Yes Minister

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I explained and justified all the points you brought up. The point of divergence is merely just a convenience. I'm writing this timeline to explore the effects of a different political system in the United States. Yes, I picked the Johnson impeachment as a POD because it's convenient.

Would such a divergence be possible given the change? Yes. Likely? No. The entirety of alternate history, though, is not about the likely. It's about the possible. Things in our timeline happened for a reason, and those reasons are largely deterministic. Frankly, all alternate history is in ASB territority, given your standards.

But I say, once again, this timeline is not about a realistic understanding of what would happen if Johnson was impeached. If it was, I would have titled this thread differently. This timeline is about the difference between a parliamentary political system in the United States vs. the OTL presidential system. I picked a convenient POD and ran with it.
 
Whether it's not in the spirit of the Constitution is a matter of semantics. The Constitution was amended properly.

You have to understand the politics of the time. In this period, the party machines dominated politics. There was no such thing as non-partisan, in government or in the news. Most newspapers were owned by the political parties. Public opinion was, for the most part, completely captive to the elite interests. It wasn't until the rise of organised labour that it started to change.

Given Johnson's utter lack of popularity, I doubt most people would care if his whole post was abolished. They were too busy 1) Trying to earn enough to be able to eat 2) Worrying about local politics.

I do understand mid-19th Century American politics and I do know some things about the power of public opinion, political parties and political machines and the like. My comments have been based upon my knoweldge and understanding and are offered in an effort to help you craft a TL that doesn't leave people saying, "That's just ASB".

The post that Johnson holds was previously held by ABRAHAM LINCOLN, who, in case you didn't know, saved the United States from dis-union almost by his lonesome. Though Johnson might be unpopular, and could well be impeached, and the office of the Presidency de-fanged and made effectively powerless before a Prime-Minister-ish Speaker of the House, I don't think that the Constitution would be destroyed like this. Other prominent figures Americans remember holding the Presidency were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson.

The American Constitution can be amended, but the tradition has been to re-interpret it rather than re-write it. What a President can and cannot do has changed over the decades, but all the changes can be defended with Constitutional language.

The political machines that ran things were not all Republicans. And those machines which were Republicans weren't all Radical Republicans. In fact there was this whole other party called Democrats, who had their own political organizations. Furthermore, the entire political party system of the United States is based around winning the Presidency, with state-wide political organizations allying together in order to carry out national policies, and divy up the wide array of patronage jobs the President could hand out. Abolishing that patronage-giving position, or, worse, taking it away from ballot-box control, is not going to go over well with anyone.

The idea that elite opinion was the only one that mattered is ridiculous. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of newspapers, and they were edited by men of varying opinions and economic station.

Passing a Constitutional amendment abolishing the position of President because Andrew Johnson is impeached is ASB.

Well stated Matthais!
 
I explained and justified all the points you brought up. The point of divergence is merely just a convenience. I'm writing this timeline to explore the effects of a different political system in the United States. Yes, I picked the Johnson impeachment as a POD because it's convenient.

Would such a divergence be possible given the change? Yes. Likely? No. The entirety of alternate history, though, is not about the likely. It's about the possible. Things in our timeline happened for a reason, and those reasons are largely deterministic. Frankly, all alternate history is in ASB territority, given your standards.

But I say, once again, this timeline is not about a realistic understanding of what would happen if Johnson was impeached. If it was, I would have titled this thread differently. This timeline is about the difference between a parliamentary political system in the United States vs. the OTL presidential system. I picked a convenient POD and ran with it.


That's fine, but make the shift more realistic. Use the party machines, newspapers and public opinion. Have the new president, US Grant invent the concept of, and use "the bully pulpit" to move the US toward a parliamentry style democracy during his term as President. I'd suggest the current Austian model of Federalism as a good one to copy. I could see such a model being developed in America if after Johnson's impeachment & removal from office the power elites and political leaders wanted to seriously weaken the presidency. I might also suggest that, as the Austrians do, the parliamentry American government could use the titles President and Chancellor.
 
I explained and justified all the points you brought up. The point of divergence is merely just a convenience. I'm writing this timeline to explore the effects of a different political system in the United States. Yes, I picked the Johnson impeachment as a POD because it's convenient.

Would such a divergence be possible given the change? Yes. Likely? No. The entirety of alternate history, though, is not about the likely. It's about the possible. Things in our timeline happened for a reason, and those reasons are largely deterministic. Frankly, all alternate history is in ASB territority, given your standards.

Changing the outcome of a battle, or killing someone important off, these things have clear immediate outcomes. They are also plausible, because things like them have happened in the past. Victory was pulled from the jaws of defeat, and generals and Kings have been shot down during battles. A huge systemic change in the political system however is more difficult to pull off. There are certain periods where one can change the look of American government and it would be okay- for instance the Constitutional Convention, or the knock-on effects of Johnson's impeachment. The look and plausibility of these changes is limited however. For instance, George Washington not being at the Constitutional Convention and thus a different chief executive emerges in the Constitution. That is a change that makes sense and people with some knowledge of the period will accept. Johnson's impeachment hamstringing the Presidency, that too makes sense. But a constitutional amendment that replaces major sections of the Constitution and key institutions in Government? ASB.

I'm not knocking the idea of a more Parliamentry America, I'm saying that the POD is ASB. It is not plausible.

But I say, once again, this timeline is not about a realistic understanding of what would happen if Johnson was impeached. If it was, I would have titled this thread differently. This timeline is about the difference between a parliamentary political system in the United States vs. the OTL presidential system. I picked a convenient POD and ran with it.

If its not based on what you think would happen, because the outcome you want would require Alien Space Bats, then its called an ASB timeline.
 
If it displeases you that much, I'll begin working on a revision. But once again, I must reiterate my opposition to your framing of this issue. You have not provided a clear brightline between what is "acceptable alternate history" and ASB territory.

Quite frankly, I find the term to be too imprecise to have any meaning, since it covers a range from the bizzare and absurd (ISOTing) to the noobish (nationalistic wankery) to the merely improbable.
 
I've decided to make the difficult decision to scrap this TL and begin working on another one with largely the same ideas. So, there will be no further updates in this timeline.

Thanks for your input, all of you.
 
The Constitituion and the constitutional process has been trashed, but all is sedate? No Way! The years following this coup should have been filled with riots, heated rhetoric and perhaps even a few political assinations. We are not sheeple who blindly follow the leader, we are Americans.

Shoot, by all rights the events at the beginning of this thread should have triggered another civil war...or restarted the original one.
 
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