Jasen777
Donor
One somewhat common WI is the U.S. as a monarchy. I've never thought that was particular plausible. We could have something similar, but I just can't see it being called a monarchy and the executive being called a king.
So how about a President for life? Or at least until impeachment or resignation. Perhaps not super plausible, but much more so than a king.
Also I'll make it in the constitution that electoral college votes are controlled by the state legislatures. The state legislatures will often vote for a favored son causing the election to go to the House, which was a common expectation anyways.
Under these conditions political parties as we know them are likely not going to get started. Parties will likely be limited to within states. At the federal level the division will be between presidential loyalists and those opposed, with no permanent party structure and possible huge realignments every presidential election.
Now impeachment is going to be used more often and will become in practice a vote of no confidence. But with 2/3 of the senate needed to convict, the bar is pretty high.
So Washington wins the first election, and for the seek of precedent for my idea, stays in office until he dies, which for the sake of convenience happens around the same time. This seems to set up a very high stakes battle in the House between Adams and Jefferson. One of them wins and so if the winner avoids impeachment (by no means certain) we might not have an presidential election for 25 years or so. At that point the butterflies will be overwhelming and who knows who'd be a candidate.
So how about a President for life? Or at least until impeachment or resignation. Perhaps not super plausible, but much more so than a king.
Also I'll make it in the constitution that electoral college votes are controlled by the state legislatures. The state legislatures will often vote for a favored son causing the election to go to the House, which was a common expectation anyways.
Under these conditions political parties as we know them are likely not going to get started. Parties will likely be limited to within states. At the federal level the division will be between presidential loyalists and those opposed, with no permanent party structure and possible huge realignments every presidential election.
Now impeachment is going to be used more often and will become in practice a vote of no confidence. But with 2/3 of the senate needed to convict, the bar is pretty high.
So Washington wins the first election, and for the seek of precedent for my idea, stays in office until he dies, which for the sake of convenience happens around the same time. This seems to set up a very high stakes battle in the House between Adams and Jefferson. One of them wins and so if the winner avoids impeachment (by no means certain) we might not have an presidential election for 25 years or so. At that point the butterflies will be overwhelming and who knows who'd be a candidate.