United Right
The United Right was created from a re-brand of the Republican Party in Early January. It was nominally a party for the entire right wing to campaign against the RLP, the largest party at the United Right's founding. However, it quickly attracted elements of the far right due to the activities of some members, and caused a lot of controversy over this issue.
Founding
The United Right was formed in Early January as a re-brand of the Republicans. The re-brand was led by Chairman _hedgehog_1, and Vice Chairmen Rebel and NapoleonBorn2Party. The leadership quickly began to advertise on other discords and to other people, and membership slowly started to rise.
History
The United Right leadership, once they had written the manifesto, took to advertising to get members. The invite links were advertised to individuals and other discord servers, which were then asked to advertise the links around.
Dealing with America First
The first major event of the United Right was in dealing with System's America First party. After System lost a Vote of No Confidence in the Republican Party, he left and later formed America First. Chairman of the UR, _hedgehog_1, began negotiations with System for the UR and America First to merge, due to similar beliefs and memberships. After about 30 mins of negotiation, with _hedgehog_1 talking about the need to unite to attract the most members, otherwise their supporters would be split, and the fact that after the merge the party would then become the largest in the simulation, System agreed to the merge and was given the position of Vice Chairman. Thus, America First merged with the United Right, becoming the largest server by roled members at the time.
Fall
In late January, a dispute emerged in #general on the main server regarding a United Right discord clerk. Members, led by Chairman _hedgehog_1, claimed this was necessary due to perceived unfairness in the clerk system. At the time, kicking, muting and banning was at clerk discretion, and as such some clerks had supposedly been abusing these powers against the United Right unfairly. The dispute began when members from other parties starting writing why they do not think that the UR should get a clerk, pointing out the dubious and ambiguous advertising methods, the comments, names and profile pictures of some members, and the image of the party. UR members countered with the fact that the UR was the largest party of the whole server at the time, that many of the mutes, kicks and bans they believed were unfair, and that they believed the system was biased against the UR and thus a UR clerk would help alleviate the concerns of UR members and ensure fairness.
After being denied the role, many party members got involved in a heated argument with members from other parties, and a large number of accusations were levelled against the UR, its leadership, and its Chairman. In the face of all of this, _hedgehog_1 took the decision to leave the server, and so did many members. Rebel, one of the Vice Chairman, was banned after coming out that he was a nazi, and his ally, NapoleonBorn2Party, left. After these events, System was left the only member of the UR's leadership.
Aftermath
_hedgehog_1 then was contacted by the mods on United Right's own server, in which he was still on, to talk about the situation in the server. A number of ideas were proposed, such as clarifying rules, putting checks and balances on clerks, making the process fairer and the like, most of which were put in place subsequent to _hedgehog_1's departure and the subsequent collapse of the United Right as a party in AGS.
The United Right never faced any electoral challenge, as it collapsed prior to the United States presidential election, February 2018.
User System subsequently took control, as the only remaining member of the leadership, and as leader of the newly split party he tried to re brand the party back to the Republicans to try and get rid of the bad image that came with the Party name. The downfall of the UR most visibly began with the Chairman leaving AGS, only to come back to watch the simulation develop, although it was in the making a few days prior with many members receiving bans, or being muted and kicked in the main server.
Controversy
From its founding, the United right has served as a source of controversy.
One of the first issues was the posting of advertisements on 4chan. A member of the United Right(UR), it is unknown who it was, posted 2 advertisements on 4chan advocating for individuals to join the United Right to 'fight the communists' and stand on a 'Rightist' and 'explicitly Anti-Communist platform'. It is believed that these 2 posts caused the United Right to have an influx of some neo nazis and fascists, who went on to taint the party's image.
User Rebel also knew many discord members would 'would be interested' in joining the United Right, and he consequently invited them, and they also spread the invite links around. This caused the United Right to, within approximately a week, become the largest party in AGS by membership, reaching a peak of 74 roled members.
United Right party members quickly got involved in heated debates and arguments with the Radical Labor Party members. Some members reportedly broke some AGS rules, which have faced some criticism for being unclear at the time, and hence they were muted, kicked, or banned. At the time, this was at clerk's discretion, causing unease among members at this perceived abuse of power. Many took to the main server to protest this, and were met with users who believed it was the behaviour of the UR members that was wrong and needed to be rectified, not that of the clerks or server.
The party has also received criticism for its name, 'United Right' which critics claimed too closely resembled the Unite the Right and its related movement, which resulted in violence. the Chairman at the time, _hedgehog_1, responded to these claims, arguing that unite is simply a generic word, that any perceived reference to Unite the Right is coincidental and unintended, and that it was wrong to let extremist movements claim commonly used words solely for themselves.
The symbols of the party have also been criticised as authoritarian-esque and with a fascist slant. While members used a number of posters gathered from the internet to advertise privately, the 2 main campaign posters were small variants of the 2 logos of the party. These logos featured eagles, one gold and one red and blue, looking to the right, with the message: 'Join The United Right' surrounding the eagle.
Ultimately, regardless of whether it did or not, the image the party carried was one of far right politics, extremism and exclusivity, even though these beliefs were only held by a minority of members, who left the sim after the UR disbanded, whereas the others simply moved to the Monarchists, Libertarians or stayed with the re-branded GOP. This image hindered its ability to progress or engage in the sim, with the party denied server clerk roles, and many members accusing the mods and clerks of meta discrimination.