American Nazi: Who Could It Be?

Not the most likely individual, but I'd like to give a shout-out to Howard Scott, leader of Technocracy, Inc.

The Technocrats are a homegrown American ideology, best described as fascists with a hardon for engineers instead of soldiers. Scott's overt political platform included such gems as elimination of democracy and civil liberties, a planned economy that makes Stalinist Russia look free, annexation of Canada, Mexico, Central America, and the Carribbean, and genocide of Latinos and the Quebecois. A lovely individual, all told. Oh, and he was also a raging conspiracy theorist who thought the Vatican was behind EVERYTHING.

Now, historically, Scott's movement peaked in the early '30s with a speech in New York that he flubbed rather badly. Let's say our PoD is that he doesn't flub, and picks up a few wealthy backers, as well as a frontman with some more charisma and political skill. Let's also say that FDR is assassinated, and his successor lacks his political skill, with the country drifting further and further into political dysfunction and economic collapse as we enter the late '30s, to the point that the collapse of conventional democracy appears inevitable. Maybe there's even a failed Communist uprising, or it looks like a radical third party might actually win the 1940 presidential election. Scott can position himself as a revolution the existing elites (think they) can control. Technocracy can offer a place to a wealthy businessman or military officer as a "manager" or "operations engineer" that Communism can't.

Likely? No, not very. But possible? I think so.
 
So, current TL I have worked out for this:

1933: Zangara assassinates Roosevelt
1933-1934: Garner is president, a much more conservative New Deal, a weaker economic recovery, a less popular government
1934: Resurgence of right-wing opposition due to Garner's unpopularity
1935-1936: Gridlock, unpopularity for both the Democrats and Republicans
1936: A radical, like a surviving Huey Long or Floyd Olson, gets elected president
1937: The Radical President has stretched the Constitution too far and alienated the right to much. A real-life Business Plot is enacted. They ask General George Van Horn Moseley to "restore law and order and save the nation from a communist/Jewish conspiracy". Moseley obliges, and uses the Third United States Army to coup the government
1937-19??: Moseley declares emergency powers and suspends the constitution, until he can purge the remnants of the "Judeo-Bolshevik scourge" from American society...
 
William Dudley Pelley. He had positions not too dissimilar from the Nazis, but also put a lot of emphasis on religion, with his stance being staunchly Protestant.
Pelley was too insane, he thought Jesus gave him the magic ability to levitate and see through walls.

Not the most likely individual, but I'd like to give a shout-out to Howard Scott, leader of Technocracy, Inc.

The Technocrats are a homegrown American ideology, best described as fascists with a hardon for engineers instead of soldiers. Scott's overt political platform included such gems as elimination of democracy and civil liberties, a planned economy that makes Stalinist Russia look free, annexation of Canada, Mexico, Central America, and the Carribbean, and genocide of Latinos and the Quebecois. A lovely individual, all told. Oh, and he was also a raging conspiracy theorist who thought the Vatican was behind EVERYTHING.

Now, historically, Scott's movement peaked in the early '30s with a speech in New York that he flubbed rather badly. Let's say our PoD is that he doesn't flub, and picks up a few wealthy backers, as well as a frontman with some more charisma and political skill. Let's also say that FDR is assassinated, and his successor lacks his political skill, with the country drifting further and further into political dysfunction and economic collapse as we enter the late '30s, to the point that the collapse of conventional democracy appears inevitable. Maybe there's even a failed Communist uprising, or it looks like a radical third party might actually win the 1940 presidential election. Scott can position himself as a revolution the existing elites (think they) can control. Technocracy can offer a place to a wealthy businessman or military officer as a "manager" or "operations engineer" that Communism can't.

Likely? No, not very. But possible? I think so.
The cherry on top is that Scott also misused an Eastern Religious Symbol for his movement, just like Hitler:

FUTURE_MY_LOVE_Technocracy_1.JPG


Of course, the main problem is that the Technocrats are super elitist with no hope of mastering the populist appeal which brought the Nazis into power.
 
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