A not so United States of America

Hi there

Would there be any plausible scenario(s) / POD(s) that would have led the USA into imploding during the 20s and 30s? Serious domestic strife short of outright insurrection and civil war would be welcome too.

Cheers,
Amartus
 
Maybe if the Great Depression hit a lot harder. And if the president after Hoover acted very badly instead of trying to fix things.
 
Probably not, but a series of programmatic and policy miscalculations by the Roosevelt administration coupled with greater labor unrest and violence against racial/ethnic and religious minorities could give you some of the instability you desire.
 
Just put a couple of retards in charge of the US during the depression and you'll get the result you seek.
Yes, bunch of guys thinking along the lines of modern neocons (unionized labour is evil and must be contained at all costs, including involvement of ramy; welfare and income support programs are evil; socialized medicine is taboo and tax-deductible employer-provided insurance is evil killing free enterprise) at helm of America in 1932-1940 could do wonders.
 
You never can tell. Anarchists, communists and Ku Klux Klansmen were able to recruit many thousands of new members at that time; hard times breed class envy, racism and other beliefs promoting violence and hatred. Hunger is a great motivator, but what may have been even worse to endure was the widespread unemployment. In our culture people derive their sense of self from their occupation, and those without jobs may have felt stripped of their very identity. Middle class Americans forced by necessity to accept "vulgar" means of livelihood often felt humiliation, and frustration at having to compete economically with uneducated people. And at that time, an uncharitable attitude towards the poor was very common. Many prosperous people despised the poor, and the poor were encouraged to hate themselves, and to feel ashamed of their circumstances. Many desperate and struggling people, although they had worked hard to support their families all their lives, came to believe themselves failures, thinking that their poverty was their own fault, a punishment for imagined sins.
At that time the idea that government was supposed to provide "relief" to low-income Americans was still controversial. Many felt that churches and other charities should be the ones to fill that role. And I'm sorry to say, even many ecclesiastics and so-called benefactors of the poor, while they did offer help, also ranted and moralized at the humble people they supposedly served, scolding them for drunkenness, wastefulness and sloth, which they said were the causes of poverty. They spoke of unemployed people as being "shiftless", remaining idle by choice.
George Orwell said it was a funny thing, how people take it for granted that they have a right to harague and pray over you, once your income falls below a certain level.
Anyway, I was just trying to say, when you break people down to the point where they have nothing left of their own to cling to, nothing to rely on, it's easier to brainwash them into believing in simplistic solutions and ideas, merely by indoctrinating them as you restore their destroyed ego and self-image. Millions of desperate people were ready for conversion.
I imagine America could easily have fallen to totalitarianism, which might have caused rebellion and the breakup of the Union. Actually, when I think about it, it's a wonder it didn't happen.
Somehow, President Roosevelt brought the nation back from the brink. He was a fantastic communicator, and was able to persuade the poor to reject rage and hatred. He restored the faith they had once had in democracy and capitalism. And he convinced even the propertied classes that America was in peril, that unchecked greed had ruined everyone else's standard of living, and that unless they accepted his reforms our nation would collapse.
 
Ok. So during the 20s, a series of events causes the USA to implode into chaos and anarchy, if not outright civil war. When the Crash happens in 29 (I think that is when it happened...), the already fragile situation is exacerbated, with dire consequences for the domestic harmony of the States. Internationally, with the USA plummeting out of control, would it be possible for countries in Europe to ignore / write off the debts they owed to the Americans - the loans still due from WWI etc? Or was the financial system even then too interlinked for such a thing to happen? And, if countries were able to give up their debts, would this improve or worsen the Great Depression outside of the US?
 
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