Federalist Party

The Federalist Party is a faction in Selkie Politics that advocates for a larger and more powerful Khilaia that might act as a true government of the seas. They support larger Khilaian bureaucracies that are more active outside of the sacred isles, forceful military interventions against enemies of the selkie fleets, and the active financial backing of promising selkie merchants by the Khilaian government. Selkies who operate in contested waters, pirate-hunters, ambitious merchants, and selkies tied to big projects often support the Federalists.   The Federalists are the second strongest of the three great Khilaian political parties. They are a fractious group who often struggle to agree on what direction the Khilaia should grow, but they have a much more disciplined and well-funded party institution than either the Libertaine Party or the Judicialist Party that helps them remain unified on major votes.    The Federalists earned their name in the 1850s, when the party initially formed as a coalition in support of a proposed "selkie federation," which would act as the Khilaia's broader political structure representing all fleets. This proposal was a compromise of its time and it failed to politically materialize, but it served as a symbol for the possibility of a new selkie state. Ironically, the old compromise proposal would have actually granted autonomy to fleets and would have created strong constitutional limitations on the federal government - things that would likely annoy some modern federalists who want a unified central state. But there are certainly federalists who still yearn for that old proposed vision.   Federalists run the rhetorical gamut and are astonishingly ideologically diverse for a party with such an institutional structure. Some federalists are idealists who see a federal state as a potential answer to things like wealth inequality and epidemic disease. Other federalists are "business imperialists" who want the Khilaia to force open any closed markets and remove obstacles to profit, while subsidizing business ventures. Other federalists are "federal realists" who just want more Khilaian support for selkies abroad and see the Khilaia as a republic that must represent and protect its constituents. And of course there are fringe groups. "Traditional Imperialists" that seek selkie military expansion are often Federalists. So are religious factionalists who want to de-secularize the Khilaia and install their group in a position of authority.    Given this wide range of ideologies, it isn't too surprising that the Federalists struggle to get along. And frankly most Federalist politicians don't align with a single ideology but drift between them. This can lead to some very dissonant voting records, where Motosui Representatives support a humanistic call for famine relief one day and then support violent intervention against economic 'roadblocks' laced with imperial rhetoric the next. This confusing strategy of ideological inconsistency has actually won the party more support than it has lost.   The Federalists are led by two great clans: Clan Danohel and Clan Naimaka. Danohel tends to be the more ambitious and extreme of the two, but also the more secular: they want a grand selkie state, but they want it to be flexible enough for all selkies to belong to it. Naimaka, meanwhile, is more moderate but can pander to religious factionalists: they see Samvaran selkies as closer to the traditional norm and want to support them over distant selkies, but they are also more open to federalism and autonomy.