There are several notable differences between the politics in the Fallout world and our own.



U.S. politics



The United States changed drastically after the divergence of the timelines, evidenced by the American flag. In 1969, the 50 states were consolidated (and in California's case, split up) into 13 commonwealths, although it appears that the states themselves retained some degree of sovereignty or political autonomy, judging by the Nevada state flag outside of [Fallout New Vegas] Doc Mitchell's house (as well as the various license plates that are adorned with state names rather than commonwealth names). However, this could be seen as a way to make organizing the license plates much easier, as merging three states into commonwealths would lead to three duplicate plates.



Not much is known about politicians after the divergence, although Richard Nixon, the president of the United States from 1969 to 1974 in our universe, is mentioned in Fallout 2, though Nixon was already a known politician in the 1940s in our world. According to the GNN News transcript, which is of questionable accuracy due to lore contradictions and Chris Avellone's dismissal of it in the Fallout Bible, an unnamed U.S. president was impeached in February 2075 for jaywalking. The transcript also mentions that shortly after the president walks out on international oil talks, "the US economy is seeing its greatest growth since the Reagan Era." This suggests that Ronald Reagan served as president at some point (in reality he served from 1981 to 1989.)



Likewise, not much is known about American politics in the Fallout universe. Daniel Bird and Jack Smith, mention or describe themselves as "Republicans" (in Fallout 2 and Fallout 3 respectively) suggesting that the Republican Party still existed in some shape or form in the Fallout universe. Jack Smith also hints that the Democratic Party possibly still existed post-divergence when he mentions that he would never vote for "one of those beatnik liberal commies," although that could refer to different parties that formed post-divergence. In Fallout: New Vegas, "Republican" was disassociated from the party, becoming instead a demonym for citizens of the New California Republic. For example, Boomers [Fallout New Vegas] use the term to refer to people associated with the New California Republic.



Racial segregation seems to have ended still, at least visibly in the military, as was the case with Lieutenant Thomas Morgan, and in the political arena, with Sam Blackwell having been elected as a senator in the 2070s. Women's rights seemed to have progressed as well, with women openly serving in military combat roles such as Colonel Ellen Santiago, and as seen in the Anchorage Reclamation simulation.



The United States of America may have declared war on Vietnam, as comments to this effect can be heard during the Interplay/Microforte title sequence in Fallout Tactics.It is unknown when it was declared or what the outcome of the war was. In our timeline, the United States never technically declared war on Vietnam, though large deployments of combat troops were sent there between 1965 and 1973. (There is mixed reception on Fallout Tactics canonicity. Bethesda has stated it is not canon, though references to the game do appear in canon. As such, this event may never have actually happened.) On the other hand, Jonathan Nolan and Walton Goggins have described Fallout's world as one in which the Vietnam War did not occur, as part of explaining the setting of the Fallout TV series.



In the Fallout universe, the U.S. government was quite corrupt (much like how the real-life USA's involvement in the Vietnam War was shrouded in misinformation revealed in the Pentagon Papers) and as part of real-life post-WWII cultural inspirations, Fallout took many aspects of the Cold War into their world which pertain specifically to idiosyncrasies of government agencies at the time, many of which are known today due to declassification. Just like real U.S. government agencies received funding for outlandish experiments in an effort to develop projects that would give them an advantage in a hypothetical escalation with the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War, in the Fallout world the Cold War only ended in 2051, but a similar effect repeated itself during the Resource Wars before the Great War, resulting in the Vault-Tec vault experiments. Famous real-life Cold War-era government exploits that parallel these include the NASA dolphin LSD project of 1963, the CIA's MKUltra, proposed terrorism on US soil to justify a war with Cuba, exposure of unwitting civilians to radioactive material, etc.



World politics



The Soviet Union is still a political entity by the time of the Great War. In our world, the U.S.S.R. was dissolved in 1991, with Russia and the various Soviet republics becoming independent nations once more. It appears as though when the Great War happened, the Soviet Union and United States were at least neutral with one another. However, the Soviet Union's influence on the world was greatly diminished over the decades, being eclipsed by China as the leader of international communism.



The People's Republic of China still resembles the China of our world during Chairman Mao's rule, and it seems that the country never experienced the liberalisation and free-market reforms that it did in our world after rapprochement occurred between the United States and the Beijing government in the 1970s. Nevertheless, China would become a major military and scientific leader on the world stage, and was the closest competitor to the United States.



The European Commonwealth is referred to as a unified country. While in real life the European Union unifies many European countries, it largely handles economic concerns and trade relations between member nations. Which nations were incorporated to the Commonwealth is unknown, but supplementary material treats western European nations like Italy, France and the United Kingdom as part of the Commonwealth. According to Fallout Bible 0, in 2052, the Commonwealth invaded the Middle East as part of the Resource Wars, hoping to seize their oil reserves. The exact tempo of the war is unknown, but the war ended in 2060 when the Middle Eastern oil reserves ran dry, and the Commonwealth withdrew without anything left to fight over.The Commonwealth then immediately dissolved into what is referred to as the "European Civil War" that lasted until the Great War.



The United Nations continued to function until 2052, when it was dissolved following the majority of its members withdrawing themselves from the organization because of the European-Middle Eastern War and brewing tensions that would lead to the wider Resource Wars.



The state of decolonisation is unknown, but it can be assumed that it occurred to some degree, as numerous colonies had achieved independence by the end of the 50s (India, the Belgian Congo, many African colonies, etc.). As evidence of this, Canada ceased to be a dominion of the British Empire, instead falling into America's sphere of influence, becoming a de-facto puppet of the U.S., and the European-Middle Eastern War is referred to as an invasion of the Middle East by the Europeans, suggesting such Middle Eastern nations were already independent.