Many movies and television shows have as their plot some disaster that eliminates the United States government.

As a result, some low-level cabinet official becomes president who then has to solve the crisis.

How accurate is such a scenario? What really would happen if multiple

members of the executive branch were incapacitated? Learn more about the

presidential line of succession, its history, and what would happen if the unthinkable were to occur

on this episode. Most of what I'm going to talk about in this episode is entirely theoretical.

I can't think of any real world examples where an entire country had its leadership eliminated in one fell swoop.

That being said, it is a problem that has to be considered.

Because if something horrible did happen and there wasn't a contingency plan in place, it could

completely destroy a political system.

And with that being said, the issue of succession of a national leader is really only an issue

in presidential systems. In a parliamentary system replacing a leader can be done pretty easily.

All it takes is the majority party or coalition to take a vote, and you have a new prime minister.

There are some issues regarding the short-term incapacitation of a

Prime Minister. For example, when former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was in

intensive care for COVID, there was a question of who would act as Prime Minister.

There's no equivalent of a Vice President in most parliamentary systems.

In the recent case in the UK, the Prime Minister just appointed someone else to take his place in cabinet meetings.

Because it's so easy to replace a Prime Minister, someone else to take his place in cabinet meetings.

Because it's so easy to replace a Prime Minister,

these problems are only short-term problems.

You'd only need to worry about who would be in charge for a few hours

...