TL-191 WI: TR wins a third term

So something that I never found realistic in TL-191(among other things) is TR not wining that third term when by all rights(at least IMO) he should have. So lets say he does win it. How will that effect the lead up to the Second Great War?
 
So something that I never found realistic in TL-191(among other things) is TR not wining that third term when by all rights(at least IMO) he should have. So lets say he does win it. How will that effect the lead up to the Second Great War?

He still dies as OTL or early? Presidency would bring more stress and have his sudden death as otl, but even them, that would be during the tail of his presidency thus nothing major.

Again having teddy dealing with a socialist congress and what remain of the post war world would be interesting, when he maybe would be more radical with canada, i think he would renegotiated later with the dixie, if dixie crisis is less severe, the snake have less chances to be president.

But something, TR will be more proactive and the japanese would not have easily as OTL, maybe an early war with them?
 
So something that I never found realistic in TL-191(among other things) is TR not wining that third term when by all rights(at least IMO) he should have. So lets say he does win it. How will that effect the lead up to the Second Great War?

You must have missed the events of 1917-1920. It was a time when lots of strikes happened and the Democrats were seen as part of the problem. That, plus the Democrats' "Remembrance Coalition" was probably crumbling as the desire for another war with the Confederacy reached a low. I think that 1920 being a Socialist win was somewhat realistic.

Anyway, I think it would have prevented the gutting of the Barrel industry.
 
But something, TR will be more proactive and the japanese would not have easily as OTL, maybe an early war with them?

I think Mexico is a better candidate for third term conflict. The Freedom Party was able to set up an ally by covertly supporting the Monarchists. Teddy could support the populist revolutionaries, even if he wouldn't be fond of their ideology, simply to stick it to the Confederacy. The Socialist Congress and the war-weary public won't support a direct intervention, but low-level aid and "advisors" could be doable. That'd help the development of US barrel tactics and tech in the interwar period.

If there's still a Second Great War, a US puppet to the south — or at least a neutral Mexico — changes the dynamics of things. Population Reduction would bite the economy without the importation of Hispanic labor. Alternatively, there could be a useless front in Mexico that serves as the Confederacy's version of North Africa.
 

bguy

Donor
Roger Kimball's crimes became public knowledge right at the end of TR's second term, so here TR will actually have time to do something about it. TR will certainly demand Kimball's extradition to the United States on threat of war if the Confederates refuse, so I imagine President Semmes will have no choice but to comply with TR's demands. Confederate voters will undoubtedly be upset about seeing their government cave to the US once again, so that might lead to an increase in support for the Freedom Party.

If that increase in support is enough for Featherston to actually win the 1921 Confederate presidential election, then the US and CS probably come to blows pretty quickly. In the original story, Featherston campaigned on unilaterally ending CS reparations. He'll probably have to do the same here. (The Freedom Party doesn't really have any other plan for dealing with Confederate hyper-inflation other than unilaterally ending reparation payments, so Featherston doesn't have much to offer the voters if he doesn't promise to end the reparations.) If President Featherston actually follows through on cancelling reparations, TR will presumably order an attack on the Confederates. That likely ends with Featherston getting overthrown by a military coup, and the US probably taking another chunk of Confederate territory. (Most likely Tennessee.) That will leave the military junta running the CSA pretty unpopular (they overthrew the democratically elected president and then surrendered territory to the US), so the CSA will probably be rather unstable thereafter.

Domestically I imagine TR will probably be able to come to some sort of accord with the Socialists in Congress once they realize they are stuck with him for the next four years. Probably something along the lines of he'll push for some of their domestic policy priorities (most likely old age pensions, unemployment insurance, and greater business regulations) in exchange for them going along with his foreign and defense policies.

What would TR's foreign policy goals be for a third term? Well aside from taking a hard line on the CSA, I agree with Lavanya Six that he'll probably get enough support to the rebels to help them win the Mexican Civil War. He's also likely to put the squeeze on Colombia or Nicaragua to get a US controlled Central American canal built. (Like Nivek said, TR will be leery of the Japanese, so he will want a US controlled Central American canal to enable US naval assets to quickly move from the Atlantic to the Pacific.) TR may also try to persuade the Danes to sell the Virgin Islands and Greenland to the US, though I'm not sure he'll have as much success there. (Germany may not react well to the US strong-arming Denmark.)
 
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