Character Application and Information Sheet
NS Nation Name: Free Ward Marchers
Character Name: Bobby Markoe
Character Gender: male
DOB: October 21, 1942 (65)
Character Height: 6ft 2in
Character Weight: 250 lbs
Character Position/Role/Job:
Character Country/State of Birth: Pennsylvania
Character State of Residence: Illinois
Character Party Affiliation: Republican
Faceclaim: Ronald Lauder
Main Strengths: Popular among working class conservatives, Friend of President Cush
Main Weaknesses: bombastic, war hawk, Quixotic beliefs, Doesn’t think before he speaks
Biography: Meredith Otis Stewart Markoe has an overabundance of names, none of which are anywhere close to Bobby. But somehow, it became his nickname while growing up in an Old Money Pennsylvania family in the 1940s and 50s. It was the dawn of the Atomic Age—a time of unbridled optimism if one was a young, well-off white American. This instilled within him an excitement for the sciences, and given that he was a third son with few other uses, his parents encouraged this passion. Markoe studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then did postgraduate work at the University of Illinois, earning a Master's in Nuclear Engineering and a Ph.D. in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering. A good number of renown scientists,
only some of whom were former members of the National Socialist German Workers Party, served as his mentors, and Markoe even got a gig as research assistant for a couple of projects under the Apollo program—though, truth be told, he was probably one of the least important of the 400,000 employees who helped put man on the Moon.
Following this, Markoe spent an impressive two decades as a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where his research touched on various fields of engineering and physics. And it was also around this point that he got involved in politics. His family were hardened conservatives who cheered on Taft, MacArthur, and McCarthy, and Markoe carried these biases against the burgeoning New Left. He took particular umbrage against environmentalists who launched hysterical campaigns against seemingly every innovation since the Middle Ages; Markoe defended Project Plowshare until the day it was terminated in 1977. That year also hardened his social conservative attitudes when an extramarital affair and messy divorce forced him to reconsider his life choices and become a born-again Christian. He still considers himself nondenominational, though he has described his beliefs as Calvinist.
It was Star Wars that finally turned him into a public figure. Markoe had been involved in the Fusion Energy Foundation—a think tank that promoted nuclear power, fusion energy, particle-beam weapons, and space colonization—since the late 1970s. He distanced himself from it in 1984, when the full extent of its ties to Lyndon LaRouche's US Labor Party became public, but by then one of FEF's main causes was already a matter of federal policy. President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative was a controversial missile defense program with the aim of making nuclear weapons obsolete. Many experts said it was impossible, but Markoe was determined otherwise. As a confident, well-spoken, rocket scientist, he became one of the most effective public advocates for the program in popular media, earning himself a place at the George C. Marshall Institute designed to support STI. Though it ultimately failed, Markoe maintains to this day that it directly caused the fall of the Soviet Union by forcing the Russians to overspend on their military in response, and that innumerous useful technological innovations came from the program.
By the time of the 1988 election, the George C. Marshall Institute started moving its focus to denial of global warming, and Markoe followed along with this. Indeed, the STI drama instilled into him a thirst for the limelight, and he spent much of the late 1980s as a paid consultant and spokesman skeptical of the alarmism surrounding things like asbestos, DDT, second-hand smoke, and mad cow disease. Even if it is outside his realm of expertise, Markoe thinks that he—as a literal rocket scientist—has the authority to dig around the data and give a definitive answer. His philosophy centers on opposition to the "regulatory-industrial complex" sustained by ideological activists, opportunistic personal injury lawyers, hysterical media outlets, demagogic politicians, and careerist bureaucrats who have a common interest in inventing new health and safety threats for the public to obsess about.
This has all made him rather popular among Republican activists, and especially Republican donors. Markoe had been hobnobbing around political circles since the early 1970s, and even ran unsuccessfully for a couple of local and statewide positions. Like most wealthy white men, Markoe thinks that the government is currently run by idiots, and he could do much better if given the opportunity. In 1990, he saw it has his chance to go big, filing paperwork to run for (not-Paul Simon's) senate seat. It was a miserable failure. Markoe lost overwhelmingly in the Republican primary to (not-Lynn Morley Martin) who in turn lost overwhelmingly in the general election to Simon. But then there was a miracle: (not-Edward Rell Madigan), the representative from Champaign's district, was nominated as President Cush's Secretary of Agriculture in 1991. Markoe narrowly won the primarily to replace him, then cruised to victory in the safe Republican seat.
Harkening back to his defense of STI, Markoe has perhaps best made a reputation in Congress as a hawk. Throughout the 1980s, he warned that the Soviet Union was on the verge of overtaking the United States in military might. By the time he entered Congress, that prediction had proved comically wrong. So, he shifted his focus to the need for American leadership in a changing world. This became especially salient after 9/11. Markoe is a fervent backer of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. He compares it to World War II—an existential struggle between democracy and tyranny. Anyone who opposes military action is either a supporter of Al-Qaeda/Saddam/Iran, or else a useful idiot. His long hawkish history briefly earned him the top spot on the House Homeland Security Committee, until the Democrats retook the chamber.
Also unsurprising given his background, Markoe is extremely skeptical of regulation. Sometimes, this in itself has generated controversy. In the aftermath of 9/11, he blamed the tragedy on asbestos regulations: the Twin Towers were originally planned to be built with fire-resistant lagging that would have allowed more time for people to evacuate before the towers fell. On another occasion, he asserted that (not-Rachel Carson) "killed more people than Hitler" due to a controversial analysis that restrictions on DDT have caused 20 million children to die of malaria. But above all, he opposes the "cult of global warming," which he regards as a fundamentally anti-humanist ideology that will only further entrench poverty and inequality. He is adamant that the Earth is not warming, and even if it is, then humans aren't causing it, and even if they are, then it's actually a good thing because increased CO2 helps the trees grow. Besides this, Markoe has been involved in a series of more quixotic efforts, like the Save the Greenback campaign organized by paper and ink interests to stop the paper dollar from being phased out.
Finally, like any conservative Republican, Markoe is a firm believer in family values. This means an opposition to abortion and homosexuality, of course. He has also proclaimed that evolution is "not a settled question" and schools ought to "teach the controversy." And his close ties with Christian Zionists who support the Jewish state as a tool for achieving the apocalypse has raised some eyebrows. But he stands out for having built a persona as a squeaky-clean Christian uncomfortable with sex, violence, and foul language in the media. Following the Columbine High School massacre, he was very quick to lay responsibility on the video game Doom. Though, his enthusiasm for the (not-Clinton) impeachment proceedings became awkward when media pointed out his own extramarital affairs that led his first wife to divorce him in 1977. To this, he could only offer a bumbling response about how he truly repented his actions, while (not-Clinton) is an opportunist who is only pretending to, and besides, they're not impeaching him for the affair itself, but for lying about it in front of the American people.
A journalist once described Markoe as a penultimate man of the 1950s, defined by a belief in American military might, traditional family values, and unbridled techno-optimism. He had his hayday in the early days of the Cush era, but he is now finding himself out of the cultural zeitgeist. However, far from discouraging him, this has strengthened his resolve to fight.
Other Info:
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