An Examination of Extra-Universal Systems of Government
- Thread starter Ephraim Ben Raphael
- Start date
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A couple Arabian Peninsula ideas, set in the aftermath of a worst case scenario 2012 solar flare:
In Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, the immigrant underclass that makes up the majority of those countries takes advantage of the temporary unaivalability of modern technology to revolt and set up a Republic of the Gulf that, while using Arabic as a lingua franca, is governed by an ethnically varied lower house, whose electoral constituencies are drawn along ethnic lines, and a religiously varied upper house, whose electoral constituencies are drawn along religious lines; so you'd have, for example, Arabic, Bengali and Tagalog constituencies in the former, and Catholic, Hanafi, and Jafari constituencies in the latter.
Meanwhile, in former Saudi Arabia, the Absher app has gone silent. A sizeable amount of the country's women, helped by many of the stranded foreign workers, decide to take advantage of the situation, and set up their own government, supported by the greater part of the international community - especially since the rest of the country's doubled down on the Gilead vibes in the aftermath of the solar flare; taking a cue from the Iroquois Confederacy (maybe one of the revolt's leaders studied somewhere in New York), this splinter state of Saudi Arabia is governed by men (the only people that can be elected) that are chosen by women (the only people that can vote).
In Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, the immigrant underclass that makes up the majority of those countries takes advantage of the temporary unaivalability of modern technology to revolt and set up a Republic of the Gulf that, while using Arabic as a lingua franca, is governed by an ethnically varied lower house, whose electoral constituencies are drawn along ethnic lines, and a religiously varied upper house, whose electoral constituencies are drawn along religious lines; so you'd have, for example, Arabic, Bengali and Tagalog constituencies in the former, and Catholic, Hanafi, and Jafari constituencies in the latter.
Meanwhile, in former Saudi Arabia, the Absher app has gone silent. A sizeable amount of the country's women, helped by many of the stranded foreign workers, decide to take advantage of the situation, and set up their own government, supported by the greater part of the international community - especially since the rest of the country's doubled down on the Gilead vibes in the aftermath of the solar flare; taking a cue from the Iroquois Confederacy (maybe one of the revolt's leaders studied somewhere in New York), this splinter state of Saudi Arabia is governed by men (the only people that can be elected) that are chosen by women (the only people that can vote).
Not quite rogue in the OTL sense of the word, in that they're not extreme violators of human rights and the sovereign international order (though they tend towards being pretty corrupt left-dictatorships) - more unwilling to participate in the neo-colonialist and imperial world order in the same manner as the regimes they overthrew.
It's Manchuria, which is still a Japanese client and ruled by a coalition of ethnic Manchurians, Japanese settlers, Russians and Han Chinese who think they'll benefit in an authoritarian republic. The Phillipines is also a Japanese ally - there's enough Zaibatsu money flowing through the economy to buy the republic over to their side.
Korea is a Chinese ally by contrast - after a long and brutal brush war and decolonisation process, they are still pretty hostile.
Thanks for the catch, that's just a typo. There isn't anyone additional to them, the math adds up to 19 without them.
Rhomania Eterna
My global cover of @Whiteshore's EEUSG entry, the Rhomanian Empire. Many thanks to him, and he provided all of the text below
- The POD is that the Fourth Crusade goes to Egypt, and fails catastrophically.
- The Mongol Empire falls more gradually sans the Black Death with remnants of the Ilkhanate hanging on until the 17th Century in Persia and the Yuan Dynasty of China lasting until the 15th Century in controlling all of China. The Yuan Dynasty continues to rule over northern china, absorbing the remnants of the Chaghatai Khanate in the 18th Century.
- Korea is basically Yuan China's mini-me.
- In Atlantis, the Empire of Atlantis was founded by a rebellious princeling of the French royal family who led their independence movement. The English colonized much of northern Atlantis, with this colony becoming Republic of Avalon.
- The Inca were able to fend off European colonization, even if they had a period where the Tawantinsuyu was subject to a degree of economic colonialism with "spheres of influence. It eventually adopted a syncretism of Catholicism with their traditional Inca religion.
- Mesoamerica was conquered by German adventurers from a more centralized Holy Roman Empire, while Hispania colonized Central America, most of the Caribbean, and the Northern Coast of South America.
- In Spain, TTL's analogue to the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa was a pyrrhic victory for the Christians, leading to the 'core' areas of Al-Andalus remaining Muslim.
- Al-Andalus colonized OTL Brazil, and the Southern Cone was colonized by the Union of the Crowns of Norway, Scotland, Denmark, and Ireland. The Union of the Crowns was formed through a series of fortunate marriages, which led to a personal union which solidified into a bona fide federation.
- Lithuania adopted Orthodox Christianity and has some ethnic hiccups with the "Ruthenians" (OTL Ukrainians/Belarussians), but is doing alright and is Rhomania's closest ally due to a shared Orthodox faith and similar political system.
- Bosnia, Vlachia, Georgia, and Armenia are a string of buffer states meant to ensure Rhomania's security from their neighbors.
- The Indian subcontinent is currently divided with a Muslim Empire of Hindustan in the Indo-Gangetic Plain (the Muslim rulers of India were rather more willing to use fire and sword to convert their Hindu subjects than OTL) and a loose (but fiercely Hindu) Confederation of Bharat with its powerbase in the Deccan region face each other on the Godavari River. Hindustan is big into Stalin-esque population transfers to deal with restive Hindus.
- While the Yuan Dynasty is a constitutional monarchy under a system akin to Rhomania, the Chun Dynasty in South China is run by nasty people who adhere to a strange combination of Mohism, Neo-Confucianism, radical Han nationalism (which manifested in the initial phase of the regime in a genocide of the Zhuang of Guangxi), and Unitism. Unitism it is an ideology arguing for a "philosopher-king" on the model of Plato's Republic.
- The main revolutionary ideology of the world is Novaism, an ideology which to an OTL observer would be similar to Italian Futurism, mixed with the anti-capitalist egalitarianism and missionary nature of communism.
- In the present-day, the main powers of the world are organized into the League of Democratic Nations - a loose coalition of Rhomanian-style constitutional monarchies (Rhomania, Srivijaya, Lithuania, and Atlantis) and liberal republics/constitutional monarchies (Mumtir, Afrika, Mehiko, Kampuchea, Egypt, and Bharat), theNovaist Revolutionary League, and the Unitist League for Order and Progress.
The Land of Compromise
My world cover of @Gigel the Iron Chicken's EEUSG entry, France. Many thanks to him for his feedback!
- The French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War was even worse, the Paris Commune spread more and its suppression was more difficult and lasted longer. The French Third Republic that followed was less democratic and more militaristic, resulting in a civil war that broke out in 1897 and lasted until 1905. In general, most political groups (monarchists, anti-Third Republic republicans, and those on the radical left) were not given much in the way of rights (the press was heavily censored, freedom of assembly was limited etc.).
- There is no Great War in Europe. With France gone, Germany becomes the unchallenged hegemon on the continent, and Britain the unchallenged hegemon of the seas. This balance of power was maintained even with the resurgence of Russia and Spain.
- After a period of chaos, a second Spanish republic manages to become a great power, in part by filling in many vacuums the French left. The Spanish republic started out quite left-wing, and while in some aspects it still is, it has become just as ardent in keeping its empire intact as its "imperialist" rivals.
- The Austro-Hungarian Empire fell apart in the 1930s and its collapse was managed by the different great powers.
- The United States emerged from its isolationist stage to defend its commercial interests, which it perceived as threatened by the British. This led to the "cold war" between the "old monarchies" of Europe and the "new republics" of America and Spain. This eventually included Bharat after its successful revolution.
- The North African Federation was formed during the French Civil War, including the former French colonies of Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. It is the world's most prominent petro-state and an advocate for African independence movements.
- China's defeat during the Sino-Japanese War was even more extreme, leading to the fall of the Qing Dynasty and a long warlord era. The Republic of China, an isolationist state under a series of military dictators, is becoming a great power because of its massive population.
- Russia was diplomatically isolated after the fall of France, as all of the remaining great powers had long rivalries with it. It thus created its own Slavic/Eastern Orthodox sphere, and kept itself isolated from European affair otherwise.
- After the Paris Commune's failure, Laos is the world's second and only surviving communist state.
OK, updated with flag and map. This is loosely based on the town I used to live in and the Butler coup path from Kaiserreich.
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Freedom Of America
Sparta, New Jersey is a pleasant-looking town in a pleasant part of the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, bridging the line between suburban and rural with its haphazard sprawl of houses and solitary train station used by local commuters to reach their industrial jobs southeast in the piedmont region. It could be any number of small American towns from half a dozen states from tens of thousands of universes, except for one noticeable feature.
Every single street-corner, and I do mean every single one, is positively festooned with political signs. Most also bear eager people with clipboards, gaudy outfits, and handheld signs.
For this is Freedom Of America, the self-proclaimed Most Participatory Democracy On Earth!!! (the exclamation points are legally obligatory, and several attempts to have them removed have so far met with failure), and political activism is effectively a way of life here.
I meet Nguyen Lam Phuc, a local history teacher, at a local cafe. She greets me with a friendly smile and a firm handshake as an activist calling for the protection of feral cats and an activist calling for the culling of feral cats to protect local birds come to blows on the sidewalk. I ask if I should intervene.
"Nah, we're in the middle of town, the public safety department will be here in a minute so they can cool their heels in lockup for a day or two." Indeed, the local police soon arrive on electric mopeds (the Made In Flint stickers proudly emblazoned on the sides are not encouraging, but I refrain from bringing this up) to break up the scuffle. "It's a little odd, I know, especially as a welcome to the greatest democracy ever to exist, but we all have our little traditions, I suppose."
I ask if Nguyen can explain the activists and signs. "All part of participatory democracy, Mr. Chana! It's in the 16th Amendment to the 1940 Constitution of the Freedom Of America--you only need 1% of a municipality, county, or state's registered voters to get your proposition on a ballot for the next voting cycle. And since voting's mandatory on penalty of fine--that's in the Constitution, income-linked since the amendment in '42, of course--there's a lot of incentive to get out there and get your voice heard. It's very healthy for democracy, though we did have to amend the signature minimum--in the original version from 1940, you only needed 20 signatures, the bigger cities were having weekly strikes in protest of monthly ballots getting out of hand."
What does out of hand entail?
"The record was nine hundred and sixty-seven pages. Letter size sheets. Ten-point standard font. Chicago, December 1967. Over sixteen thousand referendums, including five hundred and eighteen to ban referendums. 1968 saw over sixty million people refuse to vote for five straight months while refusing to pay the fines, law enforcement was unable to handle it, so the National Congress passed the amendment in record time and declared a blanket amnesty on fines."
I note that this seems like a terribly inefficient form of government. Nguyen shrugs.
"Sure, it can take a few years to get the roads patched, but we have the highest rates of political participation in the world. Americans know that our Freedom is the freest and healthiest system of government there is, and we hold each other and our elected representatives accountable more than anyone else on this planet. We haven't even done a foreign intervention in three decades. The rest of the Internationale gets frustrated sometimes at our people's refusal to engage in imperialism even if it's wrapped in nice-sounding words, but they'll come around to true freedom eventually."
The Freedom Of America is, ironically, the direct descendent of a short-lived military dictatorship. After the Second American Civil War (1937-1939), the victorious leftists of the Provisional Workers' Commonwealth of America attempted to found a new government in the ashes of the old United States, which had been replaced by a corporatist military dictatorship in the coup of '37 that led to the civil war. Unfortunately, the authoritarian Vanguardist faction used subterfuge and poorly-thought-out procedural rules to sideline more liberal and moderate factions in the Continental Congress of '39, leading to a brief attempt at implementing an authoritarian constitution modeled on that of the short-lived Bolshevik government of Russia. The result was mass outrage from a nation that had only months before been in active civil war, leading General and devout anarchist Smedley Butler leading a coup with the support of several military units. Butler proceeded to draft a new constitution with an emphasis on political pluralism and participation, proposed it to the remains of America in a radio address, devoted the Provisional Commonwealth's immense propaganda network to disseminating the entire document across the nation for approval in a referendum, and then as a farewell statement announced his resignation as General and interim leader as well as his arrest for "crimes against the people" for leading a coup.
It's something of a testament to Butler's rhetorical ability that, even though he was the most popular man in America at the time for simultaneously putting an end to the political chaos and protecting American democracy, the former General managed to, after an impassioned plea against his own case, see himself convicted of treason and fomenting revolt against the government of America, and sent to prison. Although the sentence was only for two years, Butler would die in prison of malignant stomach cancer, before being posthumously pardoned in full by the National Congress and buried with state honors.
The new American system, though officially nonpartisan and nonsectarian, bears a number of hallmarks of anarcho-socialist economic and political thought. The institution of monthly referenda soon destroyed the ability of remaining capitalist corporations to function in the face of swarms of ordnances repossessing their assets for "worker cooperatives" and other socialist organizations, even in the West Coast states (the Pacific Defense Command of the Several Free and Loyal States of the United States of America, at the time still capitalist, joined the Freedom Of America in 1944 after diplomatic pressure from the Freedom and the Third Internationale). The economy is highly decentralized, almost to the point of localization, and almost all individual organizational units are run by legally-mandated democratic systems.
"Butlerist principles," Nguyen explains, "rely on three basic rights. The right to self-expression, the right to freedom of movement, and the right to vote. Economic rights both stem from those and are essential to them, but without those three rights, freedom is doomed. And that's why the Freedom works. Butler realized this, that the USA failed because it was designed by the rich so they could run the country while the people were politically disengaged and uninformed, so the cure was to make sure that everybody's informed and engaged. We have a government designed at every level to ensure that our citizens are constantly aware of their rights and awake enough to protect them. Every month, our citizens go to the polls. Every two years, they go to the polls for national representatives--regional and local election cycles vary, of course. Our citizens are always thinking about politics, always preparing to vote, always reading up on the latest issues, even if it's in the voting booth.
"And that's what makes the Freedom Of America the greatest country in history. We're not just free, we're built so that our citizens are constantly fighting to keep our freedom. And that's never going to change."
What about America's history of racism and discrimination? "Well, that was a problem for a while, there were some militia clashes in the mid-'40s because some towns were throwing around whites-only and blacks-only referenda, but the national government banned that by amendment in '52 after 47 states petitioned for that to be made a thing. You still get some cranks proposing that kind of thing but they almost never get enough signatures to get 'em on the ballot and if they do hit the threshold the national government comes calling. And nobody wants that because it means the pork might get cut off."
After bidding the teacher farewell, I walk to the mayor's office, apologizing profusely as I go to the people who pursue me asking for me to sign petitions for: Renaming the town dogcatcher to "Animal catcher", banning municipal garbage collection, banning referenda against municipal garbage collection, building a new soccer field, protecting a nearby swamp from the expansion of the soccer field, firing the high-school principal for controversial drug testing policies, mandating the neutering of pet cats, declaring an official LGBT heritage day, et cetera. Mayor Maria Robinson, an African-American woman with black hair dye not quite hiding her prematurely greying roots, greets me in her office with a harried attempt at a smile.
"Welcome to the biggest pain in the ass in the world, Mr. Chana. Can we make this fast? I want to leave the office exactly on time so can worry a bit less about the petition submission deadline today." At my questioning look, she elaborates. "Today's the last day for petition submissions for the end of month referendum vote. I've almost made it through this one without anything hitting the threshold. I might even be able to take my first vacation in two decades!"
Why be Mayor without a break? "Somebody's got to. I can't even get municipal goddamn garbage collection through this godawful joke of a government without that one nutcase getting a petition in because he thinks the NERD--uh, national emergency response directorate--stormtroopers that don't exist are going to haul him off to a concentration camp that also doesn't exist for not producing enough trash. This whole damn country is so outdated, most people only ever even vote because of the fines! We spend a billion dollars a year telling our citizens why it's important to have taxes, and even then a lot of people would rather vote for tax cuts because they're starting to forget how we had six years in the '80s where nearly every road in the country was too damn full of potholes to drive on! This country's going to the dogs, and it's all because of that nitwit Butler!" Robinson's eyes are wide and bloodshot with rage.
But isn't there some benefit to this system? "I mean, we have a nice bunch of civil rights, but if we ever get in a shooting war we won't stand much of a chance of protecting them because the military's an outdated joke that's mostly made up of militia weekend warriors. The national and state governments are a little bit less beholden to referendums ever since the '60s, but that only means you need three hundred thousand signatures on your petition to have a referendum that can screw up the whole goddamn country!"
What system would Robinson rather see? "China. China's got an old-school representative democracy like what the old USA had. And sure, they've got problems, just like the old USA did, but at least they don't have a booklet of referendums to be published in every damn municipality every goddamn month!"
Robinson's secretary knocks on the door, and we turn to see her stick her head in with an apologetic grimace. "I'm sorry, Ms. Mayor, we, uh, just got the form in from Cole Watson. His monthly anti-garbage-collection amendment proposal. He has enough signatures, Ms. Mayor, we're going to need to have a referendum on it."
Robinson's face hits her desk with a thunk. "FUCK!"
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Backstory:
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Freedom Of America
Sparta, New Jersey is a pleasant-looking town in a pleasant part of the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, bridging the line between suburban and rural with its haphazard sprawl of houses and solitary train station used by local commuters to reach their industrial jobs southeast in the piedmont region. It could be any number of small American towns from half a dozen states from tens of thousands of universes, except for one noticeable feature.
Every single street-corner, and I do mean every single one, is positively festooned with political signs. Most also bear eager people with clipboards, gaudy outfits, and handheld signs.
For this is Freedom Of America, the self-proclaimed Most Participatory Democracy On Earth!!! (the exclamation points are legally obligatory, and several attempts to have them removed have so far met with failure), and political activism is effectively a way of life here.
I meet Nguyen Lam Phuc, a local history teacher, at a local cafe. She greets me with a friendly smile and a firm handshake as an activist calling for the protection of feral cats and an activist calling for the culling of feral cats to protect local birds come to blows on the sidewalk. I ask if I should intervene.
"Nah, we're in the middle of town, the public safety department will be here in a minute so they can cool their heels in lockup for a day or two." Indeed, the local police soon arrive on electric mopeds (the Made In Flint stickers proudly emblazoned on the sides are not encouraging, but I refrain from bringing this up) to break up the scuffle. "It's a little odd, I know, especially as a welcome to the greatest democracy ever to exist, but we all have our little traditions, I suppose."
I ask if Nguyen can explain the activists and signs. "All part of participatory democracy, Mr. Chana! It's in the 16th Amendment to the 1940 Constitution of the Freedom Of America--you only need 1% of a municipality, county, or state's registered voters to get your proposition on a ballot for the next voting cycle. And since voting's mandatory on penalty of fine--that's in the Constitution, income-linked since the amendment in '42, of course--there's a lot of incentive to get out there and get your voice heard. It's very healthy for democracy, though we did have to amend the signature minimum--in the original version from 1940, you only needed 20 signatures, the bigger cities were having weekly strikes in protest of monthly ballots getting out of hand."
What does out of hand entail?
"The record was nine hundred and sixty-seven pages. Letter size sheets. Ten-point standard font. Chicago, December 1967. Over sixteen thousand referendums, including five hundred and eighteen to ban referendums. 1968 saw over sixty million people refuse to vote for five straight months while refusing to pay the fines, law enforcement was unable to handle it, so the National Congress passed the amendment in record time and declared a blanket amnesty on fines."
I note that this seems like a terribly inefficient form of government. Nguyen shrugs.
"Sure, it can take a few years to get the roads patched, but we have the highest rates of political participation in the world. Americans know that our Freedom is the freest and healthiest system of government there is, and we hold each other and our elected representatives accountable more than anyone else on this planet. We haven't even done a foreign intervention in three decades. The rest of the Internationale gets frustrated sometimes at our people's refusal to engage in imperialism even if it's wrapped in nice-sounding words, but they'll come around to true freedom eventually."
The Freedom Of America is, ironically, the direct descendent of a short-lived military dictatorship. After the Second American Civil War (1937-1939), the victorious leftists of the Provisional Workers' Commonwealth of America attempted to found a new government in the ashes of the old United States, which had been replaced by a corporatist military dictatorship in the coup of '37 that led to the civil war. Unfortunately, the authoritarian Vanguardist faction used subterfuge and poorly-thought-out procedural rules to sideline more liberal and moderate factions in the Continental Congress of '39, leading to a brief attempt at implementing an authoritarian constitution modeled on that of the short-lived Bolshevik government of Russia. The result was mass outrage from a nation that had only months before been in active civil war, leading General and devout anarchist Smedley Butler leading a coup with the support of several military units. Butler proceeded to draft a new constitution with an emphasis on political pluralism and participation, proposed it to the remains of America in a radio address, devoted the Provisional Commonwealth's immense propaganda network to disseminating the entire document across the nation for approval in a referendum, and then as a farewell statement announced his resignation as General and interim leader as well as his arrest for "crimes against the people" for leading a coup.
It's something of a testament to Butler's rhetorical ability that, even though he was the most popular man in America at the time for simultaneously putting an end to the political chaos and protecting American democracy, the former General managed to, after an impassioned plea against his own case, see himself convicted of treason and fomenting revolt against the government of America, and sent to prison. Although the sentence was only for two years, Butler would die in prison of malignant stomach cancer, before being posthumously pardoned in full by the National Congress and buried with state honors.
The new American system, though officially nonpartisan and nonsectarian, bears a number of hallmarks of anarcho-socialist economic and political thought. The institution of monthly referenda soon destroyed the ability of remaining capitalist corporations to function in the face of swarms of ordnances repossessing their assets for "worker cooperatives" and other socialist organizations, even in the West Coast states (the Pacific Defense Command of the Several Free and Loyal States of the United States of America, at the time still capitalist, joined the Freedom Of America in 1944 after diplomatic pressure from the Freedom and the Third Internationale). The economy is highly decentralized, almost to the point of localization, and almost all individual organizational units are run by legally-mandated democratic systems.
"Butlerist principles," Nguyen explains, "rely on three basic rights. The right to self-expression, the right to freedom of movement, and the right to vote. Economic rights both stem from those and are essential to them, but without those three rights, freedom is doomed. And that's why the Freedom works. Butler realized this, that the USA failed because it was designed by the rich so they could run the country while the people were politically disengaged and uninformed, so the cure was to make sure that everybody's informed and engaged. We have a government designed at every level to ensure that our citizens are constantly aware of their rights and awake enough to protect them. Every month, our citizens go to the polls. Every two years, they go to the polls for national representatives--regional and local election cycles vary, of course. Our citizens are always thinking about politics, always preparing to vote, always reading up on the latest issues, even if it's in the voting booth.
"And that's what makes the Freedom Of America the greatest country in history. We're not just free, we're built so that our citizens are constantly fighting to keep our freedom. And that's never going to change."
What about America's history of racism and discrimination? "Well, that was a problem for a while, there were some militia clashes in the mid-'40s because some towns were throwing around whites-only and blacks-only referenda, but the national government banned that by amendment in '52 after 47 states petitioned for that to be made a thing. You still get some cranks proposing that kind of thing but they almost never get enough signatures to get 'em on the ballot and if they do hit the threshold the national government comes calling. And nobody wants that because it means the pork might get cut off."
After bidding the teacher farewell, I walk to the mayor's office, apologizing profusely as I go to the people who pursue me asking for me to sign petitions for: Renaming the town dogcatcher to "Animal catcher", banning municipal garbage collection, banning referenda against municipal garbage collection, building a new soccer field, protecting a nearby swamp from the expansion of the soccer field, firing the high-school principal for controversial drug testing policies, mandating the neutering of pet cats, declaring an official LGBT heritage day, et cetera. Mayor Maria Robinson, an African-American woman with black hair dye not quite hiding her prematurely greying roots, greets me in her office with a harried attempt at a smile.
"Welcome to the biggest pain in the ass in the world, Mr. Chana. Can we make this fast? I want to leave the office exactly on time so can worry a bit less about the petition submission deadline today." At my questioning look, she elaborates. "Today's the last day for petition submissions for the end of month referendum vote. I've almost made it through this one without anything hitting the threshold. I might even be able to take my first vacation in two decades!"
Why be Mayor without a break? "Somebody's got to. I can't even get municipal goddamn garbage collection through this godawful joke of a government without that one nutcase getting a petition in because he thinks the NERD--uh, national emergency response directorate--stormtroopers that don't exist are going to haul him off to a concentration camp that also doesn't exist for not producing enough trash. This whole damn country is so outdated, most people only ever even vote because of the fines! We spend a billion dollars a year telling our citizens why it's important to have taxes, and even then a lot of people would rather vote for tax cuts because they're starting to forget how we had six years in the '80s where nearly every road in the country was too damn full of potholes to drive on! This country's going to the dogs, and it's all because of that nitwit Butler!" Robinson's eyes are wide and bloodshot with rage.
But isn't there some benefit to this system? "I mean, we have a nice bunch of civil rights, but if we ever get in a shooting war we won't stand much of a chance of protecting them because the military's an outdated joke that's mostly made up of militia weekend warriors. The national and state governments are a little bit less beholden to referendums ever since the '60s, but that only means you need three hundred thousand signatures on your petition to have a referendum that can screw up the whole goddamn country!"
What system would Robinson rather see? "China. China's got an old-school representative democracy like what the old USA had. And sure, they've got problems, just like the old USA did, but at least they don't have a booklet of referendums to be published in every damn municipality every goddamn month!"
Robinson's secretary knocks on the door, and we turn to see her stick her head in with an apologetic grimace. "I'm sorry, Ms. Mayor, we, uh, just got the form in from Cole Watson. His monthly anti-garbage-collection amendment proposal. He has enough signatures, Ms. Mayor, we're going to need to have a referendum on it."
Robinson's face hits her desk with a thunk. "FUCK!"
-----------
Backstory:
The Third Internationale won in Europe, the Cold War was between the Internationale, the *fascist world let by the Russian State, and the other fascist sphere led by Japan. China eventually threw out Japanese influence with Red help and is a stable left-leaning democracy. The Russians dropped fascism in the '90s after the economy collapsed and their sphere imploded, they are now a tinpot dictatorship wearing a veneer of democracy; the Japanese imploded in the '80s after retreating from Korea in the '70s and lost all their colonies in the chaos, they now have a very weak central government and are run by corrupt oligarchs. The Internationale is about as democratic as modern Europe, which is to say they have mostly functional democratic structures but there are still some laws on the books that are intended to suppress viewpoints deemed "dangerous to the nation" so the neo-fascists and such are slipping through the cracks and learning to refine their propaganda to be legal. South America is mostly left-wing and friends with the Freedom Of America, varying degrees of democracy; Africa is a hodgepodge of various pro-Internationale, pro-Cairo Pact, and formerly pro-Fascist states. India is a patchwork with an alliance of semi-independent socialist republics in the north and a federation of monarchist/capitalist provinces in the south.
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