Shanghaied - 2ACW

44 – Demands

One of the many outrageous acts that led President Walsh to invoke the Insurrection Act was the taking of more innocent hostages by (previously-unknown) terrorist groups. Two had been snatched before McCleary died with each then murdered afterwards when she hadn’t been released from federal custody as per their demands for that. Another pair were then taken on New Year’s Eve. The ‘Defenders of Democracy’ seized office administrative staff working for the US Citizenship & Immigration Service from their shared apartment in Tacoma, up in Washington state. That group, who claimed to represent a hardcore Trotskyist agenda so alien to most Americans, had kidnapped that husband of a senior FBI agent previously and then killed him: the other mid-December snatching had been of an employee from the Nevada DA’s office by a group calling themselves 'Los Libertadores'. It wasn’t known by the FBI nor anyone else in the US Government that the Defenders of Democracy and Los Libertadores were one in the same in terms of operatives. Their whole agenda was nothing more than an elaborate sham orchestrated by one man. Investigators were looking into them separately and trying to work out where each fitted into the overall picture of insurrection in the West. The tress hid the forest from view: that being that Carrillo was behind it all.

On January 4th 2029, the Defenders of Democracy made contact with the FBI. An email went direct to the task force investigating the Tacoma kidnappings with a list of demands. Included was a video. One of the two hostages was horribly mutilated, resulting in his death, in that video while the other was shown to be watching in pure terror while being told that the same would be done to her soon enough. The FBI was informed that if the second hostage was to live, then their demands were to be met. All of those arrested on federal warrants as part of Operation Restore Order, from Ashby, Carville & King down to those operators of the Revolución website and organisers from the Green Socialist Alliance – every single detainee – were to be released from custody. That had to be done within forty-eight hours from when the email was sent. There would be no negotiation on timescale nor scale of releases. In addition, there must too be a statement from the president himself admitting that McCleary was killed in Las Vegas at the behest of the federal government. If those demands weren’t met, the promise was made that the second hostage would be killed and others taken to suffer the same eventual fate if the Defenders of Democracy didn’t get their way. Director Cohen was informed at once. He agreed with the task force lead agent that that second hostage was going to die regardless of what was done. This terror group were going to continue kidnapping people too: either federal employees or their families. They had to know that their demands were utterly unrealistic. Those people weren’t going to be released and the president wasn’t going to say anything like that at the behest or murderous terrorists! The point clearly wasn’t to see them achieved but something else entirely different. What that was, the answer to the riddle posed, was an unknown. Instructions came to try and negotiate and to keep up the hunt for members/supporters of the Defenders of Democracy. The FBI didn’t give up despite knowing the impossibility of the situation.

Cohen still tried to have his organisation do what it could. Stopping the continuation of events such as these was immensely difficult though when his agents out in the West were operating within states that many regarded as in rebellion against the federal government without any formal declaration of that. It had become an unfriendly place for anyone associated with the federal government.


Overseas, another terror attack committed by those using a façade to hide who they were took place. In Estonia, so-called ethnic Russian patriots struck with mortar shells and rocket fire against a NATO base in that Baltic country. It was abundantly clear that Russian commandos, their infamous Spetsnaz, were at work and acting behind a false flag rather than any locals hitting NATO troops. Among the casualties in Narva were four US Army soldiers. They were killed trying to keep the peace in the Baltic States like others before them had been since Walsh committed the United States to the huge NATO deployment to face down Russian territorial designs. Images of the attack were captured on camera by both ABC and CNN who had media teams in Narva when it happened. The coincidence of that presence wasn’t missed by those in the White House and the Pentagon. The attack was certainly timed for maximum attention to be gained. With American casualties and impressive footage, the Narva story made headline news back home in America. A country torn apart by partisan divide, and also a new regional push for independence, united somewhat in anger against Moscow: everyone knew that the Russian president was behind the attack. The unity lasted not very long at all though. There was blame apportioned on Russia yet also domestically. Walsh was accused of not doing enough to keep the peace; the Republicans were said to be stirring the pot by promising that once Roberts was in the White House, further action would be taken against Russia for what it was doing by launching a proxy war across the Baltic States.

But then the gunfight in Denver happened to knock that Narva story out completely of the news.

Governor Rowan sent the Colorado National Guard – supported by attached Oregon elements sent previously under a mutual aid agreement – up against the private military company EXF Solutions. The Department of Homeland Security had contracted them to deploy hundreds of armed personnel to guard federal property in Colorado in the face of recent violent attacks made by protesters and rioters. Rowan had demanded that the Acting Secretary not deploy them: he’d been told they were being sent to Colorado regardless of what he as governor said as only the right of the federal government, not the state government on the ground, was where the authority came from to act. In Denver, the state’s capital and biggest city, those well-armed security guards had arrayed themselves like an army where they guarded the Bryon G. Rogers Federal Courthouse in the middle of Downtown and also out at the Denver Federal Centre in suburban Lakewood where many federal agencies had offices. They came with light armoured vehicles and heavy man-portable weapons. Such places had been the scenes of rioting since McCleary’s death with the Denver Police Department and national guardsmen struggling to stop that violence against federal property plus employees. Some shocking instances of extreme violence had occurred ahead of the deployment. EXF Solutions fulfilled their federally-mandated task yet also used deadly force on two separate occasions against protesters. After the second shooting, Rowan, admittedly looking for an excuse to act, publicly declared her would stand no more for the ‘invasion’ of his state underway. He asserted control back over the Colorado National Guard in an illegal action due to their previous federalisation. Their commanders went along with that, disobeying their constitutional duty.

EXF Solutions was registered in Delaware but owned by a variety of New York City hedge funds. The company had shareholders too and a big order book of federal customers. It was no marauding army on the war path and fights with neither protesters nor state governments were sought. Upon hearing the announcement made by Rowan, calls went out from the New York head office for the personnel in Colorado to stand down. The political game being played by Colorado’s governor in his fight with DC had no financial gain for the company nor its owners. Being right in the middle of some egomaniac’s desire for civil war was not on the agenda for them! Those on the ground followed the directive because they were only in Denver for the paycheck and career progression. The national guardsmen moved faster then expected though, especially the detachment of those from Oregon serving in Colorado who went out into Lakewood. At the courthouse in Downtown, native Colorado part-time soldiers took over once more in security tasks there but in Lakewood, the far bigger site meant that the armed contractors there needed more time to stand down. That they weren’t given. There were traded insults, pushing & shoving done and then guns were pointed. The Oregon national guardsmen treated the EXF Solutions people pretty harshly and were eager to remind them who were the real professionals. In one of those incidents, a trigger was squeezed by one of those Oregon National Guard soldiers. Gunfire was returned pretty fast first by a contractor who’d seen his friend shot and then by more national guardsmen responding to that. The exchange of fire didn’t last very long and senior people reasserted control yet before then, five lives had been lost and twice as many people were injured. The national guardsmen lost one of their own yet killed four of those who their on-scene commander regarded as ‘mercenaries’.

Rowan was told the truth of what had happened. It wasn’t the story he wanted to hear so he changed the facts around to suit his own purposes. After quickly getting in contact with Padley and Pierce out in distant California, he turned the whole issue into a defining moment for West America. Back in front of the cameras he went with an explosive statement alleging a pre-planned attack made by ‘federal invaders’ against his state and the people of the West. He echoed New Mexico’s governor in her previous remarks where she had declared her state to have banned federal agents. Rowan proclaimed that Colorado was likewise to be free of them (and also PMC contractors too) no matter what the federal government said on that matter. Colorado’s National Guard would remain under state control as well… ready to defend the state against another attack.

Within the hour, told a version of events that had some truth to it yet mixed with some outright lies, MAR made her first public statement as the one voice speaking for West America. She came out in full support of Governors Espinoza and Rowan in their defence of their state’s rights to assert themselves against federal aggression. All eyes turned to DC to see how the federal government would react to what the recently-defeated presidential candidate had said. That had to be rebellion against the United States, did it not?

46 – Berkeley Circle

Before his 2026 assassination, due to his daughter’s politics, Professor Dante Arreola Vega had taught constitutional law at UC Berkeley’s prestigious Law School. One of his many pupils had been the future wife of his daughter. Bree Davis had afterwards joined with several former pupils and colleagues in establishing a scholarship in his name. There was a memorial plague at Berkeley too. Moreover, colleagues with whom Professor Arreola had socialised with, like-minded men & women from across the college who shared his politics, had created a group which met once a month. They took up a project which he had been working on right before his death and had spent the next few years expanding upon that. Professor Arreola had taught the US Constitution yet at the same time had privately been working upon modifications to it to bring it up to the modern era considering its age. It had been a hobby of his yet those who took it on made it a passion. They significantly moved from where he started in drafting something new. A whole new system of government, beyond just a constitution, was created. For some members, the project was all encompassing and took up nearly all of their free time. One member withdrew from what had been started to be called the ‘Berkeley Circle’ (a name started in jest, which later became real) due to strong disagreements with the others over the direction being taken: other participants joined, from further afield than just UC Berkeley. The project was far from finished at the end of 2028.

Vice President Padley had trashed the US Constitution – and the Founding Fathers – in public remarks following the Supreme Court decision which robbed Professor Arreola’s daughter of the presidency. She’d met with Bree Davis afterwards when at the home the Berkeley Law School professor (Davis taught patent law) shared with Maria Arreola Rodriquez and their children. While the former wasn’t a part of something which the latter’s father had started, she knew all about it and put Padley in touch with those at the top of the Berkeley Circle. Governor Pierce likewise soon became aware of what some of the brightest legal minds in the state had been toiling away at. He and the vice president were greatly impressed with what they read from the system of government which was still in the process of being drafted. It wasn’t perfect – Pierce found more flaws in it than Padley did – though was something that once consumed, the two of them kept in mind as they began the process of setting the mood music to allow for West America to come about. With permission, copies of the work done by the Berkeley Circle were given to supporters of the two of them who Padley and Pierce had asked to (quietly) put together a system of government themselves. Chopping and changing was done here and there where elsewhere it was a case of copy-paste. Professor Arreola wouldn’t have recognised the final product. That wasn’t what he had set out to do. He had never wanted to see a new country created – he loved the United States of America! – when he started his private hobby but rather modifications done to the Constitution. There were also a few members of the Berkeley Circle who wouldn’t too have liked what was done with their work… though it wasn’t shown to them as Padley and Pierce kept the finished product held close less it end up in unfriendly hands.

That, the basic framework of fundamental laws and a functioning government for West America, was presented to those politicians who boycotted Congress and gathered in Las Vegas under the Campaign for a Democratic America banner.


Elliot Carville had written that article for Slade magazine before he was arrested on federal charges of sedition where he had ever-so-briefly described how a New America / West America could work. It had been attacked from all sides for its simplicity and the flaws in it were pointed out. Carville had been skewered as part of a wave of criticism. What Carville had done though had presented a general idea of how the new country which he wished to see would function. That had been more than others had done. Ahead of him writing what he had, and afterwards when ignoring his article, there had been much opposition to those seeking to building a new country where it was said that they had no plan. Only a fool would lead a breakaway from the United States without having something else ready, it was said many times over. Those critics didn’t know about the people whom Padley and Pierce had put to work – all doing so in secret and likely to be arrested like Carville if discovered – in doing just that. Knowledge of what the Berkeley Circle had created wasn’t into the public sphere either.

West America was realised by its proponents as something that it wouldn’t be easy to create when faced not just with opposition from the federal government, but the practicalities of nation-building themselves. The initial thinking had been to ‘start again’: that being a new beginning with everything from public services to laws to democratic representation. Greg Antonetti had soon been brought in (at the beginning of December 2028) where, at Pierce’s invitation, the former New Mexico congressman had joined those assembled in secret in Sacramento to build the framework for that new country. He had gained national attention, and notoriety, by being one of the first public figures to make an open call for New America alongside Carville and Judy Ashby. The vice president-elect had called him a ‘nobody’… a nobody he was certainly not. Antonetti had served nine consecutive terms in Congress and worked on the election campaigns of a trio of Democratic presidents! He was a big player in his state and national politics. Watching with fury at how the Republicans had stolen the White House from MAR, he’d spoken up. Within days, when out to dinner with his wife in Santa Fe, two right-wing nuts (from out of state) had entered the restaurant which they were in and tried to kill him. A fellow patron had intervened and knocked the two would-be assassins to the ground: that man was a former soldier who’d put down a pair of crazies armed with knives. Antonetti had a friendship with Pierce – the California governor had himself served in the US House previously – and so gone to Sacramento in light of that shocking attack. He’d been worried about his wife’s safety as much as his own. Upon hearing what those Pierce had working on doing, he’d told them to stop being so foolish. There was no need to start again. They all lived within a functioning nation, one which had all of those things they were trying to build from the ground up already in-place. It was a failed state in terms of politics, Antonetti had told Pierce, but everything else was there. What served the United States would serve West America. Those who worked for the government of the United States would do so for West America. Modifications to the draft proposals from the Berkeley Circle ended up being done with Antonetti overseeing that. Padley and Pierce were delighted with his efforts. What came to them was how their new country would work.

Public employees in West America would remain in their roles. Public services would stay as they were. This covered everything from schools and hospitals to the police and prisons. Federal property belonging to the United States would become that of West America. Military forces based in the territory of what was once the western regions of the United States would become part of the armed forces of West America. Using regional offices, federal agencies would be formed to mirror the ones which they replaced. There would be a new currency, printed within West America, and starting out to be worth on a one-for-one basis with the US Dollar. Almost the entirety of the laws which governed the United States would be kept at the start and then later modified: they worked and were already enforceable. The judicial system was likewise to be followed at the start with provision made for a new system to evolve over time. When it came to the government of West America, Antonetti worked off the proposals from the Berkeley Circle. Those had initially concerned the United States yet modifications meant that they could be applied to the new West America.

There would be a president and vice president elected on a joint ticket by popular vote using the ranked choice method: those elections would take place every five years. West America would be a federation of states with each of them electing delegates every two years to a national parliament consisting of just the one chamber. Once again, those elections would use the ranked choice method to allow for full democratic participation. The states themselves would retain their governor as chief executive and state legislatures. There would be federal government departments not so different from those of the United States though including one for Climate Change and the merging of other functions of federal government: such as Defence & Homeland and Security Interior & Agriculture. The federal cabinet would need appointments to be approved by the parliament with the power retained to remove them. Policy proposals from the presidential campaign made by MAR would be enacted as new laws once the parliament was up and running. Those democratic socialist ideas included abortion & gender recognition rights, immigration reform, social programmes such as free healthcare, free education & a job guarantee and national gun control. There would be controls on the media and the activities of political parties too so as to not foster hatred and allow for democracy to function as it should.

Other states and territories from the United States would be free to join West America as long as they respected the democratic character of the nation: all of their residents would be guaranteed the same rights and freedoms without prejudice. Friendly relations would be sought with the United States alongside neighbouring nations such as Canada, Mexico and Pacific countries. With regard to the country which West America would be leaving, the plan which Antonetti drew up proposed that a firm position be maintained that while West America wanted to have good relations, it would firmly oppose any hostile action taken against it whether that be financial, diplomatic or military by the United States. A new country would face many challenges to its formation, especially from that which it was to be carved out of against the latter’s will, but the proposals for West America set down the principle that it was to be done without aggression launched and the hope for non-violence.

When presented to those in Las Vegas, Padley and Pierce, in addition to MAR who’d also made the trip down into Nevada, told those assembled that they really believed it was possible that all this could be done. They had the people behind them and they were morally right in what they wanted to create as well. How could anyone present not agree that this was what they had to do?

Well it doesn't look like the US can take much more at this point.

The country retains so much strength despite all of this. What it needs is someone to employ that strength though.



Yes. But it has been done before. Puerto Rican terrorists got in and shot congressmen in 1954. The building has been bombed a couple of times too by terrorists.
Those seven killed here in this incident were outside the secure chambers established (ITTL) post 2021 incident.   

49 – Treason

Congress gave final certification to the presidential election result a day later than planned. Roberts and Mitchell would be the next President and Vice President of the United States. Members of Congress absent – either in Las Vegas or dead/in hospital after the terrorist attack – didn’t cast their votes during the roll call of each state yet they didn’t have to. There were overwhelming majorities in favour of proclaiming that the two of them would secede Walsh and Padley. As to the latter, the impeachment of vice president continued once the Electoral College results certification was finished with. She was soon out of office but senators and representatives moved to strip her of that position ahead of time. Democrats votes alongside Republicans in the US House for her impeachment for treason and thus on multiple counts of treason, the process moved afterwards to the Senate. Things progressed fast with that. There was a message being sent from those in Washington due to what she was doing out West. Editorial comment in the media had asked whether it was worth it all yet it happened regardless. For so many of those involved in Padley’s impeachment, they took her treason personally and so responded accordingly.

No longer a sitting senator himself (he’d resigned in late November 2028: his position filled by an appointee by the Governor of Texas), Roberts spoke outside of the Capitol Building after the last certification of his victory had come. His remarks started with comments on the events the day before when the American Insurgent Army had struck to kill seven of his former colleagues, plus many other innocents. Then he moved to welcome the outcome of the vote confirming that he and his running mate would take their oaths of office on January 20th. The first thing that the Roberts Administration would do, the president-elect said, was to put a firm end to the ongoing rebellion and efforts to form West America. There would be no referendums, no secession and no more treason once he was president. Those involved, everyone from top to bottom, would be brought up on federal charges. If he had to use the regular US Armed Forces to achieve that, Roberts promised then that would be what he would do. Secession was illegal and so was trying to form a new country within the union which was the United States. He spoke of how those in Las Vegas were acting against the people of the West, not in their best interests as Maria Arreola Rodriquez had claimed in her statement earlier that day that they were. There was no majority, not even a substantial minority, of citizens across the states in the West who wished to leave the United States. The democratic mandate wasn’t there. He warned those who had yet to involve themselves in secession against the consequences of joining in. They too would face prosecution and jail time.

Roberts addressed the matter of Padley’s impeachment. He reminded the country that Congress was getting underway with the process of removing her from office for her treason. Those out West, MAR, Governor Pierce & the others, had committed the same offense. It turned his stomach, he admitted, to be witness to such prominent figures committed such an infamous act. Yet, they were undertaking treason too. Rather than wait upon his incoming administration to act, Roberts called on Walsh to do so first. He urged the president to arrest all of those involved in that Campaign for a Democratic America who were trying to build a new, illegal nation within the sovereign borders of the United States. Roberts said that there would be Congressional backing for any and all action which Walsh could take to crush the rebellion and treason underway. He himself would support it and assured the president that his party, plus the vast majority of Democrats too, would do so. Walsh just had to take that final step, to finish what he had begun when he had invoked the Insurrection Act on New Year’s Eve. However, Roberts finished his remarks by saying, if Walsh didn’t do it, then he would do so himself. The president-elect asked those out West to mark his words: ‘I will put an end to your treason, with force, myself’ he finished with.

Such a speech was well-received, even by many opponents. Roberts’ comments were said to be presidential and invoking strength. The unity he had spoken of, with Republicans and Democrats alike acting together, went down better than he and his closest advisers had thought it would. What had happened the day beforehand inside the Capitol Building had helped with that impression. Members of Congress from both parties had been killed side-by-side: the story about Congressman Toledo trying to save the life of wheelchair-bound Congresswoman Jackson had made it into the media with many eyewitnesses to that. Yet for all of his talk of bipartisanship to the media, behind the scenes there was partisan division from the Roberts’ camp. Out of the public eye the president-elect and others, especially his running mate Mitchell, were angry at some of the slow progress being made with late stage elements of the presidential transition. After the Supreme Court had ruled against the plaintiff in the Arreola Rodriquez vs. Florida case the previous November, the transition had at first been underway without too many difficulties. In some fields that continued yet there had been recent hold ups when it came to elements of that with regard to important government departments and federal agencies dealing with security and law-&-order. Roberts and Mitchell put that down to Walsh doing his own thing, blowing hot and cold, when it came to the rebellion coming from the West. Cooperation with the new administration’s efforts to move seamlessly into the Departments of Homeland Security & Justice had been slowed down. Walsh Administration figures, the acting secretaries of both departments in particular, were putting the speed breaks on. They were restricting access to Roberts’ people and not sharing enough information. Mitchell had wanted Roberts to go public with that and to criticise Walsh openly yet the president-elect was attempting to work behind the scenes. He didn’t think that a big blow-up like that in the open was the best way of doing things at such a sensitive time.

Several hours after Roberts made his speech, Walsh’s press secretary briefed the media at the White House on the same matter. He read a statement from the (absent) president first where the declaration of the forming of a new country met firm opposition and was deemed illegal. The press secretary then answered posed questions about what the president was going to do in light of what had been said by MAR out in Las Vegas. Was Walsh going to use troops? Were arrest warrants going to be issued for her and other leading figures? The answers which came avoided stating any firm course of action to be taken. No new strategy was unveiled. Members of the media pushed, aiming to discover if there was some sort of secret that maybe they could get a hint of from the press secretary. Perhaps he was saying nothing to not give the game away ahead of a major federal action? There was no hint of that though. The president had tried the Insurrection Act approach, made some arrests and… that was it. Nothing more was to be done. The impotence was shocking for those there in the White House Briefing Room and also elsewhere. Right-wing media outlets and Democratic politicians joined each other in their outrage when that became apparent to all. Walsh was doing nothing. He’d given up after the first hurdle. It was said that his undeclared inaction was worse than him leading the country to defeat in the short military engagement with China. Several Democrats declared that he was the worst president that the country had ever had with one of them, a former congressman, stating in a CNN broadcast that it was in fact the president who was committing treason by not acting. How on earth could he do nothing when faced with what was happening?


The whole country had heard what MAR had said from Las Vegas about the West America which she was front-and-centre of. There were a good number of people – a minority but not an insignificant one – elsewhere in the United States to whom a new start with the nation’s governance and the democracy which was promised appealed to. Across Blue states and Red states, there was recognition that the system was broken. The Electoral College, the Senate and the power of the Supreme Court were regarded as undemocratic for a time such as 2029. Yet… MAR didn’t win them over with what she said. Criticism of the supposed exceptionalism that those in the West had when they had first called for a New America and then a Second Republic before they moved to the idea of West America had cut home. A lot of people had the thought of ‘just who do they think they are’. That came too from others across America, those who had always been opposed to the whole idea of secession by the West since the issue was first raised. Forming a new country came alongside the (unsaid) criticism that there was something wrong with the current one. Patriotism kicked in among so many more. They defended their country’s honour when they saw it as being attacked by those who ‘thought that they were too good for America anymore’.

The basketball player Cleo Brady made that particular remark in an interview with ESPN. He was one of the best players with the LA Lakers and known for his off-court comments in support of progressive social issues. He’d voted for MAR in the presidential election and made campaign appearances in California in 2028 as an important surrogate. His family were from Connecticut and when visiting there, confronted by an interviewer, he attacked the declaration made for a West America. He wouldn’t be returning to the West until it was all over, he said. Another high-profile figure who gave immediate criticism was the television personality Leah Scott. A comedian who like Brady was well-known for her left-wing political views, she was an Arizona native who worked primarily in New York though was often out West. Back there she wouldn’t be going, she told MSNBC, until West America was ‘dead and buried’. It was brought up on several news channels that the 47th President, that California native who’d served twenty-three months in office during 2023 to ’25, had left her home state previously claiming that ‘civil war was imminent’. She had been laughed at then but that wasn’t the case after what MAR had to say on January 7th. There were reports that other people were doing the same: leaving the states out West.

Up In Canada, talking to reporters about the latest fierce winter storm to strike the Maritimes, causing many casualties, the Prime Minister of America’s northern neighbour was asked for comment about West America. It came from a hostile journalist who framed it in a manner to give no wiggle room. How did she view the announcement of a new country soon to be formed? Would Canada have friendly relations with West America? She was forced into commenting. There was only one thing that she could say. She knew that those down in America would be watching and had to reply in the negative straight away because a dodge wouldn’t do it. Canada didn’t support the secession of several American states to form a new country within the borders of the United States. There would be no friendly relations. To say anything else would have brought not just the ire of the incoming Roberts Administration but also have had unwanted domestic effects.

At first out of the public eye, a dispute erupted between Walsh and his Secretary of Defence. General Ferdinand – overseeing the transition at the Pentagon with ease since he was staying there come January 20th – sought to remove from their duties National Guard commanders across six states in the West. In his opinion, they were under Pentagon command when federalised on New Year’s Eve and he had the power to terminate them from their positions. He wanted to do that because they had, illegally, allowed for their individual state governments to start giving them orders again in direct contravention of their federalisation. Some mid-ranking officers within the National Guard elements from California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico & Oregon had already resigned from their post because they agreed that that reassertion of control by state governors was illegal, but the senior people hadn’t. Ferdinand aimed to have the commanders replaced with subordinates who would obey federal orders: not commit what he saw as treason. Walsh’s national security adviser had agreed yet the president, who had gone back to Camp David, overruled him plus the Joint Chiefs too. Ferdinand was told not to relieve those men and women of their posts: it would ‘only inflame the tense situation’, Sunny Park said as she relayed the president’s instructions. Ferdinand demanded to talk to Walsh himself, not going through an unelected appointee as the president’s chief-of-staff. When he finally managed to get through to Walsh, that instruction to not act was confirmed. If Ferdinand hadn’t been less than two weeks away from serving under a new president, he would have resigned. He stayed on though others didn’t. First the Chief of the National Guard Bureau (a Joint Chiefs of Staff member) quit in protest and he was followed by the Secretary of the Army too. Both had previously threatened to do so before due to Walsh’s behaviour and finally did. Ferdinand was told that the latter was to make a public statement as to why that was the case. He alerted Roberts to that but didn’t tell his president… Walsh would find out soon enough, he reasoned.

Just 12 more days before the transfer of power, things are looking so bad.

51 – Squabbles

It was illegal for political parties in the United States to ban entry to, and later subsequently expel, members who joined their parties. Civil rights legislation was behind that with the intent upon creation being noble. Such a loophole had long been exploited. Racists and nutters had run in elections as Democrats and Republicans. At times, in extreme circumstances, the two parties had even joined together to fight against a particular candidate to stop them from winning elected office with that even happening for federal offices when at times the LaRouche movement tried to co-opt the Democrats’ status and the Ku Klux Klan targeted the Republicans. Nonetheless, there was too exploitation done by those on one side of the partisan divide when someone especially awful ran under the banner of the other and that worked both ways. Elsewhere in the world, a party could get rid of those that they didn’t like, but not in the United States.

The Democratic National Committee would have loved to have expelled all of those Democrats who joined the Campaign for a Democratic America and sought to establish West America. They weren’t allowed too though. That gave the Republicans plenty of ammunition to launch attack after attack with the tag-line ‘all Democrats are traitors’. In the face of such an effort, the DNC’s Chair, Jamie Murrow, contacted party members elsewhere across the United States and told them to counterattack by calling them something else instead with the intention that the media would follow and stop referring to such people as Democrats. ‘Traitors’ had already been appropriated by the Republicans yet there were a few Democrats who used that too. However, the term ‘Jacobeans’ came into favour soon enough. Leading Democrats kept saying that on air and encouraged friendly journalist to do so too.

The Jacobin was an influential monthly political magazine (online and in print) with those Democrats aligned to the cause of democratic socialism, as most of those out West, especially the leading figures, being regular participants to its articles and also following the same political ideology from that publication. There had been democratic socialists who’d called themselves Jacobeans even before the idea of West America was first formed. To them, such a name was a badge of honour. Used by their opponents, those from their own party who considered them traitors, the name wasn’t a compliment yet was adopted as such when it happened. Jacobeans were regarded by other Democrats as having too much of a focus on ideological purity… mixed with an unhealthy dose of stubbornness in that too. That all worked into how the name started to stick when the party establishment and Democrats from elsewhere in the country made a serious effort to say it again and again. They wanted that label applied wholesale as they sought to protect their party from guilt by association and make it clear that those in West America were different from the rest of them. The Republicans didn’t ease off their attacks but the hope was that it would sink in with the American people that there was a big difference between Democrats and Jacobeans. As Senator Laura Yorke put it when talking with Murrow and the party’s Congressional leadership, when ‘all the treason was done with’ and ‘West America stomped out’, the Democrats would need to ‘go back to winning elections again’.


That ideological purity which the Jacobeans had brought about internal squabbles with those who’d agreed in Las Vegas to form a new country. Democratic socialists, moderate liberals and neoliberals were all part of the group led by MAR and Vice President Padley who sought to breakaway from the United States. Many of the latter, neoliberals who represented states in the West either as senators or representatives, had – for lack of a better description – fled for their lives to DC during the first week of January 2029 claiming that to stay meant death. Those who stayed behind deemed that as a massive overreaction yet were glad to see the back of those particular Democrats. As to the ones who remained, there weren’t many of them yet they were important members of the Campaign for a Democratic America. They had signed up to take West America out of the United States because they believed that that was the only salvation for democracy. However, they had never been onboard with the extreme elements of the democratic socialist platform which MAR had run her presidential campaign upon and what had subsequently become the basis for the government of that new nation. Aiming to join with the moderate liberals caught in the middle, they pushed for a moderation in many aspects of economic and social policy as West America started to get off the ground. The democratic socialists fought back, in true Jacobean fashion. Governor Pierce – one of those moderates caught in the middle – acted as peacemaker-in-chief between the two factions at each end. It was hard going for him. Plenty of effort was made to keep the neoliberals on-side. He and Padley feared that they could bring West America to a screeching halt long before the federal action promised by incoming President Roberts do that. He wanted to have a country built before then and it couldn’t be done with everyone at each other’s throats.

Calling their new country either New America or West America wasn’t favoured by those at the forefront of creating it. Something different was desired by them. To Governor Rowan the name to be chosen was obvious. Colorado’s governor suggested calling the fresh-faced nation the Democratic American Republic. It was to be a republic and it had been formed out of the Campaign for a Democratic America. MAR liked it the moment she heard it and pushed for that to be the name. The Council of Ten agreed… they decided that they didn’t need everyone’s input there, not when that involved hundreds of people. Padley was the one who chose where the capital of the Democratic American Republic would be. The centre of government was to be in Las Vegas. Locations such as Sacramento and Santa Fe had been favoured by others due to them already being state capitals, and there had also been a wish by the Mayor of Los Angeles (she’d been quite influential in getting Members of Congress from Southern California, neoliberals aplenty, to join the new country) to have America’s second largest city as the capital. Padley won the day though with her argument that Las Vegas was centrally-located – generally anyway – and the ‘birthplace’ of the Democratic American Republic. Nevada’s governor arm-twisted others on the Council of Ten into agreeing with that. Las Vegas would become the capital city where the federal government and parliament would be based.

An outline of the manner in which that government and parliament would operate had been agreed in Las Vegas on January 6th. The details of it all though weren’t so easy to get everyone to go along with. There was a jockeying for positions in the government. MAR and Padley had been agreed upon as president and vice president respectively but there were all of those top-level posts to be filled. Putting themselves forwards for them, further squabbles broke out whether such people were suitable and had enough general support. Senator Rawlings was considered a shoo-in for the defence & security portfolio while Congressman Ignacio Gutierrez had wide support for the position to head an economic/treasury role. Everything else was up for grabs. As to the parliament, it was to consist of one chamber. The reasoning of the emergency situation as the nation was created was used to justify immediate taking up of seats ahead of later planned elections of a promised true democratic character. One hundred seats, split on population grounds, was the number agreed. Those could be filled easily: there were more people wanting a seat than were seats available. Senators considered themselves guaranteed a right to have them with other candidates, those who had been US House representatives as well as those in state legislatures looking to ‘step up’, pushed to the back of the queue. How many each state would get was argued over too. Due to its huge population, California was assured to have the largest number but others thought that unfair and sought for a proportional manner of distribution of seats. The Council of Ten wouldn’t agree to that because, as MAR told them, that ‘had the stink of the Electoral College / US Senate shenanigans’ which (in her opinion) had made the United States a failed state. There was additionally the matter of the Council of Ten where it had only nine members at that point. Washington state had a seat on that body assured and there was consideration given to how many seats in the parliament would be given to them as well.

Yet, Washington had not joined the Democratic American Republic upon the declaration of the nation’s formation. Members of Congress representing that state alongside senior state-level political figures had been in Las Vegas but the state up in the Pacific North-West hadn’t come on-side. They sought to change that come January 9th.


What happened that Saturday in the small city of Olympia was an assault on democracy. It was a coup d’état, so said in unison media outlets on each extreme end of the partisan divide such as Fox News and MSNBC. Pennsylvania’s moderate Democratic Governor Dwight Norris and the hard-right South Carolina Senator Jerry Stokes were likewise in firm alignment in their expressed view that an illegal coup deposed the Governor of Washington. Josh Reeves, plus his secretary of state who had stood by him, were removed from office by Lt.-Governor Ann Quinn, the state’s attorney general and the others of influence there. There was no legal justification which they used other than a hastily drawn-up emergency act to get rid of Reeves. Quinn replaced him and announced that she was taking Washington state out of the United States to join the Democratic American Republic. The National Guard was removed from federal control as part of this and when their senior commanders wouldn’t comply with that, they were fired. State troopers with the Washington State Patrol – a force of over five thousand personnel – assisted in the ‘transfer of power’ when their sworn duty was to the governor and the state’s constitution. There was no violence used yet the threat of it was there when a company of riflemen with the Washington Army National Guard acting on behalf of Quinn surrounded the governor’s mansion and pointed their guns at the state troopers during the final showdown. The state troopers there received last-minute orders to stand down and did so: officers from that force afterwards took Reeves and others into ‘protective custody’.

The people of Washington state, like those in the seven other states which formed the Democratic American Republic, weren’t consulted either ahead of time, nor in the immediate afterwards either.

Reeves had unsuccessfully fought to keep Washington in the United States. His state’s two senators and four of the six Democratic representatives had gone to Las Vegas to sign up for the new country being formed which they aimed to make Washington part of. They had claimed to be speaking for the people of the state plus those of the wider West America when they did that. Reeve’s position was that the half dozen Members of Congress who went to DC (four of them Republicans) were doing that instead. Only through a majority gained in a public vote approved by the state legislature, with his approval too, could Washington state leave the union… and then as well with the approval of the rest of the United States on top. There had been no vote nor was there any overwhelming public demand for one. Those Jacobeans who wanted to secede were the ones who had tried to stop the state certification of the presidential election vote the November beforehand where four of the twelve Electoral College votes given went to the Republican candidate Roberts. They had likewise been instrumental in organising public unrest before and after Shauna McCleary – a Washington native yet strongly associated with Oregon – had died. That unrest, which Reeves considered to be the full responsibility of secessionists, had brought about the kidnap-murder of innocent federal employees in his state and also the Vanguardist domestic terrorism that Washington had seen.

Marxist-Leninists forming several competing groups had for many years been active in Washington state. They rejected electoral politics (though had come out in quiet support for MAR) and also were ideological pure in their make-up. Middle-class college kids who wanted to be activists were banned from joining the various Vanguardist sects: only the working-class, especially those from minorities, were tolerated. The aims of those terrorists were to transform Washington into some form of communist utopia. They killed people and committed bombings. Reeves had been working alongside federal efforts to combat them when their activities had exploded following McCleary’s death and the wider unrest across the West. He had considered that they could only be defeated with federal participation yet had faced a pushback by those such as Quinn – whom the Vanguardists had no time for – who decried ‘federal invasion’. Joining the Democratic American Republic had been considered by Reeves to be madness when his state was under assault like it was by those who looked likely to strike against the authority that country as they did against that of the United States. The democratic socialists, the Jacobeans arrayed around the Democratic American Republic, weren’t consider left enough for the Vanguardist terrorists!

None of that had mattered to those who deposed Reeves in their coup. They thought that they knew better than him what was good for their state and its people. The Council of Ten would be complete with Quinn.