LaMa - 08 March 2008 10:22 AM

The USA deliberately choose to be a republic, with a chosen President. To avoid anyone usurping power semi-eternally, you have a fixed number of terms for which a given person can be elected President.

Actually, that’s a fairly recent thing.  Before the 22nd Amendment was drawn up in 1951, you could be president twenty times if you wanted to and if you could get the votes.

But now we are starting to see instances of (past) Presidents turning over power to sons, or spouses: effectively creating “Presidential Dynasties”.

The second (John Adams) and sixth (John Quincy Adams) president were father and son, and the ninth (William Harrison) and the twenty-third (Benjamin Harrison) were grandfather and grandson.  And of course there have always been prominent families who, while not being president, still were major players in politics.  This sort of thing has been going on all along.

While possible under the US constitution, I’d say this is a loophole in it actually.

It’s only a loophole if it’s a way to get around restrictions.  The US Constitution doesn’t actually have anything against the idea of dynasties.  After all, the president still has to get elected every four years.  If the citizens choose to elect people from the same family over and over again, then that’s all fine and well.  Because if that happens, it’s the citizens’ choice.  The idea was to stop dynasties that were unsupported by the people, such as George III’s.  Popular dynasties are just fine, because the power is being granted temporarily to them rather than them “usurping power semi-eternally”.

BTW, I have nothing against Monarchies. I live in one and am very happy with it (in fact, I am a strong Monarchist).

Are there many other ideas on how to run the government other than as a monarchy that are actually popular and widespread (as opposed to the strange ideas of little weird fringe groups) there?

Boo - 08 March 2008 06:12 PM

However, I also don’t quite understand why it takes such a very long time.

I think it’s partly logistics and partly just how the elections are arranged.

First off, you’ve got a large population in a very large area.  It’s expected for the candidates themselves to go out among the voters, so it takes a while for them to actually do that to any significant amount.

Also, most presidential candidates actually have to go through two elections.  First are the primaries, in which the people within each political party vote for who will represent their party.  Then there are the actual presidential elections, in which the candidates who made it through the primaries then face off against each other.  The primaries are towards the start of the election year, so that there’s time enough before the final presidential election for everybody to react appropriately and get organised after the results are counted up from the primaries.  And since the candidates already have their campaign programs running for the primaries, it’s just simpler to keep them going for the next ten months or however long it is rather than to stop, sit around for a few months, and then start up again.

Accipiter - 09 March 2008 03:03 AM

Are there many other ideas on how to run the government other than as a monarchy that are actually popular and widespread (as opposed to the strange ideas of little weird fringe groups) there?

Well, not popular: but widespread are dictatorships of course. And theocracies.

Heh, yeah, for some reason I can’t really imagine a Dutch theocracy being all that overwhelmingly popular with your compatriots.

Accipiter - 09 March 2008 03:49 AM

Heh, yeah, for some reason I can’t really imagine a Dutch theocracy being all that overwhelmingly popular with your compatriots.

Well, we do have a traditional Christian party in our government currently....

I was discussing this with the Dragon last eve.  I personally think that by looking at the past 6 or so elections, you can see an interesting power balance.  When there is a Dem. President, the congress/house goes Rep.  Reverse that when a Rep. becomes President.  (kinda a ‘balance of powers’ thing.)

It is tought tellinghow this election will play out.  I personally don’t have much to say about any of the candidates!  Good or bad.  It is like choosing between card board cutouts of cookies, ‘no real substance’. *sigh* If only we could belive anything they tell us....

(...grabs a cookie that definately does NOT taste like cardboard...)

I fail to understand your point about past presidents turning power over to their sons (or spouses).  There was (and might be again) a completely different administration between the occurrences.  I can guarantee you that Bill Clinton did NOT just hand the presidency to George Bush, nor will Bush willingly hand to Hillary if she wins.  It’s required by law, but they sure weren’t/won’t be happy about it.  The second Bush and Hillary both ran for office just like any other person - they just had the benefit of name recognition to play on.  But they also ran on their merits, real or imagined, and they won/might win.  Power was not handed to them, conspiracy theorists notwithstanding.

Again, monarchies tend to run in one family.  That’s kind of the whole point, after all - any deviation is generally because of a civil war or coup.  Nothing of the kind is going on here, yet power has (and might again) been turned over peacefully and legally.  And even in the rather bizarre 2000 election there was a peaceful transfer of power from one political party to another.  There was no dynasty.

Why is this thread still alive?

Because we Americans need to be instructed in the mistakes we’re making.

Amongst others, Charyb....

I dob’t say you have become a monarchy. Just that you migh go towards it when the Presidency of your country repeatedly goes to a member of the same family.

But again you haven’t addressed the fact that, even if Hillary wins, it’s A) Not unprecedented, B) Not unconstitutional, C) Not a dynasty since they’re alternating political parties, and D) Not a dynasty since there doesn’t appear to be anyone to take over after them.  Of the children Chelsea seems the most politically active, not to mention the smartest, but she’s never run for political office before and so far hasn’t shown any signs of doing so.  She could run for president some day and win, but that seems unlikely to be within the next eight years.  Besides it’s the Bush’s turn again after Hillary, and I’m leaving the country if either of those girls gets elected.