Democratic Party
From Turtledove
The Democratic Party is a political party in the United States.
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[edit] Democratic Party in Southern Victory
Prior to the War of Secession, the Democratic Party was friendly to Southern interests, and after the war, advocated taking a soft line against the Confederate States. This position was ultimately rejected by American voters with the 1880 election of Republican James G. Blaine.
Following the Second Mexican War, and the dissolution of the Republican Party with former President Abraham Lincoln's defection to the Socialist Party, the Democrats were able to outflank the Republicans on the issue of Remembrance, and they adopted a hard line foreign policy and the gearing of the entire US society to nationalism and revanchism. This plan came to fruition in the Great War.
Following the Great War, the Socialist Party got political mileage by attacking the Democrats' economic and labor policies. In 1920 President Theodore Roosevelt was defeated by Upton Sinclair. The two decades saw the Democrats and the Socialists trading power back and forth. While Sinclair's administration was success, his Socialist successor, Hosea Blackford, was unable to effectively cope with the economic depression that took place after the stock market crash, and appeared weak in the Pacific War with Japan. Briefly, the Dems were able to recapture power, gaining a majority in Congress in 1930, and electing a Democrat, Herbert Hoover in 1932. But, when the Democrats appeared weak on the economic depression, the American public returned to the Socialists, electing Al Smith.
However, the Democrats began to look more attractive when Jake Featherston became Confederate president and took an extremely hard line against the US. The Democrats opposed the Richmond Agreement brokered between Smith and Featherston in 1940, and the ensuing plebiscites in Sequoyah, Houston, and Kentucky. They were proven correct when Featherston used the Agreement as a casus belli to invade the US. However, as the Socialists supported the Second Great War with enthusiasm equal to that of the Democrats', taking advantage of the rising tide of nationalism in the US electorate proved difficult.
Nonetheless, the Democracts were able to regain power after the Second Great War, despite the fact that the Socialists led the country to victory. In 1944, the Democrats gained a majority in Congress, and saw the election of Tom Dewey to the office of the president.
[edit] Democratic Party in Worldwar
The Democratic Party, under the leadership of Franklin D. Roosevelt, had become the party of liberalism in the wake of the Great Depression. When World War II began, the Democrats were firmly in power in both the executive and the legislative branches. Nonetheless, the mood the country overall remained isolationist. However, the United States entered the war in December, 1941, when tensions between the U.S. and Japan led to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. As the United States set its industrial base on a war-footing, World War II was interrupted by the Race Invasion.
Although the Democrats were able to help steer the country through the war and maintain the country's sovereignty (at an admittedly high price), the mood of the country shifted in the years after the 1944 Peace of Cairo. By 1960, the Republican Party was viewed as the hardline party on the issue of national security, in anticipation of the arrival of the Race's Colonization Fleet.
[edit] Democratic Party in "Joe Steele"
The populist stance of the Democratic Party became a vehicle for Joe Steele's rise to the presidency, and his subsequent imposition of tyranny in the United States.
[edit] Democratic Party in "News From the Front"
The Democratic Party was fractured early in 1942, as the American public and press turned against President Franklin D. Roosevelt's handling of World War II. Vice President Henry Wallace publically broke with Roosevelt, questioning the president's veracity on the war in the first months of the year. By June, Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn had begun the impeachment process.
