In Reply to: I was a 16 year old exchange student in Germany. posted by BluBlood on December 14, 2024 at 09:27:03
Nixon out, Ford in is that our elections are (foolishly, I believe) tied to a calendar and there is no way to come up with a new government when the president is out other than doing a quick tag team and bring the second in rank in, or the 3rd, 4th, whatever. The system was designed as if we're talking about a line of succession to the throne, which, back in the 18th century, was probably the only model available for the founders to work with.
This is also the reason we have (I believe) an extremely stagnant political system that does not respond to changes or developing facts on the ground with any agility at all. And also probably why our election seasons are so goddamn bloated and endless and absolutely counter-productive.
The fact that something like Watergate would have brought the whole government down and led to a snap election where the incoming party actually takes office off of a fresh mandate as opposed to the reality of whatever many years ago when the votes were cast is a positive for the parliamentarian system, which is why I would argue to my dying days that it is a much much better system than what we've got.
Like I'm fond of saying: our system is democracy 1.0, parliementarian system is 2.0, we need a 3.0. Maybe when we have the chance to reconstruct the republic after this Trump initiated spiraling down to an imperial system runs its course. One can only hope...