America: A Symphony in Four Movements

As a brief introduction: This timeline begins in 1933, with the successful assassination of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by Giuseppe Zanigara. It's an exploration of possible trends in regional American politics and society given the breakdown of central authority during the Great Depression, and will try to avoid being overly dystopic or utopic - the US and the world are, in the long run, different but not necessarily better or worse. Simply by necessity, the timeline will be very US-centric - I may flesh out the rest of the world later, if time permits.


"There has been a real tendency, among pop-historians particularly, to portray Zanigara as a romantic figure: an anarchist who struck at the American government with well-planned intent, a mad flamboyant radical who 'bent the arc of history with his bare hands' in the words of Mussolini. In reality, despite his famous last words ('You bastards are stuck with Cactus Jack now', a clear reference to Gaiteau's 'Arthur is president now!'), he was a much better analogue to Leon Czologz. Zanigara was a broken man sick in mind and body, with no plan beyond violence towards the government - his earlier plan to kill Herbert Hoover, his intentions unchanged by the election, should show that he was no grand schemer.

In addition, it is ludicrous to claim, as so many do, that the American Dissolution was caused by Roosevelt's assassination. The nation had survived presidential assassinations and incompetent presidents many times, and the crisis of the Great Depression was too much for any president, let alone a posthumously lionized limousine liberal, to handle. The crises of the '30s cannot be blamed on any single man, no matter how satisfying such a claim would be to Pan-Americanists..."

- 200 Years of Presidential Assassins, Li Jian and Leonid Ostroff, SUNY Press, 1976.

"It was a heck of a thing, you know. Here we were a couple weeks before Inaguration day, and the President-elect dead. Thank God we had the Twentieth Amendment to go by, less than a month old, or we would have had a real succession crisis on our hands. As it was, everyone agreed that Garner would take Roosevelt's place, even if nobody was all that happy about it."

- Charles Evans Hughes, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (personal recollection)

"My fellow Americans, there are those who say that our system has failed, that the economic situation of today requires a new definition of Americanism. But all we really need is, to quote another man who ascended to leadership in a time of great crisis, a return to normalcy. President Hoover's Reconstruction Finance Corporation is a step in the right direction, and a policy I will continue to advance. And, as promised, I will work for the repeal of Prohibition - after the times we've been through, the whole country needs a drink! (pause for cheers) This is not a time for radical, dangerous experiments. The wise policies of our forefathers will see us through this crisis far better than the untested ideas of fuzzy-minded intellectuals."

- Excerpt from John Nance Garner's Inagural Address, March 4, 1933.
 
I don't plan to have it crumble, per se. More a sort of shattering and reformation in a massively different form. But thanks for the interest, I'll try to make the TL worth reading and updated semi-regularly.
 
The Garner Administration
(Italicized names are differences from Roosevelt's OTL cabinet)

President: John Nance Garner
Vice-President: Al Smith
(Smith was chosen for his anti-Prohibition stance and his ticket-balancing qualities - as a Texan Protestant, Garner hoped having a New York Catholic would help mollify FDR's New York base of support)

Secretary of State:Cordell Hull
Secretary of War: George Henry Dern
Secretary of the Navy: Claude Agustus Swanson
Secretary of the Treasury: Jesse Jones
Secretary of the Interior: Everette Lee deGolyer
Secretary of Commerce: Daniel Calhoun Roper
Secretary of Agriculture: Henry Wallace
Attorney General: Homer S. Cummings
Secretary of Labor: William B. Wilson

Changes were generally made where Garner considered Roosevelt's original pick too radical, though deGolyer was picked for his legendary reputation in the oil business (as "the first scientific oilman") rather than for his politics. Jesse Jones was a good Texas banker who was considered a possible head for the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. William B. Wilson was, in fact, Secretary of Labor under Woodrow Wilson - Garner picked him as a man who had already had to deal with great labor strife, and due to his belief that Frances Perkins was far too lenient towards union demands.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
There wouldn't be a veep--the 25th Amendment wasn't adopted until '67.

Smith was a spent force after the '32 Convention (which even his closest aides admitted was a desperate long-shot). Smith was especially disliked by William Randolph Hearst, who happened to have a LOT of pull with Garner. Nor was Smith gracious in defeat, which didn't earn him any friends.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Wilson is also pushing 71 by '33, so he probably wouldn't be Garner's first pick for Labor. There may also be some dark mutterings about the "Cowboys" and "Cactus-Heads" in Garner's cabinet that will probably get worse as the national situation deteriorates.
 
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There wouldn't be a veep--the 25th Amendment wasn't adopted until '67.

I figured that with a legally unclear situation, Garner would essentially be able to pick a new VP-elect. I didn't know about the Hearst-Smith tension, I may edit that.

As to the complaints about Cactus Jack's Texas-heavy cabinet, that's exactly what's going to happen.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
I figured that with a legally unclear situation, Garner would essentially be able to pick a new VP-elect. I didn't know about the Hearst-Smith tension, I may edit that.
Eh, it's not that legally unclear; there's ample precedent of a VP ascending to the presidency without being able to pick a veep in turn.
As to the complaints about Cactus Jack's Texas-heavy cabinet, that's exactly what's going to happen.
Love it :cool:
 
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