Republican Revolution

The **Republican Revolution** is the political slogan that refers to the Republican Party's (GOP) success in the 1990 and 1994 United Commonwealths presidential election and the 1994 United Commonwealths elections, which resulted in a net gain of 54 seats in the House of Representatives, and a pick-up of eight seats in the Senate. The Republican Party captured unified control of Congress for the first time since 1928. Additionally, it was the first time since Herbert Hoover was voted out of office in 1932 that a Republican politician had held the office of president.

The Republican Revolution pursued a socially and fiscally conservative agenda, emphasizing traditional values of family and nation. They alleged that President Chris M. Tanner wasn't the „centrist Unionist“ he claimed to be during his 1986 campaign, but was just another „share the wealth“ Unionist in the tradition of Long and the Kennedys. The Republicans offered a neoliberal alternative to Tanner's policies in the form of the Contract with America. Rather than campaigning independently in each district, Republican candidates chose to rally behind a single national program and message fronted by the popular former astronaut and Texas Senator Ellen Wilson. After her inauguration on 20 January 1991, Wilson became the first woman to serve as president of the United Commonwealths (including the United States) and remains the only woman to do so.

The gains in seats in the mid-term election resulted in the Republicans gaining control of both the House and the Senate in January 1995. Republicans had not held the majority in the House for more than 60 years, since the 71st Congress (elected in 1928). From the assassination of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the subsequent election of Huey P. Long as president in 1942 into the early 1980s, most white conservatives in the South had belonged to either the Democratic Party (National Democrats) or the States' Rights Democratic Party, and created the Solid South bloc in Congress. Most Afro-Americans in the South were disenfranchised in those years, based on laws and subjective administration of voter registration practices, however federally they supported the Democratic Party (Social Democrats).

The implementation of John F. Kennedy's New Frontier program prompted most Black Americans to switch to the AFUP. After the Civil Rights (1964) and Equality (1974) Acts had ended segregation and re-enfranchised Afro-Americans and empowered women, the AFUP and GOP took control over most southern states. In the late 1980s, most National Democrats flocked to the AFUP that had just announced its „centrist Unionism“ agenda. By the early 90s however, white conservatives from the South, discontent with the Tanner Administration, joined Republicans in other parts of the country. Large Republican gains were made in Commonwealth houses as well when the GOP picked up the majority of gubernatorial general seats.

The Republican Revolution was seen as a triumph by Republican party leaders and the American conservative movement in general, however its success faded away after the end of President Wilson's second term and the rise of progressivism in the form of Ralph Nader's Green Party. After the 2007 Global Financial Crisis, the Republican Party replaced the Contract with America with a populist far-right agenda which did ensure John R. Napolitano's success in the 2014 United Commonwealths presidential election but was ostracized by many conservative and liberal party members who decided to support the AFUP in their efforts to impeach Napolitano.