Nixon Presidency Opening + Dev Diary Announcement
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Development Diary XXX: Yippie! - Part 1/4

>Hushed silence consumed the throngs of delegates, operatives, journalists, and bosses seated around Chicago Stadium where attendees of the 1940 Democratic National Convention heard, for the first time, a message from the President of the United States. Franklin Roosevelt's message to the convention, dictated over the phone and delivered by Senator Alben Barkley, refuted speculation that Roosevelt would seek a third term as President. It was an unreal moment; the air was sucked out of the room. There would be no deliverance, no hope for change, no booming voice from above, just an impending vote without the star choice.

>"I have an additional message from the President," said Barkley, who unfolded a second sheet and braced over its contents. "President Roosevelt endorses, for the Democratic Party's nominee for President, Harry L. Hopkins of New York."

>Silence, muted, strained applause, snowballing into an unconvinced ovation. Liberals' eight-year reverie ended there, their champion abdicated, backing a sick standard bearer, awash in shattered morale. They expected a flood and, on November 5th, they saw one.

Yippie! (Pt 1. Lore and Background 1/2)

From Start To Start, 1937-1961

Patch Background

Yip! Yip! Yippie! Welcome to The New Order: *Yippie!*'s Development Diary. This is Mangolith, Happy Warrior, and QuoProQuid, the America Team Leads, and today, we'll be detailing the future of America content and what it has to offer for TNO and players like you.

The USA rework patch, *Yippie!,* has been under development since late 2022. Its team started as a group of three who designed Hart content to ensure we wouldn't hold up any other team's content needs as we designed the largest rework of any TNO nation. This rework involves more than tripling the size of United States content and taking the first steps to place America within the boundary of TNO2 with content up until January 1977!

This patch began as an extension of TT3's USA content, notably the addition of Philip Hart as a new 1968 US presidential candidate. Fans quickly noticed the uptick in the quality of both gameplay and story compared to other USA paths, inspiring us to take things further. The biggest motivators for our undertaking this rework are that current TNO USA content are a lack of continuity between presidencies— as in the ease with which players can "undo" a previous administration—-a lack of changing body politics and cultural engagement, and a disconnect between what is happening in the world and what happens in the United States. 

In short, we want to emphasize a strong USA narrative which places that country firmly in a Cold War hotseat and emphasizes dynamism, strong characters, and an in-depth engagement with American history. We understand that much of the community loves current USA content, and we would not do something so brazen as rework these foundations if we were not *absolutely* confident in its replacement. 

Whereas current TNO USA has 12 normal candidates, two edge cases, and playable content up to 1973, *Yippie!* will bring 30 normal candidates, over 10 edge cases, and playable content climaxing with the 1976 bicentennial and ending after January 20th, 1977. Yes, that's right, TNO2 starts here. In this diary, we will detail the lore of America and, more pertinent to gameplay, American content until the inauguration of the winner of the 1964 election. We'll cover those years' major events, the new mechanics, and the five potential presidents-elect for that year.

While this diary will only cover the first three playable years of content, playable content from 1962 to 1977 is not a vague, illusory promise to a patch but rather something already designed and currently being implemented. You can expect to get your hands on this patch next year.

>!Editor's note*: We'd suggest those interested in the gameplay pay mind to the lore portion

below, though if that is not your speed, check out the link to Part 2 here*!<

Lore

Bright white waves of flashbulbs peppered the side of President Franklin Roosevelt's all-black carriage like rounds from a machine gun. So many hands had killed the champion of his "court-packing scheme," and those same figures, Republicans and Democrats, all returned to gloat in victory. It was July 16th, 1937, hot and somber, and the first family sat behind trotting horses en route to the funeral for Senator Joseph Robinson of Arkansas. President Roosevelt stared out the window, not raising his hand to wave or his lips to smile.

Perhaps First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt asked him, "Are you alright, Franklin?" to which the President may have said, "I simply worry about Mrs. Robinson," or another utterance of false confidence. Never mind that Senator Robinson had brought Roosevelt's agenda to the grave with him, or that there was an impending recession. The failures after failures in Congress and brewing world conflicts in Europe, Asia, and the Americas all weighed on his mind. Never mind the victories, Roosevelt saw only the defeats and would never recover from this spiral. After that July day, everything to him was sand, pouring, never to be held again.

The mirage of Roosevelt's dominance in the United States dissipated with the 1938 midterms, where Republicans and conservative Democrats thrashed the Roosevelt coalition on a push for restraint and congressional government. The New Deal, "Roosevelt's Behemoth," restructured the American administrative state but could neither prevent the Recession of 1937–38 nor provide accountability for the machines and cartels that drew paychecks from New Deal programs. In the eyes of conservatives and an increasing number of liberals, the once-tolerable President Roosevelt was now a gangster tending an administrative protection racket for the American economy. To beat this current and end the regulatory nightmare, Republicans sought an expert in throwing high-profile criminals into the light.

While the Republicans courted a standard-bearer for 1940, the Roosevelt White House remained in turmoil. President Roosevelt could've run for a third term, bucking the precedent set by Washington, but his doubt remained constant and intense. He had seen up close President Wilson's undoing—how a vicious Republican congress ravaged his life's work and cleared the way for today's Nazi regime. Seeing the consequences firsthand in 1920 and how this failure lingered with the party until Roosevelt's victory in 1932, he decided it was best not to tempt a disruption of his already unstable position.

Thomas E. Dewey started as District Attorney for Manhattan on New Year's Day, 1938, wide-eyed and ambitious for a shakeup against organized crime. Dewey, born in 1902, was approaching his 36th birthday and his 5th year of prosecuting gangsters in New York City with a soaring public image. Newspapers hailed him almost unanimously, the population screamed his name in passing, and his gleam was such that thousands of voters in neighboring Attorney General races wanted to elect the young warrior for their community. Dewey was young, popular, and—lacking deeply the credentials of an administrator and leader—remarkably talented at carrying himself in a consistently flattering way.

Beating out moderate Willkie and heavily conservative Robert Taft by courting both bases, Dewey told an energized Republican National Convention of new ideas and a return to reasonable government. By contrast, the Democratic convention seemed almost mournful as delegates nominated Roosevelt's Secretary of Commerce and political proxy, the sickly Harry Hopkins, for President of the United States. As the 1940 presidential election campaign evolved, Dewey's inexperience took a backseat to mass discussion of Hopkins's health and alleged improprieties. Deals to lend equipment to the democratic forces in war-torn Europe stalled, relations with Japan

grew only more antagonistic, and increasingly, the American people came to view the election of Dewey as a done deal. Dewey returned with a snappy isolationist quip for every interventionist appeal Roosevelt made and fought the President on the economy, the administrative state, and foreign policy.

In the end, there would be no crowning foreign policy achievement for the final act of President Roosevelt, nor victory for his chosen successor, leaving the crisis unfolding in Europe and Asia in the hands of 38-year-old President-elect Thomas Dewey.

1940 election results displayed in game

Upon his inauguration, it became abundantly clear to Dewey and his administration that their victory hadn't been enough to reshape America and its priorities abroad. While conservatives welcomed Dewey's restraint with presidential powers, the administration failed to build legislative support and delivered next to nothing from the party plank. This failure, paired with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles's influence over the young President, bungled foreign policy initiatives and decreased Dewey's authority significantly.

Then, on December 7th, 1941, amid stalled talks on peace in the Pacific, Japanese naval aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii to devastating effect. The Dewey Administration had initially planned 1942 to do or die, directing their attention to the WPA and Social Security, but the results of Roosevelt and Hull's prior failures to reach peace with the Empire of Japan would forever change the nation. Days later, the USA joined the United Nations alliance against the Tripartite Pact, marking yet another unfulfilled Dewey campaign promise.

Perhaps if Franklin Roosevelt had sought an unprecedented third term in office, his leadership and command of the presidency would have jostled the American nation from its slumber and immediately begun its push toward mobilization. The force of his personality, famous in years previous for pushing through his New Deal policies against incredible odds, would have re-awoken and given the United States its chance at war that so many post-war commentators said Dewey had lacked. But this did not happen, and President Dewey floundered and acceded to the loudest voices in the room, paralyzed by the weight of his task and the already insurmountable division of his presidential administration.

Among the shipwrecks smoldering in Pearl Harbor was the USS Enterprise, the flagship of the US Pacific Fleet, which was later joined on the ocean floor by the USS Lexington, Hornet, and Yorktown as Japan pushed further east. Soon, Japanese forces landed at Midway Atoll, directly threatening Hawaii and warranting a general focus on the Pacific over the European war. At the insistence of the Joint Board and his advisors, President Dewey authorized General Douglas MacArthur to carry out an offensive in East Papua to seize the Dutch East Indies and re-invade Manila as part of a "Pacific First" strategy formulated after MacArthur's withdrawal from the Japanese-occupied Philippines. Almost immediately, this campaign bogged down and continued as a slow push westward for the rest of the war, creating over a hundred thousand American casualties in the process.

In part due to the machinations of the anti-communist, anti-Atlanticist Robert Taft, the United States sent no aid to the Soviet Union against Germany and did little to prepare the United Kingdom against the March 1943 Axis invasion of Britain. Despite the northward retreat of the British theater's frontline, rising media star General Dwight Eisenhower's defensive performance gave hope for an eventual turnaround in sharp contrast to the perceived incompetence of the Joint Board and Dewey's foreign policy establishment.

The war presented a new opportunity for the Dewey Administration to reshape the United States on its home front. According to the incumbent Republican establishment, World War Two was not a "war for democracy" as

many Democrats advocated, but instead another re-balancing of world power akin to the First World War and other European wars before. To pay for the war, justification now existed to slash government expenditures. New Deal programs starved, institutions were liquidated, state and federal hospitals closed, patients were sterilized and released or silently disappeared, and generally, funds returned to Dewey's wartime resource pool. Despite these cuts, it wasn't until the 1942 elections brought in a new Democratic majority that mobilization projects began in earnest, and the oppositionist Congress assumed an outsized role in directing the war effort.

Organized labor, a major Democratic constituency, fought with the Dewey Administration after it sanctioned government contracts allowing speedups and lock-ins, spurring wildcat strikes and even radical action against war industries. Soon, Democratic unions were increasingly cooperative with the CPUSA and other socialist groups, rebuilding the Democratic liberals' syncretic popular front coalition and earning intense scrutiny by J. Edgar Hoover's G-Men. Under the administration's direction, the Federal Bureau of Investigation targeted spies, subversives, and ideological extremists, real and imagined, involved in the war effort. These included labor leaders, members of the top-secret Manhattan Project nuclear program, and even Democratic state secretaries, all of whom faced harassment, raids, and periodic detainment. Dewey directed the internment of Japanese-Americans, German-Americans, and Italian-Americans in facilities across the interior United States. This policy of ethnic targeting, especially towards Japanese-Americans, instilled a racialized paranoia in the American zeitgeist, which, exacerbated by wartime propaganda and campaign materials during the 1942 and 1944 elections, did not subside during the post-war period. He made liberal use of the FBI against "war saboteurs," generally overreacting against perceived threats on American soil and in Latin America, contributing to a growing sentiment of "wartime terror" that further hindered mobilization.

In this environment, Democrats nominated as their 1944 presidential nominee Justice William O. Douglas, pairing Roosevelt-era experience with a modern, unabashedly liberal approach to the presidency. His popularity, paired with Southern backing from Vice Presidential nominee Tom Connally, made him a shoo-in before election day. But by a narrow margin, especially in Midwestern states, Dewey won re-election. Despite disputes, protests, and general shock over Douglas's loss, the American people, never ones to change horses mid-race, accepted Dewey's victory as necessary for winning a fair peace. And yet, the war situation deteriorated further.

1944 election results displayed in game

By 1944, the United States had turned around the naval situation in the Pacific and had begun a slow campaign of "island hopping" while prioritizing resources for General MacArthur's Papua campaign. As early as 1942, dissident voices within the Army and in President Dewey's cabinet criticized MacArthur's approach but faced censorship from higher-ups. Even as the General's star faded, his defenders in high places kept him afloat, much to the displeasure of the general enlisted and the American people. President Roosevelt's work kickstarting the development of a uranium-fueled atomic bomb in 1940 faced great difficulty under the Dewey Administration, as budgetary restrictions and inquiries into alleged espionage and political extremism saw many otherwise suitable personnel evicted from the project. One of the few exceptions, J. Robert Oppenheimer, correctly predicted that the United States would not have a combat-ready nuclear weapon until 1946. American Marines retook Midway in 1943 and occupied much of the British and French Pacific islands by early 1944, but this came at the expense of the collapse of the China-Burma theater and

the 1944 withdrawal of a rapidly destabilizing British India from hostilities with the Japanese.

Matters worsened with the death of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, whose replacement, Lord Beaverbrook, increasingly favored a negotiated settlement with Germany. American deployment of chemical weapons and intense bombing campaigns against southern British cities further urged pro-peace sentiments among the British population, and by late 1944, it was apparent that the United Nations would not reclaim Britain. Fearing a scenario where a pro-German British puppet government would repudiate the sizable war debts owed to the United States, in March 1945, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles authorized negotiators to meet German representatives in neutral Sweden to formulate terms for an armistice. A damning prediction by the War Department that the United States could defeat Japan by 1949 further sapped the war effort, and the surprising receptiveness of the Japanese to a ceasefire brought Japanese agents to Sweden as well. From that point, it was a competition of deft diplomacy, with the United States leveraging its imminent peace with Germany against Japan, ultimately negotiating an agreement along the lines of the current occupations.

In June of 1945, the United States formalized two armistices with the Axis Powers, whose terms also applied to the remaining United Nations armies; Britain would honor its debts to the United States and allies, and occupation areas would remain as they were on June 1st, 1945 until a future peace treaty could design the new order. Dulles saw correctly that both Germany and Japan were already severely over-extended and could pose no immediate threat to the American sphere of influence, but compromising the popularly-held notion of a "war for democracy" with a pragmatic partition of the world incited uproar across the political spectrum. With one vile compact, the United States compromised against democracy, rejecting liberty and justice for all, and accepting domination by strength. So it would be for the rest of the 20th century, an America forever tainted by global fascism.

Part 2 (Lore and Background 2/2) ➜

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Full Term 1 Nixon Tree
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This meme won't be relevant in the future, so have it before the update drops
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Development Diary XXX: Yippie! - Part 4/4

This is continued from Part 1 of the Gameplay portion of the diary. If you have yet to read it, click here.

One area of unity between the President and Kennedy will forever be the country's need to combat the evil empire dominating Europe, the Greater German Reich. Encroaching German influence across the globe is the gravest threat to liberty today. When there are people united in the cause for freedom, yearning to be liberated from the jackboot of the Reich, Democrats and Republicans can lay their party squabbles aside to come to their aid. 

Nowhere is that more apparent than in the French colony of Madagascar, where a bipartisan coalition is already eager to aid the liberal, pro-democracy faction of French-educated rebels against their oppressors. The problem presents itself in the form of the Japanese. Already establishing themselves among their contacts on the island, American assistance is severely limited, both by international law and political reality. The arming of Malagasy liberation fighters, and in turn arming the Japanese, is poison to the public. Subverting the powers of Congress is unambiguously illegal. If actions in that theater become too brazen, there will undoubtedly be a shared hell for the Administration as a whole.

An African Adventure

While Nixon continues his backdoor rampage, speculation on who shall lead the Democrats to face him next year continues to mount. President Kefauver has remained the spiritual leader for the Democrats since he departed from the White House 3 years ago. Between meetings at union halls and periodic state-by-state tours, it begins to circulate that the former President may not be able to get over the Presidential bug.

An untimely death soon lays all rumors to bed, only to follow the Vice President like a curse. In a White House where he's already branded himself at odds with the President, and his intentions for '64 lacked subtlety since first running with Kefauver, becoming the front runner for his party will hang around Kennedy's neck like an albatross.

The first horses.

It's enough to seal his fate. Every step of the way through Nixon's occupancy of the White House, Kennedy has stood in the way. From Douglas to the Civil Rights Act, Kennedy has been making the pursuit of a consistent policy agenda torture; it's only natural that he'd face retribution. In coordination with Hoover, loosely sourced from the White House, the worst-kept secret in American politics will be forced to the front pages of newspapers nationwide. 

Vice President Kennedy is dying, and he's lying to the public to stay in power

Months in the making.

With Kennedy's early departure, any potential candidacy he could launch would be seen rightfully as a joke. Instead, the Democrats will have their past claw their way back to relevance. The has-beens of Johnson and Stevenson, domineering figures in their own right, could easily be branded as "failing to inspire". Fair or not, they still are plenty viable to topple Nixon's shaky standing.  

Two titans.

Though neither can seemingly wrestle with time, and never a man of astounding health, Johnson's second run for the Presidency will be shut down much like the first: a heart attack. It sets in for Johnson soon after, a man of his health given another yet another delay. He will never be President. As for Stevenson, pending the arrival of new candidates and also feeling his age, he will also suspend his

campaign.

Again.

All the while the Democratic death march continues, Nixon will face the fallout of his own Vice President's resignation. The public is never not hungry for this drama; it's an urge that's been around long before the Douglas impeachment. Now, the monster has a scent for Nixon. Believing that Kennedy has dirt, some say even tapes, detailing alleged crimes committed by the President, gossip begins to spread that Kennedy may seek out revenge for being pushed out of the cabinet.

Sweat

Of course, by year's end, it may not materialize. Kennedy has already put his family through so much; if he isn't sure it'll be enough to bring Nixon to justice, what would the point even be?

However, had things gone differently, had Douglas *survived impeachment*, the Civil Rights Act *maintained its peak strength*, and public revelations about American involvement in Madagascar *returned to the White House*, Nixon would become a target. The public rage he may have tried to bring to Justice Douglas turns back on him and Nixon; weakened, they could only fight from a position of weakness. The countdown towards impeachment begins.

Where there's life.

It's all out there; anything said in private can be expected to come out. It's the end. The aura of invulnerability Nixon hoped to cultivate has been irrevocably penetrated, leaving him vulnerable to condemnation across the aisle. It's all too much. Between the endless and increasingly desperate bargains, the White House is out of time.

It's the end.

But the moment has been prepared for.

Regardless of the standing Nixon finds himself in by the year's halfway point, the Democratic primaries continue unchanged. With the race wide open, fresh blood has finally emerged. Of course, frayed in three different ways, two of which are competing for the ardent liberals, division will inevitably ensue.

Chaos, chaos, chaos.

Arriving in Detroit, the Democrats must put their differences aside and come together under their elected standard-bearer. While the primaries may have been fraught with division, staring down four years of uncontested rule, Nixon —ruling in his own right —unity becomes paramount. A look at this cast shows just where desperation leads.

Senator Hubert Humphrey provides the Democratic faithful more of the same. In between every other sentence paying homage to Roosevelt's legacy, Humphrey can kiss ass in the south and shake hands with the liberals up north. He's not feared by the party elites, if only because he's the one scared of them, groveling for approval.

Senator Robert Kennedy makes the pitch that his brother would have. Far enough away from the scandal to not be personally dragged down, but just close enough to channel his family's ambitions. Kennedy can be anything to anyone, something old convention-goers have seen far too much of; yet, paired with a checkbook, he can bring most concerns to ease.

Governor George Wallace fears nothing in the party. Shall he lose, he'll have more power back home in Alabama than any of his opponents could as President. What Wallace brings to the table is a commodity that is going out of fashion: an unreconstructed Southern Democrat grabbing votes up north. Intriguing on its own, but to those who felt the civil rights issue doomed the party 4 years prior, he's a force to be reckoned

with.

Your potential Democratic nominees.

When not embattled, the Nixon White House can finally direct its full attention to re-election. Marching without opposition to the convention in Dallas, Nixon must test new number twos for purity. While out of his control, the Kennedy charade was a disaster, and his previous number two, Schoeppel, is dead and buried. This time, Nixon wants a strong man, a fighter like him. A man like Gerry Ford.

Take 2

Should Nixon find himself out of power, leaving Warren to lead a headless party into convention, only one man could fill the void left behind. Senator Barry Goldwater, giving voters a real choice, stands for a nomination ripe for the taking. Paired with the equally principled Senator Chase Smith of Maine, the two stare down oblivion in November lest the Democrats fail to find any stability of their own.

Unholy.

Presidential elections are similar to those of the midterms, an election held in all 50 states on the same day, but with significantly more money involved. Fitting the same structure, they both aim to build momentum across the states, making them the best fit for your coalition to deliver victory.

Presidential polling.

Election mechanic.

After November, the country has finally reached a crossroads. Split five different ways, the past three years of conflict have shaped the world in which the next President will take office. Whether he's departing, departed, or inaugurated into his second term, the problems Nixon faces will live on. Threats, foreign or domestic, to the tranquility the President wishes to keep will continue to rise. 

New leadership in Germany and Japan, new enemies in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Europe —a race not only to retain what is already theirs but also to dislodge the other, to bring the post-war system to an end and remake the world in their image. Whether the United States could save its allies and the peoples of the world from anti-democratic forces depends on that nation's ability to save itself, in many ways, from itself. In many ways, it will be the responsibility of 1964's champion to navigate these problems and survive, stronger than before, in the unfolding new order.

Richard Nixon, the Establishment Republican

Barry Goldwater, the New Republican

Hubert Humphrey, the Establishment Democrat

Robert Kennedy, the Activist Democrat

George Wallace, the Yaller Democrat

Editor's note: Thanks for reading the diary, we hope you enjoyed what you saw! We'll be checking in periodically with further updates on America and explorations into the new Presidents, both revealed and unrevealed. More to come, stay tuned!

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Development Diary XXX: Yippie! - Part 2/4

This is continued from Part 1 of the Lore portion of the diary. If you have yet to read it, click *here*.

If you are looking for Part 2 of the diary, Gameplay, click *here*

Defeat, a novel concept in American military history, proved challenging to grapple with. Some believed that the Dewey administration could have won the war in time, especially with public disclosure of the Manhattan Project in 1946, but hadn't had the guts to continue sacrificing lives and material required for victory. Others considered American involvement in the war a mistake in itself. Still more remained indifferent to the war's handling but bemoaned poor execution and strategic decisions. Decisions to scar the British countryside with defoliants, incendiary devices, and potent chemical agents did little to stop the German advance but instead alienated the British population and made a long-term war untenable. An uncompromising choice to empower General Douglas MacArthur allowed for gains on the island of Papua, but these came at the expense of China, Burma, and India, further contributing to not only his permanent discrediting but also that of nearly the entire wartime military leadership. Though views on the war were varied and oftentimes in conflict with one another, all agreed that the blame lay squarely at the feet of Thomas Dewey, his generals, and the Republican Party.

Facing political obliteration in the upcoming electoral cycles, Dewey and what remained of his cabinet scrambled to salvage American pride abroad. Their opportunity came in the rapidly disintegrating USSR, whose devolution into chaos gave the President a chance to intervene and reassert his and the United States' authority. Unlike the 1919-era American deployment to Russia, however, the Intervention in Siberia sought to stabilize the embattled Soviet rump government, now led by former secret police leader Genrikh Yagoda. At the port of Magadan, Western forces worked side by side with Soviet communists to maintain order, prevent famine, and facilitate the relocation of thousands of Soviet bureaucrats and intellectuals fleeing their war-torn homeland. Through the Democratic Congress's "Operation Paperclip," their expertise would prove instrumental to furthering American science and technology. At the same time, the combined effort of the remaining Allied nations in Siberia strengthened their military bonds with one another, preserving the fractured United Nations at a time when disintegration seemed likely.

Byrnes-Eaton Resolution of 1946

In the end, however, Dewey's hopes in Siberia were met with the same frustrations as his other endeavors. The Russian intervention was neither enough to prevent a Democratic avalanche in the 1946 midterms, nor was it a quick foreign adventure as the President had envisioned. Yagoda's Soviet government proved unable to sustain itself, and American involvement could only increase in response. Though Allied commitment to the region never rose above a few thousand boots on the ground, the intractable conflict and persistent skirmishes with Japan-backed anti-government forces led the media to dub the intervention as the Siberian War, cleaving open a point of division between the internationalist troupes of the establishment majority and the smoldering partisans of the isolationist minority that would persist well after the end of Dewey's administration.

The crushing weight of Democratic supermajorities in the House and the Senate left the final years of Dewey's presidency as the lamest of all lame ducks. With his executive power limited to foreign affairs, his vetoes ineffective, and total defeat in 1948 seen as a foregone conclusion, the President became the unwilling figurehead of

an aggressive Democratic agenda. While the White House and Congress could agree on some things, such as continued support for the Soviet government in Siberia, Dewey was ultimately the junior partner in his government. This unhappy marriage culminated in the Long Range Planning Act of 1947, which pushed past the New Deal programs of Roosevelt and officially inserted the federal government into the nation's economic development via the Long Range Planning Office under the Department of Commerce. Republican protestations over the Act's infringement on private commerce went unheeded by the Democratic supermajority, as did Dewey's veto. The reality of the Depression and the war had left its impression on American politics, and gone were the days of an unregulated national economy.

Long Range Planning Act of 1947

If there was any highlight of Dewey's final two years in office, it came in the admission of Alaska and Hawaii as the 49th and 50th states. Alaska, a frigid and enormous outpost on the edge of the continent dominated by military bases, left-wing Russian immigrants, and Native Alaskans, and Hawaii, a corporate-owned island paradise, balanced one another out as Democratic and Republican bastions, respectively. Even this, however, was not free of trouble. Hawaii, in particular, stood as an avatar of class and racial struggle between the White-dominated "Big Five" corporations and the multiethnic unions attempting to break their hold on the state's economy and politics. Accusations and denials of communist and pro-Sphere sentiment within the unions and their ethnically Japanese members fueled a pressure cooker of tension that, in an act of divine mercy, did not burst during the last months of Dewey's doomed tenure.

Whether pundits knew at the time or not, the otherwise uncompetitive 1948 Presidential election would become a turning point in American history, remaking both parties behind the scenes. Within the GOP, heavyweight Eastern establishment figures collectively decided to punt on the nomination, choosing to save their strength for a more favorable cycle in the future. However, by abdicating the halls of power in the party, these moderates left a vacuum for whoever was angry and ambitious enough to harness the seething mass of Republican partisans humiliated by Dewey's impotent second term. Instead of a meek sacrificial lamb, party elites were horrified as "Mr. Republican" Senator Robert Taft overran meager establishment forces on a hardline anti-intervention, anti-New Deal, anti-Dewey platform, while defending his role in the Dewey administration's disastrous war effort. This event marked the end of moderate dominance within Republican halls of power and cemented activist conservatives as a powerful force within the party.

In contrast to the bereft Republican field, the race for the Democratic nomination in 1948 was among the most competitive in history. Amid the jockeying and arguing between innumerable candidates, Senators Claude Pepper and Strom Thurmond came together to pursue what many Democrats considered a fantasy—drafting Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, the most popular man in America, to the Democratic ticket. Even as the Pacific theatre crumbled, Eisenhower commanded the Allied forces with distinction in Europe. His leadership under pressure and a string of successes in the dying days of the war made him a living legend among the American public, and indeed, his staunchest supporters were quick to declare that Ike would have won the war entirely had Republicans not lost their nerve for the cause. Nobody seemed more qualified to helm the ship of state in a new and uncertain world than the general who fought the Axis to a standstill. Even with the reluctant Eisenhower requiring a draft campaign to enter the race, Democrats turned out in droves for the man they hoped would be their next Roosevelt, never mind that he was not a Democrat. Soon, candidates

cleared from the field, and Eisenhower's July 1948 coronation sealed his crash course with victory over Taft.

It soon became clear that the Eisenhower campaign had no intention of engaging with a contender as hopeless as Taft. Instead, Ike eschewed the day's issues in favor of personal appeal. Running on a platform of basic competence and undefined change from Dewey's failure, the Democratic nominee benefited greatly because Americans, by and large, had no conception of his actual politics. Northerners saw the general as a malleable figure who could deliver on the lost potential of the New Deal and the controversial civil rights plank adopted at the Democratic convention (Eisenhower had no comment). Southerners considered him a principled moderate who would serve to block Northern liberals from destroying their way of life, while liberals, satisfied with the plank despite their chosen candidate's non-committal, accepted compromise as an easy solution. Even disaffected internationalist Republicans could figure Ike as a crusader against fascism abroad, as opposed to the isolationist Taft. For his part, Eisenhower opted not to dispel any of his disparate supporters' dreams, shying away from political promises or even attacks on his enormously unpopular commander-in-chief and instead sticking to platitudes about democracy, fairness, and hope. Analysts predicted a Republican decimation in November and effectively stopped covering the race. In doing so, they would miss the true mark of the Taft campaign even as the Eisenhower tide crushed the GOP; Taft had sown the seeds, set the table, and provided the organizational spark for a generation of radical conservative activists to follow him.

1948 election results displayed in game

Eisenhower's inauguration broke records for crowd sizes as Americans from across the country swarmed into D.C., cheering as the wartime hero took office and restored Democratic dominance over the country. To so many Americans, whether they were dissatisfied with the war performance, the erosion of the New Deal, or in general need of a boost to a low national morale, Eisenhower appeared like George Washington, exuding dignity and purpose for a humiliated and lost nation. With supermajorities in Congress, the Supreme Court, and the arena of public opinion, Ike held the power to reshape the United States with a sweep of his hand, and indeed, many Democratic partisans fantasized that he would practically erase the sting of failure through overwhelming force.

These dreams, however, ignored the reality that Eisenhower had never promised nor intended the sort of sweeping change that his most fervent supporters imagined. Instead, liberals around the country watched in horror as the general sat on his hands, only rolling back Dewey policy in limited cases, repurchasing TVA dams from private ownership, building highways, and generally refusing to expand the role of government any further.

The greatest political mandate of a generation was bestowed upon a man who had no interest in using it, and as such, the Democratic project idled with the world in its hands. Despite this, the late Democratic project under the Dewey administration had given considerable damage to the excesses of capitalism and furnished the United States with a more technocratic, corporatized economy that retained much of the war-era economic mobilization, now geared towards a civilian economy. Gone were the eras of "Great Depressions," as Democrats used planning to keep the ship sailing no matter the storm.

American Corporatism, economy subtype

While Eisenhower took little interest in domestic affairs, he focused on combating "defeatism" and reshaping America's place in the world. Having inherited the Siberian War from Dewey, Ike committed to expanding America's presence in the region to

restore American pride abroad. Thousands of troops would enter the tundra to prop up the otherwise faltering Yagoda government, developing infrastructure, rooting out dissidents and bandit groups, and facilitating another, much larger wave of immigration across the Pacific. The new administration would not take long to face the same troubles as the previous administration. Soon, the ever-increasing effort to tread water would provide isolationist forces with new ammunition against the increasingly controversial war.

One benefit of the Siberian War would be the United Nations Compact of 1949, which created the Organization of Free Nations, a military alliance that swore "collective defense" among the remaining nations in the former United Nations. While isolationist elements protested heavily at the compact's circumvention of Congress's traditional role in declaring war, Eisenhower's treaty was immediately popular with the public, spelling the death of isolationism for the foreseeable future. Eisenhower would remember it as the most outstanding achievement of his tenure.

Founding of the Organization of Free Nations

Faction and Faction Status

The Eisenhower years would also be remembered as the formulation of the United States' sense of "nuclear optimism," viewing the possession and deployment of an overwhelmingly powerful nuclear weapons arsenal as a key part in rolling back fascist power worldwide. Nuclear weapons were an existential threat, but they remained conceptual, hypothetical, an unparalleled strategic advantage whose power had no known limits. Had they been ready in time, nuclear weapons could have saved Britain, liberated Asia and Europe, and ensured world peace under democratic values. Eisenhower may not have had the bomb then, but he had it now, in large quantities and with payloads multitudes larger than those tested at Los Alamos, ready for the final confrontation with fascism. On weekends, families from Los Angeles drove into the Nevada desert to witness the blinding manifestation of the American superpower, awestruck and unthinking of what such a device could do to human beings.

Another oddity of the Eisenhower years was the codification of split national intelligence services, in the form of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Special Intelligence Service, and the Eisenhower-era construction of the Central Intelligence Agency. Despite the latter's name, the two organizations operated independently in different areas of the world; the SIS conducted operations in North and South America as it had since the 1930s, and the CIA operated elsewhere in the world. The former prioritized intelligence gathering and political influencing, whereas the latter, at least initially, had carte blanche to uphold American interests in a variety of ways. While zones of operation were delineated in 1949, this did not stop the CIA from arming rebels in Central America and South America, and since its inception, the Agency has been in near-constant conflict with the SIS. Both the SIS and the CIA saw action in the 1949 diplomatic crisis between Uruguay and Argentina, more overtly in Central America when the CIA and SIS backed El Salvador and Honduras, respectively, during multiple failed attempts to assassinate Rafael Trujillo, and support for Eisenhower's gunboat diplomacy to depose the Ecuadorian government and protect the American lease on the Galapagos Islands.

In the cinders of Taft's record-breaking defeat came a new generation of Republicans, including a particularly fated Representative from suburban Los Angeles. Richard Nixon, a Navy veteran and an ambitious young politician, was eager to prove himself against the new Democratic consensus that seemed more fragile with each passing day. Keenly interested in foreign policy and hunting for an angle, Nixon's

instincts told him that Taft's steadfast isolationism had become politically toxic in the wake of the Second World War. Instead, he hopped on board the rising Neo-Continentalist school of thought, arguing that the expedition in Siberia was a dereliction of duty when the American supercontinent itself harbored anti-American nations backed by fascist powers abroad. By expertly playing on American fears of further defeat, Tricky Dick catapulted himself into an open Senate seat and the forefront of a reinvigorated generation of Republicans set to take power in the future, even while they remained outside of government in the present.

Eisenhower spent much of his first term preparing for a foreign policy confrontation abroad, but would instead find his mettle tested in tropical Hawaii. Tensions between the dominant "Big Five" corporations and the island's labor unions boiled over into a strike wave in 1951, bringing the island economy to a standstill. For a moment, it appeared that the crushing hold of the corporations was on the verge of shattering. Instead, the tide receded; a multi-pronged attack from the Big Five through latent racial resentment, FBI involvement, government-ordered arrests of union leadership, and the formation of company unions, which took lesser deals than their independent counterparts, robbed the ILWU of its momentum and brought the strike to a catastrophic close. The Eisenhower government, unlike the Roosevelt era, opted to observe as the corporations re-established their control passively–another decision that would leave liberals fuming as a President ignored their cause célèbre from their party.

The final straw for Democratic Liberals' toleration of Eisenhower came in the field of civil rights. New Deal funding and state-building transformed Southern states from one-party herrenvolk democracies into domestic fascist republics, with the racial order upheld by state-funded paramilitaries loyal only to the Governor. The rule of law did not apply here, only the interests of those in power; disappearances were common, bad press met brutal ends, and open activism was exceedingly rare, all of which was allowed because it kept the Democratic coalition in power. Organized black activists brought the case of lynchings and racial violence to a national stage, but it seldom became a national issue.

Senator and former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt had championed the civil rights movement since her time in the White House despite her husband's indifference, and this advocacy only grew with her election to the Senate. Her activism went above and beyond in forcing the issue into White circles, driving a wedge between newly convinced Northern Democrats and their uneasy Southern counterparts. When Hawaii's violence was beamed to American television screens, showing a distinct racial divide between striker and strikebreaker, a conversation started. Soon, pressure from beyond the "Roosevelt Caucus" began more openly to call on the President to do something. Eisenhower again demurred, adding one more disappointment that would cement his first term as a failure in the eyes of those remaining Roosevelt Democrats. Race in the United States was simply not an issue worth Eisenhower's time; issues of the economy, of defense, and the federal government were much more concrete and less divisive in American political society.

In ignoring the civil rights question, Eisenhower may have hoped that the issue would eventually recede in its own time. He could not have been more wrong. Matters only escalated as Southern segregationist governors leaped to defend the so-called "Southern way of life." Eisenhower did not pass a civil rights bill, nor were any executive orders issued, but it was as though black activists and their liberal allies had fired a starting pistol. The white backlash was immediate and allowed men like Herman Talmadge, Orval Faubus, and Strom Thurmond to enter office on the platform of escalating their usage of states' powers against a perceived existential threat.

In the shadow of these

concurrent crises, the 1952 Presidential election came and went almost dreamlike. Eisenhower, entering his 60s and still popular despite an idle first term, saw no need to actively campaign and focused primarily on shoring up American efforts abroad. Siberia, Haiti, Latin America, and beyond saw renewed American economic and military investments. Furthermore, activities of the FBI's Special Intelligence Service targeted perceived hostile regimes across the Americas and agitated to secure the United States' hegemony there. Republicans found their sacrificial lamb in Ed Martin, a Pennsylvania Governor-turned-Senator in his 60s, who would take the nomination by default as a half-hearted "Republican Ike" banking on his credentials as an officer on the home front during World War Two. His selection of running mate would carry more intrigue – initially, the young Senator Richard Nixon seemed to be an invigorating choice, but concerns over corruption and crudity handed the nomination to Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. instead. Choosing a wealthy, dynastical Eastern Establishment heir over the upstart from Whittier was a surprise that left Nixon seething for a chance at redemption. While Republicans would again face certain defeat in November, Richard Nixon, embittered by Martin's snub, desperately sought his revenge.

1952 election results displayed in game

Eisenhower's second term would serve as reheated leftovers of his first. Beyond the limited personal interests that Ike harbored, such as infrastructure construction and foreign affairs, stagnation and complacency would become the watchword of the early 50s. Once again, Ike would enter his term with supermajorities in both chambers of Congress. Once again, the general felt little interest in obeying his party's priorities. Once again, liberal partisans would find themselves eternally frustrated by the enormous opportunities passing the President by, but this time, they found the resolve to force Eisenhower's hand.

The battle over civil rights had only grown more intense with time, and, much to the President's displeasure, he would not act first; the Supreme Court ruled in favor of plaintiffs in *United States v. Knox County Schools* and outlawed public funds for segregated institutions. In the face of a new law of the land enforceable only by an unwilling executive, the Southern states simply ignored the proclamation. It would be the start of a constitutional crisis more resembling an insurgency than a pitched battle. Northern congressional liberals came together to draft a bill to establish a Civil Rights Commission to investigate violations of the Reconstruction amendments. However, the watered-down bill that made it to the floor was powerless. Eager to end the civil rights controversy, Eisenhower signed the act into law, only to further inflame the situation; the bill's weakness and lack of enforcement outraged activists, and white Southerners rejected the right of federal legislators to regulate race relations in their states. Eisenhower declared the battle won and ignored the issue, but tensions furthered, militancy sweltered, and another confrontation loomed.

Civil Rights Act of 1954

History would remember Ike as a popular man with little interest or initiative in governance. Sitting on supermajorities in both houses of Congress, he wasted a golden opportunity to rebuild the nation in his image. Many liberals would never forgive him for it or stop dreaming of what could have been —and as they looked to 1956, they wondered if it could be again. President Eisenhower could not have been more disinterested in who Democrats would crown as his chosen successor. The news that Vice President Lucas, already on poor terms after yielding his responsibilities during the 1952 campaign, would not seek the nomination was more reason for excitement

among the kingmakers in the Democratic party. While it would be wrong to look at Eisenhower's presidency as an explicit failure, from the lens of the machine whose lifeblood hinges on the size of a Democratic majority, you'd struggle to find another phrase that so acutely describes their feelings.

Antipathy from the White House at the electoral process saw local partisan infrastructure wither away throughout Eisenhower's presidency. In each election where the President's name wasn't on the ballot, Democrats suffered crippling losses. Fearing a loss of the presidency in November, the 1956 Democratic candidates represented a diverse range of ideas catering to the many factions of the party who felt they'd been left behind. Most notable among them was Senate Majority Whip Lyndon Johnson of Texas, who emerged as an early favorite due to his public oratory and private ability to appease all factions. But a major heart attack abruptly ended Johnson's presidential run and again opened the field, again exciting the disparate representatives of the Democratic Party's many factions.

Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee seemed a long-shot choice before Johnson's heart attack, but by Spring 1956, his name recognition began to soar. His campaign connected with the people using the new medium of television, advertising his prior escapades against corruption to public adoration and denouncing cronyism to the chagrin of party elites. A notable and consequential exception would be Former Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, who had long ago substituted his presidential ambitions with those of his sons. The death of eldest son Joseph Jr. in the defense of Britain only added to his family's mythos, which seemed increasingly attractive to Kefauver, who spent the war years in politics. Kennedy offered to financially support Kefauver's bid for the White House and rebuild support with party elites in exchange for placing his son, John Kennedy, in the number two slot for the ticket. This false choice was a no-brainer for Kefauver, who needed this inroad not just for the nomination, but a serious chance at uniting the divided Democratic Party.

Another eight years out of the White House had done the Republican party a favor in hindsight. Replenishing their ranks after back-to-back wipe-outs following the war, the party that suffered two of the greatest defeats in generations looked formidable to take back Washington. This time, Wisconsin Senator Alexander Wiley, a strong conservative and internationalist voice, rose to be the Republicans' champion in 1956 and promised a new approach to tackling the presidency in a post-Eisenhower era. The campaign between Kefauver and Wiley would be the most lively since the 1940 showdown between Dewey and Hopkins, with both candidates touring the country and taking the attack to one another. For Wiley, the Republicans saw a chance to paint their losses at the hands of Roosevelt and Eisenhower as mere flukes, showing that the Democrats couldn't win without a strong personality at the head of the ticket. For Kefauver, his ability to entice liberals and Southerners alike after mutual betrayals potentially brought opposites together for the last time.

1956 election results displayed in game

In the end, after a close race, Kefauver and Kennedy emerged victorious. Now forced to govern, Kefauver could no longer wear different faces to party factions and would need to lead decisively, even if it meant offending critical allies. Being the first Southerner to take office in nearly a century, there was plenty of reason to fear yet another betrayal of the liberals in the party.

While strange bedfellows brought Kefauver to the White House, they had no intention of keeping him there if he got out of line. The existentialism on both sides of the party was reaching a boiling point; his political survival necessitated action that he couldn't deliver upon. He couldn't legislate to appease

the activists in the parties, and he couldn't hold off mass revolts in the South. Even his bread-and-butter, such as directing the DOJ to investigate executive and state corruption, became polluted by issues of the day and provoked internal dissent. Kefauver, too, refused to enforce the 1954 Supreme Court decision mandating an end to public funds for segregated institutions, drawing the ire of liberals. Drafts of economic bills sank, labor unions resented his "prosecutorial activism," and Kefauver's free hand with executive power only furthered his administration's divisions.

Among his early successes was Kefauver's early use of radio and television airwaves, much like how he connected with the public early in his career; he would attempt to rationalize what decision-making he could to the wider country and bypass enemies in Congress. Circumventing national media repulsed by his lowbrow politics, Kefauver managed to temporarily dull the knives of activists, organized labor, and the conservative South, and allowed the President to sequester otherwise controversial issues through the arena of public opinion. The first employment of telecommunications occurred early in Kefauver's presidency, when Eisenhower's gunboat diplomacy against Ecuador, just days before leaving office, toppled the Quito government and maintained American control over the Galapagos Islands.

Kefauver spoke to the American people and promised a new direction for the United States' foreign policy. There was no other way he could get the public behind a pardon of Gus Hall, the General Secretary of the Communist Party, for still-pending charges of delinquency in Hawaii; instead of him fostering domestic extremism, like the press lambasted him, Kefauver appealed to individual liberties and justice for all. Kefauver discovered another America beyond Capitol Hill that heard, understood, and even accepted him, emboldening his confidence as a uniquely modern and powerful leader. This hubris would be his undoing.

Kefauver would discover the limits of his charm when setting off to stabilize the world's balance of powers, venturing to divide the former Axis Powers between the revolutionary, extremist power of Nazi Germany and the comparatively stable and reliable Empire of Japan. World War Two had ended without a peace treaty, and much of the world's borders were a status quo that could shatter given a sufficiently powerful crisis. With that goal in mind, the majority faction of the Kefauver foreign policy establishment opened talks with the Japanese in neutral Mexico City, where the United States and Japan agreed to reduced trade barriers, mutual recognition of post-war territorial arrangements, and the United States would purchase Japanese gold to establish a consistent exchange rate between their two currencies. Ahead of ratification, Kefauver used his executive power to authorize the purchase of gold, withdraw tariffs, and began preparing the State Department to establish relations with Indonesia, China, Manchuria, and other members of the Japanese sphere of influence.

This unprecedented deal between two superpowers produced a short-lived victory that, for its ambitions, faced immutable criticism in both houses of Congress and both major political parties. Conservatives opposed reconciliation with the Japanese, whose expansionism had taken hundreds of thousands of American lives and still threatened the United States, as did organized labor, which feared liberalized trade with Japan would force American workers to compete with slave labor. All factions were united in opposing the threat to American pride in legalizing American defeat on the battlefield. Even the internationalists who had previously backed Kefauver opposed the treaty, which many said would put the Republic of India in a dangerous position where the United States would not be able to support their ally in the case of an invasion by the Calcutta government. Unlike the Democratic dream of re-winning the Second World War, the US-Japan Treaty died in the Senate, making