United States of America

The **United States of America (USA)**, commonly known as the **United States** or **America**, is a large country located in North America. Due to its status of perpetual neutrality enshrined after World War II, it has grown into one of the largest import markets in the world, and despite its neutral status, is a major front in the ongoing Cold War between the Aryan People's Federation and the Empire of Japan.

## History

### End of WWII and collapse of the Democratic Party

Following the American defeat in World War II, the complete collapse of the New Deal system triggered a major political and economic crisis within the United States, leaving a major power vacuum which tore the Democratic Party into factionalism and decline. After losing Oahu in September, Harry Truman had begun negotiations for peace with Japan, and the Treaty of Osaka would be signed on October 10th, 1944, the day afterwards Roosevelt would refuse to run for his own term and instead endorsed Harry A. Wallace as his successor. However, the damage was done and ultimately many Democratic party leaders who hated Wallace's left-leaning policies split on the issue; many took advantage of the defeat in the war and blamed New Deal policies for weakening the state of the nation, as well as entering the war in the first place, with isolationism becoming mainstream in reactionary politics against the Progressive faction of the Democrats. Truman himself was assassinated by a disgruntled Oahu veteran shortly after the Treaty of Osaka was signed, being replaced by Sam Rayburn, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, as President until the next president would be inaugurated.

Truman's assassination was the final nail in fracturing the party itself; when Wallace was confirmed as the nominee under heavy support from Rayburn, conservatives split from the party and instead supported Charles Lindbergh as the national candidate for the "America First Party" on an isolationist policy with his running mate as Harry F. Byrd. In the end, Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey would win the presidency in a landslide, with Douglas MacArthur chosen as his vice president to appeal to moderate, less isolationist factions. The party split proved to be a permanent issue, with the mainstream Democrats' polling numbers falling down to only 12%, even with Wallace nominating moderate Truman as his running mate. Dewey's "America for Americans" policy, which included passing the Neutrality Amendment, made him popular among a war-weary population, and he been elected to a second term.

While the Republicans grew to dominance from the Democratic Party's downfall, they did not necessarily become dominantly influential. Their insistence on centrism kept more extreme factions, arising from the post-war era of renewed poverty, from voting with them. Disgruntled workers who were laid off after the collapse of wartime factories had flocked to the Communist Party USA, which, despite the Calamity in the North causing the collapse of the Soviet sphere, had become more attractive as the public feared fascism far more, leading socialism to once more become popular, although still not mainstream. Charles Lindbergh, who had seen the Democratic Party as backstabbers, had reformed the initial America First Party. While most of its temporary supporters had moved back to the Democratic Party after Dewey's landslide victory, Lindbergh himself had intended to continue it as a third party, becoming a senator for the now-renamed Free People's Party, a far-right isolationist party that would evolve over the next few decades. The FP's had evolved from the initial Dixiecrat movement, seeking to compete with the Democratic Party and Communist Party USA for influence among the white working class.

### 1950's and the Nixon Era

While Germany and Japan experienced growth and reform during the 1950's, the "golden decade", America experienced a slow, grueling recovery from the post-war economic collapse. America had not been the power it once was, and isolation could not fix the problems it faced: the lend-leases had never been repaid by its former allies now ceasing to exist, and Americans were now in crippling debt from unpayable war bonds which were now lost, leaving Americans poor. Reluctance to trade following the war, while allowing America to re-invest its resources back into itself, became a long-term issue as the country failed to embrace the economic conditions of the age.

Now a de facto one party state, the Republican Party's diverse factions had further increased in influence. Douglas MacArthur, his former Vice President, was a primary candidate in the Election of 1956, but his military history and opposition to isolationism left him controversial enough to fail to secure the nomination, instead being defeated by Richard Nixon, who would go on to serve two terms due to his popularity and strong Californian political base. Being seen as a young, newer face for the GOP, Nixon had normalized economic ties with foreign powers, allowing the country to become a global economic powerhouse once more while still keeping neutral.

Under the Nixon presidency, the United States became very involved in defensive policy, wishing to re-establish itself as the intermediate "free power" and reinvigorate American business interests. Increasing tensions grew within Nixon's cabinet, as the climate of Latin America during the era was divisive in the direction he wished to take. While Nixon was firmly anti-communist, he also believed it to be a preferable alternative to fascism, and had walked a thin tightrope of a policy; aiding pro-democracy groups directly clashes with the interests of the United Fruit Company. However, authoritarian regimes following the immediate economic collapse and power vacuum that occurred in the United States following World War II had shifted their interests into aligning with Axis economies, the balance of centering between fascism and communism proving difficult in the region.

The Nixon era was significant in shaping the modern American political system. The Democratic Party, alienated as a faction and wrought with factionalism, had completely split following the Civil Rights Act of 1957, with Senate Minority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson calling for the act to be passed to the chagrin of Southern conservatives, the same faction which initially broke into the America First Party in the 1940's. George Wallace led a group of Southern Democrats against the mainline Democratic Party, reconnecting with other Southern conservatives who were alienated by the legacy of New Deal policy, eventually founding the American Freedom Union Party, which would soon become the Union Party. This split would define the next decades of the US; the rump Democratic Party now finding itself positioned as a progressive faction. While the Republican Party at this time was still the dominant party in the American political system, the Democratic Party became attractive to black voters and progressives, while the South shifted towards the Union Party.

Nixon left office as a relatively popular president, his corrupt actions not being uncovered within his presidency itself, although many had hated his civil rights policy; the Election of 1964 was held during a time of heightened tensions over relative inaction among Republicans over the civil rights movement, which had grown in intensity over the years. With the assassination of Malcolm X, the Democratic Party and the Communist Party, both thought long dead, had exploded into popularity, the latter even surpassing the Union Party in popular vote. However, Nelson Rockefeller, the Republican candidate, had still won due to the lack of unity among parties.

### Rockefeller and the Goldwater Revolution

Rockefeller's presidency was the last of the Sixth Party System that had marked the period following the Democratic Party's initial collapse. Part of a dying breed of centrist "establishment" Republicans who had been dying out in favor of progressives and conservatives, as well as their extremes. While dominant, the Republican Party had been focusing on appealing to all demographics across the nation in a strategy that had stagnated across the nation, Rockefeller winning by a slimmer margin than Nixon and Dewey.

While not necessarily popular, his presidency itself was successful, further normalizing relations with outside countries for trade.

## Parties

### Major

* **Republican Party** - majority
	+ (Big tent)
	+ Neoliberalism (factional)
	+ Libertarianism (factional)
	+ Centrism (factional)
	+ Conservatism (factional)
	+ Liberalism (factional)
* **Democratic Party**
	+ Liberalism (primary)
	+ Progressivism (factional)
	+ Social Democracy (factional)
	+ Socialism (factional)
* **Union Party**
	+ Paleo-conservatism (primary)
	+ Conservatism (factional)
	+ Populism (factional)
	+ White nationalism (factional)

### Minor

* **National People's Party**
	+ Far-right (primary)
	+ Isolationism (factional)
	+ White nationalism (factional)
	+ Fascism (factional)
	+ American national socialism (factional)
* **Communist Party of the United States of America**
	+ Communism (primary)
	+ Social Democracy (factional)
	+ Socialism (factional)
	+ Libertarian socialism (factional)

## List of presidents since the 1930's

* Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) [Republican]
* Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945) [Democratic]
* Herbert Hoover (1945) [Democratic]
* Sam Rayburn (1945-1949) [Democratic]
* Thomas Edmund Dewey (1949-1957) [Republican]
* Richard Nixon (1957-1965) [Republican]
* Nelson Rockefeller (1965-1969) [Republican]
* Barry Goldwater (1969-) [Republican]