I know this sounds dumb, but what if the United States hadn't been a single party, autocratic, vicious, pariah state. Could it have become a democracy at any time during its long, bloody history?
I think you'd need Washington to not establish the autocratic precedent. Who knows, if Washington drops dead during or before the Newburgh Rebellion, maybe the Continental Congress can triumph?I know this sounds dumb, but what if the United States hadn't been a single party, autocratic, vicious, pariah state. Could it have become a democracy at any time during its long, bloody history?
It is rather interesting how, (with the Virginians, except for Madison, associated with Gates and the Congress and expunged from political life), Jackson,arrayed as he was against the "Federalist" Adams-Hamilton clique, didn't champion increased democracy, at least initially, instead of charismatic dictatorship.Washington wasn't the problem; he was a bit authoritarian, but he still stepped down from power after his two terms.
It was the SOB Jackson who set up the American Empire that really undermined democracy and created the conditions that allowed authoritarians to rise up.
I know this sounds dumb, but what if the United States hadn't been a single party, autocratic, vicious, pariah state. Could it have become a democracy at any time during its long, bloody history?
Prevent the 1827 assassination of James Monroe and you'd be good to go-it was that event that basically made Jackson the paranoid man that he was(or, failing that, have a scandal destroy his chances against John Q. Adams), leading to the "American Empire", and, eventually, the secession of the Federal States of America in 1847(after John Calhoun was assassinated for trying to institute the proposed Fugitive Slave Act via executive order), etc.
Of course, this probably butterflies the existence of the United Socialist States of America(for it's problems with tragic government incompetence, it sure as hell was a far better place than the country it preceded), but maybe we get a much better *American state in return, without the country breaking in two or the bloodiness of a violent Second Revolution.