Don’t be fooled by his surname, La Follette is a Fascist in this timeline! Vote for the Progressives to stop the party of Lindbergh!

“Win the peace.”

The phrase has encapsulated Phil La Follette’s thrust for a new frontier built upon the pillars of the Lindberghian New State. Despite an opening salvo of action, including a 100% war profits tax and a universal pardon of anti-war agitators, La Follette has found congressional discord stymying the passage of much of his agenda, leading opponents to accuse the president of utilizing occupied Japan as a laboratory for his vision. Thus, pointing to the growing economy of occupied Japan, and a fast growing national economy powered by record low interest rates, La Follette has campaigned to “win the peace” with a platform including the nationalization of the Federal Reserve, a federal jobs guarantee, nationalized healthcare, federal funding for the municipal purchase of public utilities, the formation of an employers’ union, limits on immigration, and for congressional approval of a newly formed, cabinet-level Department of Censorship and Information, declaring that “we are coming to a new dawn in this country that men can have work and be free, but any such action will have to be public action.”

Although Farmer-Labor as a whole has largely rallied around the President, dissident elements remain, amplified by the pernicious presence of former President Alf Landon as a newly elected Senator from Nebraska to rally the party’s remaining conservatives. Many anti-war members of the party, led by Norman Thomas, have denounced the President personally for the usage of atomic weapons on civilian populations in Tokyo and elsewhere, despite largely endorsing the La Follette agenda. Notably among them has been former President Charles Lindbergh, although the eagle has remained supportive of the President’s domestic agenda. Most importantly, La Follette’s refusal to appoint John L. Lewis as Secretary of Labor and his continued support for employers’ unions has alienated Lewis, who has formed the dissident Congress of Industrial Organizations to oppose La Follette while lobbying within the General Trades Union for de-nationalization. The President has taken the opposition in stride and engaged in a fierce national speaking tour to denounce his opponents across the spectrum, declaring that disabled Progressive leader Thomas Schall “so refused to see the subversion of our government by the great corporate interests that God Almighty struck him blind” and labeling Admiral Richard E. Byrd and his followers “rabbits.” Nowhere has the campaign been as pitched as Alabama, where the President has campaigned heartily for Representative Carl Elliott against Governor Jim Folsom, who has delivered a liberal populist twist to fascism in a state still ruled by the legacy of Milford W. Howard.

“I hate the son of a bitch, but what guts he’s got!” reportedly shouted influential Lewis ally Jimmy Hoffa, reportedly a key architect of the CIO’s “union list” of Farmer-Labor candidates, upon hearing that the president had countered with the National Progressives of America (NPA), an umbrella organization of his loyalest intra-party followers and a subset of sympathetic Progressives claiming, somewhat unorthodoxily for a Farmer-Labor President, to stand for “the farmer, the homeowner, and the small businessman.” Co-chaired by Senator Raymond Haight, economist Clarence Dibs, and publisher Eleanor McClatchy, the California-based organization has heavily utilized the power of celebrity—La Follette announced the organization in front of the University of Southern California’s football team-and released its own list of endorsed pro-La Follette candidates among Farmer-Laborites. Controversially, La Follette’s pet organization has included in its platform a call for a 20th Amendment granting the executive the ability to pass legislation while reducing Congress to an ability to approve or reject executive actions, while establishing a national power of referendum and abolishing judicial review. Most controversially within his own party, the President has endorsed the repeal of a clause in the Farmer-Labor charter explicitly declaring the party to be working class, arguing that a shift must be made to the middle class and a general policy of class collaboration via an “alliance between producer, consumer, independent business, and professional interests.” Despite its controversy however, this pivot has succeeded in winning for La Follette the backing of major donors such as heiress Nancy Astor.

Buoyed by the upset victory of Progressive John Muse in the 1945 Virginia gubernatorial election and a renewed fundraising campaign, Progressive-Federalists have attempted to attack the President’s policy and methods while attempting to credit Henry Luce with the economic boom. Further, the divide between party affiliates identifying as Progressive and Federalist has become increasingly ideological, with scions of the former such as Hamilton Fish, Thomas Schall, and Herbert Hoover, whose name has been widely floated as a 1948 presidential candidate, having all denounced the atomic bombings of Tokyo and being increasingly identified with isolationism whereas figures such as former President Luce and Arthur Vandenberg have embraced the term Federalist for their vision of an American Century, and, accordingly, both have criticized the President for failing to use atomic weapons before the Japanese, accusing him of letting lingering anti-war sentiment cloud his ability to anticipate a Japanese attack. Able to embrace the divisions in their parties without an incumbent to defend, Progressive-Federalists have accused the President of authoritarianism amidst whispers of impeachment, pointing to his admiration for dictators such as the late Gabrielle d’Annunzio and his rule by decree in occupied Japan, while using La Follette’s initial opposition to the war to take credit for the victory in Japan, arguing that it represents the final apotheosis of a half-century of Houstonianism. Central to Progressive-Federalist rhetoric has been inflation, using a scandal where First Lady Isen was found to have a thousand dollars worth of imported European golden goblets to allege widespread hypocrisy among the Farmer-Labor camp.

Millions of Americans have joined the Hollow Earth craze, rallying around Admiral Richard E. Byrd as they far extend Byrd’s own claims to apply to any number of wonders within the Earth’s core, from expectant oil barons to a sect of Pentecostals claiming the Second Coming lies within. When the Liberty League would not initially nominate the Admiral’s brother Harry for Governor in 1945, hardline Hollow Earthers would form the Scientific Government Party to win him nearly a third of the vote. However, Byrd is a peculiar fit for such a movement, managing to straddle his status as the epitome of an insider in the halls of power with his national popularity among the fringe, as the Liberty League has attempted to remain a serious organization politically, limiting its platform to the usual calls for free trade and deregulation, while courting votes from Byrd’s pseudoscientific acolytes. Nonetheless, the flirtation between the two has alienated a group of Liberty League backers, including comedian Will Rogers, who has returned to prominence with his proposal for wide American economic support for an “Asian reconstruction.” Meanwhile, the League’s erstwhile allies in the Single Tax Party have run a campaign devoid of Liberty League trappings to focus upon the promotion of a 100% tax upon land values to replace all other forms of taxation in the model of Henry George.