OK. Now I know that this was primarily a look at Japan, but I figured that some more context would help. So here's the United States up to 1962.
We will be back to Japan - very soon
Also, a political OC in the Presidency. Hey...given that the POD was the 1860s, I think that's reasonable
1950-1960
United States of America:
22nd April 1950 Remembrance Day 1950 is marked by the official admission of Cuba, Sonora, Chihuahua, the State of Oahu and Alaska to the Union. Cuba will ultimately become a bastion of the Socialist Party; in Alaska, the Union supports the tribes of the Pacific Northwest (who had been victimised by the Russian settlers) and aids them into positions of power within the state government; while in Sonora and Chihuahua the Democratic administration props up the large landowners who the Freedom Party had disenfranchised and removed from their positions of power within the states. The landowners organise their tenants into pro-Democrat voting blocs.
7th August The Big Island and Maui are formally given autonomy as the Free State of New Deseret. In return for a neutrality pledge, the new Free State is to be left entirely to manage its own affairs, including polygamy. Officially, it’s run by a civilian government, but the relationship of the government to this branch of the Mormon Church is very much a subservient one.
Beginning of split in the Mormon Church – between those who move to the islands, and those who remain in Utah and begin to (very gradually) accept being citizens of the United States.
Beginning of United States Pan-Continental Rocket Programme.
September-December The Free Mormon Church (as it’s rebranded itself) officially begins a ‘moral crusade’ to bring their new home up to their exacting standards. Missionaries begin working to convert the non-Mormon population, while Church ‘Moral Enforcers’ begin working inside Hilo city. Saloons and gambling joints are shut down, stocks of alcohol are dumped into the Pacific, and the Moral Enforcers begin mass arrests of young women in the red-light districts. These women are imprisoned in ‘Repentance Halls’ – though many will end up escaping them (if the number of Mormon men with multiple Asiatic wives is anything to go by, anyway).
Throughout 1950, the Federal Police Bureau pursues root-and-branch investigations across the length and breadth of the South. In the space of six months, they break up three neo-Freedom Party groups and four ‘traditional’ Confederate groups. The ‘Special Administrative Laws’ in force in the South allow for indefinite detention without trial and for executions, should the FPB deem it necessary.
8th February 1951 Signature of Bloc America treaty in Rio de Janeiro. Bloc America is a trading and defensive military pact, one that encompasses the United States, the Caribbean, the Republic of Texas, Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, Brazil, Venezuela and Peru. Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina remain outside the Bloc at this time. As part of the Treaty, the Democratic administration authorises a large economic development and military aid package to all the new signatories.
19th June US forces begin to quit former Mandates in French Sub-Saharan Africa. Mali, Chad, Ivory Coast and Gabon are now independent states, though they will gradually develop strong economic ties with the United States.
24th May 1952 Trade agreements signed with the English Commonwealth and the Second Republic of Ireland.
4 November 1952 Presidential election. Democratic nominee Harold Truman is defeated by Socialist candidate Arn Lovhaug, former Congressman for Minnesota and a hero of the Second Great War – a carrier pilot aboard USS Remembrance. The election is marked by slight controversy – many Democrats complain that Lovhaug was only elected thanks to the large influx of Canadian voters.
March-August 1953 Series of uprisings across the ‘Old Confederacy’ part of the South. The uprisings are largely unconnected, and are put down. President Lovhaug tours both the former Confederate states and Canada, calling for an end to the enmities of the past.
‘…and so I say to you, whether of New York, whether of Alabama, or whether of Newfoundland, we can all proudly answer to the name ‘American’. All of us share this great continent, and all of us must work towards its future. I humbly ask that you all put aside your differences and work towards an American future. Towards a Socialist future.’
1954-1955 Passage of several key pieces of legislation, including the Federal Healthcare Bill. Inspired by the English nationalisation of the health sector, the Lovhaug Administration creates the Federal Health Service. There is stiff resistance from the Democratic Party, but ultimately the administration wins through.
1956 Test-firing of Hercules-1, the first Pan-Continental Ballistic Rocket.
President Lovhaug re-elected.
3rd August 1957 American Rocket Command successfully launches Remembrance-1, the first artificial satellite. Germany immediately begins attempting to catch up. Japan, though possessed of military rocketry, does not demonstrate interest in space technology at this time (long-term, though…).
9th August 1957 President Lovhaug hosts a ceremony announcing the creation of the United States Rocket and Space Command. Beginning of a concerted effort to develop more satellites and, ultimately, pursue manned spaceflight. In the words of the President, the United States ‘will reach above the Earth, reach above the jealousies and divisions of mankind, and touch the heavens themselves’.
20th August 1958 Assassination attempt on Federal Police Bureau Director Luther Bliss outside FPB headquarters in Philadelphia thwarted by rising agent Thomas Bradford. The would-be assassin is Quentin Beauregard, a native of Virginia and known neo-Confederate. Subsequent investigation reveals Beauregard’s connection to a group called the Circle Brotherhood, hitherto unknown to the FPB.
1959 President Lovhaug oversees the establishment of new civilian state governments in Houston, Kentucky and Tennessee, based on the comparatively low levels of unrest in those states. As part of their ‘normalisation’, he suspends the Special Administrative Laws and passes law enforcement in those states into the hands of state authorities.
1958-1960 Several arrests made in Virginia, all of Circle Brotherhood members. The FPB investigation reveals that the group is not only neo-Confederate, but neo-Freedom Party. The movement has expanded heavily on Jake Featherston’s original teachings, calling for the ‘purification’ of the Confederacy, the white race and Christianity, and a renewed Holocaust this time encompassing Hispanic and Asian minorities. Interestingly, though – and alarmingly to Director Bliss’ mind – the movement does not call for the restoration of all the Confederacy. Instead, it calls for the liberation of the old Confederacy, between Virginia and Louisiana, and the establishment of a new, isolationist nation in those states. This alarms the Director as such a comparatively realistic goal could appeal to a wider number of Southerners than grandiose attempts to restore the Confederacy as it used to be (since they might actually succeed). In addition, the de-centralised, cell-based structure of the movement alarms him greatly.
November 1960 Andrew Wilder, Arn Lovhaug’s Vice-President, is elected as President.
Director Bliss writes a detailed report to the President and the President-elect, calling for renewed vigilance in the South and for the re-introduction of the Special Administrative Laws. Though the President agrees to additional funding for the FPB, he refuses to reverse the normalisation process.
1961 Sequoyah receives a new civilian state government, Special Administrative Laws are repealed.
12 April Major Andrew Carson becomes the first human in space. His La Follette spacecraft completes an orbit of the Earth before re-entry. President Wilder and former President Lovhaug hail the mission as an American triumph, pride in which every American can share.
4th July, 1962 Independence Day celebrations are interrupted by a mass armed insurrection across the South. In Louisiana, Houston and Kentucky, new state police forces either desert or join with the rebels. The violence is led by the Circle Brotherhood.
This marks the official beginning of what historians will later call the ‘Years of Hate’. From the outset, the Federal government will find it difficult to respond to the insurrection, as the Circle Brotherhood fight using asymmetric warfare, are not centralised to any great degree…and seem to essentially emerge from nowhere, in some places.