Very neat stuff regarding alternate elections, and I love all the alternate terminology, political issues, and ideologies! Would it be okay if we got a rundown of each of the FC’s political parties? Just because of how alien the ideologies are, I personally find it a bit hard to understand the stances of each group.
Ah I'm glad to you enjoy it; I love doing that sort of linguistic world building and having things develop in a more unique way. But obvious it is insanely confusing and thats a major concern for me writing it. I do realise I have slightly thrown people in at the deep end! Next thing will be a big ideology primer, I promise! Should be up within the week and should definitely make it all a little clearer. Hope this is still readable enough to be interesting
I explain some stuff below!
Trying to map the parties onto modern movements:
- the Levellers seem to be some kind of traditional center left party, that absorbed the left as it became more moderate, and thus has a Digger wing? Progressive and green values and some intervention in the economy, but probably only just
- the Freelanders seem to be a rural interests party that didn't end up coopted into a larger right wing party as it usually happens OTL, potentially because the commons evolved rather than being forcibly abolished and that gives them a stable base of support? They're probably socially conservative to some degree, hence the disagreement on PSP. No idea what disestablishment is.
- Alliance seem to be your bog standard fiscally conservative center right / neoliberals. Since they're not in power in the update, we have little information
We're left with three minor parties.
- The Tory revivalists are probably some right wing traditionalists? We don't hear anything about them so I'm just going with the name.
- Peoples and Nations seem to be a regionalist party of some sort? Probably supportive of devolution and reform of territorial administration. Not sure how they swing on social and economic issues yet.
- Forward March might be a sort of new leftwing movement? The Diggers drifting to the center and becoming the left wing of the Levellers probably leaves room for some sort of far left party.
Levellers absorbing the Diggers is really something which happened earlier, in the mid-late 2000s and their moderate turn comes after, though they retain the voters. Leveller and Digger are the closest as labels one can get to "Social Democrat" and "Socialist" respectively. They're economically interventionist but they're more interested in cooperatives and localist solutions than OTL lefties, prefering options like workplace democracy or creating mutuals to outright nationalisation.
Freelanders are a little more complex than just rural interests; they're Cultivarists which is a combination of agricultural rights, social conservatism and the core of green politics. Traditionally, they're explicitly anti-urbanisation and outright thinks towns and cities are a negative thing to be opposed at all costs. In addition to holding environmentalism very close to their hearts, they're also keen believers in animal rights and laws protecting the rights of animals (though, it should be noted, few are vegetarians). Cultivarists emphasise the land as the ideal and support sustainability, naturalism,
Alliance are broad tent; centre-left to right. I'll explain more about them soonish but they're really an umbrella for three or four distinct ideologies which are able to agree on enough policy to hang together.
Forward March are a group of Pokolenists who are really weird so they'll definitely need explaining later but the simplest way to put it for now is lefty academic technocrats who believe in generations as the core division in politics, just as say OTL Marxism sees class as the core division.
I know this is all a bit vague and maybe still confusing but I'll have that ideologies sheet up asap and then hopefully it'll all make more sense!
How are trans rights doing?
Ah this I'll respond to in more depth because I realise that might have seemed exclusionary! Trans rights are chugging along very comfortably, several decades ahead of where they are IOTL. ITTL, Trans Rights Movements actually develop out of campaigns for gender equality. Starting in nations which already had either some cultural acceptance of trans people already (
Sworn Virgins in the Balkans,
mashoga and
mabasha in East Africa, ect ect) and third genders such as
Hijras in South Asia and, across the Pacific,
the Mahu and
Fa'afafine. With no imposition of western social norms to many of these countries, the traditional acceptance of these genders sticks. As a result, non-binary and trans people in these nations tended allied with cis women demanding equal rights under the banner of "All Rights for All Genders" when TTL's First Wave of Feminism (probably not called that) rolls round in the mid 19th century. This soon comes to include all trans and non-binary people. As the 20th century rolls around and Trans people become more acknowledged in the west and elsewhere (in part because of these movements) the movement spreads even further. All Gender and PSP groups often work together and universities, schools, organisations and political parties usually have AG-PSP alliances or umbrella organisations.
In English, the term "Two Spirit" is adopted as the standard ITTL word for transgender, primarily because of the heavy contact between English speakers and the Haudanonsaunee, leading to trans people in the Atlantic Commonwealths and then in the FC adopting the term. Should also note; I'm aware that the line between some of these traditional genders being trans or being a "third gender" is complex, I think ITTL that distinction won't exist and the whole concept of gender will be a little more fluid by the 20th century.
Now disclaimer; this is not to imply in anyway that I don't feel Trans people are fully a part of the LGBT movement; I just wanted to consider how gender as a concept might be treated differently, particularly in a world with much more varied social and religious values compared to our own.
So "PSP" rights are doing well, about as well as in our own timeline, but "All Gender" rights which includes both feminism and trans rights are about a half century ahead.