Three Presidents in Five Years Options

[Svea Rike]

A while back I wanted to write a story about an American Marine who lost his hand during the infamous 'zero hour' US retreat, and then went on to assassinate the president to prove how destabilized the country had become. It never really got beyond the point of 'American Marine assassinates president' and I scrapped it. But now, while laying in bed trying to sleep after a night of heavy Coco-Cola drinking, I decided to write some short potential info about the three administrations America burned through between 2028 and 2033.

Joel Abraham
Joel Abraham was elected into office after the disastrous second term of Howard Paulson, and they didn't even beat around the bush: He was inagurated in 2028 instead of 29 because they wanted that bastard out of the White House as soon as possible. Abraham was the first elected president belonging to an independent party, as people in the United States had started questioning the Republicans and Democrats, even going so far as refusing to vote if they didn't provide a third option. At the time of his inaguration, the governors of Texas, California and Alaska had declared home-rule, citing the economic crisis as reason enough and they were making their own attempts to fix the economy. Abraham, knowing the dire situation they were in, did not react with military force and instead cooperated with them in a bizzare four-presidents-sort-of thing.

Soon however things went dire. Thousands became unemployed, rioting occurred daily, street gangs declared independence, and many city halls were burned down. Truly the darkest hour of America, but it became even darker. Joel Abraham and the three governors were planning to revitalize the entire nation's economy and industry, but that went nowhere as he was assassinated during a speech in front of Capitol Hill in late 2030. The shot was taken from the Washington Monument by an automated sniper system, and the killer has yet to be caught.

Gregory Willard
The Vice President under Abraham was Gregory Willard, who could be best described as an "eccentric little prick who's single outlining feature is the ability to fuck up", quoting a left-wing socialist journal. Even Abraham thought Willard was a bit of an idiot, and the people felt it. This guy, wow! During his sole three months as president, he did such stupid things such as going on vacation in Bermuda, declaring Ecuador a fictional country, spending millions of dollars on chocolate factories believing it would convince people to go work there, sponsoring a nation-wide baseball league, trying to get China to give them money by literally begging, and more. Enough was enough and soon this doofus was forcibly removed from office in what wasn't even described as a coup, because he was really that bad. But would now be president? Well, they just didn't have a president now.

The Split
Instead, the Congress tried to sort out this crisis by allowing each state a great degree of autonomy so they fix their problems themselves, while the federal government would be reconciling internationally, in a period called "The Split". This didn't really work out well, since the states were split between the Republicans and Democrats, who all wanted something from the other. Washington demanded crops from Oregon in exchange for services, while Illionois had a whole border dispute with Michigan. This convinced the up-and-coming governor from Massachussets, one Kevin O'Connor, to launch his campaign for presidency. He had proven capable, and had fixed the situation in the New England states to be practically desirable. For three days he spoke to the Congress, outlining his plans for the future, called "The Future Is American", and a majority vote by the Congressmen allowed him to launch his campaign and run for office in 2032.

Well those are my thoughts about the three administrations. I tried to be a bit creative, smart indepdent president, one goofball of a president and then no president. Hope this fits in well with canon and given the direful state the States were in at the time, I'd say it does, but that is up for MARS to decide.