Could FDR and Hoover have reversed roles in history

WI Hughes won in 1916

Conservative Democrats dominate the 1920s.

Economic events as in otl.

I am guessing that VP FDR will not get polio.

Could Republicans have chosen a progressive (sort of NEW Deal) response to the Depression?

Would Herbert Hoover have embraced that. As I understand it he took some measures but too little too late.

What happens to prohibition which Hoover backed?

Any help for African Americans in the South?
 
This is an old favorite theme of mine:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/OKUUhqirySQ/-vGpfxBCcLgJ
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/AmxfBn6LQLc/QpiTsslCKa8J

On the whole, though, I think that if the Republicans were looking at an easy victory in 1932, they would be more likely to nominate a party "regular" than Hoover, who had been a Bull Mooser in 1912. (True, this didn't stop them from nominating him in 1928 in OTL. But he had had eight years as a widely-praised Secretary of Commerce in Republican administrations, which would not be the case in this ATL. And even in OTL there was some grumbling by Old Guard Republicans who tried to persuade Coolidge to run again...)
 
Bear in mind Hoover had been introducing government programs before FDR took over, and FDR was even critical of them at times (I understand FDR to have been a hardcore pragmatist rather than a statist liberal.) So yes, Hoover being remembered as the New Deal guy is definitely possible.
 
Maybe have Hoover not have responsibility for the 1927 Mississippi Flood. Put that issue on someone else's hands, preferably a Democrat. Al Smith or another Democrat wins in 1928. Hoover wins in 1932, and with his technocratic policies he favoured helps arrange a recovery from the Depression like FDR. Now two stains on Hoover's legacy are gone, and Hoover is more free to pursue his own ideas.

He probably could've done more good for the African American community if he hadn't been so involved in the issues brought up by the 1927 flood which were a mixture of corrupt, out of touch, and not really what the community needed, to say the least.
 

raharris1973

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Democratic Administrations in the 1920s would be "conservative" relative to OTL's New Deal - Great Society liberals, but I do not know how conservative they would be in the political spectrum of the 1920s. Relying on southern support, they will be "conservative" on race, but economic policy it is anybody's guess whether they are economically to the right or left of the Harding and Coolidge Administrations.

...and regardless of all that, whether domestically conservative or liberal, the Democrats might be more anti-imperialist than Republicans, perhaps resulting in a schedule being set for Filipino independence during the 1920s.
 
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