Do We Really Need a President?
According to various memes and commentaries, the US avoided civil war by an inch during an outdoor rally July 13, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania when an assassin’s bullet only grazed Donald Trump’s ear instead of killing him. And if the bullet had done its job, would MAGA supporters organize into militias and march on Washington? If so, then what?
Recall the situation brewing prior to World War I, when Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand visited the city of Sarajevo in Bosnia on June 28, 1914. Fighting for independence from Austro-Hungarian rule, a Serbian terrorist group mixed with the crowd along the archduke’s motorcade. One of the terorists, Nedeljko Čabrinović, tossed a bomb at Ferdinand’s double phaeton as it passed by but it bounced off the vehicle and exploded under the one behind it, injuring about 20 others.
In Trump-like manner, the archduke insisted on visiting the bombing victims in the hospital, but on the way his chauffeur, Leopold Lojka, took a wrong turn and brought the archduke and his wife face-to-face with their killer, teenager Gavrilo Princip. His first shot hit the pregnant Sophia who died almost instantly, while the second shot hit Ferdinand in the neck, and he died shortly after. Princip was arrested immediately.  See this.
Lojka identified Princip at his trial as the killer of the archduke and his wife. Under Austro-Hungarian law Princip could not be executed because at age 19 he was not yet an adult. He was sentenced instead to twenty years in solitary confinement at notorious Theresienstadt prison, where he died four years later of tuberculosis.
Nation-states had been gaining power during the 19th century and some were forming alliances, presumably to enhance their power further. The alliances had implications for trade, labor, and culture but, more critically, also contained agreements that should one of them go to war, the others would join on its side. In 1882 the Triple Alliance was formed, consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. An opposing alliance known as the Triple Entente became official in 1907, with the UK, Russia, and France its principal members.
With the dominoes in place, events after the Sarajevo murders proceeded as follows:
July 28 — After diplomacy delayed the inevitable, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, one month to the day after the assassination.
July 29 — Russia, in support of ally Serbia, began to mobili
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