As has been well documented, the 20's and 30's saw the establishment of numerous dictatorships and nationalistic-type governments throughout the world. Militarist Japan, Fascist Italy, Communist Russia, Nazi Germany, etc. Yet throughout this period, democratic ideas and rulers still managed to survive in some countries, and even make comebacks after WWII. So your challenge is to, with a period of no earlier than 1925, make Britain, France, and the United States (and other democratic countries of the time if you wish) fall to totalitarian-type governments ruled by either one man or a cabal of them.
Challenge: Decline of the West
- Thread starter luakel
- Start date
A scenario of a fascist United States with Charles Lindberg as leader is out here somewhere, I'm just too lazy to look for it right now. It essentially makes him the leader as a result of the Great Depression.
Should All of Europe fall into the path, you would definitely see a bunch of migration patterns emerge quickly. Israel would exist by 1940, and their Jewish population would be at least 3-4 times what it is in OTL. The more liberal elements of European and America society would get the heck outta there, resulting in much bigger populations in Canada and Australia, and probably a lot more of them in Africa and South America as well. This of course would totally change all the history of these places.
Should All of Europe fall into the path, you would definitely see a bunch of migration patterns emerge quickly. Israel would exist by 1940, and their Jewish population would be at least 3-4 times what it is in OTL. The more liberal elements of European and America society would get the heck outta there, resulting in much bigger populations in Canada and Australia, and probably a lot more of them in Africa and South America as well. This of course would totally change all the history of these places.
Well, Australia can be done. A different John Monash (meaning, less patriotic, more authoritarian), probably the only man who could accomplish such a thing, becomes involved with the New Guard, like they wanted him to do. The New Guard become more avowedly political, perhaps linking up with the All for Australia movement and the Nationalists, and win in 1931 in a landslide. From there, we get a semi-authoritarian, quasi-military government.
Of course, even that's pretty implausible, but that's as good as it gets for Australia. You could use my Advance Australia idea, in that Australia breaks away after an appeasement government takes over in Britain after they sign an armistice with the Nazis, but pro-British elements in society bring down the Australian government and set up an authoritarian, reactionary government. In fact, the whole Advance Australia scenario meets your criteria pretty well by the end.
Of course, even that's pretty implausible, but that's as good as it gets for Australia. You could use my Advance Australia idea, in that Australia breaks away after an appeasement government takes over in Britain after they sign an armistice with the Nazis, but pro-British elements in society bring down the Australian government and set up an authoritarian, reactionary government. In fact, the whole Advance Australia scenario meets your criteria pretty well by the end.
Well, Britain's response to the Great Depression was coalition all-party rule under first MacDonald and then Baldwin. I don't pretend to be an expert in this because even in school it bored me silly, but if Mosely's New Party actually achieved enough to be a kind of SDP of the early 1930s, got say a couple of dozen seats, then he could enter this coalition. IIRC he was ill during the campaign and his party suffered annihilation because it lacked his energy and drive. Instead of any BUP we could see an eventual New Party victory in the late 1930s, replacing the Conservatives perhaps as the viable alternative to government. There would still be elections but you would have elections for proportional membership of an all-party coalition. With Mosely eventually emerging as PM, perhaps after a lame duck Tory figurehead like Halifax, then by the 1940s we could have a New Party-led administration with a New Party PM and able to manipulate the elective system to return mainly a New Party House etc
Grey Wolf
Grey Wolf
Some (mostly critics of the New Deal) have said the sane about the U.S. from 1933 onward.
Yeah, but FDR had nothing on Abraham Lincoln at the height of the Civil War.
Wendell
I think that's the key point. It depends on what viewpoint people are taking. All sorts of extreme comments were made about Roosevelt by the right and business interests in the US simply because they opposed his restrictions on their power. Doesn't make it realistic but makes their reaction understandable. [A bit like the statements the Thatcherists were making in the late 70's and 80's in Britain. Didn't stop them making far more interventionist and autocratic actions when they came to power but that was in favour of their interests so that didn't count to them].
Steve
The U.S. was not at war until FDR's third term. Lincoln inherited a nation already sinking into war. Somehow they are just not the same.