Challenge: Have a Quasi-Fascist POTUS elected in 1932

Can the US have a Fascist President in 1932?


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It always puzzled me how Fascism couldn't gain traction in America during the Great Depression, since it was one of the most affected countries by it and especially in the Democratic Party, plagued by isolationists and racists. Your challenge is to have the Democratic President elected in 1932 supporting Fascist policies to get America out of the Great Depression, something like New Nationalism, Italy serving as an economic and social model of rebirth, but not actual Fsscism, since it's a non-starter. Have his relationship with Hitler's Germany be one of calculated support for economic policies and trade deals and soft opposition to Anti-Semitism.
What would be the effects on Britain, France and the rest of international relations be? Bonus points if he can FDR 4 terms and have America neutral during WWII. Hyper points if America joins the Axis(as unlikely as it sounds).

NOTE: Any parallels with Mr. *Current Politics* is intentional, yet not expressable here, so we can keep the thread in this forum.
 

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We did have one his name was franklin Delano rosevelt
5DB4A433-ABB3-411E-9B77-F79069144401.jpeg

The dude was a dictator in all but name
 
We did have one his name was franklin Delano rosevelt
View attachment 615072
The dude was a dictator in all but name

There's a difference between abusing presidential power and being a dictator. Internment was an abhorrent violation of Japanese-Americans' civil liberties, but nonetheless Roosevelt did nothing to impede the functioning of democratic self-government in the United States. He never tried to shut down Congress, manipulate elections, establish a police state, etc.

If anything, one could say that FDR strengthened democracy by creating a closer relationship between the people and the presidency, recognizing labor unions, and creating the "black cabinet" which gave African-Americans a say in policymaking during Jim Crow.
 
Huey Long, while not an outright dictator, could be described as fascistic and a demagogue. While passing popular social programs, he did engage in heavy handed methods of dubious legality, such as raiding gambling dens with the national guard without notifying the city, or intimidating legislators.
 
We did have one his name was franklin Delano rosevelt
View attachment 615072
The dude was a dictator in all but name
No. A dictator is an absolute monarch in all but name. Roosevelt had many of his policies blocked by Congress or struck down by the SCOTUS.

Also fascist is a particular type of right-wing authoritarian characterized by militaristic nationalism. That's one of the major reasons Hitler invaded the USSR. He hated communism. Yes, communism and fascism both involve authoritarianism and government entanglement with the economy, but fascism's antipathy towards those seen as weak is at odds with communisms professed ideals of "from each according to his ability to each according to his need." Thus although there are many similarities in practice, the major differences in theory mean communists and fascists generally hate each other.
 
Huey Long was term-limited as Governor of Louisiana in 1932, so he ran for Senate. If he'd run for President instead with some version of the Share Our Wealth platform, he could have done very well in the general election. However, given the structure of the nominating process at the time, Long would have had a hard time securing the Democratic nomination.
 
NOTE: Any parallels with Mr. *Current Politics* is intentional, yet not expressable here, so we can keep the thread in this forum.
If you really wanted to avoid current politics you could have just reiterated the board's posting policy, or you could just like not have included any note at all.

Seems a tad hypocritical of you to openly establish that this thread is tied to current politics, and within the same sentence suggest that we have the burden of preventing the thread from being locked/moved to chat.
 
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No. A dictator is an absolute monarch in all but name. Roosevelt had many of his policies blocked by Congress or struck down by the SCOTUS.
Just not the ones that affected minorities such as the Japanese camps,sending Jews back to Germany ,Italians camps , successful black people , anyone who used gold as a currency because they did not trust the dollar “rightfully so”
 
Roosevelt did not come to power on a platform that was anywhere near Fascistic or even Social Democratic

He attacked Hoover from a deficit hawk position, and his diagnosis of the Great Depression was largely a contemporary one relating to the idea of overproduction and underconsumption. The programs enacted, while similar to many of those done by fascist governments of the era, were mostly just attempts at driving down unemployment and promoting consumer confidence than any kind of reordering of society.

The reason I say no to this question is that Fascism requires incredible centralization and administrative reorganization of the nation. This happened in Italy, in Germany with the Gau system, even in borderline fascist Spain with the vertical syndicates. American federalism is the antithesis if Fascistic centralization. The two could not be more different. Fascism requires centralization and nationalization of public life. The New Deal never came close to this. Any other Fascist wannabes of the era were people without cross regional popularity and unable to bring this about

Even a military junta would not be able to accomplish this, if such a thing formed. You need the US to be a vastly more centralized country administratively speaking

Also, the social base for Fascism in the US did not exist. It had not suffered hyperinflation that depressed the living standards of the lower middle class or artisans, it had no real territorial revanchist issues, it had an unusually tolerant attitude towards Jews by world standards, there was no serious threat of Communist uprising, it did not have a bureaucracy or legal establishment with a dissatisfied attitude towards democracy, mass politics were not a common thing, it had a plethora of intermediating institutions to divert energy away from national politics, it wasn't particularly militaristic by world standards, and it had political parties that largely were seen as legitimate big tent forces, and the economic issues were bad but not destabilizing.
 
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Even a military junta would not be able to accomplish this, if such a thing formed. You need the US to be a vastly more centralized country administratively speaking

Also, the social base for Fascism in the US did not exist. It had not suffered hyperinflation that depressed the living standards of the lower middle class or artisans, it had no real territorial revanchist issues, it had an unusually tolerant attitude towards Jews by world standards, there was no serious threat of Communist uprising, it did not have a bureaucracy or legal establishment with a dissatisfied attitude towards democracy, mass politics were not a common thing, it had a plethora of intermediating institutions to divert energy away from national politics, it wasn't particularly militaristic by world standards, and it had political parties that largely were seen as legitimate big tent forces, and the economic issues were bad but not destabilizing.
I can understand your arguments, but America had some currents similar to some Fascistic views, some made their way into the America First Committee, and sympathizers of Fascist leaders and ideas(Henry Ford): racism in the South against blacks, Isolationism as a way of mantaining American power on the Western Hemisphere, Antisemitism existed as a current and could have been exploited and the Keynesian solutions favored by the Democrats IOTL could be extended and redesigned towards several TVAs, an earlier Interstate Highway System and more welfare to support the population in a National-Socialistic fashion.

NOTE: I'm not saying the New Deal was Fascist, just that it could have been extended in a Fascist way.
 
I can understand your arguments, but America had some currents similar to some Fascistic views, some made their way into the America First Committee, and sympathizers of Fascist leaders and ideas(Henry Ford): racism in the South against blacks, Isolationism as a way of mantaining American power on the Western Hemisphere, Antisemitism existed as a current and could have been exploited and the Keynesian solutions favored by the Democrats IOTL could be extended and redesigned towards several TVAs, an earlier Interstate Highway System and more welfare to support the population in a National-Socialistic fashion.

NOTE: I'm not saying the New Deal was Fascist, just that it could have been extended in a Fascist way.
None of that indicated fascism, as both a political or sociological phenomenon, was in any way likely. Most people recognize that right wing authoritarianism and fascism are not really comparable, and the same applies to vaguely social democratic or welfarist policy. Fascism entails a borderline revolutionary adjustment of the administrative structure of a country, with second order impacts within intermediating institutions through a turnover or reaccomodation of existing and new elites

I'm not really following how Isolationism follows to Fascism, which was an inherently revanchist doctrine in almost every country it existed in, perhaps with the exception of Brazil. I suppose if there was some territorial claim to areas of Latin America, maybe this could be a thing, but there was little to suggest that. The Isolationists for what its worth were never all that keen on Fascist countries. There was some admiration for Germany in the early-mid 1930s (not nailed down by ideology, it should be noted), but by the time of Kristallnacht and the march into Prague, that was gone. Their point was more an expression that America had no national interest in who won the European War (which was dumb but somewhat widely held) and that America had been duped into joining WW1 (also widely held, perhaps not as dumb, but not spot on either).

The most vigorously anti-Fascist members of the American government in terms of their foreign policy views, it should be noted, were the Dixiecrats, who consistently supported Roosevelt's opposition to Germany, Japan, and Italy, while also engaging in efforts to promote opposition movements even in Hungary and Romania at the time. The Republicans had a large isolationist wing, and the liberal wing of the Democratic Party joined it in the frenzy of the Nye Hearings. Anti-Semitism was real, but it was not a strong political force, and anti-anti-semitism tended to get far more results in terms of political organization. The Great Depression saw a much lower rise in anti-Semitism in the US than in most industrialized countries, and was a fringe force in the anti-Roosevelt opposition.

I think a case can be made that many New Deal programs had similarities to those enacted by Fascist countries. But I don't think you can divorce the era from that, as the 1930-1960 period saw immense mobilization and state power in the ascendancy in most countries in the world, and nationalizations of industry, public work programs to deal with unemployment, massive state owned enterprises engaging in infrastructure projects, capital controls, and just a general growth in the power of the state were things you saw in countries that were liberal democracies, fascist and communist dictatorships, monarchies, authoritarian juntas, social democracies, and all forms of government in existence. Put it this way: the construction of the Autobahn and the establishment of the German Labour Front did not make Germany unique, or Fascism unique, for that matter. Even the most fascistic act by Roosevelt in my view, the internment of German & Japanese nationals, was something that basically every combatant in WW2 to some extent or another engaged in.
 
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By that metric, neither was the Moose in Italy
The "Moose in Italy" had his blackshirts rough people up at the polls to ensure his fascist party would win. FDR never did that. Mussolini had his political opponents murdered. FDR never did. Before he was ousted, the anti-Mussolini conspirators had to meet in secret so he couldn't have them killed. FDR's Republican opponents ran against him in open elections.
J. Edgar Hoover says 'Hi!'
As despicable as J. Edgar Hoover is; he wasn't the Gestapo or the Political-Social Brigade.
Or Stalin up until the Kirov affair for that matter

He routinely would lose votes in the Central Committee and have to go along with it
He wasn't born a dictator. He became one by rising to power and consolidating his grip on it.
 
We did have one his name was franklin Delano rosevelt
View attachment 615072
The dude was a dictator in all but name

That bill of indictment could be used to prove that Mackenzie King in Canada was a fascist as well(*). And yet he's generally regarded as the epitome of consensus-based centrist politics.

(*) Granted, I'm not quite sure where WLMK stood on "giving Stalin half of Europe", but in any event, Communist domination of Eastern Europe was pretty much the polar opposite of what fascists wanted, even at the time of Molotov-Ribbentrop.
 

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That bill of indictment could be used to prove that Mackenzie King in Canada was a fascist as well(*). And yet he's generally regarded as the epitome of consensus-based centrist politics.

(*) Granted, I'm not quite sure where WLMK stood on "giving Stalin half of Europe", but in any event, Communist domination of Eastern Europe was pretty much the polar opposite of what fascists wanted, even at the time of Molotov-Ribbentrop.
I’m not a fan of dealinomics it only seems to work during a war and with a life of Rations and
austerity

Don’t know enough about Mackenzie as I have never heard of him but if he sent the Jews to the Nazis and sent Canadians to camps then he is a tyrant at the least
 
We did have one his name was franklin Delano rosevelt
View attachment 615072
The dude was a dictator in all but name
Dude, we have people like that on the USA too?

The hilarious thing is that "giving" Stalin half of Europe would be a argument in favour of claiming that FDR is a communist, not a fascist

The other two factors happened everywhere also, Brazil also had internment camps for people from the axis countries, just like Britain, it was seem as a "normal" war policy of the time
 
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