Kevin Buchanan (2032-2040)

Kevin Buchanan, 49th President of the United States

Kevin Sydney Buchanan was a former Congressman and president from 2036-2040. Generally known as a middling, yet charismatic man, intelligent, but not a genius, Buchanan is often regarded as one of the worst presidents ever for his wartime leadership. He is largely accredited with permanently tarnishing the Democrats’ reputation and paving the way for Victoria Cortez, the American Thatcher.

## Background

Kevin Sydney Buchanan was born in Vermont on March 20, 1969, and served as president from 2036-2040. After attending Dartmouth and going to law school, Buchanan moved back to his hometown in Vermont and started a decades long career in local politics.

Starting out as the youngest member in city council history, he quickly became mayor and remained there for 20 years. Buchanan ran for State Congress, won, and then quickly launched a grassroots campaign to Congress, and won again in 2022.

Widely being considered an extremely moderate Democrat, he managed to run for the Democratic Primaries in 2036, only barely beating out Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for the position of Democratic candidate, thanks to much jerry-rigging from the party establishment, who desperately wanted to win against what was now looking like a near-unstoppable right.

Buchanan was instructed to run towards the right and pick up as many moderates as possible, as the 5th Great Awakening was in full swing, and the nation as a whole was rapidly moving towards social conservatism. The Republicans, having gone fully populist, ran Charlie Kirk as a populist candidate with no governing experience, and thus no connections to the swamp, and was in the best position to uproot it.

Buchanan quickly seized this and leaked Kirk's history of promoting hardline conservative policies, promotion of conspiracy theories, and ran successful attack ads saying that Kirk would be an unstable president, one ill equipped to deal with the start of World War 3, and then presenting himself as the sane, moderate alternative. It worked, and in 2036, he was elected the 49th President of the United States.

## Presidency and World War 3

The United States emerged out of its bubble of isolationism for the first time since 2022, and found itself woefully unprepared for a war against the combined Russians and Chinese. Decades of isolationism had worn away at America's ability to defend its allies. Buchanan found himself to be the wrong president at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Though America's military was still strong, it found itself eclipsed by a Chinese military industrial complex twice as powerful as its own, and a hyper-militarized Russia which would erase anything they threw against it with sheer brute force. With the exception of France, who had left NATO after the 2022 Unraveling, most of its allies were ineffective and pacifist. Despite being weakened and being in no position to fight off two superpowers at once, the United States had to do most of the heavy carrying for the Western Alliance.

Gathering with his military advisors, they hastily organized a defense strategy of the Western allies, realizing that they were at an immediate disadvantage. What they didn't realize was that even these bleak predictions were underestimating their enemy. It was also around this time when Buchanan authorized a joint American-German mission to create FATES, a highly advanced AI who would help the Western Allies gain a strategic advantage in war, attempting to leverage America's technological advantage. Originally meant to be created in America, intense lobbying from their European allies ended up having the project relocated to Frankfurt, Germany.

After Poland fell after a brutal, 3 month siege, the Americans had lost the last ally who was still militarized to any capacity. A last ditch attempt to reinforce Germany with American and British conscripts failed, as Russians broke through, and Germany fell in 3 weeks where Poland lasted 3 months. In the last battle of the war, America at least tried to salvage Japan, putting the combined forces of the United States towards fighting off a Chinese invasion. This too failed, with the Chinese simply grinding down the American military with greater production.

The 2038 midterms were a bloodbath, with both the Democratic and Republican parties disorganized, dozens of independent representatives were able to get elected to the House of Representatives, and the Republicans had won a filibuster proof majority in the House for the first time in many decades. In the Senate, nearly no Democratic candidate up for re-election won, nearly all of their candidates defecting as independents, or being replaced with Republicans.

As bad as 2038 was for the Democrats, it was about to get a whole lot worse. In 2039, the Chinese had razed Japan to the ground, and the United States was forced to disgracefully surrender to its enemies, ceding much land and paying reparations. The Democratic Party nearly shattered under the sheer backlash at home, an entire generation of young men having been lost, and an incompetent president who had lost them a world war with nothing to show for it. Buchanan's approval rating crashed to single-digits after the debacle.

The war would end up shaping Buchanan's entire legacy, even though it wasn't strictly his fault. Though Buchanan certainly made some mistakes, America was simply not militarily strong enough to win a war with Russia and China, especially with decades of isolationism beforehand. Buchanan was now facing daily death threats, and calls for him to resign all over the country.

Buchanan decided not to run in 2040, seeing the writing on the wall. His Vice President, Richard Walters, tried to run in 2040, but it was a bloodbath. Backlash against the Democrats had become so great that the Progressives straight up revolted, and formed their own Progressive Party in their stead. Meanwhile, in the Republican Party, the evangelicals and populists had found a common candidate in one Victoria Cortez, the American Thatcher. And also the first Hispanic candidate for President.

When all the votes were tallied, it was the worst showing for any presidential candidate since Reagan's victory in 1984. Buchanan would spend his remainder of his days writing memoirs and trying to salvage his reputation as the president who lost the war. He still gets daily death threats.

## Legacy

Later independent analysts have concluded that the blame of Buchanan for America's loss of World War 3 was largely unfair, as the United States by 2035 was heavily outmatched versus the emerging superpowers of Russia and China, as well as the cost of carrying the weight for its incompetent allies. Despite this, Buchanan's reputation remains permanently soiled, with his name becoming a synonym for a failed president.