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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   38673 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

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I do wonder what would have happened if we'd kept the "vice president of the other party takes over" thing. It's like they were optimizing for presidential assassinations with that one.

Well, until the 20th century even the party might sometimes nominate someone of the opposite party to be VP (as when the Republicans replaced Lincoln's VP Hannibal Hamlin with War Democrat Andrew Johnson). And of course, Lincoln was assassinated, though Booth wasn't trying to replace him with Johnson. (In fact, Booth's co-conspirators were supposed to assassinate Johnson too, but they chickened out.)

There is a reason presidential assassinations are generally done by extremists with bent worldviews, and conspiracy theories notwithstanding, not some cunning plan by the other party. There are way too many points of failure to make "If we send a deranged gunman to remove him from the ticket, we win" a plausible plot.

It could be better; the Speaker of the House succeeds if the President and VP are both assassinated and is frequently of the opposite party (and after him, the President pro tempore of the Senate). Restricting it to executive-branch members only would solve that, since they're all guaranteed to be on the same side (also, the procedures involving the Speaker and Prez pro tem succession are hilariously dumb and would cause a ton of chaos if they actually saw use).

Sure, double assassinations are harder than single ones, but not by that much.

I disagree. If we say that an assassination plan has at best a 70% chance of success, statistics suggests two of those events drop noticeably in probability because you multiply them (now suddenly you're under 50%) if you have the same chance both times. And I really doubt you're ever going to get a plan with over that chance, it's often less. Much less, if we're talking about a single plan/event that would kill both of them at once - that's way harder because they don't get together very often in the same place without way more security than normal (such as in the White House or in a foreign country with other heads of state).

Plus, at least the Speaker is from the party with the greatest popular mandate, because of how House elections work.

I disagree. If we say that an assassination plan has at best a 70% chance of success, statistics suggests two of those events drop noticeably in probability because you multiply them (now suddenly you're under 50%) if you have the same chance both times.

I wouldn't consider that to be "that much". It's certainly way higher than if you assume the likelihood of the second plot succeeding to be equal to the chance of an arbitrary assassination plot succeeding - the chance that a single loaded die of unknown loading rolls two sixes in a row is greater than the square of the chance that a loaded die of unknown loading rolls a six, due to correlation.

Much less, if we're talking about a single plan/event that would kill both of them at once - that's way harder because they don't get together very often in the same place without way more security than normal (such as in the White House or in a foreign country with other heads of state).

A refutation of this sentence would be an infohazard. Discount the lack of such refutation accordingly.

the procedures involving the Speaker and Prez pro tem succession are hilariously dumb and would cause a ton of chaos if they actually saw use

Gerald Ford isn't the most fondly remembered (although we did name an aircraft carrier after him), but managed to serve as President without being elected on a national ballot. Although I believe he was elevated to VP from Speaker and then subsequently to President.

Ford was never Speaker; as you say, though, he was appointed to fill a VP vacancy, and then succeeded to the Presidency.

It's the actual Speaker-succession and Prez-pro-tem succession that are bonkers nuts (well, they're not bonkers nuts under ordinary circumstances, but they'll never be used under ordinary circumstances because of the aforementioned capability to fill a VP vacancy; they'll only be used in a crisis, which is exactly when they're bonkers nuts).

There's a hilarious scenario here.

I know there were discussions during Dubyas first term to move SoS above VP because of concerns about Cheney's health.

Dang, that scenario is gripping. I would watch a film or show about that.

I realize they did, but after being initially interesting it quickly became just another boring political drama trying to be The West Wing but failing. How it got renewed at all, I'll never understand. I'd want a storyline that wallows in the intense and gripping drama of the extreme scenario outlined in that document. It would be an excellent political thriller.

Also, the fact that the senate is more adaptable than the house makes it even more clear to me that the president pro tempore of the senate ought to have outranked the speaker of the house in the order of succession. Or perhaps we could give the senate the ability to select a president in the event of no other officer being able to succeed to the presidency.

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