Political Retrospection: 2005 - 2009 Part 1
The Anglosphere
Over in the United States, the latter half of the first decade of new millenium proved that change kept on coming. Specifically, many of the smaller events and changes in the past began growing over and leading to a new status quo. The major example of this would be the election of Olympia Snowe as the first female President of the United States and the first president of the modern Federalist Party, the successor to the Republican Party. Snowe's election proved that the Federalist Party was indeed here to stay and that they were the new face of American conservatism over for the 21st century. At the same time though, President Clinton's second term would still have prominent hallmarks to show for it. One major event would be the summer of 2006 where same-sex marriage was legalized throughout all of the United States through the "Equal Marriage and Rites Act". This was done thanks to years of hard work and dedication from many support groups and civilians who pushed for this, along with the growing support over in the mainstream, especially thanks to the mass media over the last two decades helping to further normalize the idea of same-sex couples for those who may not have seen or interacted wth them. This is in turn inspired more people to come out of the closet and support one another. Of course, with the United States now having openly supported same-sex marriage, there would no doubt be quite a massive shockwave over across the world. Beyond this, some other big news would be the induction of Washington DC (Douglass Commonwealth) and Puerto Rico over into the union as formal states. This meant the US would now have 52 new states, bringing in 4 new Senators, a handful of new House Reps along with governors and a bit of the shifting of the political stucture of the nation. There was also some discussion on increasing the number of distict courts and rearranging some, though this was not considered in the Clinton Administration outside of some planning.
Canada wouldn't be as affected by this; after all, they would go and approve of same-sex marriage the year before the Americans would, something they couldn't help but go and brag about. At the same time, it was still very welcomed news and it would definitely put pressure over on everyone else. Meanwhile, Canadian politics were in a bit of flux as it would be a toss-up over who would win in the next election. The Progressive Conservatives had been making some strong showings with their recovering, but have yet to find a suitable leader to help them further into victory. The Liberals meanwhile had to deal with the retirement over of Paul Martin from politics though the good news was that they were able to reclaim victory and transition into a new Prime Minister in Stéphane Dion, who took the place of Martin in leading the Liberals. As for the NDP, they were beginning to recovery extensively under Jack Layton, to where many were predicting a return of NDP leadership in the next upcoming years. For the most part, things in Canada were rather calm, though there were still various issues to deal with, such as maintaining growth in the economy, trying to go and maintain the presence of specialists, and of course, the First Nations people still fighting to get better conditions and rights, especially with alot of the complicated aspects that some of the politicians really don't wanna address or look into.
And of course, with what the US and Canada did, there was now growing pressure on the rest of the Anglosphere to go and follow suit. Australia would see support of same-sex marriage go and spike extensively thanks to these two victories and they were also motivated over by a desire to go and beat the British to the punch. This would be seen in growing support over for the Labor Party who was pushing on these. So much so that the Labor Party would go over and win in 2007 on this promise, allowing them to go and push for it in 2008. Additionally, other issues were motivating parties to go all hands in with other issues. With solar power looking more and more viable, the Australian Greens would strengthen their hold on the coalition with the National Party and Country Liberal Party. After all, combining green policies with economic incentives would allow them to get plenty of public support and economic prosperity. New Zealand would also go all in over at the same time as Australia would over with same-sex marriage and thus really begin putting pressure over on the United Kingdom as well as Ireland in that regard, And the growing successes were invigorating the movements over in these nations and in others. Charles Kennedy would go and get his Lib-Dems reelected, managing to get more votes. While Labour was still part of their coalition, they were beginning to lose members and voters who saw more of a future with the Lib-Dems. Kenneth Clarke meanwhile continued to reinforce his position over in the Tories, with Euro-skepticism even more of a minority position within the Tories.
Latin America
Latin America would begin seeing further fascinating reforms over the latter half of the decade. Mexico would see Porfirio Muñoz Ledo continue on before ending over in 2006. The Ledo Administration followed up on what the Cárdenas Administration did and in the last couple of years, doubled down on working with Mondragon. Additionally, the Ledo Administration would go with an ambitious project with the creation of Solmex. A state-owned and managed company, they focus on reseaching, manufacturing and installing various solar energy products such as solar cells and photovoltaic systems along with acting as a national energy company. It was inspired by Pemex and indeed, meant to be its successor due to the decline in petroleum on the globlal market over the past few decades. However, the growing test of Solmex would go and be overseen by Ledo's successor in Andrés Manuel López Obrador. AMLO's victoy was still a surprise, but it was reflective of both the PRD's past successes and that they would remain a prominent influence for the time to come. AMLO would ride in a further promise of progressive social reform and maintaining aid and development of the working class, especially with the creation of Solmex. Meanwhile, the country would also continue on dealing with various forms of corrupton along with other issues.
Central America was also starting to pick up steam thanks to the aid of Mexico, the Mondragon Corpoation and most of all, the efforts of their own people. The drug cartels had become a minor problem here and the focus lay over on getting the governing groups to go and work together. While there were plenty of optimists and promise, they were sometimes stymied over by lingering corruption, the troublesome details of ruling day by day and of course, the in-fighting. That said, things were still somewhat stable and more and more people were doing their best to make the most of it. At the same time, things were looking better and better with both the American and Mexican governments keeping out for any potential violent problems. Meanwhile over in the Caribbean, Haiti and the Dominican Republic have made great strides and improved significantly since then. There was also growing efforts for the two nations to work together, with modest grounds being made. However, the various divides continue to linger over in the nation. It didn't help the language barrier, though Haiti would begin benefitting from closer ties to Canada, thanks to their shared French influences. Cuba meanwhile remained in its peaceful if complicated state. They and the Americans hadn't been enemies for a while, but it would be a stretch to call them friends. That said, they were no longer in embargo, so there was that at the least. Cuba also continued with the Sovereign Union
Over in South America, the improvements were more noticeable. The crackdowns against the drug cartels helped bring peace to the area and with the growing successes of creating worker co-ops, they were also becoming popular in parts of South America. Starting over in Columbia, it would begin trickling down throughout the rest of th continent, starting with Venezuela. The nations of the continent have been growing more and more thanks to the start of their own tech boom. While it was caused by some generous and competitive work put by Sun Microsystems and NeXTech, the new generation of engineers, programmers and thinkers would begin working on their own line od products and the hopes would be for them to try and match up. Brazil was especially this as Sun Microsystems became quite prominent there and the country continued to keep on growing economically while also dealing with its political problems. It was not easy work, but they were getting there more and more. Of course, all of this was n the backdrop of all sorts of new political movements starting come out. Environmentalism was becoming more and more prominent and while no one was against the growing prosperity, there were growing concerns about getting there and where most of the money was going. Additionally, other issues were becoming more prominent, especially among the younger generation. Calls for reparations and better work for the Chile would finally begin implementing a smaller scale version of "Cybersyn 2.0", having been implemented to help deal with basic necessities and a state of emergancy. However, it was a far cry from the original ideal. Some believe this was done out of a caution for testing while others propose it was more due to the uneven distribution. Overall, things were pretty stable there.
soon. 
