How different would the world today be if Huey Long hadn't, by some strange twist, win the Democratic nomination and the presidential election in '36? How different would the USA today be without Long's Share Our Wealth program?
Long was a decent administrator but he had a hard time keeping an eye on the mismanagement, and the program ultimately failed in the late '40s because of this and other factors (President Truman tried to fix this immediate after his win in '44 but it was too late by then), and the fact that unscrupulous politicos, mostly hardcore conservatives like Strom Thurmond(a real crook if there ever was one. Only James Eastland and Samuel Todd Francis were ever any worse), took advantage of the failures and managed to blow them way out of porportion. Thanks to this, the economy eventually underwent a severe recession, starting at the end of 1949, and basically eliminating post-war prosperity for a time. It took until November 1953 for us to recover, and in the meantime Truman got replaced by that incompetent boob Robert Taft, and his colossal idiot of a VP, Tom Dewey, who got us into Korea and almost caused a conflict between us and Kaganovich's Russia! What a disaster that would have been.
I honestly feel that FDR's New Deal would have worked far better.....truth is, recent studies from the early '90s, have concluded that it would have not only ended the Depression about as quickly, but would have been nearly corruption-proof as originally drawn up, pretty much ensuring that the post war prosperity wouldn't have been interrupted like it was.
OOC: Sorry, but I gotta ignore that, Dathi. No hard feelings I hope?
