Lyndon Baines Johnson is a delegate to the All-Regional Congress representing the California Socialist Republic, the current leader of the People's Party in the ARC, and former Speaker of the All-Regional Congress. The son of Samuel Ealy Johnson Jr, a Populist representative from Texas during the waning days of the United States and delegate to the Second Constitutional Convention who had been forced to flee Texas with his family during the Texan Counterrevolutionary War who went on to serve as a delegate representing California in the ARC, Johnson briefly became a high school teacher in southern California before following the example of his father and getting involved in state Populist politics after graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles, being elected to the All-Regional Congress in 1935. A committed De Leonist, Johnson was an ambitious and bold delegate who often put himself at odds with the Parsons Revolution, arguing that a dictatorship of the proletariat that efficiently took advantage of central planning was necessary to strengthen the American economy and develop infrastructure while increasing military spending was necessary to spread the socialist revolution in the face of the German Empire during the First Great Struggle. Throughout the 1940s, Johnson jockeyed for influence within the ARC Populist caucus, being elected to the position of All-Regional Congressional Minority Leader in 1945 and becoming Speaker of the All-Regional Congress two years later in a coalition with the Democratic Centralist Party following the defeat of the Socialist Laborite majority that had held since the 1930s. As Speaker of the ARC, Johnson was one of the paramount officials of the Cooperative Commonwealth during the Global War, being an enthusiastic advocate for decisively defeating Germany and her allies abroad while being one of Long's closest allies in getting his agenda passed domestically. Under Johnson's watch, the People's Party managed to gain an outright majority in seats in the All-Regional Congress in 1953 thanks to the popularity of Long during the Global War, giving Johnson a degree of power unique in the Sixth Party System. Johnson was forced into a coalition with the DCP yet again in 1959 and ultimately lost control of the ARC in 1961. Following the 1963 and 1965 elections, the People's Party has become the third largest party in Congress, and Johnson has been reduced to the junior partner of the growing DCP. As of 1965, Johnson has become one of the most controversial politicians in America. On the one hand, Johnson is viewed by his supporters as a remarkably effective and assertive legislator, a passionate fighter carrying on the legacy of President Long, a patriotic De Leonist, and a hero of the international socialist revolution. On the other hand, Johnson's detractors, particularly amongst the SLP, view him as a narcissistic career-obsessed politician with a tendency to intimidate political opponents, one of the greatest threats to the legacy of Lucy Parsons and Dorothy Day, and a hawkish advocate for red imperialism, especially after he endorsed Rustin's foreign policy in both East Africa and New Zealand. Johnson had initially considered running for president in 1965, but ultimately decided against it, instead throwing his weight behind Governor Huey Long III of Louisiana.
Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr is a delegate to the All-Regional Congress representing Massachusetts and the current vice president-elect for the incoming Wallace administration. The eldest son of Joseph P Kennedy Sr, a leading member in the Cooperative Commonwealth's Irish Catholic community in the 1920s and 1930s and influential bureaucrat within the Industrial Federation of Film Workers, Kennedy had been groomed from his father at a young age to run for the presidency after an assortment of scandals and controversial statements made by Kennedy Sr ruined his own aspirations for higher office. Kennedy attended Harvard College starting in 1933, but ultimately enlisted in the People's Continental Army in 1937 following the beginning of American intervention in the Spanish Civil War. Upon returning from service in the armed forces in 1939, Kennedy resumed his studies and ultimately graduated from Harvard Law School in 1943, however, the popularity of incumbent President Dorothy Day, herself a Catholic, within the Massachusetts Irish Catholic community, meant that the Democratic Centralist Party failed to gain any seats in the republic's delegation to the All-Regional Congress in 1945, which meant that Kennedy had to wait until 1947 to win public office as a delegate to the ARC. As a delegate, Kennedy grew to become deeply popular within the Democratic Centralist Party for his charisma, ability to appeal to Catholic voters even as the demographic increasingly became a key component of the Socialist Laborite coalition, and ability to appeal to all three wings of the DCP (the Dixiecratic Centralists, a socially conservative faction popular in the Bible Belt and Great Plains that was increasingly overtaking the party, the Old Guard, the historical founders of the party nominally still led by ARC Caucus Leader Leon Trotsky that strictly adhered to Marxism-Leninism and Trosky's ideal of a "permanent revolution", and the Technocrats, a fringe but nonetheless influential wing of the party that was especially popular in the Northeast and West Coast and advocated for treating economic and social governance like a scientific problem and placing unelected meritocratic engineers in positions of power). Outside of the DCP, however, Kennedy was often viewed controversially, largely due to his support of eugenics, tendency to make anti-semitic statements, and support for more authoritarian measures to quell domestic opposition, particularly during the Global War. Nonetheless, Kennedy's vocal support for the American war effort against Germany made earned him the reputation of a patriot, and by the time the Treaty of San Francisco had been signed in 1955, Kennedy had risen through the ranks of the DCP, second only to Caucus Leader Harry Byrd in terms of ARC delegation leadership. Kennedy briefly ran in the 1961 Democratic Centralist presidential primary but quickly dropped out as his support was cannibalized between the conservative Joseph McCarthy and technocratic Howard Scott, and instead of repeating his mistakes from 1961 in 1965, Kennedy instead became an early backer of Florida Governor George Wallace's bid in return for the vice presidency, believing that such a position would poise him to be the natural heir to the leadership of the party after the end of the Wallace administration. On the campaign trail, Kennedy largely backed Wallace's socially conservative and authoritarian platform of escalating involvement in the New Zealander Civil War, promoting "Christian working-class family values" domestically, and being tougher on crime, while particularly emphasizing his support for more punitive measures towards substance abuse and using state power to investigate and punish "counterrevolutionary activity". Following Wallace's victory in March 1965, Kennedy has largely been credited for increasing voter turnout for the DCP from Catholics and appealing to voters for Howard Scott's splinter ticket.
John Michael Kennedy is an actor, editorialist, and the second eldest son of Joseph Patrick Kennedy Sr. As a child, Kennedy suffered from several medical ailments, many of which would plague him throughout the rest of his life, and was often overshadowed by his ambitious older brother, Joseph Jr. Nonetheless, Kennedy managed to overcome the worst of his health complications and enrolled in Harvard College in September 1936, and went on to produce that year's annual "Freshman Smoker", which was lauded by a handful of reviewers and, alongside his father's involvement within the Industrial Federation of Film Workers, inspired Kennedy to consider a career in acting. Upon graduating from Harvard with a major in dramatic arts and a minor in political science, Kennedy went on to move to Fort Lee, New Jersey, the "motion picture capital of America", in the 1940s and worked a series of jobs in both film production and acting before assuming his first role in 1947's The Lady from Munich, a noir film directed by Orson Welles in which Kennedy played an Irish-American whose wife is eventually revealed to be a deep-cover spy for the German Empire. Kennedy's performance was widely acclaimed and, in part thanks to the connections of his father, ultimately became one of the most popular American actors of the 1950s, notably starring in a plethora of propaganda films produced by the American military during the Global War. Kennedy married actress Nancy Davis in 1952, who has often been credited for Kennedy becoming more vocally socially conservative throughout the 1950s. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Kennedy oftentimes wrote editorials in a variety of papers, particularly on foreign policy, and championed American interventionism to proliferate the "permanent revolution", advocated for increasing American military buildup to combat capitalist states internationally, and applauded the Long administration's commitment to a decisive victory over the German Empire and her allies. While much more apolitical than the rest of his family, Kennedy's knowledge in foreign policy caused President Douglas to offer him the ambassadorship to Puerto Rico, however, Kennedy declined the offer due to health complications in the late 1950s. Despite such complications, Kennedy has remained a prominent actor and prolific writer, and as his health problems have begun to subside, there is talk that President-Elect Wallace is contemplating appointing Kennedy as his administration's ambassador to Cuba.
Ronald Wilson Reagan is an actor, most recently having been cast in the role of Captain Robert April in Gene Roddenberry's science-fiction television show Final Frontier. The son of religious yet socially progressive parents who were supporters of the Socialist Labor Party during the early years of the Cooperative Commonwealth, Reagan adopted many of his parents' political views, describing himself as a "Catholic anarcho-syndicalist" throughout his career, regarding President Lucy Parsons as "a true hero", and eagerly campaigning on behalf of President Dorothy Day in both 1945 and 1949. After graduating from Eureka College as a middling student in 1932, Reagan briefly became a sports announcer for the California Broadcasting Service, which was under the management of the Industrial Federation of Radio Communications of California and was one of the first republic television channels in the country as the mass consumer appeal of televisions caused several republics and local radio communications industrial federations to invest in the production and distribution of television infrastructure starting in the late 1920s. The Parsons Revolution and the passage of the Third Amendment in particular opened up a plethora of new career opportunities for Reagan as national filmmaking and broadcasting collectives independent of the national industrial federations began to emerge, with Reagan managing to star in his first lead role in 1939's La Semaine Sanglante, which was produced by the anarchist-leaning Haymarket Filmmakers' Association and was a melodrama in which Reagan depicted an anarchist fighting and ultimately dying in the defense of the 1871 Paris Commune. Throughout much of his career, Reagan stayed associated with Haymarket, in large part due to shared political views, and Haymarket's 1942 "Gilded" film (an American film genre that became increasingly popular in the 1940s and 1950s that generally depicted ragtag underdog union workers during the pre-Second Revolution Gilded Age collaborating together to fight back against capitalist tyranny) The Red Knights, in which Reagan played a Knights of Labor organizer who helps organize a diverse band of scrappy coal mine workers living on a company town in Kentucky to victory against an attack by Pinkerton agents, particularly contributed to winning Reagan national stardom. By the time the Global War broke out in 1949, Reagan was one of the country's most popular actors and used his fame to protest the conflict despite such a stance quickly becoming an unpopular view, and as the war dragged out Reagan protested the use of chemical weapons by both sides and the implementation of conscription by the Cooperative Commonwealth. While such statements were controversial, Haymarket continued to back Reagan, and Reagan was cast as the host for Haymarket's America Tonight! Starring Ronald Reagan, which began airing in 1953 and was one of the the country's first late night talk shows. Reagan was America Tonight!'s host until 1960, using the position to jokingly report on current events, do comedy sketches, interview prominent public figures, and make fun of both the Long and Douglas administrations. After the end of the Global War, Reagan became particularly vocal against the usage of nuclear weapons, oftentimes using America Tonight! to call on an international treaty to ban the usage and development of such weapons. In 1964, television producer Gene Roddenberry cast Reagan to star in his upcoming science-fiction television show Final Frontier, which depicts the interstellar exploration mission of the CSS Buenos Aires, a 23rd Century starship of the utopian post-scarcity anarchist United Confederation of Free Planets. Recently premiering in late March 1965, Final Frontier has proven to be popular with audiences, and Reagan's lead role as Captain Robert April of the CSS Buenos Aires, a strategic and principled man who remains committed to the utopian ideals of the Free Planets despite his isolated deep space mission away from its worlds, has been critically acclaimed. Final Frontier's first season has yet to conclude airing, however, Reagan's popularity might just be getting started, even if your opinion on Reagan might be shaped by your political views.
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was a sociologist, revolutionary, and politician who was notable for serving as the governor of the Black Belt Republic, being an influential figure in its history since the establishment of the Cooperative Commonwealth. Born in 1868, Du Bois grew up during the waning days of the United States, being only nine years old when the Railroad Revolution of 1877 erupted throughout the country and galvanized the American revolutionary socialist movement. Du Bois grew up in Massachusetts but attended higher education at Frisk University, where he was both exposed to socialist theory firsthand and the systemic racism and authoritarianism throughout the Jim Crow Era Deep South. After attending Harvard University and the University of Berlin, Du Bois would move between several universities as a teacher before ultimately winding up at the historically black Atlanta University, from which he would study and write about racial inequality, civil rights, and class conflict, becoming an increasingly outspoken De Leonist during this time. By 1904, Du Bois had become a leading black thinker and civil rights activist, arguably overshadowed only by Lucy Parsons, and campaigned for Daniel De Leon's presidential bid against Benjamin Tillman (although he was open about the one-party regimes in the Deep South rendering campaigning in this particular region for De Leon effectively irrelevant). As the Second American Revolution broke out throughout the country, Du Bois partook in protests in Atlanta against the Supreme Court's overturning of De Leon's victory, and later against the American capitalist regime more generally, and endorsed the sustained uprisings against white supremacist rule and establishment of farming communes and cooperatives throughout the Black Belt during this time period, although Du Bois never participated in the armed confrontations between capitalist and socialist militias in Atlanta. Following the overthrow of the United States, Du Bois was elected to the Congress of the Provisional Government as an independent and spearheaded the establishment of the Black Belt Republic, arguing that the region was culturally distinct from white communities in the Deep South and required self-rule in order to end racial exclusion in the region and complete the revolution upending racial disparities first initiated by the Freedmen's Bureau. Du Bois played a critical role in the constitutional convention of the Black Belt Republic, and following its ratification, was elected its first governor as an independent endorsed by both the Populists and Socialist Laborites in 1906. As governor, Du Bois prioritized the monumental task of overcoming centuries of systemic racism through extensive wealth redistribution programs, the collectivization of sharecropping farms, funding public education, promoting industrialization in Black Belt cities, and establishing mutual-credit banks throughout the region. During the De Leon administration, Governor Du Bois was a key ally in coordinating federal efforts in combatting white supremacist terrorist cells, which were commonplace throughout the Deep South following the Second American Revolution. Even after the De Leon presidency, Du Bois remained an independent, unaffiliated with either the rival Populists or Socialist Laborites, but remained in good graces with both of their local wings. After serving for four terms, Du Bois opted not to run for the BBR governorship in 1922, and was succeeded by Socialist Laborite Hubert Harrison. Following his first tenure as governor, Du Bois would become a leading figure in the National Afro-American Council, the most prominent civil rights organization at the time, and eventually became the organization's president. During the 1920s, Du Bois utilized his position as leader of the NAAC to advocate for greater anti-discrimination laws and wealth redistribution to racial minorities while criticizing colonialism and warfare internationally, including American military interventions during the First Great Struggle. Du Bois condemned the American invasion of Canada, and the annexation of Canada in 1931 prompted him to ultimately register with the Socialist Labor Party. Du Bois went on to run for the Black Belt governorship yet again in 1934, defeating incumbent Populist Governor Cyril Briggs, serving until 1946 and becoming a pivotal ally of President Parsons' agenda, particularly the creation of mutual aid networks and localized control of natural resources and law enforcement. It was during this time period that the Freedman's Party, a black nationalist organization, grew into a dominant force in the BBR as a coalition of black nationalist Populists and Socialist Laborites alike. Du Bois ultimately lost the 1946 election to Freedman Paul Robeson and remained retired from politics thereafter, but was nonetheless politically active throughout the 1950s and 1960s, becoming controversial for his initial opposition to the Global War, a position he later amended as the Allied Powers prioritized decolonization in the African theaters. After the war, Du Bois became a prominent anti-war and anti-nuclear weapons activist, but became the subject of criticism nationally for his belief that the Empire of Japan, despite its liberal-vanguardist ideology, was a force for anti-imperialism due to its war against European colonies in the 1950s, and called on a detente in the Second Great Struggle where the Global War alliance between the two global superpowers would be maintained. WEB Du Bois passed away in 1963, having been a vocal supporter of President A Philip Randolph in his final years. A complex and controversial political leader, Du Bois is regarded as a champion of the civil rights movement and combatting the systemic racism left over from the days of the United States by his supporters and as an unpatriotic counterrevolutionary willing to submit to the demands of the Japanese sphere of influence by his opponents.
Barry Goldwater is an Arizonan politician and former pilot who has recently become a leading figure within the emerging liberal socialist movement, being the running mate of liberal socialist Milton Friedman in his recent 1965 independent presidential campaign. The son of a former department store chain owner from Phoenix, Goldwater's father remained bitter about the collectivization of the chain and its integration into the Industrial Federation of Retail Associates, despite remaining a prominent figure within the worker councils of his former stores, and this opposition to the central planning of the De Leonist economic system of the Cooperative Commonwealth was passed on to a young Barry Goldwater. Indeed, both Goldwaters were registered members of the Progressive Party, the last major political party in the CCA where opposition to socialism was still an acceptable political stance, until its collapse in 1932. Throughout the 1930s, as Goldwater became involved in the retail unions his father previously owned, ultimately being briefly elected to oversee the management of one in Phoenix, he gradually came to be more accepting of socialism than his father but remained an opponent to both central planning and government spending, believing that the American syndicalist economy should be liberalized into a market socialist arrangement and the various welfare and public works programs of the Cooperative Commonwealth should be significantly cut. Goldwater's unique and outspoken political views made him a prominent and controversial figure within both his own retail union and the Industrial Federation of Retail Associates of Arizona more generally, and after being ousted from union leadership in 1938, Goldwater took up commercial airline piloting as a career. It was also during this time period that Goldwater became involved in the civil rights movement spearheaded by individuals such as Du Bois, associating with NAAC members throughout the 1940s. Goldwater nonetheless remained interested in politics throughout the 1940s, and was elected to the Regional Congress of Arizona as an independent candidate in 1949, using his seat as a delegate to continue advocating for his market socialist stances, particularly emphasizing cutting the state's social safety net, deregulating worker councils and markets, and weakening the powers of both mutual aid networks and the industrial federations. Goldwater was a fringe candidate, adhering to views well outside of the political mainstream of the Cooperative Commonwealth, although he maintained a niche yet dedicated base of supporters that kept him in office, and his socially libertarian views often meant that he could loan a vote to the Socialist Labor Party. In 1959, Goldwater was elected to the All-Regional Congress of the Cooperative Commonwealth as an independent yet again, this time with the backing of Daniel De Leon University Professor of Economics Milton Friedman and his controversial fledgling movement of liberal socialism, an ideology that advocated for a return to classical liberal economics within a socialist context, where workplaces operating within a deregulated free market context would be democratically owned and managed by their workers, with Friedman arguing that such ideas were the most accurate interpretation of classical liberal thinkers and would promote economic prosperity and stability within the Cooperative Commonwealth. As such, liberal socialism advocated for a mass reduction in economic regulation and planning, substantially cutting the welfare, wealth redistribution, and other government spending programs that had been considered the norm in American politics since the Second Revolution, and limited state interference in economic or social affairs on any level or in any capacity. All of these positions were supported by Goldwater, and as such, the delegate eagerly ran on a platform of liberal socialist, being the sole self-declared liberal socialist within the General Congress of the Cooperative Commonwealth as of 1965. Now boasting a national profile, Goldwater became a much more notable and controversial figure, second only to Friedman in terms of prominent liberal socialists. His uniquely conservative economic views, as well as his advocacy for substantially reducing the military budget, reducing intervention abroad, and de-escalating the Second Great Struggle, made Goldwater an easy target for accusations of being a counterrevolutionary or asset of the Japanese, but a small dedicated contingent of supporters kept him in office throughout the Randolph administration. By 1965, the liberal socialist movement has slowly but surely grown, and in 1965 Milton Friedman opted to run for president, selecting Goldwater as his running mate. The independent presidential ticket handedly lost to more mainstream and organized candidates, but it nonetheless took up a decent chunk of the vote, and for the first time in its history, liberal socialist ideology is beginning to gain traction, both domestically and throughout the Socialist Sphere. There is now heavy speculation that Friedman is considering putting together the resources to build a Liberal Socialist Party, and should it gain any seats in the 1967 midterms, Goldwater would be the obvious choice to lead its delegation within the All-Regional Congress.