the radicalism of the more left-wing parties. In particular, von der Leyen and Klaus Wowereit spent much of 2018 and 2019 developing a comprehensive plan for a path to citizenship for refugees, including creating new jobs in education to help their integration into German society, such as language training. This programme helped deflate Republican attacks on the government’s pro-refugee stance somewhat, as it became harder for them to attack it without overt racism, and slightly softened public opinion on the issue.
Wowereit became Chancellor again in January 2020 in keeping with the coalition agreement, but his popularity among the public and the SPD had waned, as had his perceived enthusiasm. Ironically, he soon managed to significantly improve his popularity through his management of Germany’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as under his watch the coalition implemented a €130 billion stimulus package to cushion businesses and freelancers and chose to keep factories open with stringent sanitary procedures. This meant Germany weathered the pandemic more effectively than its neighbours like Italy or France, and his work pushing for a €750 billion pandemic recovery fund and a global corporate minimum tax also endeared him to his European partners.
In January 2021, once von der Leyen ascended to the Chancellorship again, Wowereit announced his retirement from politics and the SPD elected a new vice Chancellor (who would become Chancellor in 2022), giving the position to Minister of Finance and former First Mayor of Hamburg Olaf Scholz. Scholz was a very popular politician among much of the public, and although he was not well liked among the SPD left due to his strong support for the centrism of the coalition, he worked well with von der Leyen, particularly on their formulation of responses to the climate crisis, seeking a gradual withdrawal from the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and a phaseout of coal use in Germany by 2030 instead of the previously targeted 2038. This was criticized on some fronts for causing a surge in energy prices.
The international and health policies the government pursued during von der Leyen’s second year as Chancellor also saw significant development of its stances, some of which were well received like its condemnation of the Chinese government’s treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang/East Turkestan, its implementation of sanctions on Belarus and its response to the humanitarian crisis associated with the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, while others were more controversial like its reluctance to sanction Turkey for its maritime drilling in Greek waters and its difficulties in rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination.
Once he became Chancellor in 2022, Scholz achieved significant praise when after the Russian invasion of Ukraine that February, he announced in his ‘Zeitenwende’ speech that Germany would renege on its previous opt-out from the 2% of GDP requirement for defence spending by NATO members and hasten its withdrawal from the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, allowing it to militarily aid Ukraine and economically damage Russia. This policy platform was extremely well-received by the public and helped lead to a dramatic improvement in the SPD’s poll numbers, which had floundered for much of the preceding term.
The move also caused significant upheaval for the opposition. The Greens, led by Robert Habeck, managed to strengthen their position through criticism of the slow action of the government on environmental policy, while the KPD advanced a policy programme quite explicitly attacking capitalism as the main cause of the energy price surge instead of the shift to a more environmentalist policy focus, which proved controversial but resonated with its base. The Republicans faced a significant decline in their support after leader Alice Weidel accused Ukraine of provoking its invasion by seeking EU membership, a remark which proved very out of step with public opinion.
When the Bundestag was dissolved, the Green campaign soon attracted attention for its unusually vigorous campaign for the single-member constituencies. Capitalising on protest votes and voter antipathy towards the governing parties, one of the most senior figures in the Green campaign, Annalena Baerbock, claimed that the only choices in the first vote were ‘the government or the Greens’ for most voters. On top of this, they were able to criticise von der Leyen for correspondence over Pfizer’s sale of vaccines to Germany and Scholz for actions of his while mayor of Hamburg, particularly the CumEx tax fraud.
Sure enough, the election saw the Greens secure their best ever performance, surpassing 100 seats for the first time and Habeck becoming Leader of the Opposition. The KPD and FDP held fairly steady, the former also benefitting from the Greens’ advocacy for single-member constituency voting against the government, while the Republicans’ vote collapsed, with the party winning only slightly more seats than they had in 2014 and going from the largest non-government party to the smallest. Despite how dramatic the election was among the opposition, the governing parties’ results were fairly static.
The new Bundestag resoundingly re-elected Scholz to serve as Chancellor until the end of 2022, with von der Leyen returning at the start of 2023. Immediately after the election, it was being nicknamed the ‘Zeitenwendewahl’ (literally ‘times-turn vote’, but equivalent to the phrase ‘watershed election’ in English) due to the closeness of the major parties ideologically while opposition lay outside of the confines of the two of them. In the year since, however, the government has been perceived as more compromising on its policies, with the Nord Stream 2 withdrawal and the provision of German military aid to Ukraine progressing slowly.
The emergence of close political consensus between the biggest parties in Germany, however, remains a point of considerable contrast to the past.
(I’m pretty happy about finishing this just before the thread closes- sorry it took so long, but I hope you enjoyed it!)
She is beauty and she is grace,
She is Queen of 50 States
She is elegance and taste
She is Miss United-
Infobox photo taken 2030
She is Queen of 50 States
She is elegance and taste
She is Miss United-
Infobox photo taken 2030
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The way that the colors look in that photo reminds me of the film, Batman and Robin.
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