The 2060 presidential election has a reemergence of the Radical Republicans. Joe Sullivan becomes the first market socialist president and the abolition of AI slavery was announced as one of his positions. The Democrats viewed this as an existential threat because they relied on android and AI slaves for the masses as the foundation of their policy because they wanted to make sure that cis humans never needed to work themselves. They take a high school statement about the war in Ukraine out of context to try to claim that Joe Sullivan supports Bolshevism. The real context was he wanted to negotiate an end to the war.

After the inauguration at the beginning of 2061, all of the west coast states succeed. Later that year in June, they begin an invasion of the Union that lasts until 2065 when the capital of Los Angeles falls and AI slavery is abolished.