Which is more likely: a Communist or a Fascist America

[Onkel Willie]

There have been TLs and also quite some DBWIs on a fascist or communist America, but often it's dismissed as unlikely. My question was what you think is more likely with a POD after 1900, a Communist or a Fascist America?

[lounge60]

Well,is a bit ASB,but i think that is more probable a some form of fascism.

[Cryptic]

I can see a Fascist, de facto one party system offering token elections with pre conceived results way before I can see a socialist equivelant.

[mrmandias]

Maybe fascist, especially since the term is so mutable.

[Typo]

fascist, because everything is called fascist nowadays

[Fenwick]

Originally Posted by lounge60

Well,is a bit ASB,but i think that is more probable a some form of fascism.

ASB? Where is the teleportation of German panzers? Or the sudden arrival of stormtroopers? The US had both fascist and communist sympathizers.

For me I see facism as more likely then communism just due to the American concept of ownership, and the already entrenched system of corporations when both ideology's form. I have always leaned towards the pre-Hitler dictatorship of Mussolini. It was not secret police in every house, or the glory of the state instead it was a mix of planned economy and stressing the limited nature of the dictatorship.

FDR seems a nice example, not in him taking power by force, but him in 1933 when American spirits are low, people fear economic collapse, and even socialist Wisconsin rising up asking congress for extra ordinary powers. We are lucky in the fact that FDR tended to side with democracy more often then not, but nothing clearly says he would instantly avoid having the power to tackle the depression without any restriants. As it is America I can see it being for a period of him being in office, and limits upon interfering with elections or something else.

The USA never strikes me as being the jackbooted thug, or even the red flag waver.

[von kressenstein]

depends on when you are talking..

but corporate fascism gets my vote.

one where say TR dies before 1900..
Say America joins WW I in 14 and the bodies pile up for a war no one wants in America, Wilson is rejected, others cant quell the the mess, America goes uber isolationist .. the roaring 20's are less roaring and the bubble bursts on the greedy tycoons earlier starting the depression 4years earlier.

Then you just need to add water and stir

[MerryPrankster]

Some relatively mild form of fascism, with the primary victims of it being non-whites and perhaps women.

Seriously, on the local-local level, some very nasty stuff was tolerated, like putting opinionated women in mental hospitals, lynchings, etc.

A fascistic U.S. that views civil rights agitation as a fifth-columnist Communist effort, sends Hispanics (citizens or not) back to Mexico so white people can have jobs, and retains the frontier-conquest mentality directed at the Phillippines (keeping it) and Japan (crushing it and maybe annexing it) strikes as something that could be plausible.

[clendor]

Like a friend of mine said- Americans fear from Socialism like from fire. For many Americans, heavy governoment investment in economy is like living in a Monarchism. Communism is against everything American culture and education teaches. Communist America is totally ASB.

By the way- Learn from the Canadians, they are pretty Socialist and their crime rate is like half of the USA.

[Fenwick]

I will never go so far as to say a form of government which spread throughout much of the world is ASB in any way. You need a trigger which is hard to point to. WI the bonus army was gunned down in full? WI more US states voted socialist? The list goes on.

[Technocrat]

The American Legion considered the ACLU a communist front and were tied with corporations which were also tied with the American Liberty League, the anti-New Deal anti-socialist and plutocratic Democrats who would help bridge the gap between corporate conservative wing of the Republicans and states rights conservative Dixiecrats.

When you think about, in the 30's the CPUSA were organizing within the AFL; the Trotskyist Communist League was with the CIO; and any moderate trade unions could be associated with the Progressive Party and the Socialist Party of Norman Thomas - who were anti-Communist as all heck but who pays attention to details like that?

So, the idea of the Gilded Age Republicans, the Dixiecrats, and the Liberty League types forming together - with anti-trade-unionist vigilante groups from Liberty League type front group liberals to KKK conservatives - is not all that crazy.

American Legion, Wall Street, Liberty League, Dixiecrats led by Strom Thurmond in this period, old guard Republicans and even liberal Northern Establishment republicans (want /most/ of the New Deal but like many liberals of the time were enthusiastically supportive of banning Communist parties and attacking trade unions, they wanted to help working people from above rather than allow them to organize from below).

Plus you've always got fascist Progressives like Father Coughlin and some of LaFoillete's Right Wing supporters, Progressivism existing on both the center and the far left and right in US politics.

I think such a broad coalition would work, as the anti-catholic/anti-semitic groups that would break up such a coalition into rivalry are minor fringe organizations. They could be called Nazis and compared with the Communists and other Lefties, who were pretty anti-semitic at the time to (I remember reading that The Masses printed that the Bonus Army Plot was a Wall Street Jewish conspiracy).

So you could actually have corporatist Republicans doing what they do best; playing the paternal protectors of minority groups while destroying minority activist groups as being hate-filled Communist or Nazi fronts.

[Joseph Solis in Australia]

They were both ASB but a fascist one will be more probable.

[MerryPrankster]

Fascist Progressives?

How does that work?

[Typo]

Originally Posted by clendor

Like a friend of mine said- Americans fear from Socialism like from fire. For many Americans, heavy governoment investment in economy is like living in a Monarchism. Communism is against everything American culture and education teaches. Communist America is totally ASB.

By the way- Learn from the Canadians, they are pretty Socialist and their crime rate is like half of the USA.

This only became true from 1950, if not 1980 onwards

[Technocrat]

Right Progressives could be outright antisemitic like Coughlin, but even Left Progressives often held eugenical views as being scientific, and even some centrist Progressives disagreed with Teddy Roosevelt's christian compassion based programs like social security in terms of wanting to ration the welfare state to conserve resouces for those in their prime - moderate "reactionaries" like G.K. Chesterton criticized seemingly moderate progressives for saying things that amounted to killing off old people; causing there to be some degree of romantic nostalgic reaction.

[Thande]

A 1900 POD is before socialism became so constantly attacked and feared in America, so I say they're about equally likely.

A 1913 POD on the other hand...

[Fenwick]

Originally Posted by Thande

A 1900 POD is before socialism became so constantly attacked and feared in America, so I say they're about equally likely.

A 1913 POD on the other hand...

Or stress a Jay Lovestone communist revolution or takeover.

[Don Lardo]

The best chances for a communist America, and they're still low, occur before roughly 1918/1919 when the first Red Scares kicked off. After that communism is too much linked to foreign influences.

The best chances for fascism, and they're low too, exist throughout the period in question. However, once the chances for communism are lost in 1918/1919, fascism gets a very slight boost because the other option is closed off.

Smearing all that out over the period in question, a fascist America has a slightly better chance of coming into existence.

[The Vulture]

I'd say some sort of right-wing populism during a time of economic downturn is most plausible.

[Cryptic]

Originally Posted by Fenwick

ASB? Where is the teleportation of German panzers? Or the sudden arrival of stormtroopers? The US had both fascist and communist sympathizers.

The USA never strikes me as being the jackbooted thug, or even the red flag waver.

There were more flavors to fascism than Nazism. I can see an American Phlangist style fascism based on xenophobia, state capitalism and conservative Christianity in the 1920s and 1930s.

As for jack booted thugs, farm boots can be just as hard. The KKK (both educated and non educated) numbered in the millions. With official sponsorship they would make a ready militia against real and imagined communists and other threats. Their only potential downfall would be to get carried away against Catholics as a group. Catholic wre numerous and there is the possibility of Catholics forming their own semi official militias in Catholic dominated areas.