WI: KKK coup

Stephenson getting away with stuff. No FDR (maybe dead from polio) Klansman elected President and pushes new consitution by referendum
 
Stephenson getting away with stuff. No FDR (maybe dead from polio) Klansman elected President and pushes new consitution by referendum
Since when a referendum can push a new constitution in the US? I don't remember it being part of the legal ways to push a constitutional change.
 
You would probably need a POD going back as far as the 20's. The scandals that rocked the Klan and caused it to dwindle in membership never occur. The Klan continues to remain a powerful force in politics state and national post World War II. It opposes civil rights legislation at the state level and forces Truman to rethink desegregating the military. I could see established KKK members in the military working with local councils to decide on a coup in this case if Johnson signs the civil rights act. I don't see a return to slavery but I do see a reestablishment of the "separate but equal" ideas that Jim Crow was based on.

In addition, I believe this would also mean the death of the peaceful civil rights movement. Dr. King is either imprisoned for several years as a "communist agitator" or dies in prison "mysteriously." You have radicals like Malcolm X and others leading a much more militant civil rights movement and there is a simmering race war brewing in the South and elsewhere as the result of the coup.

Even in this case KKK hardly would be succesful. Hardly whole army would support such coup even if they dislike about civil right act. USA is not anything South American banana republic where army likes commit coups. US army is quiet principled with constitution and legimited government. So even if KKK gets some support of army they hardly can get absolute power. There might be second civil war but KKK hardly gets power. Such thing hardly would be accepted.

More plausible is that Southern States decides found CSA 2.0 which too means second civil war.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
Since when a referendum can push a new constitution in the US? I don't remember it being part of the legal ways to push a constitutional change.
I don’t remember it being legal for Napoleon III or Charles de Gaulle to push a new constitution by referendum, but they still succeeded. If the President can get the army and Congress on his side and enough popular support, nobody can stop him. I can’t imagine how a Klansmen President would get that kind of support though.
 
Last edited:
If coups were one-tenth as easy to pull off as some people here think, advanced industrial democracies would have a lot more of them. Even in France in 1958 with the Algerian war creating an exceptional situation, it is doubtful there would have been a successful coup without a figure of de Gaulle's prestige for the plotters to rally around.
 
Stephenson getting away with stuff. No FDR (maybe dead from polio) Klansman elected President and pushes new consitution by referendum

The Klan was already in decline by the time of the Stephenson scandal, as I indicated above. https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-kkk-coup.464503/page-2#post-18674195 It never had any power to elect a Klansman as president and never even tried to--it simply supported conventional candidates like McAdoo in 1924 who agreed with it on issues like Prohibition. If there's no FDR, the Democrats nominate Baker or some other politician who has nothing to do with the Klan.
 
Last edited:

nbcman

Donor
Since when a referendum can push a new constitution in the US? I don't remember it being part of the legal ways to push a constitutional change.
Technically, the states can amend the Constitution if 2/3 of them agree per Article V:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

However, the 'referendum' would have to be held at the state level which would then trigger the necessary number of the state legislatures to call for a convention.
 
I don’t remember it being legal for Napoleon III or Charles de Gaulle to push a new constitution by referendum, but they still succeeded. If the President can get the army and Congress on his side and enough popular support, nobody can stop him. I can’t imagine how a Klansmen President would get that kind of support though.
Very, very different structure there. France has its Sovereignty based explicitely on the People: the Law's legitimacy comes from the People, not from a Parliament or the Constitution. It is enforced via revolution once in a while and the Constitution, even nowadays, is very regularly modified, like once or twice per decade, with pretty important stuff. In the US, the legitimacy comes from the Constitution itself, the notion of a referendum taking it down is pretty alien to its legal structure - consider the almost religious reverence to the text. Comparing these legal philosophies is a path full of traps for the unwary.
Technically, the states can amend the Constitution if 2/3 of them agree per Article V:



However, the 'referendum' would have to be held at the state level which would then trigger the necessary number of the state legislatures to call for a convention.
Yep, that's an assembly of the States, not a referendum that implies popular vote.
 
Top