As you all know, since George Washington decided not to seek re-election in 1792. It has been the tradition of all presidents not to seek a second term and the constitution forbids it. Who would the presidents of the United States be if reelection were allowed? What would be the consequences?
DBWI: Re-election is permitted in the United States
- Thread starter AltHispano
- Start date
-
- Tags
- united states
Wait, refresh my memory for a bit. Was it the 11th or the 12th amendment that banned reelection?
For starters, the real power in the United States of America might be the President and not the Speaker of the House.
Strange, I always thought the Veep had the real power behind the throne, seeing as he could be reelected however many times he wanted.
Eh, I dunno. The President really wasn't given much to work with in Article II. And while theoretically a President could stick around long enough to gain more experience and a better understanding of how to push their agenda, having a national constituency makes it harder to get re-elected over and over compared to a Speaker, who just needs to retain the loyalty of their one district same as any other Congressman. So you still have to contend with the basic reality that legislative veterans like Clay or Foster or Garfield have an easier time entrenching themselves, plus direct influence over the body that actually controls our budget.
See above. Their ability to get re-elected pales before that of a Congressional leader.
The Veep is also a powerful force in American politics. In fact, the main dynamic in US politics is the power struggle between the Speaker of the House and the Vice President as their informal powers often clash.
OOC: What do you think of how I went with a Parliamentary Republic with the trappings of a Presidental Republic for this America's political system?
OOC: Sure, why not. DBWI's always go pretty much the same way: the OP lays out some premise, then somebody gives a potential take on the results. What separates the decent ones from the clusterfucks is whether someone else subsequently decides they don't like the first responder's interpretation, and tries to tear it down.
Would the Senate still be abolished like in OTL? It's a wonder how it stuck around for 170 years, being basically a rubber stamp for the House and all that.
Well, I'm not so sure that's what I'd necessarily go for, TBH. I know the Senate had that reputation in modern times, but this wasn't always the case, and in fact, after the Malaise period of the 1910s-30s, it was starting to become a truly independent checking body again.....and the Dixiecrats who still had a lot of influence in the House, together with their allies on the right wing of the New Whig party, didn't like that one bit(New Whigs were upset about business regulations, and the Dixiecrats over both that, and the Senate approving Civil Rights bills). Of course, to be fair, the Social Labor Party-a powerful force in their own right-had their own rationale for wanting the Senate gone, but at least their reasons were genuinely well-intended.....which made it's abolishment in 1960 all that much more awkward. At least the French/Canadian inspired system we took on has worked out fairly decently, for the most part.....but even then we've had strange things like that weird-and frankly a bit loony-radio talk show host James Douthat being elected President in 2016, for example.
OOC: Hate to go so off topic, Can't say this is always the case, TBH. Hell, a lot of the clusterfucks I've seen have actually involved people coming up with some truly off-the-wall and/or implausible stuff, and nobody bothering to challenge it-which thankfully, hasn't been the case here, yet.
If anything, the best DBWIs tend to be "steered" a bit-there was at least one recent big project I'm aware of that took that approach.....
Anyway, that said.....
OOC: Sure, why not? If @AltHispano is okay with it.....
Yes, true. And honestly, it does make for some very interesting Paris-esque political theater. That said, though.....it has led to some real issues in the past, particularly with gridlock, and all(remember the gov't shutdown in 2005?)
Yeah, both the United States of America and the French Empire have complicated political systems with overlapping responsibilities and authorities being a fixture of politics and a major hinderance to political order.
I didn't think about that! That said, though, Rayburn pulled all sorts of dirty tricks to get the Senate abolished. No way the Montana election of 1958 was fair. And don't even get me started on what he did in Tennessee that year...
How juch do you think have the complicated political systems both America and France have hindered them?
The tribunate has too much power, IMHO. They literally spent months arguing over what should have been a simple measure (the Favreau Decree) granting autonomy to the Khmers. When it finally came they were embroiled for years in a war to prop up the fragile local administration who needed the tribunate to approve every law they made against nationalist radicals.
OOC: I cannot begin to describe how much I hate it when people in DBWI's do that. There are so many times where I have said something along the lines of "this is true" in a DBWI only to get a response of "no, this is not true - this is how it actually is."
DBWI's are like improv - never say no - only yes and...
Oh, I haven't actually answered the question. I think if re-election was allowed Dixiecrats and other Right Wingers would dominate Presidential elections, and the US would look like Malaise-era Tennessee even until today.
Sad, but true, and Cambodia has been a mess ever since their independence in the '70s. Honestly there's a good case to be made, that creating the tribunate was arguably one of the biggest mistakes Napoleon did after coming to power in 1850 and setting up the French Empire.
Not quite so sure about that; it would depend on the situation. IOTL, rightist Presidents were actually somewhat dominant during much of the first half of the last century; the main problem here was that the reformist lefty Presidents, such as Burton(1905-09), Roosevelt(1917-21), and Nathan(1925-29), simply did not have enough time to implement all of their agendas, and that cost the left dearly; so much so, that there was real support for repealing the 11th Amendment during the 1930s(a measure which only failed by 5 states-as one could guess without much difficulty, most of them, save New Hampshire, were in the South), as part of a massive backlash.
Of course, to be fair, we have had the somewhat of the opposite happen since about 1980, IOTL, but just thought I'd point out that it has gone in other directions before, that's all.
OOC: OTL's 11th Amendment later became the 13th Amendment, ITTL, circa 1815. (and OTL's 13th Amendment is the 14th ITTL, not signed until 1874.)
Anyways, who do you think was the greatest Vice President or Speaker America ever had?