A Bucket of Warm Piss: A World Without FDR

FDR was more interventionist than about 60% of Democrats and 90% of Republicans. (Willkie was something of a fluke.)

For a first crack at "WWII without FDR", start by eliminating Lend-Lease. It was not a particularly popular idea at the time, and it required FDR's charisma and a certain investment of political capital to get across.


Doug M.
 
FDR was more interventionist than about 60% of Democrats and 90% of Republicans. (Willkie was something of a fluke.)

For a first crack at "WWII without FDR", start by eliminating Lend-Lease. It was not a particularly popular idea at the time, and it required FDR's charisma and a certain investment of political capital to get across.


Doug M.

Thanks. I was actually considering America staying isolationist in this timeline, leading to an Anglo-Soviet alliance in Europe to defeat Germany. However, I'm not 100% on keeping the US Isolationist yet.
 
"Interventionist" and "Isolationist" were not black and white, but shades of gray. There's a wide spectrum of plausible responses between the two poles.

For instance, OTL the fall of France led to the Roosevelt administration passing conscription and massive budget increases for the Army and Navy. Even an isolationist administration would probably have expanded the Navy, but conscription and a bigger Army... maybe not.

It's also worth glancing at hemispheric defense issues. OTL FDR had, by 1940, vastly improved relations with most of Latin America over what they had been from Wilson through Hoover. This doesn't get much attention, but it ended up being strategically important in the sense that the US avoided a great many possible problems, from more actively Axis-friendly regimes in Latin America to instability in strategically important countries such as Mexico. IMO FDR's handling of the Mexican oil nationalization crisis of 1938-39 was one of the great unsung triumphs of American foreign policy. Most American presidents would have reacted aggressively and so inflamed the crisis; FDR chose to settle it by negotiation, thereby neutralizing a major potential strategic headache.

OTL Mexico was a friendly neutral, and then joined the Allies in mid-1942. ATL, it's very easy to imagine a *Mexico that's unstable, dominated by anti-Americanism, and generally hostile to the Allies.

Note that Garner, a Texan, was firmly convinced that God had created wetbacks to work on his ranch and plantations for a dollar a day. So there'd be no Good Neighbor Policy in a Garner administration. US policy towards the rest of the hemisphere would be Coolidge/Hoover, only more so: another four (or eight) years of gunboats, ultimatums, Smedley Butler-style interventions, and ferocious defense of American commercial interests.


Doug M.
 
And then of course there's Cuba. OTL, FDR first helped ease Cuban dictator Machado out of power in 1933, then passed legislation repealing the Platt Amendment to cement good US relations with the new regime.

Again, this turned out to be a masterstroke; Batista's Cuba became a reliable US ally, declaring war on Japan just a couple of days after Pearl Harbor. But it's not hard to imagine an ATL where the US fumbles the Cuban crisis of 1933 and ends up with a sullen, restive Cuba that's a minor but annoying distraction instead of a staunch ally.



Doug M.
 
Thanks. I was actually considering America staying isolationist in this timeline, leading to an Anglo-Soviet alliance in Europe to defeat Germany. However, I'm not 100% on keeping the US Isolationist yet.

I think I would prefer a Anglo-Soviet Alliance because that seems to be more likely and more original. But then again it's your call.
 
Note that Garner, a Texan

I should add: Garner, a wealthy rural South Texan who owned a lot of land.

The social system of South Texas that Garner grew up in was about one part Old South, two parts Wild West. Its most distinctive feature was a fairly sharp division between Mexicans and Anglos, with the latter firmly on top of the social scale. Mexicans were viewed as cheap labor, period.

I note in passing that Garner was the son of a Confederate Civil War veteran. (Were there any OTL Presidents who had a parent fight for the Confederacy? Not sure, but I don't think so.)

This is not to cast aspersions on Cactus Jack, who had many admirable qualities. It's just that, when it came to diplomacy south of the border, I suspect he'd be very different from FDR.


Doug M.
 
In February of 1934, Garner made more concessions to the progressives by allowing a bill for increasing taxes on the rich. But as he had just months ago, he would have to fight his own party again.

This time it was the battle of the National Recovery Act. This act had been proposed the previous year but was killed in the Senate after an 8 hour filibuster. It returned later in a much more comprehensive form. This act would give the National Recovery Administration the power to regulate entire industries. This was not favorable to President Garner, and when it reached his desk, he vetoed it quickly. President Garner met with the Republican leaders in the House and the Senate, along with conservative Democrats. He persuaded them to filibuster this version of the NRA as well.

This time however, the progressives won out. Despite the attempted filibuster in the senate and the house, Garner’s veto was overridden by the congress by a slim margin. This was his first loss to congress, and it wouldn’t be the last.

In the Spring of 1934, the Civilian Conservation Corps Reforestation Relief Act was passed. This coincided with the beginning of the implementation of the Rural Infrastructure Act passed the previous summer. President Garner ordered that those in the CCC would not be used for the works projects in the RIA, to insure as many jobs as possible for the time being.
 
The NRA had very serious negative effects on the economy. The Blue Eagle would become a detested symbol amongst small business owners. A series of regulations were quickly enacted, such as labor wages and price setting.

Before the NRA there were smaller businesses that outsold larger businesses on a regional level. This was because they charged less then the brand name companies, and paid a lower wage to workers. When the NRA passed a regulation that required employers to increase workers wages. Smaller businesses were forced to either raise prices or fire workers. When the NRA passed regulation that forced all businesses to raise the prices for their goods and services, this killed many businesses, putting more people out of work in the private sector. These workers were less likely to get jobs from the RIA or in the CCC, since most of these businesses were in the North.

In 1934 the American Liberty League(ALL) was founded. Conservative Democrats along with Republicans protested the NRA, seeking either it’s repeal, or for the Supreme Court to strike it down. A group of business owners supported by the ALL who had lost their businesses because of the NRA regulations filed a suit against the Federal Government. This case would eventually reach the supreme court in the summer of 1935, where the NRA was struck down as being unconstitutional.
 
The NRA had very serious negative effects on the economy. The Blue Eagle would become a detested symbol amongst small business owners. A series of regulations were quickly enacted, such as labor wages and price setting.

Before the NRA there were smaller businesses that outsold larger businesses on a regional level. This was because they charged less then the brand name companies, and paid a lower wage to workers. When the NRA passed a regulation that required employers to increase workers wages. Smaller businesses were forced to either raise prices or fire workers. When the NRA passed regulation that forced all businesses to raise the prices for their goods and services, this killed many businesses, putting more people out of work in the private sector. These workers were less likely to get jobs from the RIA or in the CCC, since most of these businesses were in the North.

In 1934 the American Liberty League(ALL) was founded. Conservative Democrats along with Republicans protested the NRA, seeking either it’s repeal, or for the Supreme Court to strike it down. A group of business owners supported by the ALL who had lost their businesses because of the NRA regulations filed a suit against the Federal Government. This case would eventually reach the supreme court in the summer of 1935, where the NRA was struck down as being unconstitutional.
:confused:Why is this NRA so much tougher than the OTL one? Looking at Wiki (ja, I know, Wiki), it seems that the only price setting was basically in the oil industry (although there does seem to have been provision for regulation to that effect that might have come in later). Similarly for wage controls.

It's not obvious to me from that article that it even applied to small businesses - it would have been crazy for it to do so. Certainly things like the modern ADA mostly only apply to businesses with e.g. more than 25 employees, IIRC.

The OTL main point of contention was the loosening of the anti-trust regulation, and, at least according to Wiki, THAT was what drove up prices, not regulation...
 

elder.wyrm

Banned
:confused:Why is this NRA so much tougher than the OTL one? Looking at Wiki (ja, I know, Wiki), it seems that the only price setting was basically in the oil industry (although there does seem to have been provision for regulation to that effect that might have come in later). Similarly for wage controls.

It's not obvious to me from that article that it even applied to small businesses - it would have been crazy for it to do so. Certainly things like the modern ADA mostly only apply to businesses with e.g. more than 25 employees, IIRC.

The OTL main point of contention was the loosening of the anti-trust regulation, and, at least according to Wiki, THAT was what drove up prices, not regulation...

Wiki is not a good source of historical political economy. The economics are horrible and the politics are blatant. The history is lost by the way-side.
 
:confused:Why is this NRA so much tougher than the OTL one? Looking at Wiki (ja, I know, Wiki), it seems that the only price setting was basically in the oil industry (although there does seem to have been provision for regulation to that effect that might have come in later). Similarly for wage controls.

It's not obvious to me from that article that it even applied to small businesses - it would have been crazy for it to do so. Certainly things like the modern ADA mostly only apply to businesses with e.g. more than 25 employees, IIRC.

The OTL main point of contention was the loosening of the anti-trust regulation, and, at least according to Wiki, THAT was what drove up prices, not regulation...

There was more then just regulation on the oil industry. One I can site right now is the rubber industry. There was a regional tire company in Ohio that out performed Michlen and other larger companies. They had managed to do this through selling a better tire at a lower price. When regulations were put on the rubber industry, this tire company was hit hard and just barely survived, having to fire many workers and charge higher prices.
 
OTL, wage and price controls were a tiny part of the first New Deal. (There was the minimum wage, but that came a couple of years later.)

It's really not clear why Congress would pass a stringent package of them, especially over a Presidential veto.


Doug M.
 
I think the TL is going along pretty nicely but could you do something to make updates a little more obvious, have them stand out from normal posts a little more? :eek: Thanks!
 
I think the TL is going along pretty nicely but could you do something to make updates a little more obvious, have them stand out from normal posts a little more? :eek: Thanks!

Thank you. I am redoing this timeline right now. The first post will be the same, but the posts afterwards will be different. I hope you will follow this new and better version.
 
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