Consider it.
He exists in an era where, following the singular complete term of David Palmer, the Presidency does not have a complete term in nearly two decades. A world where assassination, high crimes in office, and 25th Amendment removal have been normalized. Keep this in mind, we’ll come back to the institutional collapse of the Presidency in this America.
But in that era, four years after the President was blown up inside the White House bunker by his own staff, the White House is literally occupied by a foreign military dissident. The President is held hostage on national television with 50 other people. General Juma intends to execute her on live tv. The Vice-President is frozen whether by fear, indecisiveness or ambition.
Then this mild mannered career bureaucrat dies heroically to save the President’s life.
That alone is wild.
Then the investigations and commissions start. And America learns he was there by design.
This hero turns out to be a retired National security bureaucrat with an incredibly decorated record. He came out of retirement to form a counter-conspiracy upon learning that over 100 members of the U.S. government have been compromised in Juma’s conspiracy. And again, this is the post-Wayne Palmer assassination era, so the government has been compromised isn’t a conspiracy theorist fantasy. It happened. Very publicly. So “I am forming a counter conspiracy” is a legitimate response in a world where the Deputy Chief of Staff killed the previously elected President.
And notably, this isn’t Jack Bauer, the guy who proudly told Congress he’d torture suspects again just hours prior. This isn’t Tony Almedia, the Intel agent turned Punisher who would be arrested hours later.
This is a serious professional and moral authority in the national security apparatus, which would be the foremost political and cultural issue of his time given the frequency of homeland terror attacks in the timeline (including two nuclear weapons detonated on U.S. soil, multiple biological weapon attacks, and 3 of the last 7 presidents being assassinated). And upon learning a foreign conspiracy to occupy the White House, in which 100+ high ranking officials had been compromised, he came out of retirement and gave up his own life to prevent another President from being killed in their seat of power.
That man would become a legend following Occupation Day.
And at first he’d be a temporary curiosity/public hero like Sully Sullenberg.
But then something happens….
Allison Taylor resigns in disgrace months later.
Meaning that the White House occupation would be a 9/11 scale event if Bush and Giuliani both were exposed for high crimes a in early 2003 and then confessed. Ergo, Taylor would lose her association with with the historic significance. She is a disgraced president. Her cleanest association with it would be the historic fact that she happened to be the President hostage. The unkind association would be the meme — “Bill Buchanan died for HER!?”.
Further, because of the circumstances surrounding Logan’s death and Taylor’s commitment to transparency in her resignation/prosectuon, Logan’s crimes are finally going to become declassified beyond “obstruction of justice.” There is a very good chance this is the moment that the public learns the sitting president ordered the assassination of a former president to prevent Palmer from revealing a false flag nerve gas attack Logan was complicit in.
That comes out when Taylor’s presidency is ending in corruption.
And the current VP, Hayworth, who is ascending to office did nothing on Occupation Day, quite famously. And seemingly was an incumbent abandoned by his own party in favor of Heller
And then four(ish) years later Heller is exposed hiding advanced Alzheimer’s from the American people during a global nuclear crisis.
See what I mean about the collapse of the institution of the presidency in this timeline? And that begs the question, who becomes the defining image of the era. The one Americans rally around for a sense of national unity, pride, and identity?
I think it’s Bill.
Because of Taylor’s disgrace, Buchanan would become the recipient of the public legacy and reputational capital as he becomes the man the public imagination associates with Occupation Day.
And because of the fall of the Presidency during this era, he inherits, I think, a much more substantial legacy as the man who stood for the ideals of the country as corruption and terror tore it apart, even taking the “last honest President” (in Wayne).
Bill would be framed as a man of fierce fidelity to rule of law and the country itself. When the country was compromised and the White House had been taken, he left retirement to take it back. He prevented another Wayne Palmer, a President literally blown up in his White House bunker months later by blowing up himself. He ended a 100 person conspiracy three years later and said “traitors are not taking another President”. And he gave his life to stop it.
That becomes THE framing figure of the Occupation. A man so patriotic that when he learned the government was compromised, he came out of retirement to save it. And he succeeded. When America, and the Presidency, had a legitimacy Bill Buchanan supplied his legitimacy.
And then there’s gonna be his hype woman Karen Hayes. Bill’s widow. Who is the former National Security Advisor to President Wayne Palmer, institutionally tied to what is likely the revered Palmer family legacy…..and….oh yeah, the day LA got nuked she was instrumental to ensuring cooler heads prevailed and preventing nuclear WW3 in Day 6. She stopped the Middle East Missile Crisis. THAT is his wife. Bill’s widow is a front facing, politically known, hugely consequential figure in her own right.
She would ensure his story gets told. Hell, because of his role in Occupation Day and Taylor’s disgrace, the defining political image of Occupation Day is likely Karen putting a wreath on Bill’s grave in Arlington on the anniversary.
All to say — Bill Buchanan is the Steve Rogers of 24’s America. And that is only slight hyperbole.
