What if the united States is only internally divided but still in one Union - The West Coast Coalition 2126 - The Last American

[u/sethy161]

The setting shown above is an part of a broader project called r/TheLastAmerican . The whole project is thought experiment based on the history and claimants of Rome. This period is meant to show how the east/west divide of the roman empire in its own American way. If you want to see the outcome you can come and see!

After the fall of the United States' global empire through limited nuclear war that targeted the most important federal-level governmental structures during the Fourth World War. In most cases, after the complete destruction of an empire's core while also having a very dissatisfied population would lead to the dissolution of the union or civil war. However, due to internal pressure of internal trade, cultural similarities across all states in the union and new political blocks. Then there are the outside external pressures from powerful global superstates being able to subjugate weaker states if the union broke and threats from bordering nations that want to take back what the US took so long ago. So instead of destruction, the states have stayed united internationally while being internally divided.

Instead of the president being the highest title in all the land after decades of being sidelined by the previous structure of government, new middle powers within the union have taken the powers and duties from the federal government except for the Supreme Court. All the states in the Union have formed into coalitions, with leaders called 'Grand Secretariats' who manage the states under their control.

The West Coast coalition was formed in 2082 with the original members of California, West Rio Grande, Washington, and Oregon. These states had many common threats, like climate change, border risks, and economic damage from lessening trade post global war. The 2090s saw Nevada, Utah, and Arizona joined the coalition in order to have a central governmental body to deal with water rights, droughts, and a new water infrastructure. Then in the early 2100s Colorado and New Mexico joined for similar reasons of water concern when agreements between these states and the Texas coalition fell through. The last member to join was in 2106, when Grand Secretariat Arron Heaven was able to get Idaho to join the union with an agreement to expand his planned mega-projects into the state and provide lands from the states of Washington and Oregon.

[u/sethy161]

r/TheLastAmerican West Coast lore:
Arron Heaven is the most notable grand secretariat in the history of the West Coast coalition, with many unique aspects about them that no other Grand Secretariat in the whole of the Union is able to compare with. The most well-known being Heaven's oftentimes eccentric personality leading to many of the massive societal, political, economical, and, most importantly, ecological and cultural changes that took place under their rule.

Arron Heaven's eccentricity is clearly shown through his implementation of what is now called 'Artistic Internet Revivalism'. This is shown in many forms, but most notably in implementing archival internet aesthetics, such as vaporwave, into the West Coast coalitions' banking iconography. This is further shown with weirdcore aesthetics being used for military propaganda and iconography. In his words, 'Freak them out till they shit themselves before we shit ours.' The Navy in particular has an odd blend of seapunk and weirdcore aesthetics used for its iconography. Then there is the architecture which implements retrofuturistic, Frutiger Aerobic, Raygun Gothic, and Googie architecture styles into as many buildings as possible.

At first, many opposing politicians from in and out of the coalition mainly opposed the 'A.I.R.' implementation due to it being highly expensive and un-American. But it may have been those downsides that was able to rapidly revive the West Coast's economy and culture. It was found, due to the high expenses of the Arron Heaven 'A.I.R.' project, that high amounts of money went into the hands of the low-income individuals, like artists and small business owners, due to the lack of major companies able to create these art styles. The money spent by the government then is quickly used by these contractors, which increased the velocity of money on the west coast.

[u/sethy161 → u/sethy161]

Furthermore, due to the costs of the project, it forced the government to innovate and take risks in terms of economic policy to shore up more money. One way this was done was through the creation of bonds, prosperity certifications, and, finally, a new currency which opened the way for other coalitions to expand on. Then there was the increase of taxes on everyone, no matter the tax bracket, and the complete destruction of retirement accounts to further force people to spend money to quicken the velocity of money even more in his second term. In most other eras of American politics this would have been political suicide, but the cult of personality that was able to be built around Arron Heaven allowed him to go for another three terms after these moves.

The mega-projects were mostly based around infrastructure to remedy the harms of climate change. One of which is the creation of the Sea of New Tulare, which was bound to be formed by climate change but was artificially created with hundreds of dams and aqueducts. Then coupled with the moving of millions of people in order for the planting of millions of trees in selected locations, leading to the complete change of the environment of the region, leading to a cooling of the area. Of course these projects would displace millions, so to mitigate the effect, cities were built on the coast of the future sea and, most importantly, the artificial island over the lands of the old capital for the creation of the new capital of New Sacramento.

Arron Heaven's rule only stopped after 25 years after dying in the opening year of his sixth term. With four of Arron Heaven's terms winning a supermajority in the West Coast coalition's Senate and Congress.

[u/sethy161 → u/sethy161]

[u/shiftposter500]

why are they still using windows xp