AHC: Give USA "Cult of Personality Dictatorship" post-WWI

That's the challenge!

Rules:

  • Try to avoid Communism (that's been done a lot because of the Depression)
  • Try to avoid Nazism (something similar is okay, just not a clone or something actually connected in-TL to it).
  • Has to occur between 1919 and 1939
  • The Dictator can be " benevolent" or a brutal maniac
  • Has to have near-absolute power.
Have fun! :D
 

Rex Mundi

Banned
I don't see any reason why this would happen. It's far easier to keep people from realizing that nothing has changed if you bring in fresh faces every four to eight years.
 

katchen

Banned
Easy. General Smedley Butler agrees with the corporate fascists of the American Liberty League and accepts the role of dictator they offered him in 1934 to force FDR out of office instead of obeying his oath to support the US Constitution and turning whistle-blower.
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot, www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2007/240707fascistcoup.htm, www.dailykos.com/.../-The-Real-Plot-to-Overthrow-FDR-s-American, coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/53-index.html, www.liberalslikechrist.org/about/FDRcoup.html,economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/.../the-plot-agains.html, and www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/.../document_20070723.shtml. This coup attempt was real. BBC did a segment on it in 2007. The Coup was organized by a number of industrialists, including Prescott Bush (George H.W. Bush's father), one of the du Ponts one of the Heinz's, and politicians like Al Smith, FDR's 1932 primary opponent. Their organization, American Liberty League was modeled after Alliance Francaise who attempted a similar coup with a similar m.o. in France about the same time.
General Smedley Butler was supposed to order FDR to appoint a "Secretary for General Affairs", while feigning ill health due to his polio. If Roosevelt refused, the "Bonus Army" of 500,000 camped out in Washington was to overthrow him. A fascist government modeled more after Mussolni's Italy than Hitler's Third Reich (but taling elements from both) was to be installed. :eek::eek::eek:
 
The pre-inauguration attempt to kill FDR in Miami succeeds and John Nance Garner becomes POTUS, leading to an ineffective administration and a worsening of the Depression. Huey Long averts assassination, runs for President and wins in 1936. If anyone would have been amenable to a "cult of personality" type of rule, it would have been Long.
 

Robert

Banned
Woodrow Wilson doesn't have a stroke (or rather does, but instead of debilitating him it makes him even more power mad), and decides in the face of the "Chaos" and "Horror" of The Great War American Democracy must be transformed to survived modern times. He runs for a Third Term, and when it looks like he's going to lose he uses the assassination of Theodore Roosevelt (who was wounded but later dies under "mysterious" circumstances) to declare martial law. He blames everything going wrong on a cult of "Reactionaries" and promises free elections after the Crisis has past. It never does despite years of repression and when he dies in 1925 his Vice President Thomas Marshall carries out the 5 Year Marshall Plan which will "Continue the Hero Wilson's Vision of a Great Society".
 
Easy. General Smedley Butler agrees with the corporate fascists of the American Liberty League and accepts the role of dictator they offered him in 1934 to force FDR out of office instead of obeying his oath to support the US Constitution and turning whistle-blower.
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot, www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2007/240707fascistcoup.htm, www.dailykos.com/.../-The-Real-Plot-to-Overthrow-FDR-s-American, coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/53-index.html, www.liberalslikechrist.org/about/FDRcoup.html,economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/.../the-plot-agains.html, and www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/.../document_20070723.shtml. This coup attempt was real. BBC did a segment on it in 2007. The Coup was organized by a number of industrialists, including Prescott Bush (George H.W. Bush's father), one of the du Ponts one of the Heinz's, and politicians like Al Smith, FDR's 1932 primary opponent. Their organization, American Liberty League was modeled after Alliance Francaise who attempted a similar coup with a similar m.o. in France about the same time.
General Smedley Butler was supposed to order FDR to appoint a "Secretary for General Affairs", while feigning ill health due to his polio. If Roosevelt refused, the "Bonus Army" of 500,000 camped out in Washington was to overthrow him. A fascist government modeled more after Mussolni's Italy than Hitler's Third Reich (but taling elements from both) was to be installed. :eek::eek::eek:

I've read about this plot before, but never knew if it was possible to succeed. Would Butler be able to keep people under control? I'm sure at least a couple states would secede, maybe turning it into something like Spanish Civil War? :eek:

The pre-inauguration attempt to kill FDR in Miami succeeds and John Nance Garner becomes POTUS, leading to an ineffective administration and a worsening of the Depression. Huey Long averts assassination, runs for President and wins in 1936. If anyone would have been amenable to a "cult of personality" type of rule, it would have been Long.

Sounds interesting. Have there been any TLs with a quasi-dictator Long?

Woodrow Wilson doesn't have a stroke (or rather does, but instead of debilitating him it makes him even more power mad), and decides in the face of the "Chaos" and "Horror" of The Great War American Democracy must be transformed to survived modern times. He runs for a Third Term, and when it looks like he's going to lose he uses the assassination of Theodore Roosevelt (who was wounded but later dies under "mysterious" circumstances) to declare martial law. He blames everything going wrong on a cult of "Reactionaries" and promises free elections after the Crisis has past. It never does despite years of repression and when he dies in 1925 his Vice President Thomas Marshall carries out the 5 Year Marshall Plan which will "Continue the Hero Wilson's Vision of a Great Society".

You should write this. :D
 

Robert

Banned
Garner lacked charisma and ambition, plus at 5'1" he would have been our shortest President.
 

Robert

Banned
MacArthur sides with the Bonus Marchers and takes over the Government as a Military Dictatorship in 1932. Maybe if Al Smith was elected in 1928 and handled the situation badly, plus anti-Catholic bigotry this could have happened.
 
Garner lacked charisma and ambition, plus at 5'1" he would have been our shortest President.
James Madison was 4'11", I think. And it's really hard to get a dictatorship in the US, especially after Reconstruction, but maybe socialists rise during the Great Depression, causing the people to elect a very anti-socialistic President who eventually takes full control, sort of like in Italy.
 
That's the challenge!

Rules:

  • Try to avoid Communism (that's been done a lot because of the Depression)
  • Try to avoid Nazism (something similar is okay, just not a clone or something actually connected in-TL to it).
  • Has to occur between 1919 and 1939
  • The Dictator can be " benevolent" or a brutal maniac
  • Has to have near-absolute power.
Have fun! :D

How early the POD?
 
Have the ringleaders of the Business Plot put their trust in somebody who's decidedly more sympathetic to their interests than Smedley Butler (who later went on to write War is a Racket), like, say, MacArthur.
MacArthur sides with the Bonus Marchers and takes over the Government as a Military Dictatorship in 1932.
What - how and why would that happen?

As if the guy who wanted to drop nukes on China would ever side with Reds (unless your PoD involves MacArthur becoming a lefty himself).
 
Roosevelt might have a shot. He was a bit power hungry (broke the two term tradition and tried to stack the Supreme Court), but I don't know how much interest he had in the people worshipping him.
 
Have the ringleaders of the Business Plot put their trust in somebody who's decidedly more sympathetic to their interests than Smedley Butler (who later went on to write War is a Racket), like, say, MacArthur.

I am not a fan of Douglas MacArthur, but I really can't see him getting caught up in what amounts to a coup d'etat against the US government. He was an egomaniac, an ultranationalist, and when it came to his dealings with peaceful protesters: a thug. But he wasn't so far gone that he wouldn't have realized something like the Business Plot was by no means democratic.

The US military swears to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America, and unlike countries where the military does consider itself to be a part of politics, the United States has no precedent whatsoever for a military-lead change of government, especially one done:

-Without an election

-Without widespread popular support (Even with the controversies of his presidency, Franklin D. Roosevelt was still one of the most popular presidents in American history)

-By putting total faith in a political nobody who aside from being a very distinguished war hero wasn't much of a blip on the radar

And even if we ignore all that, assume the Business Plot wasn't just the whimsical fantasy of a group of rich guys who really didn't like FDR, where does it go from there? What happens when the military laughs in the face of people who try to order peaceful protesters arrested for demanding the return to power of their beloved President Roosevelt?

A Business Plot that was ever seriously attempted would in all likelihood end in treason charges for anyone deluded enough to think it would have worked.

Roosevelt might have a shot. He was a bit power hungry (broke the two term tradition and tried to stack the Supreme Court), but I don't know how much interest he had in the people worshipping him.

Roosevelt was less dictatorial and more an ambitious man who was willing to play hard-and-fast with the way things were typically done in order to get what he wanted. I don't really see the makings for an American Hitler in a man who was one of the earliest opponents of Nazism at a time when the vast majority of the American people wanted nothing to do with Europe's problems.
 
The original version is better, namely because the song is actually accurate at this point in time.

Sadly it is unlikely that Jerry Brown will, as dear old Mr. Biafra once said, "soon be president".
Of course, the "Uber Alles" is one of my favorite songs of all time.
Wait how is it more accurate though? Hippie Nazi's are taking over and forcing people to be eco-friendly and gassing those who are "un-cool"?
 
Easy. General Smedley Butler agrees with the corporate fascists of the American Liberty League and accepts the role of dictator they offered him in 1934 to force FDR out of office instead of obeying his oath to support the US Constitution and turning whistle-blower.
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot, www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2007/240707fascistcoup.htm, www.dailykos.com/.../-The-Real-Plot-to-Overthrow-FDR-s-American, coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/53-index.html, www.liberalslikechrist.org/about/FDRcoup.html,economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/.../the-plot-agains.html, and www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/.../document_20070723.shtml. This coup attempt was real. BBC did a segment on it in 2007. The Coup was organized by a number of industrialists, including Prescott Bush (George H.W. Bush's father), one of the du Ponts one of the Heinz's, and politicians like Al Smith, FDR's 1932 primary opponent. Their organization, American Liberty League was modeled after Alliance Francaise who attempted a similar coup with a similar m.o. in France about the same time.
General Smedley Butler was supposed to order FDR to appoint a "Secretary for General Affairs", while feigning ill health due to his polio. If Roosevelt refused, the "Bonus Army" of 500,000 camped out in Washington was to overthrow him. A fascist government modeled more after Mussolni's Italy than Hitler's Third Reich (but taling elements from both) was to be installed. :eek::eek::eek:

I've read up on this plenty of times and there never really was any evidence outside Butler saying "it totally happened guys". Prescott Bush also was more than likely not involved since he was a political liberal and an early supporter of birth control, peace as a pillar of foreign policy, and was apparently a friend of Harry Truman.
 
Of course, the "Uber Alles" is one of my favorite songs of all time.
Wait how is it more accurate though? Hippie Nazi's are taking over and forcing people to be eco-friendly and gassing those who are "un-cool"?

Jerry Brown is actually governor of California right now.

Huey Long would be lucky if he hadn't crumbled to dust by this point.
 
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