WI Wendell Wilkie wins in 1940?

Straha

Banned
What would have happened had Wilkie defeated FDR in 1940?
heres my ideas

I have slightly revised the electoral college strength of the states to
create a country a tiny bit more likely to buy Wilkie’s last minute push
against FDR the interventionist. I have also made the 1948 split of the
Demo Party start a bit sooner. As final presumptions I am allowing that a
bit more info on FDR’s fading health (already a problem at this time) gets
out ( worth say a point or two) and that Farley’s anti 3rd term push catches
a bit of fire ( worth say 2-3 points ). The rest is a left and Dixie syphon
off to splinter tickets.

Nov 40 : Wilkie wins narrow victory:
Vt, NH, Me, PA, Ky, TN, OH, IN, MI, WS, MN, IA, MO, ND, SD, KS, NE, OK, TX,
NM, AZ, NV, UT, CO, WY, MT, ID, CA, OR, WA
3+4=7+5=12+38=50+9=59+11=70+25=95+13=108+11=119+13=132+13=145=+10=155+13=168+4=1\
72+5=177+8=185+6=191+8=199+24=223+4=227+4=231+3=234+4=238+5=243+4=247+5=252+32=2\
84+5=289+7=296

Ma, RI, Cn, NY, NJ, De, MD, Va, WVa, NC, SC, GA, FL, AL, Ms, La, Ark, IL
= 16+5=21+9=30+47=77+15=
92+3=95+10=105+12=117+10=127+14=141+8=149+12=161+18=179+11=190+10=200+10=210+10=\
220+29=249

Wilkie :45.6
FDR: 44.0
Thomas (Socialist) : 6.3
Browder (CP – Pop Front) : 1.7
Russell (SR Demo): 3.3
Misc: 1.1

House:
Soc – 1
Cp – 1
Demo – 168

Prog Rep – 40


SRDemo + Dixiecrats – 78
GOP = 147

Senate:

Dem – 29
P Rep – 10

GOP – 38
SR Demo – 19

Essentially this configuration changes the domestic component of the
debate. In OTL there was an effective deadlock from 1937-1964 on domestic
issues in Congress. A large minority wanted to continue the radical
domestic reforms of the first and second new deals to a postcapitalist
future. A large minority wanted to roll back part or all of the New Deal –
usually those portions that did not immediately benefit their consituants.
A floating mix of progressive Republicans, mavericks in both major parties
and southern democrats (except on the race issue) were unwilling to greatly
curtail or enlarge the structure of 1936-37. They were willing to
marginally contract or expand the total size of government and to tinker
with specific programs.
Part of the obcession with foreign policy in this period was the domestic
deadlock. A GOP President ( even a moderate like Wilkie) with strong but
not overpowering numbers in both houses would be forced to try more. The
reforms would be too recent to become part of the accepted order and the
losers in 1932-37 too eager for revenge.
Paradoxically this means that the President was likely to get a far easier
time of it on defense and foreign issues short of war. This is especially
so of a Republican who did not carry the Wilsonian baggage of FDR. So you
would actually get:
1. MORE spending on defense, especially navy and air which jibe with America
First viewpoints and whose $ get spent by big Repubican companies
2. An easier time getting Lend Lease and the Draft Renewal through Congress
– more Republican votes going along as a matter of party loyalty
3. No Lend Lease to Red Russia
4. Lend Lease for ethnopolitical reasons to the Free Danes in Iceland,
Greenland and the Faeroes; Eire; Sweden; Finland
5. An end to good neighbor policies in the western Hemisphere. US garrisons
back in the Carib – South America playing off London, Berlin and Moscow
against Washington’s heavy hand
6. A more grasping policy at the margins v the UK dominated Free Europe bloc
as regards scooping up colonial possessions and ready financial / industrial
assets
7. A much heavier hand and therefore worse relations with Canada and Mexico
8. Earlier US occupation of Greenland and Iceland
9. A strong possibility of a US premptive strike against the midAtlantic
island chains – Azores, Maderias, Canaries, Cape Verdes
10. A much larger Alaskan garrison – possibly taking advantage of Russia’s
troubles to seize back Wrangel Island which the Reds had poached in 1923
11. A somewhat easier refugee policy – FDR had to be a tightass on this in
part to appease the marginal votes in the South and Midwest – Wilkie would
be easier to appease the marginal votes in the big ethnic cities – no
massive refugee waves – but many exceptions for crucial skills and family
reunions

The two big questions:
1. Does Britain stay in the war? A large bloc of the Conservative party
felt that the US was prepared to fight till the last Englishman.
Churchill’s illusion of hope during the crisis ( Dunkirk – Pearl Harbor) was
to keep waving the possibility of US intervention and his ‘special
relationship’ with FDR. With FDR gone, the Tories could have summoned the
nerve to dump Winnie and open serious negotiations for a separate peace –
especially after the Hess mission, the Greek disaster and Barbarossa.
2. Japan policy: this is the 800 pound gorrilla who sits where ever he
wants. Wilkie would take office with a coalition of isolationists, America
Firsters and the China Lobby behind him. Does he send the fleet to Pearl?
Does he strip ships from the Pacific Fleet for a major Atlantic squadron
(Richardson was sacked as CincPac for protesting this)? Does he give Lend
Lease to Chiang? Does he make an economic embargo on Japan over Indochina?
All of these are extremely open issues. My views are guesses with no
probabilities attached. I think that he does NOT give Lend Lease to Chiang
but allows the China Lobby to blatently violate the neutrality laws. I am
50-50 on the Flying Tigers. I do not see an economic embargo. I do see a
budding SEATO in which he forms an antiJapanese bloc of the US – Australia –
New Zealand – Canada – UK – Netherland East Indies to block any Japanese
move beyond Indochina – Siam. FDR was antiimperialist. The GOP was more
blatently racist and more big business oriented. I see all of the above
leading to no Pearl Harbor. Japan bleeds herself to death in China as
neither Mao nor Chiang will ever surrender no matter how many temporary
truces they sign.


So the world war ends in say 1946 in Europe with Hitler’s army dug in on a
line from Murmansk to the Svir to Thvikin to the Vladi Hills to Rzhev to
Tula to Voronzezh to the Donnets to Rostov to the Kuban. An exhausted
Stalin takes a standstill peace. Britain has left the war in 1942. It
holds its empire plus the Belgian Congo, French Equatorial Africa, Italian
East Africa, Syria, Lebanon, Crete, Persia, Afghanistan, Madagascar, Tibet,
Libya. An embittered Vichy is a semially of Germany but still holds West
and North Afrika. Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, and Sweden are independent
but within the German bloc. An embittered Italy is Germany’s economic and
military vassal. Turkey is truly neutral behind mountains of American aid.
The China War declines into endemic border clashes by the early 1950’s but
no formal peace is ever signed. Chiang gets his lend lease in 42-43 via a
US – UK built road and railway across the roof of the world : Karachi –
Kashmir – Tibet – Chunking. The US is the predominant economic power and a
great military power but has never entered the war. First US atom bomb is
still July 1945. First British is August 1948 in the Australian desert.
Germany and Russia get their bomb in the early 50’s. Massive competition
for influence in South America. Autarcic economic blocks. H bombs at same
intervals as the Fuchs and Rosenberg rings are crushed by the FBI and RCMP
BEFORE they do much damage. A much earlier and better funded space race
carry the US and Germany to orbit in the 50’s. By today everything from the
Belt inwards has stations from the US, Brit Empire, German Europea, the USSR
and Japan. India stays in the British Empire as a selfgoverning dominion with a massive Brit garrision. Ghandi dies in a British jail. Nelson Mandella is still a
prisoner on Robinette island.
 
My impression is that Wilkie was also fairly Internationalist. He may have given a little less support to Britain but not enough to cause Britain to give up.

Rembember by November 1940 the "Battle of Britain" had essentially be won over the skys of Southern England.

Assuming that Wilkie adopted an equally hostile view to Japanese aggreession economically.

There would still have been Pearl Harbor.

I believe that both Wilkie and his VP candidated died by 1944.

Who would have been Wilkie's Secretary of State and therefore President?


Might Wilkie have been MORE aggressive in enforcement of Civil rights than Roosevelt (He afterall would not get electoral votes from Mississippi and Alabama
 
Wendell Wilkie wasperhaps one of the greatist men who was almost elected. He was pro-equality for women and minorities, was a firm supporter of going to war with Nazi Germany, as well as being and internationalist.
 
Yep. According to "The New Dealer's War," Wendell Wilkie was basically FDR in miniature--his only objection to FDR was that he broke "the two term limit."
 
America stills enters the war. Has a slightly larger navy than it did with FDR. It may pursue a Japan First strategy or perhaps something described as "Dual Theatre Strategy" policy. There is some chance that Wilkie does not adopt an explicit unconditional surrender policy. These might encourage the German military to overthrow or more likely (but still only 50/50) an end to the Paciific War without A-bombs. I could see Wilkie trying to do more to racially integrate the US military in the war. This is going to cause some ruckus. On the other hand he never liked the New Deal and even with the war on (esp. before American involvement) he would try to at least prune it.

It's been pointed out that Wilkie died in 1944.
 
New Deal Republican

Keynsian economics worked in Germany and Japan, and to a lesser extent in the rest of the world. Wilkie would have won if he campaigned against, say, the VP Garner after Roosevelt kicked, and would have continued Roosevelt's policies, and his Secretary of State after him and his VP. Did his VP die first? His VP might have had his own ideas about who should be Secretary of State.
 
Must admit that I don't know exceedingly much about Wendell Wilkie, but seems like he would've made a very similar figure to FDR as WWII pres. As a Republican, would his pro-minorities stance have facilitated say a reversion of most black ppl to the GOP and thereby a reversal of the Democrats' wooing of the African-American electorate thru the New Deal ?
 
With President Wilkie and his VP (I forgot the candidate's name) both dead who do Republicans run in 1944?

Would Wilkie have possibly ended up with an alliance of moderate Republicans and Northern Democrats in Congress?
 
McNARY, Charles Linza, a Senator from Oregon; born on a farm near Salem, Marion County, Oreg., June 12, 1874; attended the public schools and Leland Stanford Junior University, California; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1898 and commenced practice in Salem, Oreg.; deputy district attorney of the third judicial district 1904-1911; dean of the law department of Willamette University, Salem, Oreg., 1908-1913; associate justice of the State supreme court 1913-1915; appointed on May 29, 1917, as a Republican to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy in the term ending March 3, 1919, caused by the death of Harry Lane, and served from May 29, 1917, until November 5, 1918, when Frederick W. Mulkey was elected to fill this vacancy; again appointed to the United States Senate on December 12, 1918, to become effective December 18, 1918, to fill the vacancy in the same term caused by the resignation of Frederick W. Mulkey, having been previously elected for the term beginning March 4, 1919; reelected in 1924, 1930, 1936 and 1942 and served from December 18, 1918, until his death; minority leader 1933-1944; chairman, Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation of Arid Lands (Sixty-sixth through Sixty-ninth Congresses), Committee on Agriculture and Forestry (Sixty-ninth through Seventy-second Congresses), Republican Conference (1933-45); unsuccessful candidate for Vice President of the United States on the Republican ticket in 1940; died in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., February 25, 1944; interment in Belcrest Memorial Cemetery, Salem, Oreg.
 
Remember, Wilkie was a Democrat until 1939. He supported FDR in his first two terms, I believe. He would get the support of both the Republicans and Democrats.
 
Before the Molotov-Ribbontrop pact the Republicans were fighting rearmament tooth and nail in fear that it would entail deficit financing and end the depression. Afterwards they were in favor of enlarging the navy and airforce and armed forces in general, but only to a much smaller size than we eventually did. After May of 1940 they wanted an armed force half the size of the one we did to protect us if Hitler invaded. After Pearl Harbor they gave up and went with a full sized armed forces.
Remember, these are not your father's Republican party, these are your great grandfather's Republican party. They have nothing in common with George Bush or the present Republican party leadership. The mistakes and misunderstandings they have are not relevant to the present Republican and Democratic parties.
 
wkwillis said:
Before the Molotov-Ribbontrop pact the Republicans were fighting rearmament tooth and nail in fear that it would entail deficit financing and end the depression.

Why on Earth would they NOT want to end the Depression?
 
Matt Quinn said:
Why on Earth would they NOT want to end the Depression?
The Republican party back then had nothing, nothing to do with the one we have now. The one we have now would have ended the depression the day after black Tuesday by printing money. Indeed, the one we have now is going to put us into hyperinflation because they are spending so much money.
But back then the Republicans were weird. They didn't want 'that man' to get the credit.
It wasn't until the deficit financing of World War II finished off the depression and brought back the good times that they finally lost enough support that they gave up. That's when they started using deficit financing for the cold war.
 
It occurs to me that there would be no 22nd Amendment. Republicans and some others were worried by the concentration of power with FDR elected 4 times.

I still do not think that Wilkie's policies towards Britain and Japan would have been different in any crucial ways.

Does anyone know how progressive Wilkie was on race? (He would not have had to deal with the Southern Democrats)

Could he have caused the two parties to swap places again (With Republicans again progressive)


There is still the question of who would the Secretary of State who would have become President if Wilkie and his VP President died as in OTL
 
Im fairly positive it would have been Stimson, or even possibly Cordell Hull if Wendell decides he needs a few democrats in his cabnet. Both men would continue the war to its conclusion, the only real diverence would be that Stimson would try to keep the red curtain as far back as possible. He also favored less than an uncoditional surrender for the Japanese (they keep their Emperor).
 

Raymann

Banned
Ya'll are right, back then the party's were different and it was the Democratic Party that was racist and most blacks were still Republican. I think Virgina in 1954 was the first southern State to go Republican and that was before Brown vs. Board so it wasn't from a racist backlash.
 
Raymann said:
Ya'll are right, back then the party's were different and it was the Democratic Party that was racist and most blacks were still Republican. I think Virgina in 1954 was the first southern State to go Republican and that was before Brown vs. Board so it wasn't from a racist backlash.


Brown V Board of Education was in 1954.

It would not surprise me if African American votes helped Eisenhower carry some border states
 
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