The Reddit Model United States Government is an online forum based political role-playing simulation established in September 2014.
It is currently in its 119th Congress.
Unlike the real United States Government, the simulation uses a calculator to determine victors of elections, having gotten rid of 'first-past-the-post' manual voting on July of 2018, and a multiparty system rather than the traditional two-party system, although there have been spells where two major parties dominate the political landscape. As of the time of writing there is the traditional Republican and Democratic Party, alongside a Bull Moose Party and a Socialist Party.
Due to the various needs of a simulation of American government, there are multiple subreddits based on all branches of the U.S. and state governments, press institutions real and fake, and the various parties, not to mention other miscellaneous collections of information, although there is a main subreddit where most of the important subreddits are attached to. Some joke subreddits, including Model Holy See or Model I.S.I.S. have been made for the purposes of inside jokes.
ModelUSGov America has five States, each of them made up of a collection of the actual fifty states, called 'Provinces' in the simulation canon. These states are as follows, in no particular order: the Northeastern State, or Atlantic, the Eastern State, or Chesapeake, the Southern State, or Dixie, the Central State, or Great Lakes, and the Western State, or Sierra.
Each of these states are respectively based on the constitution of a single real state, for example, Dixie's state constitution is based off of Florida's, Atlantic's is New York, and so on.
The main subreddit can be found here, and the Beginner's Guide can be found here.
Tropes associated with Model US Gov:
- All Elections Are Serious Business: For the participants, anyway. Many cases of angry post-election claims of voter fraud and illegal campaign events have fraught every single election, and the role-playing part is taken relatively seriously, as certain comments made are considered part of the sim's canon.
- Alternate History: The short-lived spin-off sim, Model Confederacy, took place in a time where The American Civil War was won by the Confederate States of America. It took place in contemporary times, where slavery had been abolished anyways.
- The sim itself could be considered this, as it broke away from the timeline of reality somewhere around the year 2014, although a recent reset due to the accumulation of canon overwhelming new members and boring old ones had the new breakaway occur around October of 2018. However, occasionally, policy very obviously inspired or, at times, copied and pasted right from real policy, will be proposed.
- Attack of the Political Ad: Model U.S. Gov parties like to advertise on relevant political subreddits, often subreddits for the real counterpart to the sim's party. This was especially important during manual voting, when the amount of votes a party had could make or break an election results. However, some subreddits found this annoying, and have rules explicitly banning Model U.S. Gov from advertising there. Moreover, the end of manual voting has made this type of advertising less important for sim parties.
- Corrupt Politician: Even in the sim, scandals happen here and there, both before and after the reset. Ask any of the older members and they'll tell you about the Governor of Chesapeake potentially colluding with the President, or perhaps the Libertarian Party not-so-secretly negotiating with the Democratic Party only to be caught by the Republican Party through leaks from its own membership, exposed, and undermined by failing to commit to either. Meanwhile, the newer members will talk about the manhunt for an impersonator to the Undersecretary of the Department of Defense who went into hiding, was caught and sent to Federal prison for trial, supposedly died but definitely disappeared, and then reappeared only to occupy multiple positions in the Federal government and at the time of writing is the President's nominee for Secretary of State, not even mentioning the fact that two sitting Congressmen once brought what was later sorted out to be fake guns and even a bazooka into the halls of the Capitol building.
- The meta administration of the sim, although politically neutral, is not immune to this. Memories of 'the Onion Cabal', a time when Model U.S. Gov was run by a group of people who participated in the doxxing and threatening of multiple sim members and even caused an investigative committee and mass banning, remain a divisive and memorable topic for older members of the sim, while recent events include but are not limited to: the struggle for the position of Head Mod between a constitutionally-named successor and the Quadrumvirate which manages the administrative duties of the sim led to a three-day crisis where there was no sitting Head Moderator, dubbed 'the Nate Riots', constant conflict between the community and the moderators about what is and isn't being done "right" according to the multiple definitions of the word, and plenty of other instances. Is the meta administration corrupt? Likely not, but it sure is fun to believe so.
- Deep South: The Model Southern State, or Dixie, and Model Eastern State, or Chesapeake, encompass this region.
- Flyover Country: Basically the Model Central State, or Great Lakes. If your definition is more liberal, you could include parts of Model Western and Eastern State as well, or Sierra and Chesapeake.
- Fictional Political Party: Most parties have actual American counterparts historical or currently active, and are based on said counterpart's ideology for the most part, although it cannot be said that they are exactly the same. Throughout the sim, however, there have been parties with no actual real-life counterparts, including the now-defunct Distributists, Christian Union, and Silver Legion, based on the concepts of distributism, centrism, and fascism respectively.
- Fictional United Nations: The Model United Nations combines Model U.S. Gov, Model Germany, Model Canada, Model The Netherlands, Ireland, Australia, and Sweden. After certain disagreements, the Model United Kingdom left the Model World, and many of the listed nations have had their sims die out from lack of interest, leaving the Model United Nations a largely ignored but still very alive part of the canon Model World.
- My Country, Right or Wrong: The Silver Legion, a defunct fascist political organization, believed this and especially liked Benito Mussolini, even going so far as to base a large swathe of their platform on his policy.
- Privately Owned Society: When there was an active Libertarian Party, this was the main focus of their policy. However, because the Libertarian Party imploded from multiple crises, first into the Classical Liberal independent grouping which is the smallest rank possible for a party, then into nonexistence, many of those who have advocated this goal now reside in the Republican Party.
- The Silver Legion also used to advocate for this but for the purpose of furthering the power of the state.
- Religion Is Right: Many of the former parties, such as the Distributists and their smaller successors, the American Guild Party, the short-lived Monarchists, the Silver Legion, often used religion as their justification for their policy. Who was right was the subject of many a debate.
- United Nations Is a Superpower: Averted, The Model U.N. is much closer to the actual U.N., where member states vote on decisions and whatnot. In fact, this is so far from the reality of the situation that the Model U.N. is often seen as a running joke in decisions made by Model U.S. Gov.
