A POD that early would eliminate Duke though.
He will not be missed. Pass the Devonshire cream.
A POD that early would eliminate Duke though.
To be fair to Gimple in an otherwise abysmal TL, the suspension of habeas corpus in 1862 by Lincoln allowed martial law: "all Rebels and Insurgents, their aiders and abettors within the United States, and all persons discouraging volunteer enlistments, resisting militia drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice, affording aid and comfort to Rebels against the authority of United States, shall be subject to martial law and liable to trial and punishment by Courts Martial or Military Commission".
Now clearly this doesn't mean what Gimple is taking it to, and Lincoln's declaration was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Ex Parte Milligan 71 US 2 [1866], the judgement of which also discussed when martial law could be exercised.
Other than that, I have no defence to offer this TL. Even the POD is unlikely, how do you get David Duke elected without resorting to massive amounts of handwaving?
I'm 99% sure that all the people in the Presidential Order of Succession are never even in the same city; even for big public events like the State of the Union where everyone is supposed to be in attendance one person in the order of succession gets taken to a "secure location."
Two PODs then?I don't see how Duke's election correlated to a "more successful" 9/11 for al-Qaida. I guess we can say Bush was having a cabinet meeting that day. (BTW - SoHS does not yet exist)
For sure. For now this is just a TL in the works. I would probably put someone in Duke's court as the falsifier.Who is falsifying all these documents? That should be explored.
Probably more workable then a federal martial law.This doesn't make sense, as stated before, but Martial Law on Washington, DC, New York City, and probably some other major cities could be imposed. I don't think the Continuity of Operations Plan would (have) covered this event, so it's possible that the military (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs? some charismatic General?) could take over Washington, and by extension the United States in the immediate aftermath.
I can't imagine Congressman Duke making a speech in front of the Nation of Islam, even during a crazy, post-attack election season. The Nation of Islam sorta, kinda consider themselves Arabs (or Muslims, rather), so declaring himself against Arabs in front of the NoI seems like a bad idea, and I don't see how he could pull it off..
I probably should have been more clear, I wasn't since this is only a TL not the full story or even an outline. I was thinking something along the lines of locals seeing a chance at office.How so? Is it just closely tied? Or are they mostly "Independents" in the House & Senate, presumably local citizens who were spurned to enter politics in the post-attack? Maybe alot of former Republicans and Democrats decided to run for election as "Americans" in a non-partisan hopeful post-attack world.
agreed! In no way would I want David Duke to be president in any TL.He will not be missed.