u/djakob-unchained

It's that age old question; what if George Romney, a Mexican, had not immigrated to the United States of America in 1912 and instead stuck around to become Mexico's greatest politicians?

Perhaps this!

I'll be honest, I don't know enough about Mexican history to have much lore for you. From what I can understand, PRI was more secular so I'm hoping they would give these Mormons a chance.

Why does Mitt have a mustache? Uh.. he lives in Mexico? Duh?

This post used no A.I. so don't get mad at me.

Middle Korea is a fake country located between North and South Korea. It was created in 1953 as a neutral buffer trust territory. You can see more general country lore here.

SPECIFIC ELECTION LORE:

Middle Korea is a parliamentary democracy, ergo the top political office in the land is that of prime minister. Lee Dae-seok is the current prime minister. He has been in office since his predecessor Jang Tae-hun retired as the longest serving prime minister* on February 5th, 2024. Before becoming PM, Lee served in Jang's government as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2017 to 2022, Minister of Finance from 2022 to 2024, and Deputy Prime Minister from 2018 to 2024. He was Jang's main opponent for the leadership of their New Democatic Party in 2017, and after losing he became number 2 and next in line for the job.

The New Democratic Party is the center-left side of the political establishment of Middle Korea. After previously only briefly holding power from 2006 to 2010, they have now been in government since 2014 and have won three straight general elections. They generally support closer ties to the United States, Japan, and South Korea, economic integration with the wider world, and are socially liberal.

Their main opponents are the Liberal Party, the center-right side of the political establishment. They held power in Middle Korea from 1986 to 2006 and again from 2010 to 2014. Their last time in government was a total disaster with both their prime minister and their President resigning over unrelated corruption scandals in 2013 and 2016 respectively. They have struggled to regain legitimacy and, despite appearing to make a comeback in 2022 with a gain of 19 seats, polls now show that they're likely to suffer a historic defeat in September.

The big policy success of Lee Dae-seok's government has been the opening of the Korean Common Travel Area in 2025 (negotiated under Jang) which, despite numerous issues, has been generally positive for the economy and received well, particularly by upwardly mobile students and young professionals that can now easily go to Seoul whenever they want.

The big foreign policy clash is between the Liberals, who favor closer ties with China and a more firm committment to the country's official neutrality, and the NDP which favors the western democratic side of things and has a looser definition of neutrality. Middle Korean people have been generally growing more and more supportive of the NDP on this, but with the return of Donald Trump to power in the U.S. and a series of hostile acts and statements towards the country, anti-American sentiment has been on the rise. Lee Dae-seok has attempted to pivot somewhat on this front, but ultimately he is never going to be Beiing's preferred partner and he either can or will only do so much to repair ties.

Despite being broadly competent, the Lee Dae-seok government has faced a number of scandals.

The most sordid and sad of the scandals is the hiker murders scandal which just rapped up today. I'll give full details on that below;

The 4th Crusade never happens, a few lucky breaks come Constantinople's way, *mumbles* ... and ta-dah! The Byzantines are still hanging around in the year 1789!

Far from a dominating empire, the descendants of Osman I must settle for holding sway over the hinterland of Anatolia, while true power in the Islamic world lays in Cairo and Isfahan.

Long looked down upon and derrided by Constantinople, the mighty Russian bear finally awoke under the reign of Peter the Great. Now his heirs no longer dream of being equal to the Emperor in Constantinople; they are preparing to surpass him and become the masters of the Orthodox world.

The courts of Europe may view the "Greek Empire" as the sick old man of Europe, but the Emperor in Constantinople is still the master of Rome, heir of Augustus, and father of a two thousand year old civilization which lives and breathes from Sicily to the Caucasus. Nonetheless, the Empire faces its greatest challenges in centuries. The so-called "Holy Roman" Habsburg Emperor is threatening to rip away the rogue Bosnian Kingdom, and once it falls Serbia and Albania may not be far behind. Likewise, the inferior Russian court has designs on Crimea, Georgia, and Trebizond, daring to challenge the Emperor for supremacy.

In just a few years Austria and Russia are going to partition Poland and unite behind preventing the Greeks from making moves on the former Polish vassal state of Moldavia, bringing Constantinople's worst nightmare of the Russians and Germans uniting against them.

"Two can be as bad as one, it's the loneliest number since the number one." ~ Three Dog Night, One.

In this timeline the Korean peninsula is 1) longer and 2) divided by a neutral zone since 1953.

In 1953 the Central Korean Administrative Zone aka La zone administrative centrale coréenne aka 중부 한국 행정구역 was established as a buffer between the communist powers to the north and the capitalist powers to the south. It was governer by a Control Committee composed of representatives from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Canada, and India. Its chair rotated on a yearly basis. This arrangement worked perfectly.

In 1971 the Central Korean Self-Defense Forces were formed in response to armed provocations by North Korea (and because the Control Committee member states didn't want to defend it anymore). The CKSDF primarily handled border defense operations opposite both North and South Korea and was not allowed to participate in offensive action.

In 1980 the position of Chief Secretary was created to serve as the second highest executive authority beneath the committee appointed Administrator (held by a foreign diplomat). The position was to be held by a Korean. The initial holder of the position was Lee Young-sup (리영섭), appointed by the Control Committee for a 2 year term. The position was appointed by the local legislature starting in 1986.

The whole neutral trusteeship idea stopped working entirely in 1989 when Czechoslovakia and Poland cease to be socialist states, giving the Control Committee a firmly pro-western composition. The home government movement culminated in a wave of protests in 1990 which led the Control Committee to begin a process for handing over authority to an elected civilian government.

A series of talks thus began with the United States, China, and South Korea participating as the Control Committee sought to gain buy-in from key international partners before agreeing to any alteration in status. The talks culminated with the signing of the Treaty on the Revision of the Status of Governance on the Korean Peninsula in Beijing, China, on April 25, 1993. The treaty was the first internationally recognized alteration to the status of the Korean peninsula since the Korean Armistice Agreement in 1953. The terms provided international consensus that a Central Korean state should exist which was 1) neutral and 2) renounced Korean re-unification. The treaty was signed by China, the United States, and the 7 member states to the Control Committee.

On September 2nd, 1993, the Control Committee approved the creation of a new constitution and set the date for January 1, 2000, for the full self government of Neutral Korea.

From September 2, 1993 until January 1, 2000, the Control Committee would delegate all authority to the constitutional government except for in these matters; enforcement of international treaty obligations and arbitration of constitutional questions.

Do you think that John Cornyn and Thom Tillis know how ridiculous it is to require a signed promise from a guy to stop doing evil corrupt things in exchange for handing him total power over the justice department? They didn't rag on him enough on TNL tonight, honestly!

Hello everyone. I have added a new country to the South Asian region located between Myanmar and India. I hope you enjoy this map. I have no plans to add more at the moment, but please leave a message if you have any questions. I will reply as soon as possible. Thank you for watching.

Andrew Egger, Will Summer, and Bill Kristol kind of look like one guy at different stages of his life to me. Am I the only one who thinks so?

I found it humorous.

The Kingdom of Greece was established on 7 May 1832. The brave Greek revolutionaries did a lot right, but they made one crucial mistake; making Otto von Wittelsbach their king. We all know that the much, much better choice would have been to make Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies their king instead, allowing Greece to become an unprecedented THIRD Sicily.

It's hard to imagine now that we live in a world that, unfortunately, only has one Sicily, but there was once a time in the 19th century when the possibilities were truly endless. There could be so many Sicilies, if only we had the guts to imagine it.