TLIAW: Back in the USSA

America's Top Cop

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Richard Nixon (1982-1993)
American Socialist Party

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Richard Nixon was a historic selection to be Prime Minister. Having never been a proper member of Congress, many were hesitant at the decision, but the NBI Director was able to twist enough arms to outmaneuver the "dangerous reformer" Eddie Brown.

The real mystery lies in why the NBI Director sought to become Prime Minister. Some claim he had wanted the position to lead the nation his whole life, others claim the idea first sparked in his mind when his mentor and predecessor John Hoover had orchestrated the take-down of Prime Minister Wallace or when John Hoover almost sought the position himself in the wake of McGovern stepping down, and still others think that it was merely to prevent the radical Brown from ascending to be Prime Minister.

Nixon's rise was slow, being nearly seventy years old upon becoming Prime Minister. It had started in the thirties, after he became a special agent for the Bureau of Investigation. In the forties, he proved his worth by tracking down reactionaries and fascists such as actor Ronald Reagan and MacArthur sympathizer Barry Goldwater. After testifying several times to CASIC, his actions saw him promoted to an office based job in New York, where he quickly impressed NBI Director John Hoover with his genius and capability in handling massive amounts of information. He was taken under Hoover's wing and was the obvious successor when he died in 1971.

As Prime Minister, Richard Nixon was given an honorary seat in Congress and place on the Executive Council (eventually seeing McGovern step down as Chief Director in 1985 and allowing Nixon himself to fill the position). Despite the differing backgrounds, Nixon proved to be similar to Prime Minister Jackson before him, focusing his efforts on foreign policy and national stability more than anything else, especially after he gutted much of NSEA after American astronaut Jon Huntsman landed on the Moon in 1988.

His first mission was to oversee Brazil's victory in the Argentine-Brazilian War without letting the conflict flesh out into a conflict between Germany and the USSA. He negotiated for Angola, which had come under Communist rule during the Jackson Era, to be used as a staging ground and thus prevent Argentina from using South Africa as a base to attack from. As the war continued, Argentina continued her march northwards, but a dirty bomb used in 1983 stopped the Argentine Army in her tracks. Germany went to the ICN to get a condemnation of Brazil's use of nuclear material, but it was vetoed by America and Iran. A second dirty bomb detonated in Buenos Aires crippled the Argentine Government and allowed Brazil and the USSA to sweep in and install a puppet regime in 1985.

Prime Minister Nixon quickly had to turn his attention to the Middle East. Something which had only really been noticed when Germany tried to condemn Brazil's use of nuclear material was the growing rivalry between supposedly neutral Turkey and American ally Iran - which seemed to be driving Turkey into the hands of the Third Reich. And so Richard Nixon began funding Communist and Kurdish rebels in the country, a process overseen by Minister of Defense Oliver North. Turkey would erupt into Civil War in 1988, with semi-socialist Greece taking advantage of the chaos and taking some previously Turkish land. While Germany was angered by this, American hands were clean, and a united ICN force went into Turkey in 1989 to ensure stability. However, this forced Turkey out of the Permanent Defense Council, allowing it to be replaced by Brazil.

It was around that time in which Prime Minister Nixon began ardently funding Russian rebels based in the Urals who opposed the puppet state that Germany had installed in the country. While it wouldn't come to much during his tenure, when the funding was discovered to be coming by selling nuclear secrets to Egypt, a nationalist and capitalist state, it caused what today is known as the Cairo-Urali Scandal, which would cause a the first ever Vote of No Confidence to be made on a Prime Minister in 1991. Although it would fail, it made Prime Minister Nixon increasingly paranoid and saw him increasingly listen to Deputy Chief Director of the Executive Council Richard Cheney.

It was not soon after that the economy collapsed and investors pulled out of America. Although there were fears that this might lead to another Civil War as it had in the 1930s, Prime Minister Nixon exerted the remaining influence he had over the NBI to crack down on riots and ensure foodstuffs were distributed fairly, as well as to ensure workers kept performing their job, even with their wages diminishing. He would not have the country collapse on his watch.

Ultimately his last two years in office would prove uneventful due to his loss of much support after the Cairo-Urali Scandal. He would leave office in 1993, his retirement proving to be very well timed as he died in 1994, with people forever having a mixed opinion of him.
Did not expect Nixon to appear like that. :eek: AROOO! :D:p (Sorry, haha, couldn't resist.)
 
Interesting that Congress actually matters - sure, members who get too far out of line can be hanged, but power struggles and policy debates play out there rather than in some smaller politburo or central committee, and political disputes seem to be conducted very openly for a Soviet-style regime. Are there actual competitive elections for Congressional seats, at least within the party? If not, what power bases do individual Congressmen have that enables them to do something other than toe whatever line the current leadership draws?

It's also ironic that civil rights happened later in the USSA than OTL, which is something I can very easily see happening.
 
Did not expect Nixon to appear like that. :eek: AROOO! :D:p (Sorry, haha, couldn't resist.)

You picked him about twenty years early. :)

America is certainly feeling the Bern...

Bad pun is bad. :p

When shall the USSA come to a end?

It is possible that it may reform into something elese, but i think unless the next premir is a really bad one it wont collpse soon

I have plans, but I'm not sharing them as of yet. However, with the conservative faction within the ASP, it is largely a fight between reformers and liberals (liberals being more hardliners favoring the status quo and reformers, well, favoring reform).

Interesting that Congress actually matters - sure, members who get too far out of line can be hanged, but power struggles and policy debates play out there rather than in some smaller politburo or central committee, and political disputes seem to be conducted very openly for a Soviet-style regime. Are there actual competitive elections for Congressional seats, at least within the party? If not, what power bases do individual Congressmen have that enables them to do something other than toe whatever line the current leadership draws?

It's also ironic that civil rights happened later in the USSA than OTL, which is something I can very easily see happening.

Congress is unicameral, and America is a one-party state. Elections can get fairly competitive within the party, but not all our like that (especially as "corruption" is cracked down upon).

While the Prime Minister could in theory have a lot more power than they typically exercise, that restraint is more a holdover from America's democratic past (much like how the USSR IOTL stayed authoritarian in part because of the legacy of the Tsars) and the American culture. Furthermore, it is in some ways an insurance against civil unrest to give democratically elected (more or less) politicians some power.

And as for Civil Rights, I figured it would make sense for their to be an earlier push for it, but for it to actually take much longer in a more authoritarian America.
 
The Iron Lady

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Dorothy Ann Richards (2000-2002)
American Socialist Party

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Charming and charismatic in person, Dorothy Ann Richards proved to be ruthless in politics - always citing Prime Minister Lyndon Johnson as her biggest role model. And so it was with the retirement of PM Bernard Sanders that she finally decided to make her own play for the Prime Minsiter-ship. With Rick Perry out of her way, she had become the leader of the Texas Delegation within Congress, and quickly moved on up to become Prime Minister and the leader of the nation in early 2000.

As Prime Minister, she governed in much the same way that Prime Minister Sanders had done so before her, pushing a very liberal agenda focused on making the lives of individual Americans better, but at the same time she pushed for a hawkish agenda in terms of foreign policy, further ensuring United Socialist States hegemony over the Americas and Communist Africa.

The economy on the upward swing again, Prime Minister Richards would see to it that the USSA invested heavily in technology, trying to catch up to Germany's newly made service to connect computers into massive networks and the miniaturization that the Third Reich had begun for many of her technologies. Furthermore, Prime Minister Richards would invest heavily in healthcare technologies, even accidentally letting slip that American scientists were close on the heels of a cure for cancer.

With Britain having a self-proclaimed socialist as Prime Minister, Dorothy Richards was free to cozy up to the United Kingdom in a way that America hadn't done in decades. Together, the two nations would fund revolutionaries in France - a puppet state of Germany - and by the summer of 2002, riots had spread from the French countryside into the heart of Paris.

However, with the GICC terminated, her tough governing style proved to be too tough and made her too many allies. For the first time ever, a Prime Minister was ousted in a Vote-of-No-Confidence. This was triggered not by Gore, whom many thought ought to have been made Prime Minister had it not been for the Florida delegations betrayal of him, but by a different reformer who many said "came out of left field" in his attack on Prime Minister Richards.
 
The Quintessential Reformer

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Eddie Brown (2002-2003)
American Socialist Party

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Eddie Brown had left Congress in the eighties. Many had expected he would lead the country that decade, but NBI Director Richard Nixon had outmaneuvered him and cast him into the political wilderness. It was this time in the political wilderness that would shape Eddie Brown's thoughts in the coming decades.

After finally making it back to Congress during Prime Minister Sanders's crack-down on corruption, the former DPM kept a surprisingly low profile, shying away from media attention. Rather, he spent that time building allies that would help him make a bid for Prime Minister once Dorothy Richards stepped down. However, after seeing her tough governing style, he realizing deposing her more directly would give him a better mandate to accomplish what he wanted to do as Prime Minister.

When he finally arrived in the office, he immediately called for a Constitutional Convention to amend the Constitution that had first been drawn up in 1940. To rally public support behind this seemingly radical move, he selected DPM and fellow reformer Al Gore as the Director of the Convention. After months of discussing changes, the Convention finally presented an alternative which would be handed off to the states for ratification of the amendments. Though not everything would be accepted, such as the stripping of the power of the Governor of a state to replace Congressman who leave office early, Eddie Brown was able to see perhaps the most important amendment pass - the end of the single-party state.

Prime Minister Brown immediately called a snap election - it was the summer of 2003 - and the results proved transformational. However, the newly elected Congress was quick to vote out the American Socialist Party member.
 
The Patriotic Patriarch

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John Kerry (2003-2008)
Social Democratic Party
(Social Democratic-American Socialist Coalition)

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John Forbes Kerry would come to be known as the Father of New Democracy. A graduate of the United Socialist States Naval Academy in Annapolis, John Kerry had become a highly decorated and highly intelligent Marine General who spent most of his career in the 90s making himself known in many Washington circles. When America ended it's status as a single-party state, the Social Democratic Party quickly turned to the general to lead them once they had gained a plurality of the seats in Congress, hoping to prove themselves as the most patriotic party in selected a General to lead them.

As Prime Minister, John Kerry would oversee the creation and development of new government institutions to ensure the rights and freedoms of ordinary Americans, as well as overseeing the reigning in of the NBI and other paramilitary organizations within the United Socialist States. While he did keep the national guard deployed around the country, he was quick to dismiss officers that went out of line or abused their power. This liberalization and expansion of personal liberties is today considered a hallmark in USSA history and would lead to many entrepreneurs and innovators flock to the country, bringing with them a number of technological advances that saw the average lifespan of Americans shoot up from 68 to 74 over the tenure of Prime Minister Kerry alone.

Prime Minister Kerry also applied pressure across the globe for American allies to open up the politic system. While this was met with lots of praise from the United Kingdom and Iran, socialist governments in South America and Africa were uneasy about the possibilities that might emerge out of such liberalizations.

In some countries, such as Brazil and Kenya, the military took advantage of this pressure (perhaps seeing that Kerry had come from the American military) and overthrew the socialist government with promises of democratizing the country slowly. Prime Minister was weary of these claims and was quick to cut the aid to them, though his critics claimed this only hardened the military regimes.

In other countries, such as Argentina and Spain, the people quickly took to the streets demanding their personal freedoms respected and an opening of the political process, hoping that the Kerry Administration could help them pressure their governments into opening up. While Prime Minister Kerry would provide them aid (mostly coming from the aid that had stopped flowing to the newly-made military states), these countries would end up devolving into civil war after being oppressed under authoritarian states for so long.

Perhaps the only country that followed through with the pressures of the Kerry Administration would be Angola. Opening up the government and reigning in their police, Prime Minister Kerry rewarded the Angolan Government handsomely and called it a "beacon of hope in a region that severely needs a role-model". Prime Minister Kerry would become the first American Prime Minister to visit Africa in a formal visit to Angola in late 2006, congratulating them on all of their progress towards democracy.

Economically, Prime Minister Kerry worked hard to make it easier for Americans to create small businesses and help them run efficiently - he hoped deregulation and "economic democratization" would be the future of the country and help ensure America could compete with Germany (and the rising power on the horizon, China). While this would allow the economy to see growth rates over 5% for the first few years of his Prime Minister-ship, 2007 would see the world economy come to the brink. It started in Germany and Europe, but quickly spread to Britain and the United States - the systemic collapse of giant corporations, both private and public. The economic chaos that came in the wake of this would see the rise of domestic terrorism in Germany and America alike. In 2008, the Social Democratic Party would be voted out of office, with the American citizens hoping to go in a new direction.
 
The Man Who KO'd the Nazis

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Joseph Lieberman (2008-2011)
National Democratic Party

(National Democratic-Green-Republican Reformist Coalition)

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It seemed the entire world paused to think about what had happened when Joseph Lieberman had overseen the the establishment of a National Democratic headed coalition government in the United Social States of America. While every party, in the struggle to be the most patriotic, was vehemently opposed to the Nazi regime in Germany, for Joseph Lieberman, it was personal. Lieberman was Jewish, and America had become one of the last havens for Jews around the world after World War Two; the last protection they had against Germany.

Lieberman was elected on the promise to rebuild the American economy, but his attention turned elsewhere when, early in his tenure as Prime Minister, a rogue element in the German military detonated a nuclear weapon near Berlin. The German state soon collapsed as the remaining members of the Nazi Party and the German military tore the country into a bloody, multi-sided Civil War. In comment, PM Lieberman told the American media (public as well as private, ever since Kerry's liberalizations) that "those who suppress peaceful reform are those that make violent reforms inevitable" in a nod to former Prime Minister Eddie Brown's actions in the early 2000s.

Thus, Prime Minister Lieberman would largely let the recession run its course during his tenure, instead focusing on the establishment of a democratic France, as well as other states in Eastern Europe, carving up the former Germany into as many pieces as he could while sending in elite American military forces (with the help of the United Kingdom) to search out for the democratic factions within the German Civil War in order to attempt to create an American-friendly German state. Though the future of Europe seemed unclear, one thing was clear to the whole world - America was now the sole superpower and shouldn't be messed with.

However, his neglect for the economy proved disastrous to his image back at home. While the world rejoiced Prime Minister Lieberman's dismantling of the Third Reich, American citizens said he was as bad as President Garner had been. His tenure would not be ended by his party losing power or a Vote of No Confidence, however, but instead by a challenge within the National Democratic Party that would see Prime Minister Lieberman resign from Congress after his defeat.
 
The Young Rabble-Rouser Who Crossed the Line

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Christopher Christie (2011-2012)
National Democratic Party
(National Democratic-People's Nationalist Coalition)

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Christopher Christie represented a new generation of Americans and in particular was the most well-known conservative, ever since Prime Minister Sanders had cleared out many capitalists and reactionaries in American Government. Still an avowed socialist, as all main-stream politicians were, Christopher Christie devotedly defended small businesses and entrepreneurship he became known as a firebrand, and he had been selected to be a Deputy Prime Minister by Joseph Lieberman in part so that he could handle America's domestic affairs and to assuage the fears of the more conservative elements within the party. However, DPM Christie faced opposition to his agenda from the Green Party and Republican Reform Party DMPs, and had no support from the Prime Minister, who seemed to be preoccupied in Germany.

And so Christopher Christie challenged Joseph Lieberman to be leader of the National Democratic Party (which had become the main conservative party in the USSA) and won. The next challenged he had was in crafting a new coalition to govern the country. It was a race against the clock, and a Social Democratic led coalition nearly formed until a vote was forced, and Christopher Christie received the backing of the moderate People's Nationalist Party, electing him Prime Minister.

Immediately as Prime Minister he set about to cut regulations on small businesses in America and subsidizing entrepreneurs in various technology industries. Furthermore, he cut some funding here and there from a variety of social services (so as not to cause too much panic) so that he could "encourage" banks to invest in American business start-ups. (These actions would not be discovered until he was ousted as Prime Minister. While he would be pardoned by his successor, he would still resign from public office.) By the time elections were to be held in 2012 (which he intended to be a public referendum on his coup against Lieberman), it seemed the economy was in working order again and that he would be reelected, but the National Democratic Party and People's Nationalist Party would split too much of the same vote, causing a vast loss of seats for both parties and allowing a new coalition to emerge to lead the country forward.
 
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