How can you have America being ruled by a Shogun?(the US equvilent)

Well you could potentially have a military dictatorship established during a crisis, perhaps early on that everyone just gets used to after a while.
 
If the military leader presents himself as "not the president", you could have some sort of successful Business Plot: A number of influential people decide decide to take down Roosevelt due to some of his policies being perceived to go against american interests (i.e. capitalism). To avoid chaos, the cabal chooses a popular General to rally the army to their side and pressure the president into some sort of unofficial power sharing with them. The bloodless coup is a success but rather then passing on the power, The General forces the president to name him "Secretary to General Affairs", an ill defined but all powerful position. The SGA, after consolidating his power, allows presidential elections to continue to be held every 4 years with the clear understanding that he will remain in his position no matter who gets elected and that all future presidents will need to content themselves with a prestigious but purely ceremonial position.
 
The problem as I see it is that the US has a pretty powerful parliament, house and senate, that both the president as well as the shogun/prime chancelor/unelected caretaker would have to deal with. So the first step towards a shogunate would be to either reign in the power of the capitol or have the shogun be the most important member of congress to start with....
 
I think you'll need a single party state system where the office of President is held separate to a First/General Secretary who can control the Houses without being beholden to them (otherwise they're just a powerful Prime Minister).
They probably often hold the VP position though if that isn't abolished.
Best way of getting there hmmm.
Perhaps something in the 1800s that forestalls the ACW at the cost of weakening federal government until civil unrest combines with a resurgent unionism to create another revolution. Failed or not it produces a politicised military that's included in government and slowly sidelines the President as de facto Head of Government but not de jure Head of State.
 
The Election of 1876 remains unresolved, paralyzing civilian government at the same time the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 blows up. Without effective civil authority and a Socialist rebellion to crush, in steps Commanding General of the Army William T. Sherman to rescue the Union.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
The Election of 1876 remains unresolved, paralyzing civilian government at the same time the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 blows up. Without effective civil authority and a Socialist rebellion to crush, in steps Commanding General of the Army William T. Sherman to rescue the Union.

It's nicely chaotic, but Sherman is just about the least likely man to do this. While a ruthless and purely goal-oriented commander, he was also a man known for always staying out of politics and having fundamental respect for the supremacy of civil authority over the military. If everything goes to hell and the army must restore order, Sherman is the perfect candidate to do it precisely because he will do whatever is needed... and then organise elections and step down.

Of course, if he is, say, murdered by an ambitious rival with less scruples some time after assuming command of the provisional military government... Well.
 
It's nicely chaotic, but Sherman is just about the least likely man to do this. While a ruthless and purely goal-oriented commander, he was also a man known for always staying out of politics and having fundamental respect for the supremacy of civil authority over the military. If everything goes to hell and the army must restore order, Sherman is the perfect candidate to do it precisely because he will do whatever is needed... and then organise elections and step down.

Of course, if he is, say, murdered by an ambitious rival with less scruples some time after assuming command of the provisional military government... Well.

Pretty much my thoughts, although his IOTL death date of 1891 could be moved by the stress of the assignment, especially if mending the country again proves longer than expected. Thereafter, you could have someone else seize power in a coup or just simply succeed to Sherman's former position, especially now that the taboo on Military rule has been broken; you already had Generals like Hooker hinting at such during the ACW.
 
What do we mean by Shogun here? If we are talking about the hereditary military dictatorship in a Japanese context, then I don't see it happening without a semi-feudal system going on somewhere in America or the Americas if we want to play with the title's meaning. The thing about the Shogunate was it was less rule by a military leader, and more a very decentralized system that allowed local authorities to amass their own power, at the expense of the Shogun.

The perfect place to start seems to be in the early years before the Constitution. If anything resembling a better Articles of Confederation happens were the states can work out enough of a framework to have most of the freedoms of that period without royally screwing up, then we could say a get theoretical Militia General of the United States to in theory keep military power outside of political office, but still have militias being effectively drawn up and loyal to their local areas.
 
I think that this is actually very difficult because of the way that the US military is organized in the 1800's. The US Army is so weak that a military ruler would have to gain the loyalty of the state militias which in turn means that he'd need the support of the state governments or at the very least the governors and if he has that why not just run for president? Hypothetically they could fund the army privately but I don't think there's anybody in a military position the 1800's wealthy enough to challenge a state's authority or coffers. The fact that every state has their own individual standing army makes a military leader in the US hard.

I think a shogun equivalent is doable but you'd need to go back to possibly the Articles to change how the US government is structured.
 
Would you potentially need to shift the attitude of the American people towards the army as well? To make it last at least.

Because iirc the US Army at least before world war two was just this small organization that everyone was suspicious of and had a reputation of being full of the dregs of society.
 

Kaze

Banned
There is the coup option led by the military. During the latter days of the Roman Empire, a general was playing hide the sausage with his wife when his men rushed in and said, "We have not been paid in six months, we want to go home." The general replied, "I can do nothing, for I am loyal to the emperor." The men said to him, "Then you are our emperor, if you refuse, we will kill you and choose the next one under you as emperor." "Then I am your emperor," the general then lead the legion on attack of Rome itself - thus the Roman empire died a little more.

You could go with this option - Washington in his tent when the Continental army comes in and demands him to become King (or Shogun) without congressional approval. Thus you have a King in America. You can do this with any military leader within American history.
 
Best way I can think of for doing this would be a no-constitution scenario, where the Confederation lives in name only, but the states go to war to establish their governor as governor of each state, essentially annexing them but not dissolving them entirely. Setting themselves up as 'shogun' but the Congress of the states recognising his position.
 
I gues...you could have a situtation where the president is the least powerful member of the executive branch, and doesn't have control over cabinet? leading to congress controlling the cabinet and the effective ruler of the executive being the Secretary of State/the Treasury? Then you have the "titular ruler not hte actual guy in power" but it's still basically democratic/recognizable, and probably a de facto parliamentary system or semi-parliamentary.
 
a general was playing hide the sausage
Apologies for the off topic post but whenever I hear that phrase I always think it's some obscure Victorian parlour game where you have to hide the "sausage" in a player's designated "hole" and pass it along like a hot potato because the player found with the sausage in their hole after some time limit loses.
 

Kaze

Banned
Apologies for the off topic post but whenever I hear that phrase I always think it's some obscure Victorian parlour game where you have to hide the "sausage" in a player's designated "hole" and pass it along like a hot potato because the player found with the sausage in their hole after some time limit loses.

Those randy Victorians... you know they did the adult rated version as well.
 
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