Shanghaied - 2ACW

[James G]

This is a Second American Civil war story.
It is set in the near future.
All characters are fictional.

[James G]

SHANGHAIED


Prelude – Shanghaied

Shanghaied: the name of a film released by the Hollywood studio Paramount in 2028.

The film wasn’t a commercial success and just about broke even for Paramount. It’s title was the subject of controversy in the United States, just one of the many, varied political disputes during the turbulent years of the Twenties. The plot concerned the stories of several fictional characters in early Twentieth Century San Francisco who interacted in a murder mystery. The principal lead was a ‘crimper’, a man who used guile and deception to supply crews to naval merchantmen making the run to China’s coastal city. This practice was known at the time as ‘Shanghaiing’ and was legal (just) as well as highly profitable for those involved in crimping.

Using such a title was said to be not politically correct and allegations were made of anti-Chinese bias and xenophobia. Paramount disputed such wild claims though studio executives did plan to release the film under a different name in China. That never came to pass due to the international situation which cut off the once lucrative Chinese market for Hollywood. In America, those on the opposite side of the partisan divide, who were outraged at the actions of their opponents who claimed offense at such a name, flocked to see the film just to make a point. Without this organised viewing – not for the story’s promise but just to rub the other side’s nose in it –, Shanghaied would never have just about managed to break even as it did.

[lordroel]

Jan 6, 2021 16:34:13 GMT James G said:

This is a Second American Civil war story.
It is set in the near future.
All characters are fictional.

I hoop so, because we need a bit of escape from reality now. 

[Zyobot]

I know you've said that all characters are fictional, but that doesn't clarify as to whether the backdrop will look similar to what we have nowadays? My best guess, judging by what you've said, is that the geopolitical situation will also be fictional, which is probably for the best.

Having said that, I look forward to what comes next.

[James G]

Jan 6, 2021 16:35:45 GMT lordroel said:

Jan 6, 2021 16:34:13 GMT James G said:

This is a Second American Civil war story.
It is set in the near future.
All characters are fictional.

I hoop so, because we need a bit of escape from reality now. 

Well... this isn't going to be a happy story.

Jan 6, 2021 16:36:42 GMT Zyobot said:

I know you've said that all characters are fictional, but that doesn't clarify as to whether the backdrop will look similar to what we have nowadays? My best guess, judging by what you've said, is that the geopolitical situation will also be fictional, which is probably for the best.

Having said that, I look forward to what comes next.

Yes and no there. Today is the starting point and fiction it will be but there are recognisable themes.

[James G]

Part One - Political Violence


1 – Blue states and Red states

When the United States of America entered the 2020’s, the decade witnessed the most turbulent period in the nation’s history. Civil war could come about before the Thirties were reached due to events occurring during the Twenties. The causes were many but at the heart was the fact that every single societal issue, no matter how trivial, became one of partisan politics. Americans divided themselves into Them and Us every day. Whereas in previous decades, splits had concerned such hot button topics as gun rights, the death penalty & abortion. Now it was about everything imaginable: gender, climate, pop culture and school dinners. The partisan political lens was through which Americans viewed it all. What were They trying to do to Us with this? Such was how so many Americans came to look at their lives. They were encouraged by this by those seeking power, to make money or just out to cause trouble.

The latter really did that.


In late 2020, American voters selected a new president. The results of that contest were bitterly rejected by the loser but the loser he was. Out of office went the 45th President the following January and replacing him in the White House was the 46th President. The latter’s term was beset by health problems and that increasing societal divide across the nation. Mid-term elections in ’22 saw his party, the Democrats, lose the House. The Senate was already in the hands of the Republicans and now they had complete control of Congress. Come February the following year, the suffered an eventually fatal stroke on Valentine’s Day. He collapsed in the Oval Office and doctors lost the battle to save his life the following morning. Ascending to the presidency was his vice president. She became the nation’s 47th President. A ‘woman of color’, there wasn’t that much love for her among a good portion of her party nor many of the Democrats’ supporters at-large. Obstructionism in Congress from the Republicans became more brazen. They impeached Cabinet members and then went after her in late ’23. The latter concerned baseless and hypocritical charges yet the whole nation was split down the middle as to what side they were on with that. Not having enough votes to convict her, impeaching the 47th President was about playing the long game rather than getting her out of the White House. Democrats themselves looked at the future with concern at her being in office too: it was possible that she would be president for ten years as, constitutionally, she was able to run for two more terms should the voters allow for that.

An incumbent president usually sails through re-nomination by their party. For the 47th President, it quickly became apparent that such a feat would be impossible for her. Fellow Democrats lined up to run against the president. She was a neo-Liberal in a party where Progressives had major influence not at the top but among the wider ranks. Mark Walsh, the junior senator from Virginia, emerged as her leading challenger for the Democratic nomination. He was a noted Progressive with a rapidly expanding base of support. Impeachment, despite its failure, had hurt the standing of the 47th President. The Republicans intended that their own candidate would take advantage through 2024 but, instead, Walsh’s campaign was booming. He won the opening primary election and didn’t look back from there. Staying in the race in the face of calls for her to drop out, the 47th President lost each one which she contested. It was an embarrassment the longer it went on. Eventually, after Super Tuesday, she gave in. Walsh then threw everything at winning in November. The party establishment fell in line behind him where they finally conceded that they couldn’t fight the will of the voters and have their favoured candidate stay where she was. The 47th President would eventually campaign for Walsh though not with that much enthusiasm it must be said.

That didn’t matter. The 2024 US President Election was won by Walsh. He was to become the 48th President after a narrow win against his Republican opponent. As to that victory, it was only narrow when it came to the outcome of the votes tallied in the Electoral College. With the popular vote, his win was secured by more than nine million votes more than Roy Allen, the Governor of Ohio. However, only by sixteen votes in that body did Walsh win. North Carolina decided the election with Allen almost managing to pull of the impossible but just losing there and thus being denied the White House. A central plank of Walsh’s campaign had been for the post-election abolishment of the Electoral College: a method of selecting presidents which his supporters, and many Americans too, considered undemocratic. He won the presidency via it but wanted rid. This he was going to be unable to do after winning though. The Republicans had managed to maintain their hold on Congress despite the Democratic victory in the race for the White House. Losses were taken to shorten their majority in the House, but in the Senate, the Republicans expanded their control. They had fifty-five senators (out of a hundred) whose representation was granted by less than forty per cent of the electorate. If the Electoral College was undemocratic, what term would be best to describe the situation with the Senate!?


Through the Twenties, the national political partisan divide became one of a regional matter. Individual states became increasingly Red (denoting the Republicans) and Blue (the Democrats). Within them, the other party was increasingly marginalised and left without avenues to assume power. In previous decades, for example the Republicans had managed to be strong in California despite Democratic dominance while there were large numbers of Democrats in national & state offices through states such as Florida & Texas. This changed as the decade moved on. One side forced the other out of force either by mobilising enough voters in elections or by playing political games which opponents deemed undemocratic. The Democrats channelled money into previous Purple – swing – states to turn them Blue while expanding their control within Blue states. Voters within those states were kept politically-engaged. During elections which fell in years when there wasn’t a presidential race, votes for the Democrats had previously not been so strong. They were now. The Republicans did much the same (they had always had better support in non-Presidential years too) though went further as well. Back in the 2010’s, party strategists had created the REDMAP project. This was a national effort to turn large areas of the country Red on the map though control of state levers of power. Following the ’20 Census, they doubled down on REDMAP with access to all of that census data made available. Within Red states, the Republicans were able to control redistricting and apply that on a scientific degree to follow what they had started last decade. A friendly Supreme Court helped with this. Where there was strong opposition coming from Democratic governors in states with the Republicans controlling the state's legislatures, the former were stripped of their powers to stop this. Gerrymandering ran rampant to ‘pack, stack & crack’ Congressional districts as well. Voters were disenfranchised in a legal manner. Data from that national census conducted in ‘20 was applied not just for state governments but on a national level too. It changed the make-up of the Electoral College to the overall benefit of the Republicans. They were allowed to stay in the game when they really should have been locked out of it due to the demographic make-up of the nation.

Within those states which became Red and Blue, residents who were on the opposing side increasingly began to leave them for elsewhere. The United States had been undergoing democratic changes via population shifts throughout its history, but what was seen during the Twenties was one of a political nature. Republicans left Illinois & Massachusetts: Democrats moved out of Missouri and Ohio. These citizens who labelled themselves as such, or were given that label by others, did so because of societal changes within them influenced by the national political landscape drove that. In the face of extensive, but failed, opposition from the 47th President leading the charge, the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade in 2023. That was done from that Republican-friendly body at the behest of several Red states efforts. The right to access abortion services for women was lost at the national level meaning that states could, and did, outlaw it within them. A dozen Red states did so within six months. Blue states expanded access to abortion and several passed legislation to give legal protection to women from Red states who came to them and subsequently faced the threat of penalty where they lived. Another significant Supreme Court case the following year helped these demographic changes occur. In Suárez vs. Alabama, the former (a young man) lost his case against the state of his residence when they sought to impede his right to attend university elsewhere in the nation. Alabama had passed a law exempting that state from any financial costs – even minor ones – involved with residents attending higher education at facilities on a so-called ‘hit list’. Suárez wanted to go to New York University, which Alabama regarded as far too liberal… and in a Blue state. If he wanted to attend, he could freely do so, but they blocked the transfer of education records via financial measures which had been signed into law. Suárez, nor NYU, couldn’t pay for them and nor could they access what Alabama said was state property. It sounded petty on the face of it but it was important. The young man went to the university of his choice yet this Red state had made its point. The Supreme Court allowed for this state to do as it wished, negatively impacting the futures of its residents who wished to be educated in Blue states by causing them administrative headaches. State’s rights were increasing in many fields and the Red states did all that they could as they fought a rapidly increasing all-encompassing culture war where everything was a fight based on political lines.

The culture war of the Twenties meant that negative opinions of those from states on the other side of the divide meant a big deal. ‘Oh, you’re from a Red/Blue state’ might not have been an overt insult, yet it became a remark which summed up an individual. Even if you were a Democrat, if you lived in a Red state, that defined how everyone else viewed you. More and more this became important. Certain companies were barred by state legislatures from doing business within them. Red states did this in the main but there were some Blue states who followed the lead set. Consumers couldn’t access products and services which their fellow Americans across the state line could. Another case which made it to the highest court in the land was Dolan vs. South Carolina. The Supreme Court rejected the plaintiff’s suit against the state where he was a resident when it came to him being fired by his employer due to his political activity. That private enterprise terminated him because he was an active Democrat – he’d run for local office – in a Red state. This was done under the protection of a state law giving his employer permission to do so: they could fire those whose politics they disagreed with. Many Americans in Red and Blue states reconsidered their residence in light of this and moved elsewhere in the nation in light of Dolan vs. South Carolina when further states followed the example set by South Carolina. Georgia’s state government, in the hands of the Republicans while a powerless Democratic governor could do nothing, moved to ban the media networks CNN and MSNBC from the state. The case went to the Supreme Court and Georgia prevailed. CNN left its home offices and while it and MSNBC – the two of them liberal networks – could broadcast into Georgia, their employees were banned from entering the state under penalty of individual imprisonment. California, joined later by Hawaii, then used the same reasoning to impose restrictions on the right-wing Fox News. In the interests of public safety, it was argued that that media network was a danger to their residents. More states soon found other ways to restrict unfriendly media to connect with the public. This turned Red states redder and made bluer Blue ones.

[James G]

2 – Years of Lead


There had been acts of political violence in the Teens, the Noughties and back throughout the history of the United States. However, the multitude and severity of the politically-motivated acts of domestic terror undertaken during the Twenties would lead to a columnist in the Washington Post deeming the decade ‘the Years of Lead’. The term came from aboard – Italy in the late 20th Century – were there was relentless violence. The term took a-hold whereas the similar ‘Troubles’ (echoing Ulster) positioned by various internet-only media outlets lost out.

In July 2022, the husband and twin sons of Fay Fry were murdered in a home invasion. The Illinois Senator was in Washington while her family were slain in their Springfield residence. The murders were livestreamed over the internet. There had been high-profile live-streams before on the Facebook and YouTube platforms… but this was something else. The two companies were accused of acting far too late and their defences as to why they didn’t stop the broadcast rang hallow. Those three deaths shook the country. Fry’s family were helpless and brutally murdered while begging for their lives. The masked pair of killers, who took absolute joy in what they did, made assertions during the killings that they did this due to Fry’s politics. She was a well-known Democrat who’d faced death threats before. However, no one expected this. Federal and state forces sought the fleeing killers. They were identified as members of a right-wing militia from Kansas. One was arrested by the FBI in Illinois but the other managed to make it back to his home state. Kansas had passed a state law months earlier giving itself extensive domestic policing powers which contrasted sharply with those of the federal government’s ability to enforce national law within the state. Whether the domestic terrorist knew this wasn’t known but was in Kansas when the FBI sought to arrest him. Kansas had no intention of shielding him – the slaying of the Fry family united all Americans, at least for a while anyway – but the ‘federal invasion’, as one of the state’s Republican senators called it, led to a stand-off between Kansas’ state police and armed FBI agents… with that killer in the middle. It was live on television where armed officers pointed guns at each other and exchanged insults. Kansas took their captive into custody and would later extradite him to Illinois – from a Red state to a Blue state – but refused federal involvement. Public attention through August and September ’22 shifted from the Fry family murders to this stand-off between a state and the federal government. That division was the ultimate outcome of the killings in Springfield.

Race riots in the inner cities and the armed establishment of so-called ‘autonomous zones’ by left-wing militia groups took place during 2022, ’23 & ’24. These were events played out in the media which gripped the nation. The partisan divide was apparent when it came to the opinions of how people saw these events. Supposed inaction by the 47th President was criticised by the Republicans who demanded that she act to intervene against protesters. At the same time, when federal action was taken, there came the criticism that the state’s rights were being violated when there were measures within them: the unrest gripped areas within Red and Blue states leading to much mental gymnastics. On the Democratic side, the 47th President came under fire from people within her own party for acting and not acting: it depended upon where this was/wasn’t done based on what part of the country which the violence which came with the protesters was seen. Looting, arson and killings occurred. Police shootings and arrests by federal officers took place. Right-wing militia elements, always well-armed made appearances in front of the media with assertions made that should more violence grip certain Red states, they would intervene against that and also make a stand against federal forces too. In Miami, during October ’23, this came to a head in front of a federal building in that Florida city. A left-wing mob – Marxist protesters, not Progressives – surrounded the building and were threatening to storm it to set it ablaze. A group of armed militia from a well-known right-wing force turned up. Shooting started with Miami police officers caught in the middle. Eight deaths were incurred. In the aftermath, while criticising Washington and blaming the 47th President for it all, Florida, a redder state than it had been a few years past, gave itself extensive civil law-and-order powers. The state’s governor soon signed this into law in the face of (weak) internal and (strong) national vocal opposition to what Florida had done. Miami, a Blue area of the state surrounded by a sea of Red, was under near martial law for the rest of ’23. Journalists from Blue states and unfriendly media organisations were banned from entering first Miami and then the state as a whole.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (ATF) had been for many long years focused on firearms than the other two elements of its name. It was a federal agency with wide-ranging powers. Republican efforts in the Senate had blocked the 47th President’s choice of director and then impeached the man they first approved when the AFT did what they were supposed to: enforce national gun laws. In May ’23, the agency had an acting director put there using an Executive Order when the senate refused to confirm the president’s nominee. Within months, at the behest of the White House, the AFT seemed to gain a new lease of life under new leadership. Agents moved to enforce the law more extensively than they had previously done so due to the appearance of so many armed militia groups nationwide. Not all of them were so perfect with their legal paperwork and select groups had access to illegal weaponry too. Far left groups were targeted alongside right-wing ones but when the latter were subject to AFT raids, in Red states, the Republicans were up in arms. Federal officers were said to have violated state’s rights during seizure operations – to confiscate guns as well as explosives – across the country. When the White House stuck with the ATF, the battle with the 47th President went nuclear. Congress defunded the ATF ahead of the stated goal of state’s setting up their own agencies. The consequences were soon going to be apparent as no one was enforcing the law.

In November, an explosion rocked the Washington suburb of Georgetown. A car bomb blew up one of the nine justices on the Supreme Court. Susan Meadow was one of the few liberal members in that conservative-dominated body and was killed alongside three others. FBI investigators were unable to discover who committed this infamous act. The following month saw a trio of acts of political terror elsewhere in the nation. A Democratic Congressman was shot and badly wounded by a sniper when in his California district. In what was regarded by federal investigators as a tit-for-tat attack, the next afternoon saw a gunman use an illegal automatic rifle to spray with bullets the office of a Republican Congresswoman in Mississippi. Elizabeth Evans and six others died with the attacker escaping detection. Days before Christmas, when the Minnesota Legislature was meeting in Saint Paul, a bomb went off in the senate chamber. Democrats and Republican lawmakers alike were targeted and slain in that (recently turned) Red state. Twenty-three deaths were the outcome with the perpetrators of the Saint Paul bombing unknown.

Things got worse the next year.

In early 2024, when on the campaign trail, the 47th President is suddenly pulled away from the crowd by the Secret Service with the shouts of ‘gun, gun, gun’. An armed man is pounced on before he can fire on her with all this caught on live television. A week later, at a presidential debate, there is a suspicious package found in a last minute sweep of the event in Las Vegas. Only this last check avoids what could have been a terrible blast targeting the president as well as candidates such as Walsh: all other security was bypassed by whomever planted that bomb. In Oklahoma the following month, a CNN reporter is shot to death. She is in the Red state the night before a law comes into effect banning her media organisation from Oklahoma. Arrested by local authorities, the shooter, a neo-Nazi from a militia group, is eager to explain why he did what he did as he seeks media attention and national notoriety. On the violence goes through the following months of ’24. In upstate New York, a Republican state legislator is badly wounded in a shooting by an unknown gunman. A major fundraiser for the Democrats is killed – and his eight month old grandson left in intensive care – when a letter bomb explodes at his Delaware home. Caught on camera is the shooting by two masked gunmen on the outskirts of Denver of a crowd of people registering as volunteers for the Democrats’ get-out-the-vote campaign for November: eight are left dead there and a shootout with police & the perpetrators later sees another three lives lost. In rural Pennsylvania, a senior staffer to a Democratic Congressman – who’ll be fighting hard for his re-districted seat in the upcoming election in this Red state – is kidnapped from his boyfriend’s apartment. A body is left there and then the staffer turns up the next day also killed, with a message of hate carved into his bare chest. A police officer’s funeral is targeted by a failed bomb attack in Michigan but the next morning, two policemen in Detroit are killed by gunfire in a deliberate attack. A bitter state sentate campaign race in North Carolina – one of the few Purple states left – is suspended when the brother of one candidate kills his opponent’s wife. This is no domestic dispute but an assassination due to politics. Walsh and Allen spend the presidential campaign surrounded by Secret Service agents. Events are cancelled or curtailed with regard to crowd numbers. Assassination fears run high. The Secret Service has an agent with the Commerce Secretary yet he fails to stop her being murdered when in Arizona. A noted Democrat who was campaigning on behalf of an old friend running for Congress in that Blue state, Traci Bennet is shot to death when the member of the Cabinet supposed to be protected against that.

In the last days leading up to the elections in November 2024, as Walsh and Allen battle it out while the 47th President is effectively a lame duck, there are more incidents. In Arkansas, California, New Jersey & Wisconsin, political terrorism occurs. A Democrat running a no-hope campaign for governor in the Red state of Arkansas has shots fired at him: they miss but an innocent bystander is killed. In Sacramento, the California state capital, a pipe bomb thrown into a political rally for a Democratic candidate for the US House wounds him: two others die. Police in New Jersey arrest a man outside the house of the state legislature speaker who was planning to kill that Democratic politician. Up in Wisconsin, a sitting Congressman, the Democrat Paul Gonzalez, is strangled to death in a public bathroom with his killer evading custody. There are false alarms nationwide with terror fears. Armed groups, militia of various political affiliations, are shown on the news boasting of their strengths and sharing messages of hate.

Against such a backdrop, Walsh wins that presidential election. He inherits the leadership of a country beset by political violence with no sign of the Years of Lead coming to an end.

[stevep]

Jan 6, 2021 19:34:05 GMT James G said:

Jan 6, 2021 16:35:45 GMT lordroel said:

I hoop so, because we need a bit of escape from reality now. 

Well... this isn't going to be a happy story.

Jan 6, 2021 16:36:42 GMT Zyobot said:

I know you've said that all characters are fictional, but that doesn't clarify as to whether the backdrop will look similar to what we have nowadays? My best guess, judging by what you've said, is that the geopolitical situation will also be fictional, which is probably for the best.

Having said that, I look forward to what comes next.

Yes and no there. Today is the starting point and fiction it will be but there are recognisable themes.

  James

  As I think I've said before I would be amazed if you did one that could be described as happy.

  Having read the 1st two chapters this looks impossible but after yesterday's activities I'm reluctant to rule everything out.   Hopefully the reaction to them the Republicans will wake up and clear out their house but its possible they could go the other way and seek to destroy democracy as you describe.  In which case I can see the left responding with activities of their own, especially with a corrupted establishment perverting the rule of law. 

  I'm guessing this is building on the OOB you produced earlier for a Pacific break away attempt but given the level of chaos and violence mentioned so far I can't see the rest of the blue states not also seeking to escape the hell-hole that the US is becoming in this description, unless their already under military occupation.

  Steve

[James G]

Jan 7, 2021 9:57:04 GMT stevep said:

Jan 6, 2021 19:34:05 GMT James G said:

Well... this isn't going to be a happy story.

Yes and no there. Today is the starting point and fiction it will be but there are recognisable themes.

  James

  As I think I've said before I would be amazed if you did one that could be described as happy.

  Having read the 1st two chapters this looks impossible but after yesterday's activities I'm reluctant to rule everything out.   Hopefully the reaction to them the Republicans will wake up and clear out their house but its possible they could go the other way and seek to destroy democracy as you describe.  In which case I can see the left responding with activities of their own, especially with a corrupted establishment perverting the rule of law. 

  I'm guessing this is building on the OOB you produced earlier for a Pacific break away attempt but given the level of chaos and violence mentioned so far I can't see the rest of the blue states not also seeking to escape the hell-hole that the US is becoming in this description, unless their already under military occupation.

  Steve

Ha, yes. Nothing is now impossible it seems!
Both sides of the divide will do some terrible things. Everyone will say they are innocent though and it is the other who is evil etc etc.
The story is based upon that OOB. The ideas have been in my notebook for a while and I think I have enough for a big story. What happens in the West will be different in the East. It should all 'make sense' once things get going. 

[James G]

3 – Betrayal

Mark Walsh, the Democratic Senator from Virginia, was inaugurated as the United States’ 48th President at midday on January 20th, 2025. The ceremony in Washington was well-attended despite the extensive security presence. There was no violence though a false scare with reports of a man with a gun – he had a large phone – did cause a bit of alarm just ahead of Walsh taking the oath of office.

Walsh was a Progressive. His short political career had seen him on the left of the Democrats where he had followed a social democratic agenda. During the recently-concluded presidential campaign, Republican attacks had said that he was a socialist, even a Marxist. He wasn’t. Coming from elements of the public support of the Democrats – not the party itself –, there had been criticism that Walsh wasn’t left-wing enough. Those who were on the far left said that he would govern as a neo-Liberal, that he would sell out those who elected him to office and once in the White House be just like his Democratic predecessors. None of the campaign promises made by Walsh nor comments coming from anyone in his inner circle supported such assertions. Walsh promised change, real change, and his post-inauguration speech affirmed that. He came into office alongside a Republican controlled Congress though and he was going to have to work with them to get anything done. Within months of Walsh in the White House, those pre-election detractors on the left were saying ‘I told you so’. The new president compromised with Congress. He showed no sign of honouring his campaign promises. Walsh wanted Congress to allow him to appoint a new judge to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. He gave the Republicans what they wanted elsewhere and expected that they would keep their word. The fool. Senate Majority Leader, Bill Green, played him very well indeed. There would be no nominee that Walsh wanted to see on the Supreme Court allowed to even get a hearing before the Senate. Green had already had a hand in making sure that Walsh only managed to get weak candidates to fill his Cabinet and now blocked any appointment to the Supreme Court. It was to remain at just eight members with six of those being conservative minded.

Those promises made back in 2024 by Walsh were many. He attracted the wide range of support, and the votes that November, by pledging that there would be wide-ranging immigration and police reform. He intended to see a nationwide student debt cancellation. Matters such as the United States’ relationship with Israel were to be reassessed. There would be action taken on climate change. The ATF was supposed to be reformed and refunded. Abolition was to be relegalised. The Electoral College was to be abolished. New states – Washington DC and Puerto Rico – were going to be added to the union. Once in power, Walsh could do none of this. Congress wouldn’t even give him an inch to manoeuvre. They refused to budge on their opposition to him and all of his policies. When Walsh started using executive orders as his predecessor had done, the Supreme Court, egged on by Green and other senior Republicans, saw those declared illegal. What Walsh had been trying to do using presidential authority was seek a middle ground on many political issues. This upset his previous supporters no end. They hated the Republicans but began to despise him too. He was labelled a ‘sell out’ and called Green’s puppet. The neo-Liberal agenda which he was trying – and failing – to follow came with howls of betrayal. Walsh had betrayed so many of those who had voted for him… at least those with the loudest voices and the most influence.


Among those was a congresswoman from California.

Maria Arreola Rodriguez, oft known by her initials ‘MAR’, had been one of the most important campaign surrogates for Walsh during his presidential run. She was a young Progressive, a Latina with passionate supporters nationwide. Just short of the constitutional age requirement to have run for the presidency herself, she had backed Walsh over the 47th President and then engaged with voters nationwide once he won the Democratic primary. MAR was loved by the left and hated by the right. In Blue states, there were always adoring crowds for her; she rarely travelled to Red states. The Republicans demonised her but she knew how to use that to her advantage. It just made her more popular among those on the left. MAR came out against Walsh in late ’25. Her supporters had already turned against the president and she, after much angst, followed them in realising that they had been betrayed. Republican obstructionism aside, where Walsh could govern, he did so as yet another neo-Liberal who’d lied to all those Progressives who’d put him in power. The fury in her was expressed initially in a limited manner but her open attacks on the president increased in strength as ’25 turned into ’26. There was a pair of cases being heard before the Supreme Court where Mississippi and Oklahoma were facing suits for the attempts within those Red states to limit gender recognition and also in what manner they had to honour the legality of gay marriages. MAR self-identified as a lesbian and was married to another woman. Identity politics was what she fought on and these attempts threatened her and so many like her. The president’s lukewarm public comments in support of the plaintiffs against those states and then his further attempt to once more strike a deal with Green in the Senate (Green was from Oklahoma), were a slap in the face. Asked by a reporter in February ’26 if she intended to run against Walsh for the Democratic nomination in ’28, MAR could have kept quiet and said nothing. She had done so before when that question was posed. This time, she said she was considering it, yes, and also attacked Walsh’s lamentable Progressive credentials. Two days later, her father was shot dead.

Dante Arreola Vega was a politics professor at UC Berkeley. He and his wife had adopted the orphaned MAR when she was just a toddler. He wasn’t a public figure like his daughter was though was known in academic circles. Coming out of his house one morning and walking over to his electric car, he stopped to look at something on his windshield. It was $100 bill positioned below the wiper. He removed it and stood looking at it. A lone shot rung out, one from some distance away. Half of his head was blown off and the sniper was making his escape before anyone knew what had happened. MAR was caught on camera when the news reached her. Images of her reaction was broadcast around the world. Walsh spoke many kind words in memory of her father in a White House address but attention was on MAR when she was caught up in this personal tragedy in the media spotlight. This came about when her wife was involved in a legal dispute with a state prosecutor in Indiana. MAR’s partner was a native of that Red state and while living in California, she still had family back there in Indiana. On a short home visit to see her sister’s newborn child, she was physically assaulted in the street. That happened back in December 2025 and now, three months later, Indiana legal authorities were seeking her extradition with the charges filed that she had been the assailant of a poor innocent misogynistic homophobe… whose father was a state senator. MAR had already spoken out against this politically-motivated case against her wife. On the day her father was murdered because of her politics, extradition papers were served. That wouldn’t come about as California would refuse the demand for its resident to be sent there but the charges remained on the docket. It looked like a deliberate timing move on the part of Indiana yet it really was just a coincidence.


National political violence hadn’t ceased since Walsh had taken office. That killing of the father of the California congresswoman was one of many shocking events as the Years of Lead continued. In Minneapolis, one of those ‘autonomous zones’ crafted out of a disadvantaged portion of that Minnesota city by an anarchist collective was the scene of gunfire. A trio of armed gunmen from an out-of-state militia group entered when armed with automatic weapons. They killed sixteen people. Another, non-fatal attack was witnessed at another autonomous zone, this one in Detroit where right-wing militia arrived with the aim of killing political enemies. Police officers stopped them ahead of that attack in Michigan… and then had petrol bombs thrown at them by those whose lives they had saved in a misunderstanding of the intent of their presence within the self-declared no-go area. Starting in 2025, several of those militia groups on the right (who had no worries about an emasculated ATF coming after them) created their own autonomous zones in various Red states. These were in rural areas where they openly carried weapons and stated that they would keep out by force of arms ‘lefties’. Those states where these were sited had state governments which were of the law-and-order character yet no action was taken against such militia groups. In Wyoming, there was the disappearance of a journalist from the Chicago Sun-Times who entered one of these autonomous zones. In equally-Red Kentucky, a travelling family who got lost on their way from Pennsylvania to Missouri to see relatives vanished too. The couple’s young child turned up at a police station but his mother and father were nowhere to be seen. They were African-American, like the journalist who disappeared in Wyoming.

Car bombs exploded in a series of attacks made by those on the extremes of the national political divide. In New York City first, then Boston and next Charlotte, explosions occurred as political violence occurred. Almost two dozen deaths were caused by these blasts which targeted Democrats but also bystanders too. FBI investigators sought right-wing terrorists but couldn’t get any substantial leads despite all efforts expended using the wide-ranging powers which they had. There was another blast a month after those attacks in November 2025 and March ’26. This time a huge bomb hidden within a private vehicle went off in April ’26 in Sioux Falls. In the Red state which was South Dakota, a Republican political event was targeted with thirteen deaths seen. Using a gun not a bomb, there was the brutal murder of a candidate running for Congress in increasingly-Red New Hampshire. The Democrat slain there was seeking a seat during a special election upon the resignation of the sitting Republican. He didn’t stand much chance of winning when faced with the gerrymandering undertaken in recent years in New Hampshire, but his well-financed campaign had national profile. There was much money being spend on his campaign and MAR – months after her father’s assassination – had endorsed him. He was killed a week before election day though during a home invasion at his private residence. He’d been tortured and then mutilated after death. The New Hampshire State Police was meant to be protecting him yet he’d been killed without them apparently seeing anything. Allegations came thick and fast that there was a cover-up. When the FBI moved to investigate the state troopers, state legislators in New Hampshire passed an emergency law banning federal efforts to do that.

A month later, the Lieutenant-Governor of Maryland was held hostage by a gunman in his office in Annapolis. A Republican in a state very much Blue, James Howard was a moderate and an enemy of much of his party. The masked woman who had two pistols, a knife and (so she said) an explosive suicide vest was spouting wild conspiracy theories. Howard was the personification of evil in her mind and she wanted him to ‘confess’. She was quite mad. Before he could do as demanded, the office was raided by SWAT officers with the Maryland State Police. Shots were fired and both the hostage-taker and her hostage were killed. The tragedy hadn’t begun due to politics but it became political afterwards. Comments were made from political figures that Howard was assassinated. Those on the right said that Blue Maryland killed him; left-wing voices claimed that the right did this as a false flag and pointed to the personal political history of that woman with those guns. The truth was muddled in claims and counter-claims. Maryland assisted federal investigators – the hostage-taker had crossed state lines when armed – but West Virginia wouldn’t cooperate when the FBI wanted to search her home. There was another one of those stand-offs between state and federal forces, as seen four years beforehand in Kansas, which was broadcast live to the country by an on-scene journalist. No shots were fired but, ‘federal stormtroopers’, as the Governor of West Virginia called them, were turned back.

Walsh intended to intervene in this situation himself but found himself rather distracted. Starting in May 2026, the president would take his country to war. He had repeatedly said during his run for the White House that the era of American foreign adventurism overseas would be ended yet, like his other promises, he broke that and once more was seen as betraying all those who put him where he was.

[stevep]

   Basically the US is slipping into a fascist state with increasing use of political murders and terrorism to suppress opposition.  This is prompting a level of retaliatory violence by the hard left which is being used by the right to excuse their behaviour.  Its the Weimar Republic all over again.

  I'm doubtful that the central government would be unable to prevent such actions by a number of states to prevent pursuit of criminals, especially after the reduction in power of the states after the USCW.  However we're been proved wrong in the past and as Hitler and the Nazis showed in the 1930's even a very weak thuggish group can prove deadly in the right circumstances and without firm opposition.

[gillan1220]

Subscribed! Hope this timeline does not become a reality.

[Zyobot]

Jan 8, 2021 13:05:19 GMT gillan1220 said:

Subscribed! Hope this timeline does not become a reality.

Yes, I can easily see the replacement of James G’s expies with real life names doing most of the work in making it happen.

Plus, considering how backlash from America’s Years of Lead would make people clamor for a decisive strongman, neo-fascistic tyranny along the lines of what stevep suggested sounds possible. Given how much more powerful America is than 1930s Germany, a totalitarian United States would prove all the most dangerous. Regardless, I await whatever James G posts next.

[stevep]

Jan 8, 2021 13:45:01 GMT Zyobot said:

Jan 8, 2021 13:05:19 GMT gillan1220 said:

Subscribed! Hope this timeline does not become a reality.

Yes, I can easily see the replacement of James G’s expies with real life names doing most of the work in making it happen.

Plus, considering how backlash from America’s Years of Lead would make people clamor for a decisive strongman, neo-fascistic tyranny along the lines of what stevep suggested sounds possible. Given how much more powerful America is than 1930s Germany, a totalitarian United States would prove all the most dangerous. Regardless, I await whatever James G posts next.

  It might be a great deal more threatening that Nazi Germany or it might be less.  I'm not sure its going to go the Nazi route.  Possibly more like fascist Spain.  Unless I'm totally misreading there's no central group like the Nazis, let alone an Hitler deliberately planning the establishment of a dictatorship.  More numerous people deciding they have the right to murder people they disagree with [with some response on the left developing in response] and political officials deciding, for whatever reason, to support such activities. 

  Plus a fascist America is going to be far more split by religious, racial and other divisions than Nazi Germany is.  Its not going to be a good place to be black and probably not of other groups seen as 'liberal' or different.  As such even if they win their war to crush the Pacific breakaway, which will probably consume a lot of resources for quite a while.  Similarly relations with Mexico are likely to be poor.

  Furthermore unlike Germany in the 1930's there is a long history of constitutional rights and the rule of law in the US.  Those are being suppressed at a frightening rate in TTL's 2020's but they many mitigate things at least at 1st.

  The other country that's going to have to watch out is Canada as I can see a lot of people fleeing north, either from the Pacific region and also other areas facing oppression.  Which are likely to be followed by death squads seeking to kill the most prominent figures, probably with at least some regime support.  Which is going to cause a hell of a lot of tension with Ottawa.  Not to mention as economic problems continue to hamper the country there is always the fear that the leadership will look towards a foreign adventure to distract people.  Under the current circumstances Canada is pretty much indefensible.

  The other problem for the world with the US becoming a vicious dictatorship, albeit initially with a populous veneer, is that there isn't really much in the way of a stronghold for democratic ideas.  China unless it changes drastically is already a fascist, or at least extreme nationalistic/expansionist state and Russia a brutal dictatorship following similar lines.  Britain is a spent force and the EU is increasingly mired into internal tensions and differences.  India is a democracy currently but also facing increasing right wing tendencies.  As such a US dictatorship, which may not be greatly expansionist, at least initially, isn't the only factor to consider for the rest of the world.

  Steve

[James G]

Jan 8, 2021 12:05:40 GMT stevep said:

   Basically the US is slipping into a fascist state with increasing use of political murders and terrorism to suppress opposition.  This is prompting a level of retaliatory violence by the hard left which is being used by the right to excuse their behaviour.  Its the Weimar Republic all over again.

  I'm doubtful that the central government would be unable to prevent such actions by a number of states to prevent pursuit of criminals, especially after the reduction in power of the states after the USCW.  However we're been proved wrong in the past and as Hitler and the Nazis showed in the 1930's even a very weak thuggish group can prove deadly in the right circumstances and without firm opposition.

Its going that way. Targeting politicians for violence will move onwards to going after ordinary people for just their views too as Them vs. Us gets worse.
You might be right there about the states rights. I've given them a friendly Supreme Court. What Red states do, some Blue states will start doing soon too. The excuse will be not sending people to the other for 'political crimes' but that will be interpreted widely. 

Jan 8, 2021 13:05:19 GMT gillan1220 said:

Subscribed! Hope this timeline does not become a reality.

Let's hope not!

Jan 8, 2021 13:45:01 GMT Zyobot said:

Yes, I can easily see the replacement of James G’s expies with real life names doing most of the work in making it happen.

Plus, considering how backlash from America’s Years of Lead would make people clamor for a decisive strongman, neo-fascistic tyranny along the lines of what stevep suggested sounds possible. Given how much more powerful America is than 1930s Germany, a totalitarian United States would prove all the most dangerous. Regardless, I await whatever James G posts next.

The power of the United States is about to take a major knock in the update below.


BTW, has anyone else heard of the 'banknote on the windscreen' trick used by snipers to keep a target still I used in the last update? It's apparently real.