A Horse of a Different Color: American Auntology
I'm a day late but happy Memorial Days! The blood is on the wall, zeitgenossen! Thought I'd take the time to lay out some of the (occasionally conflicting) goals of the Manifest Destiny! Party, since most of the others have goals and priorities that match up pretty well to existing parties and factions of parties but Manifest Destiny! is far more interesting IMO. After all, even without trying to coalesce around a presidential candidate what policy in common could regionalists and state separatists have with not one but four flavors of ethnic nationalist?
I suppose it's helped by their cardinal rule: "Anyone trying to drag the party toward crime, violent separatism or ethnic cleansing is a glowie", so the ones frothing at the mouth are safely kept on the outside and any of the ethnats or secesh with a head on their shoulders are forced to trade boots for suits and speak softly to bide time until the inevitable collapse and race war. For the sake of simplicity I'll lay out major goals from more to less realistic, or less to more committed, depending on your point of view, with each ideally building on the prior ones:
*OTL western South Dakota for the novel version of the map.
I suppose it's helped by their cardinal rule: "Anyone trying to drag the party toward crime, violent separatism or ethnic cleansing is a glowie", so the ones frothing at the mouth are safely kept on the outside and any of the ethnats or secesh with a head on their shoulders are forced to trade boots for suits and speak softly to bide time until the inevitable collapse and race war. For the sake of simplicity I'll lay out major goals from more to less realistic, or less to more committed, depending on your point of view, with each ideally building on the prior ones:
- Localism redux- Pretty straightforward, an emphasis on building local consciousness (though "among whom" depends on who you're talking to) and making state governments more responsive to voters and/or traditionally underserved regions of the states through things like referendums/redistricting and investment, respectively. This is where the party's emphasis on state and local office is dedicated.
- A Turtle Island longhouse- To better preserve treaty rights the tribes should form a representative continental body and push for changes at the state and federal level to achieve three major objectives:
- Lobbying Congress and the states as a united front.
- Gaining some form of direct advisory power within the Department of the Interior. This one gets the most buy in from westerners who despise the Bureau of Land Management.
- Gaining administrative authority over the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service through a veto power over nominations to head them.
- A new Freedmen's Bureau: Several factions are virulently opposed to reparations in the form of actual cash dispersals for Black America but others see the longhouse idea as an inspiration for a similar system that could lobby Congress collectively and coordinate federal housing and job training aid already being dispersed to Black communities.
- The Bill of (States') Rights- A fluctuating list of proposed Amendments, the most commonly agreed upon version of which focusing on expanding the House to better represent small states, limiting the expansive interpretation of the Commerce clause to devolve more autonomy to the state level, and enshrining clarified rights to the formation of interstate compacts to solve regional issues. More expansive lists involve stripping authority from the Senate, especially combined with the next proposal.
- A (partially) decolonized America- Basically borderline impossible a single map attempting to better balance state populations and synthesize as many ethnic homeland and regionalist goals as possible without actively shattering the country, through the changing of state boundaries. Ideally it would be combined with the prior proposals to ensure the tribes aren't rolled over and the shift in Senate representation doesn't screw everyone. Proposed boundary changes include:
- Dividing Shasta (OTL Jefferson proposal) from California and Lincoln from Texas to satisfy the more libertarian northern California and Hispanophone southern Texas, respectively.
- Combining Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and eastern Washington/Oregon into the new state of Absaroka to satisfy the American Redoubt types, with a small slice given to the state of Sioux*.
- Admitting the New York, LA and Chicago metropolitan areas as states to prevent them from absorbing all focus in their respective states.
- Consolidation of the remaining Oregon and Washington into the state of Cascadia to give the regionalists half a loaf.
- Statehood for Puerto Rico and a consolidated collection of the Pacific Insular Territories in the form of Micronesia to finally allow representation.
- Consolidation of Arizona and New Mexico into the state of Aztlan to satisfy La Raza types.
- Consolidation of Utah and Nevada into Deseret to partially unify the Mormon Corridor.
- Creation of an Appalachian state combining West Virgina with slices of several other Southern states that are traditionally ignored.
- The remnants of the central southern states would be consolidated into Cherokee (eastern Tennessee/Kentucky), Chesapeake (Maryland, Delaware, and western Virginia, DC) and a unified Carolina.
- A New Afrika-esque state of Douglass in the Black Belt stretching from northern Mississippi through central Alabama and Georgia.
- Dividing South Florida from (North) Florida and combining the latter with the rump southern Georgia/Arkansas/Mississippi.
- A consolidated New England.
*OTL western South Dakota for the novel version of the map.
Last edited: