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American Political System: Difference between revisions
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Also, if the sitting President dies and the vice president takes the oath, where do we get a ''new'' veep? Up until the 25th Amendment came around, the office was just left empty. That amendment lets the sitting President just appoint a new Vice President. This led to a man who never received even one electoral vote ascending to the Presidency. In 1973, Spiro Agnew resigned from the vice presidency over income tax evasion, and was replaced by [[Gerald Ford]]. The guy who was president? [[Richard Nixon]]. Even better, when Nixon resigned, Ford promptly pardoned the man who had just made him President, preventing Nixon from being put on trial for his various crimes.<ref> This was later referred by him as [[My Greatest Failure]].</ref>
The 25th Amendment also allows a President to ''temporarily'' relinquish the office due to incapacitation. This has happened a few times, such as when [[George HW Bush]] had to undergo a routine surgery. The amendment does allow the VP and a majority of the Cabinet to make this declaration for the President; see ''[[Air Force One (
The Constitution itself lets Congress decide what happens if both POTUS and VPOTUS ([[Fun
The Secret Service designates one member of the line of succession the "Designated Survivor" to stay behind at any event where the entire line could be zapped.
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The ''Department of Defense'' (DoD), in the vernacular known as [[The Pentagon]] (named after the geometrical shape of its headquarters building), is so freaking large in comparison with the other departments that almost 80 percent of the federal workforce gets their paycheck from it, and that the Department of Defense is considered the single largest employer in the US (right ahead of Wal-Mart and McDonald's.) The Office of the Secretary of Defense is the mainly civilian staff of the Secretary of Defense (duh!), and apart from the Honorable Mr. or Madam Secretary (who by the way must be a civilian to maintain the alibi of civilian control), there is 1 Deputy Secretary of Defense, 5 Under Secretaries of Defense, 14 Assistant Secretaries of Defense (all appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate); and a myriad of senior civil servants with titles like Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for whatever..., and Deputy Assistant Under Secretary of Defense for whichever…
Had enough of Secretaries? In addition, Defense has separate sub-departments within itself, known as military departments (Department of the Army, Department of the Navy and the Department of the Air Force) which includes the all the armed forces (except for the [[Coast Guard]], which operates under Homeland Security during peactime and under the Department of the Navy during war or at the president's discretion), and they are led by their very own Secretaries, namely the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Navy (or [[NCIS
Furthermore, Defense includes several large joint organizations (meaning that civilians and military personnel from all services participate) such as the [[NSA|National Security Agency]] (the people who know that you’re reading this article), the [[Deception Point|National Reconnaissance Office]] (the people whose satellites can spot insects on your lawn), The Defense Logistics Agency (big bloated defense bureaucracy in action) and DARPA (mad scientists studying brain implants). For more on the stiff but nevertheless crazy world of the U.S. military see [[Yanks With Tanks]].
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{{quote| '''John Adams:''' I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, that two become a law firm, and that any group of three or more is called a Congress!<br />
''[[
The legislative branch of government consists of two houses -- the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House members were elected directly by the populace of each State and the Senators of each State were appointed by the State Assemblies. The basic idea was one of tension between the two houses so that the rights of individual people ''and'' the rights of the States would both be represented.
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New states may be admitted to the Union upon Congressional approval. States may not raise their own armies (they are required by law to maintain an organized militia in the form of the Army and Air National Guards, and may raise a optional militia for in state use only), sign treaties (but with permission of Congress they may enter into a ''Compact'' with other states), or coin money on their own, and when a conflict between state and federal law arises, federal law wins out. Except when it doesn't. Basically, Federal law only has supremacy when it is Constitutional. Familiar with the phrase; "Can open, worms all over the ground"? Well, when THAT particular argument comes up, things get wormy.
One major difference between the States and the Federal governments is that states hold a lot more elections. A State need not limit its elections to the legislature and the governor, as the federal government does; they can also hold elections for secretary of state, attorney general, comptroller, state supreme court judges, judges of lower courts, district attorneys, sheriffs, and/or dog catchers. Much of this will be specified in the state constitution, which is generally amended by popular vote as well. Many states also have a procedure where an elected official may be removed (recalled) from office in a special election if a sufficient number of petitions are gathered. A significant example of this occurred in 2003, when California governor Gray Davis was successfully recalled and replaced by [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] in a special election that included 135 candidates<ref>Among whom were several odd personalities, including [[
All this voting theoretically makes state governments more accountable to the people. In practice, this doesn't quite work. Which is why in some states you have Initiative and Referendum, where, if the legislature doesn't pass an acceptable law, the people can propose one (meaning some well funded group or bunch of people ticked off enough send out people to collect signatures to have a ballot proposal put up for election), contrary to the Jefferson quote above. This is how the famous ''Proposition 13'' slashed property taxes in California. It's also how a major manufacturer of gambling equipment and supplies was able to get a state lottery created there as well.
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There are a number of smaller groups, typically called "third parties" in the US, which are largely active only at the municipal or state level and rarely, if ever, elect members to federal office. The largest third parties in the country are as follows:
* The '''[[wikipedia:Constitution Party (United States)|Constitution Party]]''' is a "paleoconservative" party, which means that, while they have very right-wing views on taxes, spending and social/cultural issues<ref>They oppose immigration, welfare and the income tax, support gun rights, states' rights and anti-federalism, and take a generally fundamentalist Christian stance on issues like homosexuality, abortion, gambling and pornography. Their anti-abortion position is a big enough issue that debates over whether to allow for abortions in the event of rape, incest and the health of the mother created a schism that saw several state affiliates break away.</ref> and an explicit rooting of their beliefs in Christianity, they also break from modern mainstream conservatism by opposing free trade in favor of a protectionist/mercantilist trade policy, as well as supporting a foreign policy of noninterventionism and a reduced role in world affairs, including repeal of the Patriot Act and withdrawal from the [[United Nations|UN]], the World Bank and the IMF.
* The '''[[wikipedia:Libertarian Party (United States)|Libertarian Party]]''' is pretty much [[Exactly What It Says
* The '''[[wikipedia:Green Party (United States)|Green Party]]''' is probably the most famous third party in the country after the Libertarians, mainly thanks to the high-profile Presidential run of Green Party candidate Ralph Nader in 2000. By any measure, they are quite leftist, supporting fair trade, pacifism, an end to the War on Drugs, local government, internationalism, very liberal views on civil liberties and social issues, opposition to the Patriot Act, and a strong welfare state -- in other words, not too far from other Green Parties worldwide and European-style social democrats. Their main focus, however, is environmentalism, as their name suggests. Supporters are often stereotyped as tree-hugging hippies and socialists. If you see a character in fiction who supports the Green Party, then he or she is probably a [[New Age Retro Hippie]] or a [[Granola Girl]].
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These are by no means the only third parties in the United States, or the oldest (none of the three date back earlier than 1970). Third parties have a long history in US politics, and have been known to take up issues that would later be co-opted by the major parties. Here is a list of some of the more notable ones throughout history:
* The '''[[wikipedia:Anti-Masonic Party|Anti-Masonic Party]]''', [[Exactly What It Says
* The '''[[wikipedia:Whig Party chr(28)United Stateschr(29)|Whig Party]]''' were not a third party, but rather the primary opposition party to Andrew Jackson's Democratic Party from the early 1830s to the late 1850s. (Listed here for historical interest.) To vastly oversimplify: on the issue of who should have greater power, the President or the States, the Democrats favored the former while the Whigs favored the latter. Managed to win the presidency twice, both times by men who would later die in office: [[William Henry Harrison]] in 1840 (succeeded by vice president [[John Tyler]]), and then [[Zachary Taylor]] in 1848 (succeeded by vice president [[Millard Fillmore]]). As slavery became a bigger issue in the late 1850s, most Whigs in the North (such as [[Abraham Lincoln]], who had been a Whig congressman from Illinois from 1847-1849) joined the then-fledgling Republican Party, and those in the South gravitated either to the American Party (see below) or the Constitutional Union party.
* The '''[[wikipedia:Know Nothing|Know Nothings]]''' were a political party that existed under the names '''Native American Party''' (nothing to do with actual Native Americans) from 1845 to 1855, and the '''American Party''' from then until 1860. The Know Nothings were a nativist movement that was strongly opposed to immigration (particularly from Ireland and Germany), which they blamed for the crime in the cities, and Catholicism, which they felt was a foreign plot to subvert and overthrow American democracy. The name "Know Nothing" comes from the secret groups that preceded the party, whose members were told to say "I know nothing" if they were confronted about their involvement. They enjoyed massive success in the mid-1850s thanks to the collapse of the Whig Party and the two-party system, but they soon splintered and fell apart over the issue of slavery. The term "Know Nothing" would go on to be used as a derogatory term for a nativist for decades to come.
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Just to mention, the Republican Party's rules are pretty much the same as far as this goes. The main differences are that they make far less use of caucuses and allocate delegates by winner-takes-all or by congressional district for many states, not proportionally to popular vote, and do not use the "superdelegate" system. There was once a time when Democrats didn't use superdelegates either, but after George McGovern's disastrous run in 1972 -- in which he picked Sam Eagleton, who proved to have had psychiatric issues in the past (as well as later having been found to have made some controversial remarks about McGovern to the press), as his running mate -- and [[Jimmy Carter]]'s loss to [[Ronald Reagan]] in 1980, they added this feature as a safeguard.
As a general rule, winning a primary requires [[Pandering to
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