David Armstrong

**David Beau Armstrong** is an American politician and retired military officer who is the 48th and current President of the United States. He was elected on November 4, 2036 and reelected on November 6, 2040. A member of the Democratic Party, he had previously served as the 43rd governor of Minnesota from 2031 to 2037. Prior to entering politics, Armstrong was a fighter pilot with 24 years of service in the United States Air Force. Serving during World War III, he was the first and most successful fighter pilot of any country during the war, being credited with a total of 56 aerial victories flying in the Pacific theater.

Born in Lauderdale, Minnesota to a family with a lengthy history of military service, he moved with his family to Arlington, Virginia in 1985, where he would live for the remainder of his childhood. He studied mechanical engineering at the Virginia Military Institute, where he also enrolled in the school's Air Force ROTC program. Upon graduating from the school in 2005, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Air Force and began pilot training the same year, He earned his pilot’s wings the following year and was selected to fly the F-16 Fighting Falcon, with which he accrued over 3,500 flight hours. He later transitioned to flying the F-35 Lightning II in 2018. During World War III, he commanded the 8th Fighter Squadron and later the 509th Fighter Squadron in the Pacific theater, and was credited with 56 aerial victories against enemy aircraft, making him the most successful pilot of the war and the most successful fighter pilot in American history. He was forced to eject on a single occasion and was never shot down by an enemy fighter. For his valor in combat, he was awarded with the Air Force Cross on two occasions, among other awards and decorations. After the war, he was promoted to colonel and briefly served as commander of the 57th Operations Group, overseeing advanced pilot training.

Armstrong retired in 2029 after 24 years of active military service, returning to his home state of Minnesota. As a highly decorated and nationally recognized war hero, he was urged by the state Democratic committee and the Democratic National Committee to run for Minnesota’s open Senate seat or to run for president in the 2032 elections. He opted to run for governor of Minnesota, and he comfortably won the Democratic primary, defeating House representative Dean Philips and state attorney general Keith Ellison, whom he later recruited as his running mate. His keynote address at the 2032 Democratic National Convention, landslide victory in the November general election against Republican incumbent Lisa Demuth, and highly publicized conflict with president Ron DeSantis further cemented his political rise, and he was considered by the Democratic leadership, pundits, and the general public to be a "no-brainer" pick for the presidency. In 2036, after defeating Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a highly contentious primary campaign, he was elected president after winning in a landslide against Republican candidate Marco Rubio and Patriot Party candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene in the general election. He is the first atheist, first Millennial, and first president from Minnesota in American history.

As president, Armstrong has taken a strongly progressive stance on social issues and a strongly hawkish stance on foreign policy. Taking office at the beginning of a period of relative national dominance for the party, In his first year as president, Armstrong signed the Medicare for All Act establishing a single-payer healthcare system, the Civil Rights Advancement Act expanding civil rights and protections for disadvantaged groups, particularly LGBTQ+ Americans, the For the People Act enacting the most significant reform of U.S. elections law in history, and the American Dream Act, which included more than $3.2 trillion in spending on infrastructure, industry, education, and welfare, a raising of the minimum wage to $20 over ten years, and other provisions related to social policy aimed at eliminating poverty. Other legislative accomplishments have included major criminal justice reform through the Criminal Justice Accountability and Reform Act, reform of corporate, labor, and securities law through the Investment in America Act, regulation of Big Tech and expansion of digital privacy rights through the Digital Bill of Rights, the establishment of universal preschool and debt-free college through the Expanded Education Opportunities Act and the College for All Act, statehood for Puerto Rico and most of the District of Columbia (as the Douglass Commonwealth), and the enactment of the 28th Amendment to the Constitution. In the judiciary, Armstrong has appointed Brad Garcia and Candace Jackson-Akiwumi to the Supreme Court for life tenure and Anthony Johnstone and Goodwin Liu for 18-year terms under the Judiciary Act of 2038. Abroad, Armstrong has supported a stronger military and diplomatic presence for the U.S. globally in opposition to China and the Shanghai Pact; to that end, he has stepped-up foreign aid to allies and partners through the $345 billion Marshall III program, following-up from the expiration of Marshall II (2028-2029), and he has significantly increased direct and indirect U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts, including in the ongoing Malaysia War, though to stark domestic opposition.

## Early life and education

David Beau Armstrong was born on February 16, 1983 in Lauderdale, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. His father was Joseph Armstrong, a colonel in the United States Marine Corps, and his mother was Linda Wilde, a nurse. Joseph had English, Swedish, and North German ancestry, while Linda had predominantly Irish ancestry. Both the Armstrong and Wilde families arrived at the peak of European immigration to the United States in the mid-19th century, and both families originally settled in Pennsylvania; David's oldest known paternal relative, Arne Armstrong, arrived in Philadelphia between 1840 and 1841, while his oldest known maternal relative, Francis Wilde, arrived in New York City in 1856 and settled in Pittsburgh in 1859. Both families did not settle in Minnesota until the early- to mid-20th centuries, with the Armstrong family arriving in Minneapolis in 1921, while the Wildes arrived in Saint Paul later in 1948.

Armstrong was born to a family with a lengthy history of wartime service: David's father Joseph had served as a Marine Corps lieutenant in the Vietnam War, and his grandfather Samuel Armstrong was a Navy gunner's mate in World War II; maternally, his great-grandfather Gordon Wilde had served in World War I, and his great-great-grandfather and oldest known maternal relative, Lieutenant Francis Wilde, was a Wikipedia: Medal of Honor recipient who had served in the Irish Brigade of the Union Army during the American Civil War and was present at the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House. David was the second of four children; his elder brother Gabriel also became a fighter pilot, flying for the U.S. Navy, while his younger brother Robert, known as Bobby, became a high school English teacher, and his younger and only sister Elizabeth, known as Liz, became a deputy federal attorney. Armstrong described his upbringing as that of a "typical middle-class nuclear family", with the family experiencing periodic financial hardships despite his father's high placement in the military.

Armstrong's father's final assignment in the Marine Corps took him to the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and the family moved with him in 1985. He attended Washington-Lee High School (now Washington-Liberty High School), where he was elected the 10th grade vice president and 12th grade president. He was also president of the school's debate and speech team, an editor of the school paper, and he was on the track-and-field team, but he did not compete in events. Despite his election to class office, he was considered unpopular and had a reputation for terseness. Academically, he excelled in English and the humanities but was "remarkably poor" in science and math, subjects he would do poorly in for years despite extensive amounts of tutoring.

Before his senior year of high school, Armstrong had not considered joining the military, and did not join the school's Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) program despite his father's urging. However, following the attacks on September 11, which included an attack on the Pentagon, he reconsidered. Armstrong's primary wish was to become a military pilot; after considering either the United States Air Force Academy or the United States Naval Academy, where his brother Gabriel had enrolled the previous year, he ultimately enrolled in the Virginia Military Institute, which his father had attended, and he joined the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFROTC) program at the school. He majored in mechanical engineering and minored in international relations. As in high school, he participated in VMI's ethics and debate team and was a writer and later editor of its student newspaper, *the Cadet*, but he was more athletically involved than he was in high school, actively participating and competing in the school's rifle, track-and-field, and wrestling teams. Through the school's debate team, he gained an interest in politics and public speaking, and he joined the school's College Republicans chapter in 2002, assisting in Senator John Warner's reelection campaign during that year's midterm elections and in President George W. Bush's re-election campaign in 2004. In the summer of 2003, he interned for Warner at the United States Capitol, from which point he determined he would seek political office later in life.

## Military career

Armstrong graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in May 2005 and was subsequently commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Air Force. After earning a slot, he began Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) at Vance Air Force Base in Enid, Oklahoma two months later, flying the T-6 Texan and later the T-38 Talon upon advancement. He graduated first in his class in 2006, and he was selected to fly the F-16C Fighting Falcon with the 77th Fighter Squadron at Shaw Air Force Base near Sumter, South Carolina.

## Governor of Minnesota (2031-2037)

Armstrong's six year tenure as governor of Minnesota was seen as political analysts as a trial run for the presidency.

## Presidency (2037-present)

### Domestic policy

#### Civil rights

Armstrong made expanding civil rights, particularly for LGBTQ+ Americans, a key part of his campaign and first-term agenda. On his first day in office as president, Armstrong signed multiple executive orders and presidential memoranda rescinding policies enacted by the DeSantis administration that, among other things, banned transgender military service, cut off medical institutions and professionals that provided gender-affirming care from Medicare and Medicaid funding, and ordered federal agencies to investigate and ultimately prosecute parents with transgender children. These actions were mostly symbolic, however, since most of the orders had already been codified into law under the Biology Recognition Act. A week later, he announced the formation of a White House Task Force to investigate and formulate LGBTQ+ policy for the administration, and to create a framework for new civil rights legislation.

On April 11, 2037, the 69th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Armstrong signed the Civil Rights Advancement Act of 2038, amending the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 and absorbing numerous bills that had been proposed by Democrats in the previous decade, including the Equality Act and the Transgender Bill of Rights. The act repealed the Defense of Children Act and the Biology Recognition Act, expanded the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, language, and physical and mental ability, added new prohibitions against discrimination in military service for all protected classes, expanded access to gender-affirming care for transgender and gender non-conforming Americans, federally outlawed conversion therapy, amended Title IX to prohibit transgender discrimination in federally-funded education programs, including sports programs, and increased funding for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The act codified and built on the Supreme Court ruling in *Bostock v. Clayton County* (2020) that discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is included under prohibition of sex discrimination in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, rebuked the ruling in *Moody v. Schiffer* (2024) that states have a substantial interest in restricting gender-affirming care for transgender adults and minors, and enshrined military service for LGBTQ+ individuals following repeated implementations and repeals of service bans and restrictions by successive administrations.

Although the Civil Rights Advancement Act was a monumental achievement for the Armstrong administration and the broader civil rights movement, fears remained of a future Republican or Patriot Party administration or Congress undoing such reforms. As such, Armstrong, as with most Democrats, favored passage of an Equal Rights Amendment, which would enshrine equality of rights on account of sex. As the requisite 38 states had already ratified the originally passed amendment, Congress was originally set to vote to simply rescind the amendment's ratification deadline, which would allow for the amendment to be immediately enacted. However, the language of the original amendment, which considered only sex as opposed to the inclusion of gender identity as in the CRAA, led to calls for the passage of a new version of the amendment. On October 1, 2039, the House of Representatives passed a new version of the Equal Rights Amendment by 381 to 54, with all Democrats, 40 Republicans, and 1 Patriot voting in favor. Two weeks later, it passed in the Senate by 85 to 13, again with all Democrats, and with an additional 18 Republicans voting in favor, and the amendment was sent to the state legislatures for ratification. The Equal Rights Amendment was enacted as the Twenty-eighth Amendment to the Constitution on February 19, 2040, after the requisite number of states ratified it.

### Foreign policy

Armstrong's foreign policy platform, colloquially known as the Armstrong Doctrine, is generally characteristic of liberal internationalism, Wilsonianism, and Big Stick diplomacy. Three goals are identified as part of the Armstrong Doctrine: to create a lasting peace; to ensure a self-correcting balance of power; and to guide a new and just world order. The doctrine notably calls for the formation and security of strong, sovereign, and liberal democratic states out of the authoritarian regimes of Iran, China, and Russia to serve as checks on each other, allowing the United States to take a "backseat" role as a "world lifeguard" working to uphold the international order, prevent the outbreak of war, and intervene only when countries are in crisis or the order is at risk of collapsing. In order to achieve this vision, Armstrong has been supportive of maintaining and exercising tools of American hegemony, including the use of military and trade interventions, such as the intervention in the Iranian Civil War, gunboat diplomacy, such as with the execution of freedom of navigation operations in contested waters, and support for regime change, including coups and direct covert action by U.S. forces, such as the Prodigal Son operations in China; Armstrong and officials in his administration have categorically denied any active or direct U.S. involvement in regime change, though they have previously expressed support for coups that are "in the national interest."

Armstrong's foreign policy has been widely criticized for its espousing of unilateralism and imperialism, with Marquis Kerr, an international relations professor at Johns Hopkins University, describing it as "textbook neoconservatism", adding that "he would be right at home in George W. Bush's inner circle." Many comparisons have been drawn between the Armstrong Doctrine and the earlier Wolfowitz Doctrine, including their shared support for continued U.S. primacy and American exceptionalism to further U.S. interests, although the Armstrong Doctrine by contrast aims toward a reduction and eventual relinquishing of the U.S.'s role as a "global policeman". Defending the administration's policy, Armstrong iterated during the 2040 presidential debates that "this is not a permanent policy, and it was never meant to be ... America's role as a global superpower will come to an end eventually, because under my administration, there will one day be no need for 'superpowers' ... for now, we must make good and noble use of our role as the leader of the Free World to help achieve that."

#### 2037 crisis with China

*Main article: USS McRaven incident, 2037 China-United States crisis, Second Cold War*
On October 10, 2037, USS *McRaven* (DDG-146), an *Arleigh Burke*-class guided-missile destroyer, suffered severe damage from an explosion as it transited the Strait of Taiwan on a freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) in Chinese territorial waters around Taiwan, resulting in the deaths of 59 sailors and injuring of 122 sailors. The *McRaven* suffered a loss of power and drifted out into international waters as sailors worked to battle the flames. Chinese special forces deployed from the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 055 guided-missile destroyer *Bei'an**,* which had been shadowing the *McRaven* for the duration of the exercise, were unable to board the ship due to the damage to the ship and the raging fire on board, and many in fact assisted the *McRaven*'s crew in firefighting. Following an 18-hour effort, the fires were largely suppressed and the ship was towed back to U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay in the Philippines by cutters of the U.S. Military Sealift Command.

The incident marked the first and most serious direct confrontation between the Chinese and American militaries since the end of World War III, and precipitated the beginning of an international crisis between China and the United States. In response to the attack on the *McRaven*, Armstrong ordered the forward deployment of USS *Franklin D. Roosevelt* (CVN-83) and its associated battle group, Carrier Strike Group 4, from Naval Base Subic Bay to the Strait of Taiwan on October 11. China responded in kind the same day with the deployment of both of its only active aircraft carriers, the conventionally-powered *Fujian* and nuclear-powered *Shaanxi*, as well as their respective battle groups, to the Yellow Sea west of Korea. Tensions reached a fever-pitch when an unmanned RQ-170 Sentinel was shot down while surveilling Chinese bases in the Kamchatka Peninsula on October 15, resulting in a retaliatory U.S. airstrike on Anadyr Air Base, where stealth J-20 fighters and WZ-1000 surveillance aircraft were stationed. The following day on October 16, China's Northern Theater Command, with responsibility over the border with Korea, was ordered to partially mobilize and was placed on maximum readiness.

The Department of Defense began openly considering a resumption of hostilities with China on the Korean peninsula and ordered U.S. Indo-Pacific Command to DEFCON 2 on the same day. Documents revealed that U.S. and Korean frontline commanders had jointly planned and were seeking authorization for preemptive conventional and nuclear strikes on Chinese forces in Manchuria, and that the Chinese battle group in the Yellow Sea was being shadowed by USS *Oklahoma* (SSN-802), a nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine, as well as F-35 Lightning II fighters carrying anti-ship missiles. While the Joint Chiefs of Staff, combatant commander Admiral Striegel, most of the National Security Council, members of both of Congress's intelligence committees, and the United States Intelligence Community supported the strikes, secretary of state Chris Murphy, secretary of defense Colin Kahl, and Director of National Intelligence Brett Holmgren did not. Armstrong ultimately ordered a stand-down, authorizing the strikes only if attacked first and with explicit presidential authorization. No such attack came over the next several days. On October 21, Armstrong and Chinese leader Jiang He met over teleconference, with the two agreeing to respect the *status quo ante bellum* and returning their ships to port. Armstrong additionally agreed to halt further freedom of navigation operations in the Strait of Taiwan.

The Armstrong administration formed the Striegel Commission, led by U.S. Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Alan Striegel, to investigate the causes of the incident. Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Huang Lin asserted that the incident was "accidental" and that the People's Liberation Army had no part in the incident, while Chinese state media reported that the *Bei'an* had attacked the *McRaven* for allegedly interfering with Chinese military communications during its passage. The findings of the Striegel Commission, on the other hand, determined that the explosion had been external in nature, with an analysis of the damage to the vessel indicating that it had been hit by a torpedo, most likely launched by a Type 093 nuclear-powered attack submarine determined to have been accompanying the *Bei'an*. They additionally suggested that China "intended to sink the ship the moment it entered Taiwanese waters." The charge was strongly denied by Chinese officials.

The attack on USS *McRaven* was used by Congress as justification to pass the McRaven Resolution on November 1, authorizing Armstrong to expand the number of troops participating in the Malaysia War from 11,000 to up to 200,000 combat personnel and broadly permitting a more expansive war effort. The resolution was condemned by the Chinese government and anti-war politicians on both sides of the political spectrum as violating the agreement between Jiang and Armstrong, but was nevertheless signed into law on November 3.

#### Aegean peace settlement

Between March and June 2033, Greece and Turkey, both of which were NATO members, went to war for the first time in over fifty years for control of disputed territory in the Aegean Sea and the island of Cyprus. Although the preceding Whitmer administration had successfully brokered an armistice agreement between the two countries, tensions lingered and the question of who controlled what remained unanswered.

At the invitation of Armstrong, Greece and Turkey, which had not maintained formal diplomatic relations since the end of the war, conducted a series of summits mediated by the United States and the European Federation to accomplish three tasks: to normalize relations, to formally end the Aegean War, and to reach a settlement over disputed territories. Normalization of relations was accomplished at the first of the summits in Sion, Switzerland between September 2 and September 20, 2038, with the respective foreign ministers of Greece and Turkey in attendance. Both countries formally reestablished diplomatic contact, including the re-opening of their embassies in Athens and Ankara and committed to holding further talks over resolving disputes.

Two months later, Greek prime minister Prokopos Metrakis and Turkish president Kagan Yalcinkaya met in Toledo, Spain where they signed a formal declaration of peace between the two countries, thereby officially ending the Aegean War. They further agreed to reestablish the demilitarized zone in Greece's Aegean Islands and Turkey's western coast, directed their respective government agencies to begin the process of returning displaced citizens and refugees to their home countries, and formally released and exchanged prisoners of war.

The third and final peace summit between Greece and Turkey was held between May 3 and May 10, 2039 in Augusta, Maine, and concluded with the signing of the Final Settlement on the Status of the Aegean Sea and Islands, otherwise known as the Augusta Accords. Both countries agreed to respect the width of territorial waters in regards to the Aegean islands as 6 nautical miles, a definition that had been accepted and respected since the 20th century. Additionally, Greece agreed to forbid itself from any further unilateral expansion of its claimed territorial waters, and Turkey agreed to renounce its territorial claims to any islands held by Greece. Outside of the accords, Turkey agreed to accede to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in order to facilitate the diplomatic resolution of any future disputes.

The brokering of the Aegean peace settlement has been described as among Armstrong's most significant foreign policy achievements, giving him substantial credibility as a power-player in Europe even after the formation of the European Federation and withdrawal of U.S. forces and allowing him to pursue other foreign policy objectives on the continent.