AHC/WI: President Douglas MacArthur

Just give a moment for CalBear to stop screaming...

OK then. As it says in the title, here's a challenge and what if in regards to MacArthur becoming President of the USA. Potentially have him manage the PR of his feud with Truman much better and get a shot at the office in the 50's, can't recall if he was able to go for it in the '52 election, but could lead to some interesting changes if it happens that early.

So, if MacArthur can get the office of President, would he be a Republican or try and usurp Truman right out? What would his domestic agenda be? Foreign wise, would he actually try and push the Soviets to breaking point?

What're your thoughts?
 
I thi
Just give a moment for CalBear to stop screaming...

OK then. As it says in the title, here's a challenge and what if in regards to MacArthur becoming President of the USA. Potentially have him manage the PR of his feud with Truman much better and get a shot at the office in the 50's, can't recall if he was able to go for it in the '52 election, but could lead to some interesting changes if it happens that early.

So, if MacArthur can get the office of President, would he be a Republican or try and usurp Truman right out? What would his domestic agenda be? Foreign wise, would he actually try and push the Soviets to breaking point?

What're your thoughts?
Just give a moment for CalBear to stop screaming...

OK then. As it says in the title, here's a challenge and what if in regards to MacArthur becoming President of the USA. Potentially have him manage the PR of his feud with Truman much better and get a shot at the office in the 50's, can't recall if he was able to go for it in the '52 election, but could lead to some interesting changes if it happens that early.

So, if MacArthur can get the office of President, would he be a Republican or try and usurp Truman right out? What would his domestic agenda be? Foreign wise, would he actually try and push the Soviets to breaking point?

What're your thoughts?

I think this has the potential to be the least popular thread in the loom.
 
In fairness to MacArthur, he did an excellent
job in the late 40's reconstructing Japan. He
also sustained fewer causalities in his Pacific
campaigns than the US army suffered in the
Battle of the Bulge. This @ least hints that
Mac must have been doing SOMETHING right.
 
So, shot myself in the foot, huh?
Not completely there is an underground resistance he thinks he was a very good General. Crap I guess it's not secret anymore. The best advice I can give you is don't mention ponies in any form.
 
In fairness to MacArthur, he did an excellent
job in the late 40's reconstructing Japan. He
also sustained fewer causalities in his Pacific
campaigns than the US army suffered in the
Battle of the Bulge. This @ least hints that
Mac must have been doing SOMETHING right.

There were almost as many German troops at the Battle of the Bulge as there were Japanese in the Philippines Campaign, they were way better armed, and they were able to catch the WAllies by surprise, something the Japanese could hardly do on the defensive. Doesn't seem like much of an achievement to sustain fewer casualties in the Pacific. As for Japan, that only happened after Mac had done four or five things that should have gotten him cashiered, and that were worse and more harmful than the thing that did get him the boot.
 
Bonus Army
WPO-5
Bataan
His treatment of Wainwright, Fertig, Eichelburger, Blamey, the Australians and the New Zealanders
Not firing Willoughby
the sad shape of the pre-Korean war 8th Army and its disastrous performance
 
To actually answer the question, MacArthur's biggest electoral weakness was that he didn't really understand how primaries operated, and was a non-presence by the time of the Conventions because he almost exclusively relied on half-baked grassroots clubs and right-in campaigns.

If you give MacArthur an exceptional campaign manager, then he might be a force to be reckoned with by the time of the 19XX Republican Convention. If there's some big military disaster, MacArthur could run in 1944 against Roosevelt (losing Midway stacked with a failed Operation Torch and D-Day perhaps).

If Eisenhower runs as a Democrat in 1948, then MacArthur might be set up as the Republican candidate to counter his popularity (throw surviving Dixiecrat Patton into the ring for added fun).

If Taft dies prematurely and Eisenhower doesn't throw his hat in the ring, then MacArthur also has a chance in 1952.
 
There were almost as many German troops at the Battle of the Bulge as there were Japanese in the Philippines Campaign, they were way better armed, and they were able to catch the WAllies by surprise, something the Japanese could hardly do on the defensive. Doesn't seem like much of an achievement to sustain fewer casualties in the Pacific. As for Japan, that only happened after Mac had done four or five things that should have gotten him cashiered, and that were worse and more harmful than the thing that did get him the boot.

But MacArthur was operating in a much
bigger area(I think all of Western Europe could be sunk into the area of the Pacific
between Hawaii & Japan). He also had to
mount more than one campaign. It's true
the Japanese could not- were not- be sur-
prised, but prying troops loose from their
positions is no easy task(see Iowa Jima &
Okinawa- two battles where Mac did not
command- or for that matter our own Marines' superb stand @ Guadalcanal).

Now I'm certainly NOT saying, TRH, that
MacArthur was faultless. Letting himself get
caught with his pants down in the Philippines as he did IOTL in 1941- knowing Pearl Harbor had happened!- is a mistake of such
awesome proportions one still stands aghast.
He richly deserved to be sacked for his in-
subordinate conduct during the Korean War.
But I'm trying to be fair here, & give Mac
credit where credit is due.

As for MacArthur managing things better re
Truman, knowing the personalities & views
the two of them had IOTL, I think it's just
about ASB that things would have played out
differently.
 
I don't personally think he had the managerial capacity of Ike, who got experience in international politics and organizational leadership in Europe in WW2, while MacArthur spent much of WW2 conducting fairly parochial and remote campaigns with smaller groups of troops against smaller and scattered groups of enemies.

I also don't think he understood the realities of the American political system. He was very much an Old Right figure who probably had not made his peace with the New Deal, let alone the Bretton Woods institutions and America's new place in the world. In Japan, he acted (successfully, it must be acknowledged) as more of an old fashion imperial viceroy, not a transnational guarantor of the postwar order. The Taftites might have supported him, but most of the GOP would not have, and the Democrats, liberal and dixiecrat, would have opposed him and not worked with him.

He would not be an effective campaigner, but even if somehow he did win, he probably would not be a successful executive for what the Cold War required; his domestic agenda would not get off the ground. Shrinking the New Deal would have been a nonstarter. His personal ambivalence towards federal authority would conflict with his personally surprisingly progressive views on race, alienating everyone at once. I am not sure if he would have agreed with the modernization of the defense department and the growing clout of its network of power, and that too may have caused issues.
 
Good thing for MacArthur that nobody taught anyone in the 32nd how to shoot. :openedeyewink:

Seeing as ho the 32nd had more time in combat than any other US infantry division during the war I don't think that was an issue. The 32nd had a number of "firsts" in the US Army. First division shipped overseas in a single convoy. First US division to undertake offensive opperations in the Pacific. First division to have an entire unit deployed via air. They may also of had more amphib landings than anyone else. They were still engaged in combat in the Phillippines after the Japanese surrender in August. They then went on occupation duty in Japan. Most of them, the ones still alive didn't get home until '46. Long after units with far less combat. If any US unit got shafted I think they had a pretty good claim.
There's a story about one of the 32nds non coms recovering in hospital after Buna. There were some Marines in the ward who had been on Guadacanal. They had been telling tales with each other. The Red Arrow man kept quiet. When he was getting released from the hospital the Marines asked him where the fruit salad was from. All the non com said was Buna. The Marines quit telling tales after that. The trek of one of the division's regiments over the Owen Stanley's is one of those feats that should be better known.
 
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