Another America: A Map and Graphic Setting

[Keperry]

Louisiana was first settled as a French colony in 1699, with the capital of Nouvelle Orleans being founded in 1718. Lower Louisiana developed a plantation economy, importing large numbers of African slaves, while the economy of more sparsely settled Upper Louisiana revolved around the fur trade with indigenous peoples. Throughout the century France managed to hold on to Louisiana through a number colonial wars - one effect of these wars was the migration to Louisiana of a large number of Acadian settlers expelled by the British, who would become known as Cajuns and have a major influence on Louisiana’s culture.

Louisiana first declared independence as a republic in the 1790s alongside the French Revolution, but after a few years and an unsuccessful attempt to unite its fellow revolutionary republic in Canada, Louisiana was occupied and the First Republic was overturned by French royalists (many of them part of an influx of planters and their slaves fleeing the Haitian Revolution) and placed under primarily Spanish occupation for the next two decades, leaving notable Caribbean and Spanish imprints on Louisianan culture. The royalist forces also attempted unsuccessfully to invade Canada in a series of clashes that defined the current border at the Mississippi River.

Following the defeat of Napoleon and Bourbon restoration in 1815, the rival Orleanist claimant Louis-Philippe was exiled to Louisiana, where local elites, chafing under the occupation and inspired by the wave of revolutions and wars of independence sweeping across the Americas, invited him to take the Louisianan throne and declared independence as the Empire of Louisiana, which with Mexican and Canadian support won a brief war of independence against a Franco-Spanish coalition.

The First Empire was dominated by the Creole planter elites (much to the chagrin of the Cajun yeomanry, not to mention their slaves) and particularly preoccupied with the issues of northward and westward expansion (successfully conquering Techas, by then mostly populated by Cajun settlers, from Mexico in the 1830s) and of slavery, which was the bedrock of the Louisianan economy but grew increasingly untenable as time went on and was gradually and fitfully abolished by the 1870s, with the liberally-inclined monarchy being one of the main drivers of abolitionism.

In the 1880s Louisiana joined Canada and the United Provinces in fighting the British Empire. Louisiana fought primarily on the Great Plains and was victorious in fending off the British on that front (in recognition of which its Indian allies such as the Sioux were granted lasting autonomy) although it failed to press its claims extending to the Pacific coast. The war was highly expensive and something a fiasco, revealing the underequipped and unprepared state of the military, with a sense that the monarchy was reluctant to support the military, frustrating many officers. Soon after the war, these military officers joined with the planter elites still dissatisfied over the abolition of slavery in a military coup, forcing the Emperor to abdicate and establishing the Second Republic.

The Second Republic was oligarchic in nature, dominated by planting and ranching (cattle drives having become prominent) interests and the military, and highly politically and economically unstable, especially in the 1920s as a result of the revolution in neighboring Florida. In 1928 the charismatic populist Hubert Long was elected president and quickly set about establishing a dictatorial regime with the support of the military. Long was skilled at appealing to and playing off all sides of the political spectrum and remains a controversial figure in Louisiana today, with his successes at economic development and establishing a welfare state weighed against his sometimes brutal suppression of dissent and democracy.

Long was assassinated in 1961, ushering in the era of the Third Republic, defined by a power vacuum and resumed political and economic chaos as different factions fought over what the new Louisiana should look like - whether it should be a liberal republic, socialist republic, monarchy, or military regime, the role of the Church, the status of black and indigenous people, economic redistribution, foreign relations, and a myriad of other conflicts exacerbated significantly by the civil war in neighboring Virginia, the effects of which brought Louisiana to the brink of civil war in the May 1968 crisis as well as to the brink of war with Florida.

During this time Henri d’Orleans, pretender to the imperial throne, emerged as a moderate unifying figure with appeal across the political figure. He is widely seen as pioneering the Grand Compromise of 1975: Henri would resume the throne as emperor in a democratic constitutional monarchy defined by federalism, racial equality, neoliberal economics, protection but not hegemony for the Catholic Church, and participation in North American integration. Thusly the Third Republic became the Second Empire. (Another effect of the new constitution was the quilt of autonomous native territories becoming united and formally organized as the Nations Indiennes.)

Since the restoration of the monarchy Louisiana has enjoyed an economic boom fuelled largely by oil, bringing it to parity with the other nations of North America, although inequality remains a major issue with much of the new wealth concentrated in a few hands (corruption scandals are frequent). It is still more religiously pious than the rest of North America, with a large Catholic majority, although secularism is increasing and this tension has become a major social issue. Louisiana is also regarded as having a particularly rich and vibrant culture, based on a French, African, and indigenous base with influence from successive waves of Haitian, Spanish, German, Irish, Scandinavian, Italian, Mexican, Floridian, and Vietnamese immigrants, with its cuisine, music, festivals, and more being influential across the Americas and the world. Much of this energy has come from cultural revival movements among minorities - for the Creole language and Vodun religion among Afro-Louisianans, especially in the black-majority province of Yazous, and for native languages, religions, and customs among indigenous peoples, many of whom have been empowered by recent oil discoveries in their lands. Louisiana is a full member of the North American Community and widely considered to be a rising power within that bloc.

The imperial arms of Louisiana feature a pelican in her piety symbolizing Louisiana itself, three fleurs-de-lis under a white label representing the House of Orleans, a deer and bear as supporters to symbolize the vast and untamed wilderness of North America, a compartment of cotton representing the plantation economy, flags of Louisiana, a modified version of the Crown of Orleans, and the Order of the Holy Spirit.

 

[Keperry]

Well I blew through Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's, but I barely missed Mardi Gras so almost just in time for it, here's a list of holidays celebrated in North America!

(Note that this is not an exhaustive list and does not include independence days or memorial days.)

January 1:
New Year’s Day is an official public holiday in every country in North America.

January 5-6:
Epiphany and its eve Twelfth Night are celebrated with feasting, especially on king cake, and other parties and revelry in Florida (where Epiphany rather than Christmas is the main gift-giving holiday of the year) and Louisiana, and to somewhat lesser extent in Canada, Virginia, California, and the United Provinces (where it is also celebrated by children wassailing). In Alyeska, according to the Orthodox tradition, it is celebrated on January 19 with the custom of swimming in freezing water. In the countries that observe it Epiphany is considered to mark both the end of the Christmas season and the start of the Carnival season.

January 25:
Saint Tatiana’s Day commemorates the Orthodox patron saint of students and as such is a popular day of drinking and revelry among students and other young people in Alyeska that has also spread to and become increasingly popular in Columbia and California. It coincides with the end of the academic term in Alyeska and the beginning of the academic term in Columbia and California.

January or February:
The Lunar New Year, on the date of the new moon between January and February, is celebrated in California and Columbia as Chinese New Year with fireworks, traditional Chinese dances, parades, giving of red envelopes, and eating of Chinese cuisine such as dumplings, in honor of the significant Chinese community and cultural impact in both of those countries. It is also celebrated in the United Provinces as Giyewanousquagowa, the Iroquois New Year, which involves ceremonial healing dances by masked societies, the proclaiming of the Code of the Longhouse Religion, lacrosse games, feasting, and other Iroquois spiritual and cultural observances. While principally celebrated by the Iroquois themselves, the Iroquois New Year is also an official public holiday across the entire United Provinces. It also roughly coincides with the championship game of the North American Lacrosse League, one of the continent’s most popular and anticipated sports events, typically held in Onondagastad.

February 2:
Candlemas is celebrated in Florida with the lighting and blessing of candles, decoration and presentation of baby Jesus figures, bonfires, and feasting, while in the United Provinces Groundhog Day is celebrated based on German Candlemas customs in which a groundhog (originally a badger) “predicts” whether winter will continue or spring will come early based on whether or not it sees its shadow; in many towns “groundhog lodges” organize parties on the day featuring food, singing, and skit performances in addition to the groundhog ceremony.

February 14:
Saint Valentine’s Day is a mostly secular celebration of love and romance featuring the exchange of cards and gifts celebrated especially in Anglophone countries and to some extent in most of the other countries in North America as well.

February or March:
Carnival or Mardi Gras, the day or several days before the start of Lent, is marked in a number of countries in North America with riotous celebrations based around the inversion of social norms. The most iconic celebrations take place in Louisiana, featuring costumed parades and masquerade balls organized by the “mystic societies” along with a significant amount of drinking and revelry, while rural communities practice the Courir de Mardi Gras, a mumming ritual in which masked and costumed revelers run or ride between houses and towns begging for food and playing pranks. Mardi Gras celebrations are considered an iconic national symbol of Louisiana and its culture, and Louisianan immigrants have also made Louisiana-style Mardi Gras popular to a lesser degree in Canada. Carnival is also popular in Florida, especially along the Gulf Coast such as in the cities of Mobile and Pensacola, and is similarly celebrated with parades, costumes, and street parties. The leadup to Lent is also celebrated as Maslenitsa in Alyeska with festivities including winter sports, effigy bonfires, and consumption of pancakes and other rich foods to use up forbidden ingredients before Lent. Fastnacht in the United Provinces is also marked by the consumption of rich pastries before Lent although it has lost most carnivalesque qualities.

March 17:
Saint Patrick’s Day, as celebrated in a number of countries in North America, is a celebration of Irish heritage and identity marked by drinking, revelry, and wearing of the color green. In New England it has historically been highly politicized as part of the civil rights movement by the Irish Catholic minority, and has only become an official public holiday celebrated by Catholics and Protestants alike. In Newfoundland it serves as a secondary national day. In other Anglophone countries and Francophone countries Saint Patrick’s Day is also a popular observance though an unofficial one and without political context.

March or April:
Easter is celebrated by Christians in every country in North America, though since it falls on a Sunday it is not a public holiday in itself. Good Friday and Easter Monday are both public holidays in Canada, Louisiana, Florida, and Alyeska (on the Orthodox date); only Good Friday is a public holiday in Virginia, California, and Newfoundland while only Easter Monday is a public holiday in the United Provinces.

April 30:
Walpurgis Night or Witches’ Night, as celebrated in the United Provinces, combines traditional Dutch and Swedish elements such as bonfires, choral singing, and drinking, with elements of the Anglophone holiday of Halloween such as trick-or-treating, costumes, macabre themes, and even more drinking. The latter elements date back to the 1950s, when Halloween became popular in the United Provinces as part of a wave of cultural influence from New England and Virginia. Subsequently there was a wave of backlash against this influence and reassertion of Dutch-Swedish culture, part of which was the transferring of Halloween celebrations to a date thought to be more culturally appropriate - the eve of Saint Walpurga’s day, traditionally thought to be the annual gathering night of witches. In recent years these lines have blurred again and many people in both the United Provinces and its English-speaking neighbors, especially young people, celebrate both Walpurgis Night and Halloween, facilitated by having the next day off for Labor Day.

May 1:
Labor Day is an official public holiday in New England, Columbia, the United Provinces, Canada, and Florida. Additionally, May Day in the more traditional fashion is celebrated in Virginia as a spring festival with maypole dancing, May Queen pageants, and other festivities.

May 11:
Saints Cyril and Methodius Day commemorates the saints who converted the Slavs and invented the precursor to the Cyrillic alphabet and is therefore a celebration of Slavic language and culture, marked officially in Alyeska and unofficially by Slavic communities in the rest of North America, most notably the Russophone minority in California in the context of their ongoing language rights movement.

May 24:
Empire Day commemorates the birthday of Queen Victoria, the official birthday of the reigning monarch, and the unity of the British Empire and Commonwealth, and as such is celebrated in both New England and Columbia, both of which are Commonwealth realms sharing a monarchy with Great Britain, with parades, fireworks, and other official observances. It is also a common flashpoint of protests by republicans, indigenists, and others who object to the monarchy or British connections.

May 29:
Cavalier Day or Oak Day originally celebrated the restoration of the Stuarts to the English throne and as such became popular in Virginia due to its extensive Cavalier sympathies. While that particular political context has long since become irrelevant, the day remains a popular holiday in Virginia marked by the wearing of oak sprigs, decoration with oak boughs, and processions in seventeenth-century-style costumes.

May or June:
Pentecost, or Pinkster in Amerikaans Dutch, is celebrated in the United Provinces as a largely secular and carnivalesque spring festival, featuring family gatherings, market fairs, maypoles, decorating with ribbons and flowers (especially azaleas), drinking, dances, and satirical performances such as the election of a “Pinkster King”. While widely celebrated in the United Provinces, Pinkster is particularly associated with the black minority and its culture, dating back to the time of slavery when it was one of the few days of recreation granted to enslaved people. Therefore, Pinkster as a celebration of African and Afro-American culture in particular has also spread to neighboring countries, especially Virginia where it was popularized by the large number of Afro-Virginian repatriates from the United Provinces and is a public holiday in the Gullah Free State.

June 23-24:
Saint John’s Day (and Eve) or Midsummer has come to be regarded as the unifying cultural holiday of Francophone North America and as such is celebrated in Canada, Louisiana, and the Acadia region of New England with bonfires, fireworks, dancing, and the originally Acadian custom of the tintamarre, a parade in which the participants make noise with improvised noisemakers. Midsummer and the tintamarre in particular. Midsummer as celebrated in the Scandinavian style, notably featuring maypole dancing in addition to bonfires and other festivities, is also one of the major public holidays in New Sweden and is celebrated to a lesser extent in the rest of the United Provinces. In addition it is celebrated as Kupala in Alyeska, much of which has nearly twenty-four hour sunlight during this time of year, lending itself to all-night festivities such as the famous White Nights in Novoarkhangelsk and Nikolaevsk as well as more traditional Slavic customs like the throwing of wreaths into bodies of water.

July or early August:
The Green Corn Festival, known by different names in different indigenous languages but most commonly Puskita from the Muskogean, is the traditional four-day celebration of the corn harvest by eastern and southern indigenous tribes, and is currently a national public holiday in Florida and a regional public holiday among the Iroquois in the United Provinces. Traditional observances include ritual dances such as the stomp dance, the offering of the first fruits in a ritual fire, and fasting until the feast of the third day. In Florida in particular, Puskita has become the major national celebration of indigenous culture.

September or October:
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, are public holidays across much of the United Provinces and in some parts of Canada due to those areas’ large Jewish populations. In addition, Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, while not an official public holiday, has become a major Jewish cultural festival, with sukkah booths being erected across major cities and hosting festive activities.

October 9:
Leif Erikson Day commemorates the discovery of North America by Viking navigators and as such is a celebration of Scandinavian culture and heritage and an official public holiday in New Sweden, where it is particularly associated with the New Sweden nationalist and separatist movement, as well as unofficially in other Scandinavian communities. It is marked with Scandinavian folk customs such as dancing and food as well as occasionally by Viking reenactments.

October 12:
Columbus Day is celebrated as a national namesake day in Columbia, where it has also become a rallying point for opposition by the indigenist movement, whereas in New England it has become a celebration of Italian heritage in particular and Catholic immigrant heritage more broadly in the context of the Catholic civil rights movement (it is also, to a lesser extent and without the political baggage, celebrated as an Italian heritage festival in other parts of North America). It is marked officially in Florida, and unofficially by Hispanophone activists in California, as Dia de la Raza, honoring pan-Hispanic solidarity and the mix of European, African, and indigenous cultures that combined to form the modern Ibero-American identity.

October 31-November 2
This period of the year features a number of holidays related to remembrance of the dead. On October 31, Anglophone countries celebrate Halloween, derived from All Hallows’ Eve and Celtic traditions of Samhain (although by now it has mostly become a secular celebration), with costumes, trick-or-treating, drinking and other revelry, and an emphasis on macabre themes. Francophone countries emphasize Toussaint on November 1, in which families visit cemeteries and leave candles chrysanthemums on their loved ones’ graves. Toussaint has also been adopted as a major holiday in Louisiana’s Vodou religion due to the syncretism between saints and loa and as such is an important date for the performance of Vodou religious ceremonies. In California Dia de Muertos on November 2, combining All Souls’ Day and pre-colonial indigenous Mexican traditions, has become popular - contrary to popular belief it is not really a legacy of the Mexican founders of California but of more recent Mexican immigration.

November 5:
Pope Night in New England is celebrated largely by working-class Protestants with riotous processions culminating in the burning of effigies of the pope. This has naturally been a major annual flashpoint of sectarian tensions, and efforts have been made to convert it into the tamer and less sectarian Bonfire Night, with only some success.

November 30:
Saint Andrew’s Day is an official public holiday in the Nova Scotia province of New England and an unofficial one among Scottish communities elsewhere celebrating Scottish culture and heritage, marked with the playing of bagpipes, Highland dancing, wearing of tartan, and consumption of Scottish cuisine such as haggis and Scotch whisky.

Late November:
Thanksgiving is the one secular holiday shared by all Anglophone countries in North America, deriving from colonial-era harvest festivals. It is most notably celebrated with family gathering and feasting, especially on autumnal and indigenous North American ingredients such as pumpkin, cranberry, and especially turkey, along with parades, rugby games, and other observances. It is held on the last Monday in November in New England and Columbia and the last Thursday in November in Virginia, California, and Newfoundland, and is seen in those countries as the start of the winter holiday season.

December 5-6, 13:
The winter holiday season in the United Provinces is marked by Saint Nicholas’ Day on December 5-6 and Saint Lucia’s Day on December 13. Saint Nicholas’ Day and its Eve are marked by parades portraying the arrival of Saint Nicholas and his helpers the blackface figures of Zwarte Piet (an annual point of controversy), who then supposedly distribute gifts to children and families, making this the main gift-giving holiday of the year, along with spiced cookies. Saint Lucia’s Day is celebrated by Swedish-speakers with pageants to select a Saint Lucia and her court from the teenage girls of the community who then go on a candlelight procession singing carols and handing out saffron buns; Luciadagen is considered an iconic symbol of New Sweden.

December 16-24:
Meanwhile a notable Hispanophone pre-Christmas celebration is the series of festive processions known as Parrandas in Florida and Posadas in California. Posadas are re-enactments of Mary and Joseph’s search for shelter accompanied by caroling while Parrandas are more festive and carnivalesque, with floats, dance music, and fireworks.

December 25:
Christmas is an official public holiday in every country in North America (although in Alyeska it is celebrated on January 7 rather than December 25 due to the Orthodox Church using the Julian rather than Gregorian calendar).

December 26:
Boxing Day is a public holiday in New England, Newfoundland, and Columbia, while Saint Stephen’s Day is a public holiday in the United Provinces.

December 31:
New Year’s Eve is a popular occasion for celebration and revelry in every country in North America.

 

[Keperry]

Here's South Asia! It may not be my prettiest map but it gets the job done.

The colonization of the Indian subcontinent was more diffuse in this continent, with Dravidia (formerly Coromandel) going to the French, and Malabar and Ceylon going to the Dutch, while the British took the former Mughal lands of northern India as they did in OTL, with Hyderabad and Mysore remaining as buffer states between them, while Portugal retains Goa and Denmark retains the Andaman Islands to this day.

As a result the British portion of India doesn't develop a sense of pan-Indian national identity and more regional nationalisms arise among the Bengalis, Assamese, Sikhs, as among northwestern Muslims as in OTL, while a number of princely states such as Kashmir, Junagadh, and Manipur remain independent. Dravidia also develops a strong sense of nationalism and after independence begins a campaign to unite all the Dravidian speaking lands under its banner, invading Ceylon and occupying its Tamil inhabited northeast as well as sponsoring insurgencies among the Hindu majorities of Hyderabad and Mysore against their Muslim monarchies (and in turn becoming a proxy war with Hindustan). Kashmir faces a mirrored situation, with a Muslim majority contending against a Hindu monarchy, while Assam is also afflicted with ethnoreligious conflict as the mostly Christian ethnic minorities along its borders fight for independence from the Hindu center. Meanwhile Bengal, despite being split between Hindus and Muslims, has remained remarkably stable, united by a shared sense of ethnolinguistic identity.

South Asia today is a developing region defined by increasing urbanization and industralization and by significant gaps in wealth and development within and between countries. Hindustan remains the dominant power in terms of politics, economics, and culture, though it is effectively counter-balanced by the three point bloc of Pakistan, Bengal, and Dravidia (who, combined, make up around two-thirds of the population of Hindustan), on the few occasions when they can agree at least. There have been some efforts towards regional integration, although fear of Hindustani hegemony by the other countries and a sense of everyone else being against them on Hindustan's own part have prevented most substantial measures so far.

 

[Keperry]

It's time for more flags so I hope you all like crescents!

Here are the flags of the Middle East and South Asia, as you've seen the maps for; Central Asia is still subject to change and should be taken with a grain of salt.

 

[Keperry]

And more flags, this time of the southern half of Africa!

 

[Keperry]

That's right, folks, it's yet another collection of flags, this time of Southeast Asia (map coming soon), Australia, and Oceania!

Note that some things are still subject to change (in particular some monarchies may become republics) and Papua on the world map is now out of date and will be edited.

 

[Keperry]

Mainland Southeast Asia, writeup TBD.

 

[Keperry]

Many countries in North America follow an essentially three-party system (right/center/left, conservative/liberal/socialist, blue/yellow/red), with additional smaller parties catering to specific interests.

New England
Conservative Party: One of the two traditional parties of the Anglo-Protestant “Yankee” ascendancy, It supports stronger ties and identification with the Commonwealth and is skeptical of North American integration, though a split is emerging as some factions of the party have become more open to it. Fiscally conservative and aligned with big business interests by nature, though they seem to have accepted many of New England’s welfare programs as a fait accompli, and mostly liberal on a number of social issues such as gay rights and abortion, though taking a much harder line on issues resolving around preserving New England’s British-aligned and monarchic national identity.

Liberal Party: The other party of the Yankee ascendancy, though tending to take a softer line on it than the Tories, and defined by social and economic liberalism. Strongly in favor of North American integration and also in favor of Commonwealth ties; bridging this divide has been tricky. Throughout much of the mid-20th century it seemed to be in terminal decline caught between the Tories and Labor, but its fortunes shifted with an influx of socially liberal and otherwise moderate Labor voters following the discord on the left in the 1980s, and it now contains both Yankees and Catholics.

Labor Party: The left-wing party traditionally campaigning for socioeconomic equality for the working class and sociopolitical equality for Catholics, and traditionally supported by those two largely overlapping constituencies. After the Catholic Civil Rights Movement that had been uniting it largely succeeded in the ‘60s and ‘70s it faced tumultuous internal debates over social issues and North American integration through the turn of the millennium, causing it to lose many voters and almost splinter before it stabilized as socially liberal, open to bilingualism, pro-North American, and Commonwealth-skeptical but mostly disavowing explicit republicanism, allowing it to gain back ground both with its traditional Catholic base and with Yankees too far left for the Liberals but not far left enough for the Greens.
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Unionist Party: A hard-right party associated with opposition to the Catholic movement, especially in the northern provinces. Its name refers to its support for stronger unions between New England’s provinces and opposition to separatism (particularly Acadian) and bilingualism, as well as its support for a stronger union with Britain and the Commonwealth; it is hostile to North American integration. It has religiously conservative Protestant elements (absorbing those dissatisfied with the Tories’ social liberalization) although they have diminished in recent years.

Christian Democratic Party: The most Catholic party of the Catholic movement, formed as an offshoot of Labor by those unwilling to move left of the Church’s positions on gay rights, abortion, and the like. Socially conservative, economically leftist, anti-Commonwealth, and ambivalent on North America.

Republican-Greens: A collection of far-left elements including the economically and socially leftmost faction of the Catholic movement, overlapping with the French and Gaelic language rights movements of the north, as well as Yankee leftist factions such as environmentalists and socialists. As the name suggests it favors New England cutting ties with the Commonwealth and becoming a republic, though it’s tended to be skeptical of North American integration as well.


United Provinces
National Party: The right-wing party with its base among mostly rural Dutch-speaking white Protestants, favoring social and fiscal conservatism, ethno-linguistic nationalism including supremacy of the Dutch language and Protestant Christianity, and centralism over federalism. Was dominant during the 1970s but fell from grace due to its unpopular aggressive foreign policy, especially its support of the apartheid government in Transvaal and disastrous military intervention in Evenaar and Palmares, ushering in Social Democratic rule and the current era of multiculturalism. The received wisdom is that it was bound to fade away after this but it has instead enjoyed a revival in recent years based on populist opposition to immigration and North American integration while downplaying its previous religious streak.

Liberal-Conservative Party: Traditionally associated with the urban bourgeois and supporting social and economic liberalism. A strong supporter of North American integration and the neoliberal consensus associated with it, while still holding out hope for a continued role for the United Provinces at the helm of the Dutch-speaking world, particularly through involvement in South America (as opposed to the NP which once held this position but has become more isolationist). Occupying a middle ground in the multiculturalism debate, favoring an inclusive civic nationalism over either Dutch ethno-nationalism or an outright multi-national model, tied in with federalist support for more powers for the provinces.

Social Democratic Party: The left-wing party based in the urban working class, some educated elites, and ethnic and religious minorities and traditionally supporting social liberalism, the labor movement, and the welfare state. In recent decades it has become the standard-bearer for multiculturalism, envisioning the United Provinces as a country of many peoples, languages, and religions rather than a homogeneous nation-state and supporting policies like multilingualism and openness to immigration as a result, while somewhat paradoxically shying away from supporting provincial federalism or more outright autonomy for the provinces. One recent schism in the party has been between environmentalists and labor factions defending the coal industry.
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Christian Democratic Party: An offshoot of the National Party that rebelled against the larger party’s downplaying of religion, farther to the left economically and farther to the right on social issues, particularly religious ones; unlike its counterparts in many North American countries it substantially includes both Catholics and Protestants rather than just one or the other.

Party for New Sweden: A broad collection of those from across the political spectrum who desire more autonomy or outright independence, averaging out to populist social-democratic-leaning but with an anti-immigration tendency (on the grounds that immigration “dilutes the national character of New Sweden”). Its signature issues are support for provincial devolution and increased federalism, and Swedish language rights and protections.

Longhouse Movement: The autonomist-and-separatist party of the Haudenosaunee, more coherently left-wing than New Sweden’s and with strong ties to North America’s broader indigenist movement. In addition to provincial devolution and Iroquois language rights the party is also concerned with land rights and environmentalism. Both separatist parties tend to form coalitions with each other despite their political differences as well as with whichever major party is willing to grant them concessions.

Green Party: Your standard leftist environmentalist party, seemed to have been made obsolete by the Social Democrats but enjoying a new resurgence from Social Democrats dissatisfied with the coal unions’ continued grip on that party.


Canada
National Union: The descendant of constitutional monarchist factions such as the Feuillants and Orleanists, the party dropped its support for monarchism by the mid-19th century but continued to adopt other conservative positions, particularly anti-secularism and support for the Catholic Church, with the latter inspiring it to take a harder conservative line on social issues as well as a softer line on economic issues with greater openness to government involvement and redistribution, relative to other conservative parties in North America. Associated with rural interests and religious rural voters. Emphasizes ties to the Francophone world over North American integration and is split on the latter, with factions both for and against.

Liberal Republican Party: The descendant of moderate republican factions such as the Girondins, and like them strongest among the secular urban bourgeoisie; sees itself and Canada as a whole as the inheritors of the French Revolution and its values moreso than the other parties. Based on this it has advocated for an active foreign policy positioning Canada as the leader of both North America and the Francophone world, for a middle-way social market economy, and for social liberalism including immigration and secularism, although more on the basis of individual religious freedom compared to the Radical Republicans’ more aggressive laicite.

Radical Republican Party: Originally the descendant of radical liberal-republican factions, then became influenced by socialism and over time drifted into the position of the head party of Canada’s social democratic movement. Strongest among the urban working class and defined by its support for a welfare state and economic redistribution, and social liberalism, particularly anti-clericalism and support for French-style laicite, while being more skeptical of immigration (on the basis of its supposed challenge to social cohesion) and North American integration (on the basis of its neoliberalism).
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Monarchist Union: The splinter of the National Union that remained monarchist after the 19th century, spent much of the 20th century in the political wilderness for lack of a compelling royal claimant but since the restoration of the monarchy in Louisiana in 1975 they have enjoyed a small resurgence, calling for Canada to be united with Louisiana under an Orleanist monarchy or else for an Orleanist cadet branch to take a new Canadian throne. They have often been seen as far-right and associated with ultranationalist and Catholic fundamentalist views but have lately taken pains to rebrand as a more moderate right-leaning populist party.

Conservative Party: An attempt to create a more Anglophone-style conservative party - more secular and focused on free market economics than the National Union. So far it’s been much more popular with think tanks than with voters.

Party for Indigenous Sovereignty: The Canadian manifestation of the indigenist political movement, focused on greater autonomy, self-determination, and land, language, and cultural rights for indigenous peoples as well as environmentalism and economic redistribution. Its greatest success so far has been convincing the government to carve out autonomous regions for the Inuit in Nunavik and the Cree in Eeyou Istchee, and it now seeks to repeat that with the Anishinaabe although this may prove much more difficult as the Anishinaabe homeland is much more centrally located and densely populated with white Canadians. The party has tended to have an ambivalent relationship with the Metis, often excluding them from its definition of indigenous people, but has lately devoted a lot of energy to trying to court them.

Socialist Labor Party: An attempt to outflank the Radical Republicans from the left that briefly posed them a serious challenge in the 1970s before being beaten back down and persisting to this day as a radical fringe. Particularly associated with support for the Acadian insurgency in New England and often under law enforcement investigation for that reason.

 

[Keperry]

In theory this should be a wikibox of the national symbols of the countries of North America, if the resolution weren't unreadably bad for some reason? Ah well, enjoy squinting at this! Many of the coats of arms are placeholders and not the canon versions, not that I can make any of the details out anyway.

 

[Keperry]

Surprise, this timeline isn't dead! Here's Australia and Melanesia! (yes, this is a retcon of the previous Australia map)

 

[Keperry]

 

[Keperry]

 

[Keperry]

The post-war Canadian mandate over France expired in 1970, giving France control over its own constitution again. This allowed challenges to the federal system that had been imposed at the end of the Second Great War: in one direction, the "One France" campaign to abrogate federalism entirely and return to a centralized unitary government, especially popular in the Langue d'Oil speaking northern half of the country, and in the other direction movements for further autonomy or full independence in regions speaking other languages such as the six Occitan provinces and Brittany. The centralist effort soon coalesced around attempting to unify all of the Oil-speaking provinces into one, with the hopes that this would create a province large and powerful enough to provide critical mass for dominating the others and ending the federal system. This movement was often nationalist in tone and had echoes of the Maurras regime, alarming many and further inflaming separatist sentiment. In the south in particular this sparked a movement to join all the Occitan provinces into one as a counterweight to the northern megaregion - and, it was widely understood, to create a province with the critical mass to declare independence.

Neither referendum lived up to the greatest hopes of its supporters or the greatest fears of its opponents, with the new northern region failing to gain enough territory to be politically or demographically dominant over the rest of the country (supporters allege that this was due to the federal government controversially barring the Federal District of Paris from taking part in the referendum, although most argue that it would have voted against it anyway) and the new southern region failing to gain enough territory to have an economically or geographically viable base for independence. Outlying provinces with large populations and stronger regional identities narrowly chose to maintain their autonomy over joining in broader nationalist projects.

In the long run the new northern province, dubbed the "Pays Francien", has remained a heavy hitter in national politics, but ironically contrary to the intentions of its initial proponents has done a great deal to further the idea that the identity centered around Standard French, Paris and the Loire, and royal and revolutionary history is not the defining identity of the whole of France but merely one among many in a "nation of nations". Meanwhile, Occitan unification and separatism have remained on-and-off hot-button issues in Occitania proper, Provence, and Gascony alike, and Occitan nationalist parties regularly compete with the nation-wide parties in these provinces.

The federal government refused to allow or recognize outright referendums on secession, but several provinces were motivated to hold these anyway in the swelter of nationalism and regionalism that sprang up around the official referendums. A majority of those who voted in the Breton referendum in 1979, a year before Occitania's, voted for independence, but the anti-independence side boycotted the vote, causing it to fall below the required turnout threshold set by the provincial government and a great deal of contention about the legitimate outcome. An immediate secession crisis was avoided but violence ensued, becoming a long-running separatist insurgency. Arpitania and Picardy held referendums at about the same time as Occitania's on the possibility of joining their linguistically similar neighbors Romandy and Wallonia respectively, but perhaps scared by the chaos in Brittany the voters in these regions rejected both referendums (Romandy indicated that it would not recognize a "yes" result anyway, while Wallonia was tactfully ambiguous).

 

[Keperry]