Worst possible alternate US election
- Thread starter TheGingerninja41
- Start date
Hmm... so, what, America cheerfully hands over its occupation zone to USSR control? Or something?
That was easy for him to do: all he had to do was mouth off. What he'd do if he had to put his money where his mouth was could be an entirely different story.
All I can say is that his behavior since leaving the second slot has cast some doubt in my view on his ability to carry out the top job properly.
Spengler
Banned
First point is debateable, oh and how do the central power win world war 1? Bryan would have to be reelected more than FDR.
Well, if he won in 1908 he might only need to be re-elected once. In theory he believed in a one-term Presidency but he might have used the war as an excuse to change his mind. But both election and re-elction are low probability.
Indeed. We would probably be under a silver standard today*, whereas OTL had gold confiscation by the govt and Bretton Woods.
Hoo boy...
There aren't enough ""s in the world.
Indeed, thank you for summing up my thoughts about the Henry Wallace post too.
loughery111
Banned
Hoo boy...
Um... where? What country?
As opposed to turning right-wing fascist. Gee. What a tragedy.
(My grandfather fought with the Partisans.)
Um... when? How? 'Cos we sure wouldn't want Turkey to turn into an authoritarian dictatorship that suppresses its populace or something worse like a military junta OH WAIT.
Henry A Wallace supported the Korean War.
There aren't enough "
Ahem.
No, actually. Not enough said. What do you think would have happened if Carter had won?
I can. War in Afghanistan, no war in Iraq, no declaration of "War on Terror", NO TORTURE. Simple.
While I sympathize to some extent with your reaction to the Wallace comments, you could try being at least somewhat even-handed otherwise.
Firstly, Carter vs. Reagan:
Honestly, Reagan wasn't a brilliant president, but what he was was a damned good poker player. The carrot (real relations with the US, nuclear arms reduction, an end to the arms race) and the stick (NATO military spending at 5% of GDP, vast superiority in nuclear arms, the threat of cutting off grain shipments) that he offered the USSR were the wedge that enabled Gorbachev to hammer his reforms through; if not for the coup, the USSR would simply have contracted a bit and emerged as a renewed power on the world stage. Without Reagan's efforts, Gorby probably would have woken up dead one morning fairly early in his rule, but with the US looking very big and bad, the Communist Party mostly accepted that some changes were needed to keep up.
Carter, in contrast, should never, ever, ever have risen to the Presidency. He had not a CLUE how to run a country, and the only worthwhile initiative to come out of his term (attempts to reduce US dependence on ME oil) was so badly bungled that Reagan was almost justified in shelving it. His economic policy was crap, though I agree the recession he was stuck with was the Fed's fault, not his. That would not absolve him from responsibility for the results of his policies, which would be apparent today. He obviously had no idea how to speak to the public, where Reagan restored faith in America through force of charisma and personality. Reagan was by no means perfect, but he was better than Carter could ever have hoped to become.
On Wallace:
By 1948, you're likely right, the consequences of an administration of his would not be too drastic. He was pretty much convinced that the Soviets were evil by the immediate aftermath of WWII. Wallace in 1944 or upon Roosevelt's death in '45? Catastrophic on almost every level. His administration would likely have contained (at the CABINET LEVEL) at least one Soviet agent and more sympathizers. He would have given them Eastern and Central Europe on a silver platter. God only knows how quickly he would have noticed and changed course, but his Presidency would have been shattered, for domestic issues as well. Possibly even worse, there is no one more likely to overreact than someone who has discovered he was duped and is now disillusioned... what might happen when he responds to the USSR's actions doesn't really bear thinking on. Luckily it's two decades early for the "no surviving civilization in the northern hemisphere" sort of nuclear war.
On the idea of backing anti-Communist movements:
Iran, agree totally. We could have completely transformed our Middle Eastern relations by accepting a center-left but democratically elected government in Iran and negotiating a reasonable nationalization of the damned Anglo-Persian Oil Company. I honestly think we really should have made the Cold War about preserving democratic government, not about preventing Communist (or even leftist) ones from coming to power. After all, if they get elected we can shift their policies back towards the center with targeted aid. And if we fail, their economies will tank anyway and they'll be thrown out after a few terms. If they refuse to leave, THEN we can intervene and be seen as the good guys.
Greece, disagree equally totally. Unlike Iran, this was a scenario in which the Soviets were directly overthrowing a government, to be replaced by a Communist dictatorship. So, all things considered, I'd rather have an allied junta with a semi-functional economic policy and some repression than an enemy one with a disastrous economic policy and massive repression/reprisal. Greece was not coming out of that with a democratic government no matter what. Right-leaning military, in that case, is better than Communist. Ditto Turkey. We backed the least bad of all available alternatives.
Latin America mostly falls into the former catagory; allow elected governments to do what they will and try to moderate as needed, take them down only if they refuse to adhere to election results that would see them thrown out on their asses.
And, lastly, on Bush vs. Gore:
All I can say is thank God I was too young to vote this one, or I would have walked away in disgust from the electoral system forever. Both of them suck, to put it bluntly. Bush started an unnecessary war in Iraq, regardless of the humanitarian implications of leaving Hussein in power, and made a total hash of education and Social Security reform. The only competent things he did or tried to do were to put the CDC in a position where, when the ___ flu's started rolling in, we were as prepared as possible given the time he had to work with, and an honest attempt at immigration reform. I was actually surprised to learn about the former from a med. student friend a few weeks ago, because frankly I thought he'd done nothing useful aside from scrap the Assault Weapons Ban. Oh, add that to the list of useful stuff.
Gore would have continued butchering the military budget, stripping even the bare bones that Clinton had left intact, and probably opted for the traditional "lob cruise missiles and pray we hit something useful" response to 9/11. Albeit with a lot more cruise missiles than usual. Not to mention that he probably would have been considerably left of where Clinton was, or at least governed from. So that would likely saddle us with a whole slew (if he can get Congress in on it) of bills to tackle global warming in the least effective ways possible, US participation in the mutually masturbatory exercise known as the Kyoto Protocol, and God only knows what as far as the AMT and taxation in general. Bush was a terrible president. I'm still convinced that Gore would have been a worse one.
I can't believe people think Gore wouldn't go in to Afghanistan. Am I the only one here who remembers how badly everyone wanted Osama's head on a platter in the days and months after 9/11? It would be political suicide NOT to go in.