AHC/WI: The United States turn into a dictatorship with a PoD during Cold War.

How you can turn the United States into a military junta or a proto-fascist dictatorship (the same style as the dictatorships in South America) with a PoD during the Cold War and without trigger WW3.
 
MacArthur refuses to accept being fired by Truman

I have always felt that if MacArthur has refused to accept being fired by Truman that we would have gone down this road.

The POD is that MacArthur goes on a PR campaign claiming that Truman is soft on communism and that the only thing standing between communism and America is the US military. Congress meet and votes a resolution supporting MacArthur and demanding his reinstatement in Korea. If Truman backs down, then we start down that road.

Stubear1012
 
I have always felt that if MacArthur has refused to accept being fired by Truman that we would have gone down this road.

The POD is that MacArthur goes on a PR campaign claiming that Truman is soft on communism and that the only thing standing between communism and America is the US military. Congress meet and votes a resolution supporting MacArthur and demanding his reinstatement in Korea. If Truman backs down, then we start down that road.

Stubear1012

I'm pretty sure that for all his defiance of civilian authority, MacArthur still respected the Constitution too much to go through with that. Plus, he was 70 in 1950, so I don't think he'd have been up for it in the long haul.
 
Nixon refuses to appoint a replacement VP in 1973, daring the Democrats to impeach him. Carl Albert swallows his objections, and does... only to be involved in a tragic car accident three days after the Senate convicts Nixon.

The Presidency thus defaults to... James Eastland. Eastland is immediately subject to a (failed) assassination attempt, and cracks down...
 
There not be plausible way that there could be dictatorship or hardly even authotarian regime. There would be quickly open rebellion if president tries dictatorship.

Best way even for authotarian regime might be if you get Joseph McCarthy or J. Edgar Hoover as presidents and even they wouldn't last long.
 
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...ah, just read the end of the first post. Maybeeeee something in 1968 spins out of control?
 
Any dictatorship needs credibility and support, at least to begin with, otherwise the coup / revolution won't work because neither the military nor the public will act against the government. For a mature democracy to descend into one, you first have to discredit the institutions of democracy, and hence the concept of it. That can only come from extreme incompetence, corruption or fear. I'm not sure there's any plausible scenario post-WWII where that could be the case.
 
I have always felt that if MacArthur has refused to accept being fired by Truman that we would have gone down this road.

The POD is that MacArthur goes on a PR campaign claiming that Truman is soft on communism and that the only thing standing between communism and America is the US military. Congress meet and votes a resolution supporting MacArthur and demanding his reinstatement in Korea. If Truman backs down, then we start down that road.

Stubear1012

MacArthur then gets arrested by his own troops. The military was subordinate to civil authority in the entire existence of the US. Even the CS military was officially subordinate . You didn't have Johnston or Beauregard try a coup when they were relieved of command and the conditions were far more ripe than for MacArthur.
 
After 9/11 Americans were willing to give up some freedoms and civil liberties for the idea of better security. In the 40s Americans were okay with Japanese citizens being hauled off to internment camps. If attacks worse than 9/11 or Pearl Harbor happened it's not implausible that average US citizens would allow more of their rights to be stripped away.

Maybe in the 50s some large scale terrorist acts are committed by communists. Someone like McCarthy wins the presidency on the platform that there is a large scale communist infiltration going on in America and drastic measures need to be taken to root them out. The President is able to get congress to pass temporary measures giving him vastly expanded powers. Congressmen who oppose him are accused of being communists and evidence is "found" allowing them to be arrested. The President is able to use the scare of communism to remove his opposition from the legislative and judicial branches.
 
Well...

Senator McCarthy is so happy with the attention he is getting with his Senate investigations of Communists that he cuts way back on his drinking. Being more perceptive to what's going on around him, he stays on the side of decency (barely, but enough). :eek:

At the same time, J. Edgar releases the Hoover Report, which has detailed documentation of the activities of Communists and Soviet spies in the upper levels of the Administration. :confused:

Hoover and McCarthy detest each other, but each sees a useful ally in the other. They begin a campaign of "Hit 'Em High, Hit 'Em Low", which begins to tell on the liberal Republicans and Democrats. :(

Robert Welch fires up the John Birch Society a few years earlier than in OTL, and soon has inspired a plethora ("You know what is a 'plethora', Jefe?") of patriotic organizations t the grassroots level all over the USA.

Wm F. Buckley writes, "McCarthy and the Enemies of Freedom" which becomes a best seller, and further shifts the centre of American politics to the Right.:confused:

A half-score of assassinations of political leaders and minor bomb explosions (attributed to Communists) across the country sparks a call for greater Homeland Security, especially for armed guards protecting Congressmen, SCOTUS, and Governors. General Walker is put in charge of the Agency which oversees this. This security slowly turns into "protective custody". :eek:

By 1960, the country is in the grip of fear, fear of Communism, and fear of the National Security Force squads. Civil liberties are suspended "for the duration of the crisis", which has no end in sight. While the formalities are observed, Left and Liberal politicians do not appear on the ballots, and everyone knows the military is in charge, "for the duration." :mad:
 

WILDGEESE

Gone Fishin'
How about if Nixon doesn't jack it in and forces Congress to impeach him.

Then when the US Army go in to cart him out, the US Marines go in to back him up, and thus we have a stand-off.

Could these events lead to the US ending up with a dictatorship, with or without Nixon at the helm?

Might be a bit ASB though!

Regards filers
 
How about if Nixon doesn't jack it in and forces Congress to impeach him.

Then when the US Army go in to cart him out, the US Marines go in to back him up, and thus we have a stand-off.

Could these events lead to the US ending up with a dictatorship, with or without Nixon at the helm?

Might be a bit ASB though!

Regards filers
That wouldn't happen. If the President is impeached the Secret Service escorts them out, and if they decide to refuse we get the hilariously sad scene of an ex-President being dragged kicking and screaming out of the Oval Office. The Army wouldn't get involved, nor would the Navy, the Marines, etc. They are subordinate to civilian authority and anyone who proposed getting involved in a political squabble (particularly on the side of an impeached President) would get removed from command extremely quickly.
 

Sabot Cat

Banned
How you can turn the United States into a military junta or a proto-fascist dictatorship (the same style as the dictatorships in South America) with a PoD during the Cold War and without trigger WW3.

If you can get Nixon's style of politics to continue, you'd have a Russian-style dictatorship on your hands. (*)
 
Nuclear war could do it, at least in some parts of the US. In a desperate bid to survive people in hard hit areas are willing to live under marshal law until the situation "normalizes" then have leaders that are paranoid enough to find reasons to maintain heightened legal and extralegal authority
 
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