The fallout of the war affected the electoral campaigns of all parties. The greatest beneficiary was the International Revolutionary Party, whose uncompromising internationalism and base of support among the military saw their reach expand greatly.
Platform of the International Revolutionary Party:
-Establish the Counter-reactionary Intelligence Agency, a domestic intelligence agency tasked with rooting out reactionaries and foreign interference in our domestic matters!
-Expand the Bureau of Revolutionary Affairs to keep pace with the help our Latin American comrades need!
-Continue our efforts into establishing a Joint Command by standardizing weapons calibres and equipment within the DMA!
-Run training exercises under the Joint Command to overcome the coordination issues our armies had during the Warlord offensive!
-Build a diesel engine manufacturing plant to let us build trucks, and torpedo boats, and better dirigibles! And tractors, I guess.
-Non-legislative plank 1: Hassle the RRP, if their reactionary wing tries to do some pogroms, respond with some good ol' ultraviolence!
-Non-legislative plank 2: Support new co-op workers in standing up to their old bosses! I hear physical intimidation is a neat trick!
-Coalition: WP, SWP, SP
The International Revolutionary Party:
Discipline: 5
Popularity: 4
Localism: 3
Meanwhile, the Worker's Party saw the convention rapidly rally around financial matters, advocating for the expansion of overseas medical sales, the establishment of an income tax, and more economic integration with the allies of the Freedmen's Party. Again the Utopians made a brief showing at the convention, but were quickly outvoted and left to stew.
Platform of the Worker's Party:
-Establish a progressive income tax to raise much needed revenue, justified by the war and the need to have state-backed industry to compete with the imperialists.
-Establish a nationalized pharmaceutical industry specializing at first in the production of aspirin. Part of the product is to be traded overseas at markup while another part should be distributed within the nation at cost. The profits from foreign trade are to be routed back into expanding the industry in a self reinforcing loop that will rapidly grow our capacity without straining our coffers.
-Expand healthcare by establishing more government owned hospitals and clinics that treat people for free, based off expanding the successful veterans healthcare program.
-Cooperate within the DMA to metricate and standardize our weights and measures in order to allow easier cooperation between our industries and expand our accomplishments in army logistics to the field of civilian shipping.
-Work with the WRA to expand the mines of native copper in Michigan, in order to provide enough of the material to keep up with the demands of increasing electrification - especially of the national rail system. Copper is a key element of electrical motors, generators, and transmission lines.
-Non-legislative: Try to connect with agricultural coops, emphasizing the policies we have put in place for them.
-Non-legislative: Investigate talk therapy and ptsd.
-Coalitions: Socialist Party, Socialist Worker's Party, IRP
The Worker's Party:
-Discipline: 7 (Organized, but with many competing tendencies)
-Popularity: 7
-Localism: 3
The Radical Republicans, despite previous efforts to centralize the party line, still faced some internal struggles as previously quiescent factions rallied during the convention. An alliance between the conventional conservatives and egoists, backed by a number of professional associations, eventually took the lead and set forth their platform, confident that the increasing amounts of political turbulence would favor their sensible conservative policies.
The platform of the Radical Republicans
-Plank 1: Form the United Unions of Egoists of America to eventually become the governing structure of the country. Each union is a relation between citizens which is continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will. All issues and needs between citizens are to be resolved inside and between unions.
-Plank 2: Have the government promote a policy that the citizens should expropriate the property of the rich by their own hands not for some greater ideal but to satisfy personal desires and needs.
-Plank 3: Promote the republic throughout the world as the land of the truly free and invite the people's of the world to settle in the country.
-Plank 4: Promote the idea of the individual above all to the citizens so that they can rebuild their sense of self after capitalism has atomized their identity.
-Plank 5: Focus on building up the civilian shipping industry so that our egoist citizens can go wherever they want all over the world.
-Non-legislative plank 1: Spread egoist propaganda to the most neglected citizens of the country.
-Non-legislative plank 2: Spread egoist propaganda to the former warlord territories.
-Coalitions: Any that are needed to pass the formation of the United Unions of Egoist.
The Radical Republican Party
-Discipline: 6
-Popularity: 5 (There's been a sudden influx of new members)
-Localism: 6
The Socialist Party, despite disagreements on a number of social issues, found themselves in a similar position when it comes to economics now that their Social Planning Committee has been formed and staffed with allies. An unfortunate illness laid out several of the more radical delegates, leading to the platform being put forth by the more conservative faction of the party, which focused on bread-and-butter economic issues they believed would empower all the workers and better support liberation efforts:
Platform of the Socialist Party:
-Conduct an extensive campaign to boost the construction of steel mills and improve the quality of their output.
-Subsidize the creation of one or more railway cooperatives to create and maintain better railways as directed by the Social Planning Committee.
-Subsidize the expansion of currently existing shipyard capacity to increase the size of our Navy.
-Institute a proportional income tax across all citizens of the nation.
-Subsidize the creation of one or more pharmaceutical cooperatives aimed at mass-production of penicillin and other antibiotics and other such items as only producible in the Freedmen's Republic.
-Create a program of assistance wherein the Party purchases food and clothing and distributes it to the needy in as many locations as possible with the aim of increasing our votership and popularity.
-Distribute literature on unionization to non-unionized workplaces and set up a fund to support unionization efforts and strikes.
-Socialist Workers Party, International Revolutionary Party, Workers' Party
The Socialist Party
Discipline: 8
Popularity: 5
Localism: 2
The Freedmen's Party was beginning to find itself adrift. After having spent years as the leading party of the Republic, they had been entirely excluded from government again and again, and the recent changes to the electoral system made their prospects of victory seem all the grimmer. Segments of their base, those with the most to lose from the prospect of nationalization or cooperatization, began to look to other political factions and organizations, while segments of their rural base began to desert them due to constant efforts from other factions to woo them.
The platform of the Freedmen's Party:
-An equitable settlement to be reached with all members of the Des Moine Alliance over the division of the Northern Warlords. No member will be left out.
-Raise tariffs to offset the government deficit, with a pledge to not raise taxes if we are elected in the next year.
-Grant business owners whose businesses have been nationalised with equitable compensation in the form of long term government bonds.
-A halt on any rise in military spending and expansion in the short term order to assuade foreign fears of revolutionary war and help with balancing the government books.
-A pledge to return to electoral district voting, with the implementation of an STV system.
-Non Legislative 1: Build support in rural areas with literacy drives and continued rural organizing into farm-workers associations, unions, and more, to heighten their power and influence.
-Non-Legislative 2: Continue gradual and careful transition from total reliance on the old machine to a focusing on these rural farm-workers associations and any urban counterparts, transitioning from one sort of machine to another that will be more sturdy and politically apt.
-Coalitions: Anyone, really.
The Freedmen's Party
-Discipline: 6
-Popularity: 6 (they are the natural party of governance, despite recent setbacks)
-Localism: 5 (the party machinery is heavily intertwined with local bureaucracies)
The Socialist Worker's Party aimed to triangulate between the positions of their comrades, advocating for economic growth and for internationalism in equal measure. Their convention was almost dull compared to the drama of some of their allies and rivals, with a platform being put forth and dutifully ratified in almost record time.
The platform of the Socialist Worker's Party:
-Increase penalties for cartelisation and work to bust the trusts
-Provide targeted aid to the Latin American federation
-Impose higher tariffs on luxury goods coming from England and its colonies
-Abolish the two-tier welfare system, setting a new standard rate halfway between the previous two
-Introduce a tax on incomes greater than five times the national average
-Non-legislative: Work to improve our food independence
-Non-legislative: Establish a party Propaganda Bureau to coordinate the political positions of party newspapers, and the positions taken at rallies and debates by party candidates according to the party program; and to purchase and distribute phonographs and loudspeakers to party branches
-Workers Party, Socialist Party, International Revolutionary Party
The Socialist Worker's Party:
-Discipline: 7 (Highly organized, but with a number of competing tendencies)
-Popularity: 5
-Localism: 1 (They are totally opposed to the local patronage networks scattered across the country)
