AHC: American President commits suicide

[Emperor Norton I]

David Carradine as POTUS (darwin award).

That's not a suicide, though.

But if you want a president to accidentally kill himself, or even kill himself accidentally in some sort of noire style naughtiness, that's possible.

(LBJ drove around his ranch really fast drinking as he went. Someone make the thread now about him drunkenly crashing)

 

[JVM]

My first privately-written TL involved RFK committing suicide.

Yeah, there's reasons why it's PRIVATE

 

[BlairWitch749]

A president ted Kennedy might fit the bill. Give him all the stress of the job force him to stay with Joan magnify his drinking problems some and you could make him very unstable

A president Patton could fit this bill under much of the same ruberic

 

[jpj1421]

I had toyed with the idea of Senator Thomas Rusk becoming President in a dark horse bid in a TL I was working on while facing the same tragedies he faced OTL. I hadn't decided on whether he becomes President earlier and kills himself later, or if he becomes President in 1852 and kills himself a year earlier.

/Edit. Though obviously that would be for a Before 1900 TL. Ooops on my part.

 

[1940LaSalle]

Frank Pierce, young, drunk, and depressed as shit. His son died a few weeks after winning the election, which colored his Presidency. Speaking of his Presidency, Northerner's hated him for being a weak kneed doughface, Southerner's hated him for not being enough of a doughface, and he was hated by all factions of both parties, so much so he is the only incumbent President to lose renomination. If you have his wife die while in office, he might not be able to take the combined stress of being President and having his beloved wife gone.

Considering his VP died, and he's dead, this would have a profound impact on the next few years, especially considering who the President Pro Tempore is (next in line at the time for the POTUS line of succession).

Depends when. If you're thinking about late in 1854 and beyond when it's Jesse Bright, no question. A nascent Copperhead in the White House then would likely have accelerated the march toward conflict. Not sure David Atcheson was as bad, but IIRC, he was something of a southern sympathizer.

Any way you slice it, Pierce/Bright/Atcheson would have been a disaster (and let's face it, Pierce was one of the worst presidents ever, surpassed by only Buchanan and perhaps one other [no, NOT Harding!]).

 

[Dayton Kitchens]

what if the President commits suicide by starting a nuclear war and refusing to leave the Capital?

It isn't that easy for a U.S. president to just start a war. Much less launch nuclear weapons.

 

[Dorozhand]

Here's a spin: It would have to be Reagan or Bush 43, but what if a President was haunted by the infamous Zero Curse, and he knew he'd been elected in a zero-ended year? Over time he might grow increasingly worried, even paranoid, over possible assassination attempts, and in the end decide to end his fears by taking the decision into his own hands, hence the suicide.
Reagan might be a bit more possible, owing to his Alzheimer's, what if some other mental quirk kicked in a bit earlier. Especially if he's haunted by the Hinckley attempt in 1981, he keeps thinking he was supposed to die, that Fate is not pleased over his escape.

Everybody knows Reagan broke the curse by surviving the attempt

 

[usertron2020]

HARD on presidents? Surely you jest! The US is actually quite easy on it's chief executives compared to other countries.
Presidents are guaranteed except in case of impeachment, the right to finish out their terms, unlike Prime Ministers in parliamentary democracies. Presidents have executive privilege from being head of State and head of Government (1) at the same time that stem from sovereign immunity; they cannot be sued for acts occuring while in office or for acts prior to taking office (2) while in office or apparently for acts that occurred while in office once they leave office, something few heads of government can boast of.

Presidents do not have to answer questions posed by members of Congress the way British and Australian Prime Ministers do at "question time". And there appears to be a "gentleman's agreement that criminal acts allegedly committed by an Administraition or high officials of an Administraiton will not be investigated or brought to trial by subsequent administrations. (3) So the Presidency is in effect a "stay out of jail free " card. (4)
So as easy as the American system treats a US President, unless a US President is painfully and terminally ill, why on earth would a US President want to commit suicide? (5)

1) And Head of Party, Chief Executive, Chief Law Enforcement Officer, and Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces. According to Fox News, when a Democrat is in the White House, you can add the duties of an American Pope.

2) Bill Clinton would like a word with you

3) Depends on how outrageously criminal. Remember, the "crimes" most people around the world are demanding ex-presidents face charges for are military-related in their duties as Commander-in-Chief. I don't see people marching through the street of Amsterdam demanding that Bill Clinton be sent to the World Court to face charges for the Mark Rich Pardon, or George W. Bush for fixing the Florida Recount.

4) Richard Nixon and Jerry Ford would like a word with you. Nixon, for his being forced out of office by the judicial process in the US House of Representatives, Ford, because his pardon of Nixon sank his chances for election to the presidency in his own right (even if he didn't see that at the time).

Mind, if your reference to the "get out of jail free card" is a literal interpretation of the president avoiding prison itself, I could easily see a good argument there to be made. But remember, Congress voted down an article of impeachment for Nixon's secret illegal war in Cambodia, so even with Nixon, there was no "foreign angle" that could be employed against him under US law.

5) I can't see anyone strong enough to become president becoming weak enough to commit suicide. Outside of some "apocalyptic" WWIII scenario.

 

[usertron2020]

It isn't that easy for a U.S. president to just start a war. Much less launch nuclear weapons.

There are multiple safeguards against that, including another national security officer who has to confirm a nuclear order (assuming a first strike scenario) and a special committee of four congressmen (two house, two senate, each having a Democrat and a Republican) that the Joint Chiefs can appeal to if they believe the POTUS has gone on a trip to la-la land.