Theodores Tomfooleries / Sandbox

2020

North America

United States

^{Organization of Free Nations}

Official Name: United States of America

Ruling Party: Republican-Democratic Coalition (Republicans)

Ideology: Paternalistic Conservatism^note Conservatism

The United States has lept into the 21st century stronger than other, with a global alliance of free nations united in prosperity and security. China has begun to eye America's sphere of influence across Asia however, while Germany's economic bloc still poses a threat to the United States.

Presidents

Donald Trump

Role: Head of State

Party: Republican Party

Ideology: Paternalistic Conservatism^note Conservatism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}What can be said about Donald J. Trump, CEO of the Trump Organization, former senator from New York and now Leader of the Free World, that hasn't been said already?

Trump, son of wealthy multi-billionaire Fred Trump, was born in the Queens borough of New York City in 1946, right after the loss of the United States to the Axis in World War II. By age 25 he was already the president of his father's multi-million dollar real estate company, and his father's wealth and his business connections allowed him to become one of the biggest names in New York and the wider East Coast through the building of a business empire. Trump's venture into politics, though long having had a period of political ambitions, began with his election to the New York Governorship in 2002. His governorship, combined with his popularity in the media, convinced the Republican Party to nominate him for President of the United States in 2012. 8 years later, Trump has certainly made a name for himself and has forever changed American politics.

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• Allohistorical Allusion:

Trump is still the populistic, bombastic personality he is in our own timeline, the only difference being that Trump moderated his image to serve as a more "big tent" figure rather than a hardline conservative.
Trump still ran for president in 2016 (although for a second term, as he was elected in 2012) and is currently in the last year of his presidency in 2020.

• Minor Major Character: Trump has very little room to pass any more legislation and reforms by the end of his presidency in a little over a year, but what he has done, like pass single payer healthcare, places him as a dominant force in American politics, even if he necessarily can't run for president again.
• Reconcile the Bitter Foes: Parallel to interim president John McCormack during the 1960s. McCain's presidency during the mid 2000s and 2010 exacerbated the Democratic and Republican split. Trump's presidency saw a rebuilding of relations and the re-establishment of a Democratic-Republican coalition.
• The Face: Subverted; Trump is certainly charming and socially savvy (at least to those who support him and his followers), but his tendency to make off-handed remarks mean he's not exactly to be trusted with the management of his media presence. The Democrats end up supporting him anyway, mainly because the alternative is giving way to the progressives.
• Historical Hero Upgrade: Subverted and Downplayed. Trump is, at least publically, a more reserved figure. In reality, Trump still makes questionable remarks of variably sexist and racist qualities behind the curtains, the only difference is that Trump has learned to shut his mouth and in the process has also learned when "Trumpisms" can be beneficial to him, a la No Such Thing as Bad Publicity.
• Red Scare: Trump constantly uses "Bolshevism" and "Marxism" to describe the National Progressive Pact as a whole, insisting that his welfare reforms are the only thing keeping the communists out of the white house.

Elizabeth Warren

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Role: Head of State

Party: National Progressive Pact (Progressives)

Ideology: Western Progressivism^note Progressivism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}wip

Nikki Haley

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Role: Head of State

Party: Republican-Democratic Coalition (Republicans)

Ideology: Populist Conservatism^note Conservatism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}wip

Michael Bloomberg

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Role: Head of State

Party: Republican-Democratic Coalition (Democrats)

Ideology: Neoliberalism^note Liberalism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}wip

East Asia

China

Official Name: Zhonghua Minguo

Ruling Party: Kuomintang

Ideology: Dominant-Party Democracy^note Paternalism

China, long awake, must sleep. China, long asleep, must awaken.

China has awoken out of the 20th century with a furious wrath and a rebounding economy and population. If China has been asleep since the Century of Humiliation, China woke up in the 1960s. The formerly humiliated and divided nation, once little nothing more than a puppet to the Empire of Japan, has reunified their country and modernized at such an alarming rate that they eclipsed their former overlords and have become another superpower in the world, with the world's second largest economy and an economic and political sphere stretching across Eastern Asia and even into Africa and the rest of Asia.

Japan

Official Name: Japanese People's Republic

Ruling Party: Japanese Communist Party

Ideology: National Communism^note Communism

Japan has shared the opposite fate of their former vassal, China. Whereas China has risen to become one of the most powerful countries on the planet, Japan has plummeted so hard from their former superpower status that one can only say "Stop it, he's already dead!"
The Great Asian War of the 1970s crippled Japan and removed it of its former vast sphere of influence in Asia, leaving it with Korea, Taiwan, and a few islands scattered across the Pacific. The Japanese economy, built on the unspoken colonialism of the Co-Prosperity Sphere, was left crippled and subsequently collapsed in 1992, resulting in a communist revolution that saw the additional loss of Japan's entire empire and their alignment to the Soviet Union in an Asia full of rivals and threats to peace.

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Allohistorical Allusion: Japan, at least in part, resembles North Korea (the DPRK). Both are communist states that emphasize nationalism, communism, self-reliance and isolationism. The difference between the two is that Japan is not ruled by a political dynasty and that while Japan is certainly nowhere near superpower status like it was before is leagues richer and more prosperous than North Korea.

Korea

Official Name: Republic of Korea

Ruling Party: Joseon Minjeong^note Korea Civil Administration

Ideology: Corporate Paternalism^note Paternalism

A so-called "independent" Korea, liberated from Japanese colonialism by China in the aftermath of the Japanese revolution. In reality a glorified buffer state for the Chinese against Japan which is ruled over by various corporate groups known as Chaebol.