Presidency of Elizabeth Shannon (Napoleon's World)

The United States Presidency of Elizabeth Shannon was a Nationalist administration from January 20, 1981 to January 20, 1989 headed by Elizabeth Shannon. The administration succeeded the Wallace administration and was succeeded by the Redford administration.

Domestically, the administration favored reducing barriers to new business investment in the economy while eliminating laws from the 1960s favoring the financial industry over others, and severely tightened credit by raising interest rates. After suffering from severe deflation and high unemployment early in the first term, unemployment dropped below 10% for the first time since 1979 and was at 8.2% on election day 1984. The Shannon administration also instituted tax reforms that allowed a simplification of the corporate tax law while raising the estate tax and the payroll tax cap. While many conservatives urged a cut in personal marginal income tax rates, no such cut was ever instituted. Her loan freeze and forced separation of commercial and investment banks were roundly criticized by the financial community and many conservative Nationalists. With the late 1980s showing economic growth, the Shannon administration performed fewer stimulatory actions in the second term.

In foreign policy, the largest issue was the ongoing Brazilian War. The Shannon administration withdrew American soldiers from Brazilian soil in late 1983 and early 1984, fulfilling a campaign promise, and withdrew American soldiers from South America completely in early 1987 after three years of exclusively providing naval and aerial support to Colombian an Argentinean troops as well as training rebels. The Shannon Doctrine, which controversially pledged indirect aid to anti-French forces around the globe, contributed to the ELIA's campaigns in Africa and Spain, supported the Portuguese victory in the Third Iberian War, helped the Centroamerican government crack down on rebels in the late 1980s, and gave direct aid and in some cases weaponry to Algerian, Hindustani and Vietnamese guerillas fighting in various conflicts throughout the 1980s against the French.

Shannon, who spent most of her second term focusing on combating rampant crime, gun violence, polarization over abortion and the supposed breakdown of civil rights initiatives from the 1950s and 1960s, was bogged down by a series of scandals in 1986 as well as legislative defeats, leading to the Democrats retaking the Senate in that year's midterms and nearly taking control of the House of Representatives. However, the improved American economy and the fall of the Brazilian regime in late 1987 without American soldiers validated many of her policies and she left office in January of 1989 with a 58% approval rating.