AHC: American "managed democracy"

Unless you can somehow make governors appointed, rather than elected (Which won't happen), then at best you could have domination on the Federal level but still see "regions of dissent"

Or you can:

A. Alter the balance between the federal government and the states, which has happened before and will happen again, such that the Feds can manage whatever's really necessary to provide national direction and the states are limited to more menial tasks

or

B. Use election fraud and intimidation to ensure that the same Party controls most state governments. It's not like an entire region of the country has run that way for its entire history, though, so I guess we can forget that.
 
Or you can:

A. Alter the balance between the federal government and the states, which has happened before and will happen again, such that the Feds can manage whatever's really necessary to provide national direction and the states are limited to more menial tasks

or

B. Use election fraud and intimidation to ensure that the same Party controls most state governments. It's not like an entire region of the country has run that way for its entire history, though, so I guess we can forget that.

A. Possible... though you'd be surprised how much power the implementation of "menial tasks" can give you, especially in those areas where Congress is vague or local conditions need to be taken into account for efficent, effective implementation. Washington can only micro-manage so much

B. Except both parties have political machines... and government corruption has a real tendency in America to tick the voting public off. There's also the fact that different heavily populated regions of the country have often had clashing interests (For example, that other region of the country just north of the region you mentioned), and free enterprise which will naturally resent any government attempts to form oligarchies like Russia's state owned companies. It was possible to build "managed democracy" in Russia because the country had been essentially reduced to ashes following the collapse of the USSR and the mass liquidation of essentially all the nation's capital: such a scenario, while possible, is VERY unlikely to occur in the USA without producing a situation that's so mind-bendingly bad that its unlikely the nation would even still be together in a recognizable form.
 
B. Except both parties have political machines... and government corruption has a real tendency in America to tick the voting public off.

Machines can be destroyed, especially under the guise of anti-corruption efforts. Anyways, if you look closer, government corruption tends to be forgiven quite easily by American voters. Just look at the Tea Pot Dome scandal, the biggest scandal in American history pre-Watergate, and it was only a minor inconvenience for continued Republican control of government. Watergate itself was a temporary speed bump in Republican dominance, and Iran-Contra wasn't even an inconvenience. That's the wonderful thing about cynicism - it makes gullible saps out of your public. An authoritarian regime would want its people to think it's hopelessly corrupt - so long as they also think that all government is hopelessly corrupt, as Americans tend to, they won't lift a finger to change anything.

There's also the fact that different heavily populated regions of the country have often had clashing interests (For example, that other region of the country just north of the region you mentioned),

And those could be managed exactly like America has done so OTL, through a combination of bribery with pork, dividing the residents of each state against themselves, and the memory of the Civil War impeding actual secessionism. Only here, a whole new universe of coercion is also available, so the menu of options has only gotten bigger.

and free enterprise which will naturally resent any government attempts to form oligarchies like Russia's state owned companies.

You assume they won't, in fact, be the main beneficiaries of such a regime. Or that they couldn't be divided and ruled just like Russia's OTL companies.

It was possible to build "managed democracy" in Russia because the country had been essentially reduced to ashes following the collapse of the USSR and the mass liquidation of essentially all the nation's capital: such a scenario, while possible, is VERY unlikely to occur in the USA without producing a situation that's so mind-bendingly bad that its unlikely the nation would even still be together in a recognizable form.

And in America, we got to the same place for about two and a half years IOTL through a combination of war measures, xenophobia, extralegal government enforcers with zero transparency, and the inherently paternalistic mindset of the progressive movement, which wanted all along to put power in the hands of technocratic managerial types. You're so fixated on the Putin lens that you only see the distinctions in the American factors that count against replicating that specific oligarchy, while ignoring the differences that would work in favor of a racist, red-baiting Palmerfeldia.
 
Idk man trying to pack the Supreme Court and incarcerating an entire ethnic group in concentration camps seems pretty not democratic to me.

Roosevelt proposed changes to the Supreme Court to make it more responsive to democratic influences.

As to the internments - they were not his idea. They were ginned up by West Coast racists riding a wave of popular hysteria.
 
While the federal and very decentralisated structure of the United States make the imposition of an authoritarian regime difficult, some states might fell into authoritarianism in the modern times, especiallt before incorporation: without counting the slave states nor the Utahn theodemocracy, some stats in the Solid South had restrictive laws, even discounting Jim Crow: electoral laws specifically made to further ensure the dominance of the Democratic party, a heavily misappointed lower house and authoritarian laws on speech and association, as can testify this description of bills in the Mississippi legislature on 1964.

Huey Long managed to make most of the Louisiana civil service subservient to him, making them pay him tithes, and used his power to fight against opponents.
 
With a 1917 POD under either Democratic or Republican rule.
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Naturally that isn't meant to be taken seriously or answers your question. Now as others have said, there isn't any real good way of bringing this about on the Federal level as voting controls as actually decided and implemented at the State level, and at that level there were indeed "Managed Democracies" of a sort, prominently in the American South where the Democratic Party rarely if ever faced much competition until the 60's. Also neither the Federal nor State governments can really interfere in the affairs of the American Press, least not to the extent the Russians are able, without running afoul of constitutional law; the mass media is always going to be overwhelmingly private and protected from significant controls or censorship, which would put any Putinist equivalent at a disadvantage given they would not longer have near total control of the headlines that make it to the voters.

Not saying it isn't totally impossible, it could probably be achieved under the right circumstances, but those circumstances would have to be very particular and aren't easy to bring about.
 
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