Yup. Make no mistake, that's Plan A. It's not a contingency plan, they know Joe can't do the job and are counting on him being a docile puppet while they run wild behind the scenes (without accountability).
It's literally a return to the control structure they had in place for decades prior -- only now it'll be transparently obvious before people vote for it. If people still make that deal, knowing everything they (should) know based on what's come out over the past 5 years, then the republic itself will deserve being tossed into the dust bin of history.