Shanghaied - 2ACW (preview)

[lordroel]

Preview Chapter I of Shanghaied - 2ACW

Prelude – Shanghaied

Shanghaied: the name of a film released by the Hollywood studio Paramount in 2028.

The film wasn’t a commercial success and just about broke even for Paramount. It’s title was the subject of controversy in the United States, just one of the many, varied political disputes during the turbulent years of the Twenties. The plot concerned the stories of several fictional characters in early Twentieth Century San Francisco who interacted in a murder mystery. The principal lead was a ‘crimper’, a man who used guile and deception to supply crews to naval merchantmen making the run to China’s coastal city. This practice was known at the time as ‘Shanghaiing’ and was legal (just) as well as highly profitable for those involved in crimping.

Using such a title was said to be not politically correct and allegations were made of anti-Chinese bias and xenophobia. Paramount disputed such wild claims though studio executives did plan to release the film under a different name in China. That never came to pass due to the international situation which cut off the once lucrative Chinese market for Hollywood. In America, those on the opposite side of the partisan divide, who were outraged at the actions of their opponents who claimed offense at such a name, flocked to see the film just to make a point. Without this organised viewing – not for the story’s promise but just to rub the other side’s nose in it –, Shanghaied would never have just about managed to break even as it did.

Part One - Political Violence

1 – Blue states and Red states

When the United States of America entered the 2020’s, the decade witnessed the most turbulent period in the nation’s history. Civil war could come about before the Thirties were reached due to events occurring during the Twenties. The causes were many but at the heart was the fact that every single societal issue, no matter how trivial, became one of partisan politics. Americans divided themselves into Them and Us every day. Whereas in previous decades, splits had concerned such hot button topics as gun rights, the death penalty & abortion. Now it was about everything imaginable: gender, climate, pop culture and school dinners. The partisan political lens was through which Americans viewed it all. What were They trying to do to Us with this? Such was how so many Americans came to look at their lives. They were encouraged by this by those seeking power, to make money or just out to cause trouble.

The latter really did that.

In late 2020, American voters selected a new president. The results of that contest were bitterly rejected by the loser but the loser he was. Out of office went the 45th President the following January and replacing him in the White House was the 46th President. The latter’s term was beset by health problems and that increasing societal divide across the nation. Mid-term elections in ’22 saw his party, the Democrats, lose the House. The Senate was already in the hands of the Republicans and now they had complete control of Congress. Come February the following year, the suffered an eventually fatal stroke on Valentine’s Day. He collapsed in the Oval Office and doctors lost the battle to save his life the following morning. Ascending to the presidency was his vice president. She became the nation’s 47th President. A ‘woman of color’, there wasn’t that much love for her among a good portion of her party nor many of the Democrats’ supporters at-large. Obstructionism in Congress from the Republicans became more brazen. They impeached Cabinet members and then went after her in late ’23. The latter concerned baseless and hypocritical charges yet the whole nation was split down the middle as to what side they were on with that. Not having enough votes to convict her, impeaching the 47th President was about playing the long game rather than getting her out of the White House. Democrats themselves looked at the future with concern at her being in office too: it was possible that she would be president for ten years as, constitutionally, she was able to run for two more terms should the voters allow for that.

An incumbent president usually sails through re-nomination by their party. For the 47th President, it quickly became apparent that such a feat would be impossible for her. Fellow Democrats lined up to run against the president. She was a neo-Liberal in a party where Progressives had major influence not at the top but among the wider ranks. Mark Walsh, the junior senator from Virginia, emerged as her leading challenger for the Democratic nomination. He was a noted Progressive with a rapidly expanding base of support. Impeachment, despite its failure, had hurt the standing of the 47th President. The Republicans intended that their own candidate would take advantage through 2024 but, instead, Walsh’s campaign was booming. He won the opening primary election and didn’t look back from there. Staying in the race in the face of calls for her to drop out, the 47th President lost each one which she contested. It was an embarrassment the longer it went on. Eventually, after Super Tuesday, she gave in. Walsh then threw everything at winning in November. The party establishment fell in line behind him where they finally conceded that they couldn’t fight the will of the voters and have their favoured candidate stay where she was. The 47th President would eventually campaign for Walsh though not with that much enthusiasm it must be said.

That didn’t matter. The 2024 US President Election was won by Walsh. He was to become the 48th President after a narrow win against his Republican opponent. As to that victory, it was only narrow when it came to the outcome of the votes tallied in the Electoral College. With the popular vote, his win was secured by more than nine million votes more than Roy Allen, the Governor of Ohio. However, only by sixteen votes in that body did Walsh win. North Carolina decided the election with Allen almost managing to pull of the impossible but just losing there and thus being denied the White House. A central plank of Walsh’s campaign had been for the post-election abolishment of the Electoral College: a method of selecting presidents which his supporters, and many Americans too, considered undemocratic. He won the presidency via it but wanted rid. This he was going to be unable to do after winning though. The Republicans had managed to maintain their hold on Congress despite the Democratic victory in the race for the White House. Losses were taken to shorten their majority in the House, but in the Senate, the Republicans expanded their control. They had fifty-five senators (out of a hundred) whose representation was granted by less than forty per cent of the electorate. If the Electoral College was undemocratic, what term would be best to describe the situation with the Senate!?


Through the Twenties, the national political partisan divide became one of a regional matter. Individual states became increasingly Red (denoting the Republicans) and Blue (the Democrats). Within them, the other party was increasingly marginalised and left without avenues to assume power. In previous decades, for example the Republicans had managed to be strong in California despite Democratic dominance while there were large numbers of Democrats in national & state offices through states such as Florida & Texas. This changed as the decade moved on. One side forced the other out of force either by mobilising enough voters in elections or by playing political games which opponents deemed undemocratic. The Democrats channelled money into previous Purple – swing – states to turn them Blue while expanding their control within Blue states. Voters within those states were kept politically-engaged. During elections which fell in years when there wasn’t a presidential race, votes for the Democrats had previously not been so strong. They were now. The Republicans did much the same (they had always had better support in non-Presidential years too) though went further as well. Back in the 2010’s, party strategists had created the REDMAP project. This was a national effort to turn large areas of the country Red on the map though control of state levers of power. Following the ’20 Census, they doubled down on REDMAP with access to all of that census data made available. Within Red states, the Republicans were able to control redistricting and apply that on a scientific degree to follow what they had started last decade. A friendly Supreme Court helped with this. Where there was strong opposition coming from Democratic governors in states with the Republicans controlling the state's legislatures, the former were stripped of their powers to stop this. Gerrymandering ran rampant to ‘pack, stack & crack’ Congressional districts as well. Voters were disenfranchised in a legal manner. Data from that national census conducted in ‘20 was applied not just for state governments but on a national level too. It changed the make-up of the Electoral College to the overall benefit of the Republicans. They were allowed to stay in the game when they really should have been locked out of it due to the demographic make-up of the nation.

Within those states which became Red and Blue, residents who were on the opposing side increasingly began to leave them for elsewhere. The United States had been undergoing democratic changes via population shifts throughout its history, but what was seen during the Twenties was one of a political nature. Republicans left Illinois & Massachusetts: Democrats moved out of Missouri and Ohio. These citizens who labelled themselves as such, or were given that label by others, did so because of societal changes within them influenced by the national political landscape drove that. In the face of extensive, but failed, opposition from the 47th President leading the charge, the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade in 2023. That was done from that Republican-friendly body at the behest of several Red states efforts. The right to access abortion services for women was lost at the national level meaning that states could, and did, outlaw it within them. A dozen Red states did so within six months. Blue states expanded access to abortion and several passed legislation to give legal protection to women from Red states who came to them and subsequently faced the threat of penalty where they lived. Another significant Supreme Court case the following year helped these demographic changes occur. In Suárez vs. Alabama, the former (a young man) lost his case against the state of his residence when they sought to impede his right to attend university elsewhere in the nation. Alabama had passed a law exempting that state from any financial costs – even minor ones – involved with residents attending higher education at facilities on a so-called ‘hit list’. Suárez wanted to go to New York University, which Alabama regarded as far too liberal… and in a Blue state. If he wanted to attend, he could freely do so, but they blocked the transfer of education records via financial measures which had been signed into law. Suárez, nor NYU, couldn’t pay for them and nor could they access what Alabama said was state property. It sounded petty on the face of it but it was important. The young man went to the university of his choice yet this Red state had made its point. The Supreme Court allowed for this state to do as it wished, negatively impacting the futures of its residents who wished to be educated in Blue states by causing them administrative headaches. State’s rights were increasing in many fields and the Red states did all that they could as they fought a rapidly increasing all-encompassing culture war where everything was a fight based on political lines.

The culture war of the Twenties meant that negative opinions of those from states on the other side of the divide meant a big deal. ‘Oh, you’re from a Red/Blue state’ might not have been an overt insult, yet it became a remark which summed up an individual. Even if you were a Democrat, if you lived in a Red state, that defined how everyone else viewed you. More and more this became important. Certain companies were barred by state legislatures from doing business within them. Red states did this in the main but there were some Blue states who followed the lead set. Consumers couldn’t access products and services which their fellow Americans across the state line could. Another case which made it to the highest court in the land was Dolan vs. South Carolina. The Supreme Court rejected the plaintiff’s suit against the state where he was a resident when it came to him being fired by his employer due to his political activity. That private enterprise terminated him because he was an active Democrat – he’d run for local office – in a Red state. This was done under the protection of a state law giving his employer permission to do so: they could fire those whose politics they disagreed with. Many Americans in Red and Blue states reconsidered their residence in light of this and moved elsewhere in the nation in light of Dolan vs. South Carolina when further states followed the example set by South Carolina. Georgia’s state government, in the hands of the Republicans while a powerless Democratic governor could do nothing, moved to ban the media networks CNN and MSNBC from the state. The case went to the Supreme Court and Georgia prevailed. CNN left its home offices and while it and MSNBC – the two of them liberal networks – could broadcast into Georgia, their employees were banned from entering the state under penalty of individual imprisonment. California, joined later by Hawaii, then used the same reasoning to impose restrictions on the right-wing Fox News. In the interests of public safety, it was argued that that media network was a danger to their residents. More states soon found other ways to restrict unfriendly media to connect with the public. This turned Red states redder and made bluer Blue ones.