How the hell'd they manage to pull that off? And why wasn't a Democratic-Republican ticket possible?
The outgoing Democratic administration (that of Alfred Astaire) was very unpopular due to the Great Housing Crash of 2019, which led to the worst international economic crisis since the interwar Business Collapse.
To make a long story short, Senator George Novak of Ohio (Socialist), was very much an idealist. His vision of the future of the US was one without partisan divisions. Even in the midst of the Great Housing Crash, achieving this post-partisan triumph of the Moderate Majority remained Novak’s highest priority. Novak found, through years of correspondence, that he had a kindred spirit in Governor Phillip Wakefield of New Jersey (Republican).
Thus, the first fusion ticket, and fusion presidential administration, came to pass in 2020-2021. But there were a large number of Socialists and Republicans who were, to put it mildly, not happy by the decision made their respective party leaders, especially on the Socialist side of the aisle. The Socialist Party’s still largely working class base never embraced Novak’s apparent drive to “reform” long-standing labor and healthcare policies to meet Republican and Democratic Party demands, even as the effects of the Housing Crash refused to abate.
It did not take long for the Socialist Party base to turn against the nominal leader of their party, and it also did not take long for a new potential leader to emerge, a charismatic Socialist Party Representative who had cut his teeth in the Outer Boroughs of New York City. Once a marginal figure, Representative Charles Holst suddenly found himself with larger and larger audiences across the country. Holst was also the first major US politician to fully grasp the potential power and reach of OptyCon platforms on the ComboNet. Holst’s presence in the OptyCon online ecosystem, his wrathful bromides against the political and media establishment (especially an increasingly despised President Novak), and repeated promise for a “settling of accounts” with all those responsible for the Housing Crash would all be factors (among others) in his triumph in the 2024 elections. The 2024 elections would be viewed by future US historians as among the most tragic in US history.