Rand Paul (Post-Second Cold War)

Randal Howard "Rand" Paul was the President of the United States from January 20, 2025 to October 29, 2027. His libertarian and populist views made him extremely popular. At the same time, many within the conservative elite disliked him for targeting massive banking firms and corporations. This eventually led to a coalition being formed against him, and a coup was launched in which he was assassinated and replaced by a military dictatorship.

Rand Paul was the son of Texan independence leader and prominent libertarian, Ron Paul. Rand, who believed Texas should remain a part of the United States, had a falling out with his father and they would never speak again until the elder Paul's death in 2020. Paul eventually took up the cause of Texan independence, believing that Texas had the right to self-determination.

Early Life and Political Career
See: Rand Paul for Early Life

When a schism between conservatives and libertarians occurs in the US Republican Party during the Attitude Era, Rand Paul leads a migration of libertarians to the Libertarian Party. Paul and other Libertarians won several elections all across the country, making the US officially a three-party country. He begins criticizing the conservatives Republicans by calling them irrelevant and out of touch. During this time Paul became a highly popular politician, and was embraced by the youth of the Attitude Era for his opposition towards the political elite.

Although Paul was initially against Texan indpendence, he takes up the cause after his father's death and opposes the invasion of Texas in 2023.

Second American Revolution
See: Second American Revolution 

Rand Paul became acting president after the Sons of Liberty seized power, helping to form the August 23rd alliance between the Democrats and the Libertarians. After presidential elections Paul was elected to a full four-year term. From the beginning, he praised the American people and military for the revolution. He promises to uphold the ideals of the revolution and promises "radical reform".

Social Justice Movement
Even before becoming president, Paul was one of the first politicians to embrace Sarah Stone and the Social Justice Movement. He would speak at several of their rallies and he was a close ally of Stone.

Rebuilding the Economy
Paul wastes little time in attempting to fix the economy. He starts by getting China to forgive all of America's debts. He continues by breaking up massive banks such as Bank of America and Goldman-Sachs; which draw him the ire of much of the elite banking firms. He argues that these banks were holding the country hostage. He then abolishes the income tax, and institutes a nationwide 6% sales tax as a replacement.

He recognizes that the depreciation of the American Dollar was affecting the global economy. So in order to increase the dollar's value, he institutes a "Silver Standard"; backing the failing dollar with silver. He encourages the nations of the world not to put their faith in one currency and to begin trading in silver.

He signs the Twenty-Eigth Amendment into law, requiring the federal government to have a balanced budget. This had the effect, however, of reducing spending on defense. Which led the US to remove some of its bases in Europe, and all of its bases in the Middle East. However the US kept its European bases closest to Russia, and kept its bases in the Pacific; claiming it still had valid interests in the area.

Education
Rand Paul repeals the No Child Left Behind Act and dissolves the US Department of Education, giving the responsibility of Education to the states. He forgives all student loan debts, thus easing the Higher Education crisis that had plagued the country for over ten years.

Foreign Policy
Rand Paul pursued a foreign policy of non-intervention: Which meant that the United States did not initiate wars of aggression, nor place itself in entangling alliances such as NATO. Rand Paul withdrew the United States from NATO. However, this had the effect of upsetting the global balance; leading to several international crises. Paul pursued peaceful relations with all of the world's nations; starting with with China, Russia, and the newly recognized Republic of Texas. However, relations with Russia became hostile once again when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2026.

Paul, along with his Army Chief of Staff Gen. Maurice Bradshaw, advocated a policy of retreatism; in which the US would pull military bases out of the Middle East, the Indian Ocean, and Western Europe, and grand independence to its overseas territories (Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands); believing that maintaining these territories was becoming costly and that the money needed to be redirected back home.

China
Both China and the US had decent relations. China was able to forgive the US of its debts, and the two countries were at peace with each other under the Paul administration. The two countries participated in the Liberation of Ukraine in 2026.

Former Great Britain
In 2026, Rand Paul held the Baltimore Peace Talks between England, Scotland, Ireland, the IRA, and the UVF in order to end the British Wars. Although the talks failed, and the war would continue until the early 2030s when all sides declare a peace treaty. Paul would not intervene any further in the conflict, however.

Russia
The United States participated in the UN intervention that ended Russian occupation in Ukraine, albeit reluctantly. Although American involvement was limited to airstrikes on Moscow, and the targeting of Russia's nuclear weapons. China, Texas, Turkey, France, Germany, Nigeria, Korea, and several other nations intervened on the ground and forced Russia out of Ukraine.

Texas
The Paul administration began by recognizing Texas. The two countries established trade links, and the United States helped in the reconstruction process in Texas. The United States even apologized for starting the war. However, there was still a degree of tension: Texas still occupied the Oklahoma Panhandle. Paul hoped that he could resolve this situation peacefully, believeing that both Americans and Texans were tired of war.

Rand Paul's father, Ron Paul, was a Texan patriot who was considered to be the father of the Texan independence movement. However, Rand Paul believed that Texas should remain a part of the United States; which led to a falling out between the two that lasted up until his father's death in 2020. President Paul would go to Texas in 2026 to visit his father's grave and to sign a peace treaty with Texas. Rand Paul and Texan President J.R. Rodriguez signed the Paul-Rodriguez Treaty, which established peace in the region by: agreeing that the Texans would occupy the Oklahoma panhandle until 2034 in order to thoroughly demilitarize the area; neither Texas nor the United States would go to war with one another again, unless the terms established in the treaty were violated; and America's formal recognition of Texas as a sovereign nation.

The Attitude Era and Domestic Issues
Rand Paul has become president over a divided and broken country. The American economy is in freefall due to the decline of the Dollar, crime and poverty are at all-time highs, and the partisan divide dominates every aspect of American life. Paul enacts several economic reforms that make him an incredibly popular president. Paul's reforms drew the ire of the American elite and he became a marked man.

Chief among Paul's domestic policies was his Looking Inward plan, in which America would stop policing the world and intervening internationally; instead, the Paul administration would focus on America's social problems. He also embraces Sarah Stone and the Social Justice Movement, and praises the younger generation for holding the government accountable and demanding political reform.

Whereas his predecessors Chris Christie and Marco Rubio almost tolerated right-wing militias, Paul cracked down on them heavily; this had the effect of increasing the animosity Republicans had towards him. On the 4th of July, during a block party held in Bryant Park by Sarah Stone in which popular music artists of the time performed, a bomb went off that killed 50 people; the bombing was carried out by a right-wing militia known as the Golden Eagles. This bombing brought partisan tensions to the brink of civil war, as the Leftist terrorist groups responded in kind by attacking a Golden Eagles rally, and committing a string of bombings and assassinations ripped America in half. This atmosphere caused the Sarah Stone and the Social Justice movement to take a more militant approach. Paul would crackdown on these militias and tried his hardest to hold the nation together.

Fall and Assassination
On October 1st, 2027, President Rand Paul asked that the Federal Reserve be audited. He argued that there were a lot of things the Reserve were keeping from the people, and that they needed to be more transparent. Many people in congress argued Rand Paul was going to far. On October 5th, the Federal Reserve threatened to stop printing the dollar if Paul didn't renege on his demands. Various corporations feel that the current government did not protect them, and begin colluding with Congress and the Federal Reserve to overthrow Rand Paul. Several people in the upper-tier of the military felt that Paul's massive defense cuts were making America weak. Maurice Bradshaw was Rand Paul's only supporter within the top brass of the military, supporting Paul's looking inward. This leads to Congress, the Federal Reserve, and a cabal of various corporations, to form a coalition known as the Conservative Legion to assassinate the president.

On October 29th, 2027, while Rand Paul was stepping out of a limousine and heading into the US Capitol a group of gunmen opened fire on him; killing him instantly. About thirty minutes later, a column of tanks begin driving down the street. Media outlets declare that President Paul has been assassinated, and a military junta has seized power. The military junta suspends the Constitution and declares martial law. The junta claims that Rand Paul was destroying the country and that he needed to be overthrown, Paul is then replaced by his vice president Paul Ryan. Riots against the junta spread all across America.

Aftermath
Paul Ryan undoes all of Rand Paul's reforms. He attempts to make America economically competitive again through Reagan-style tax reforms; cutting taxes on the wealthy and placing the tax burden on the middle class. However, this only increased public resentment towards the new regime. Not only did these policies build public resentment of the Ryan administration, but it did nothing to stop what Rand Paul was trying to prevent: The complete and utter collapse of the Dollar. Paul Ryan ended the Silver Standard and reinstituted the fiat system, but much of the world had already dropped the Dollar in favor of Gold and Silver. As a result, the Dollar continued to decrease in value, and it finally collapsed on December 21st, ending the Great Stagnation and sending the nation into nation into devastating poverty as millions of Americans lost all of their life's savings. Of course the elite one-percent was untouched as they merely invested in Gold and moved all of their funds to far-off places; fuelling resentment of both Paul Ryan and the elite even more. This led many to believe that Western Capitalism had finally met its demise, and that socialism was the answer to America's problems.

The conservative regime expels politicians affiliated with the August 23rd Alliance from both the Senate and the House of Representatives; thus holding complete control over the nation and giving them the ability to impose their will on everyone else. With Rand Paul dead, the vacuum he left behind is eventually filled by Sarah Stone and the Social Justice Movement. Sarah Stone would openly call for the overthrow of the conservative regime and its replacement with a participatory-direct democracy. Gen. Maurice Bradshaw refuses to participate in the new Junta and steps down from his post in protest, returning to his base at Fort Belvoir.

Sarah Stone calls for a nationwide strike in order to shut down the economy and force the regime to give into her demands. The strike ends when Sarah Stone is arrested at her office for subversion in December 2027, though she would be released the following month. The government, as it would later be discovered, began secretly colluding with right-wing militias to terrorize the Social Justice Movement into submission; launching another deadly series of bombings and assassinations that culminated in the assassination of Sarah Stone in New York on May 5th, 2028. This assassination finally sent America over the edge, leading to the Second American Civil War.

Legacy
Rand Paul was considered to be the American Republic's last great statesman. His charisma, nationalism, and belief that America could be returned to what it once was led to him being referred to as "America's Last Hope".