DBWI: No third term for Wilson?

OOC: No worries on my part either. What's happened, happened.

IC: Wilson? I agree, he shouldn't have run for a third term. We might have had an end to the Dixie "Jim Crow" apartheid laws in the 1950s or 60s instead of the 1990s if he hadn't. But he wasn't nearly as bad as McCarthy (worst President EVER, even worse than that imbecile Bush) even with his third term. I'd put him in Taft's league.

IC: At least when they were repealed, they were gone for good. So many people were just too pissed off at the segregationists for them to stick around much longer.
I think the turning point was when the Supreme Court overturned the remaining anti-interracial marriage laws in November 1970. After the edict went into full effect in April 1971 the ultra-cons threw a massive collective tantrum by rioting that lasted until the end of July; over 400 people, a good number of them white citizens who just happened to be stuck in the midst of it all, were killed.
I believe the last states to have Jim Crow laws were Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama, when they were repealed by gov't order in June 1990.(Florida and Louisiana did so in 1976, followed by Texas and Oklahoma in 1980, and Tennessee in 1982. Can't quite remember all the others at this moment though.)



OOC: Edit: changed at EdM's request. =)


Could work. I doubt this timeline would see the NAZI's but that is not to say the ATL will be good. I'm thinking a Trotsky'esque Russia which has triumphed in Poland and has allied itself with Hungary might be a good option.

The 1920's depression is easy enough to do (as one pretty much happened). The US in OTL overextended itself with the wartime economy and fell to earth once the European powers started pursuing more protectionist policies in order to rebuild their shattered finances. If governmental controls on consumption linger just a bit longer than necessary you might have your ideal situation.

OOC: Possibly not the Nazis themselves, though I do think that some ultra-right party would have come into power, possibly incorporating some of OTL's Nazis.
 
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IC: At least when they were repealed, they were gone for good. So many people were just too pissed off at the segregationists for them to stick around much longer.
I think the turning point was when the Supreme Court overturned the remaining anti-interracial marriage laws in November 1970. After the edict went into full effect in April 1971 the ultra-cons threw a massive collective tantrum by rioting that lasted until the end of July; over 400 people, a good number of them white citizens who just happened to be stuck in the midst of it all, were killed.
I believe the last states to have Jim Crow laws were Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama, when they were repealed by gov't order in June 1990.(Florida and Louisiana did so in 1956, followed by Texas and Oklahoma in 1960, and Tennessee in 1962. Can't quite remember all the others at this moment though.)

OOC: Does this sound reasonably plausible to you guys?
OOC: Make it 1976, 1980 and 1982 and you got a deal. Remember in OTL Wilson was a big fan of D W Griffith's "Birth of a Nation," which demonized African-Americans and GLORIFIED the fascist Klan. So a third term Wilson would have a delaying tactic on progress on civil rights vis a vis racial relations.

IC: Considering Louisiana's historic racial intermingling and Francophone traditions of tolerance, and the influx of Jews into Florida, I'm not surprised they were in the lead for abolishing apartheid in this country.
 
Here's what I'm thinking for Presidential elections:

1920: Theodore Roosevelt (R) v. William McAdoo (D) (Republican Victory)

This election is rather difficult because aside from Wilson, the Democratic Party doesn't have any candidate to rally behind. As the son-in-law of the Sitting President and former Secretary of Treasury, McAdoo is probably the strongest candidate. Unfortunately, there is some animosity between him, Wilson, and some of the Democratic elites. I don't really see him pulling out a victory, especially with Roosevelt on the ticket.

For Vice Presidents, I would expect Hiram Johnson as Roosevelt's and James Cox for McAdoo.

1924: Elihu Root (R) v. Al Smith (D) (Republican Victory)

Assuming Roosevelt's health declines as per OTL, he probably doesn't run again in 1924 and hands the reins off to another fellow Progressive. Given what happened last time he tried that, the process is going to be a lot more stringent. I'm guessing he would choose someone from his former Cabinet. Elihu Root appears to be the safest choice. Again, the Democratic field is rather shaky. The Convention will probably stretch on forever. If I had to take a guess though, I would say Al Smith. Due to Anti-Catholic prejudice, he probably loses.

No idea who the Vice Presidential nominees would be.

1928: Robert M. LaFollette (R) v. Calvin Coolidge (C) v. Herbert Hoover (D) (Democratic Victory)

Not much to say about this. Given his popularity, Hoover is a shoo-in, both in the Democratic Primaries and the general election as per OTL. The Republicans probably nominate someone else from the Progressive faction. In that case, the Conservatives are probably going to try to split and form their own party instead of the Progressives in 1928.
 
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One of my favorite people to use for timelines of the 20th century is Richard Nixon. If he hadn't been director of the FBI (and career FBI up to and including that), would he have had a shot at electoral politics?

As is, his being FBI director until ??? (pleeez don't make me google it) is pretty impactful as is, but, yeah.
 
Politically things would have been enormously different had Wilson not run. During the course of his third term, the democratic party fractured along northern and southern lines. Although the progressives would ultimately siphon off much of the alienated northern voters, in terms of electoral politics it made it next to impossible for a Democrat to become president. I think cannier politicians might have been able to heal it, but Al Smith's failed primary runs were in many ways the last hurrah of the Democratic party's urban and catholic constituency.
 
OOC: Make it 1976, 1980 and 1982 and you got a deal. Remember in OTL Wilson was a big fan of D W Griffith's "Birth of a Nation," which demonized African-Americans and GLORIFIED the fascist Klan. So a third term Wilson would have a delaying tactic on progress on civil rights vis a vis racial relations.

IC: Considering Louisiana's historic racial intermingling and Francophone traditions of tolerance, and the influx of Jews into Florida, I'm not surprised they were in the lead for abolishing apartheid in this country.

Okay, Ed, that sounds alright I guess. And yeah, there were quite a few Jewish people who did get involved in Civil Rights IOTL(mostly of the liberal stripe, of course).
 
One thing is for certain though, without Wilson Teddy Roosevelt will run again in 1920 and probably win. The only reason he didn't campaign OTL is because he didn't want to face off against Wilson again after 1912. That'll be interesting.

I almost choked when I read that. The prospect of running against Wilson-whom he cordially despised-with the full, united backing of the GOP would have had TR chomping at the bit. A divided Republican party was the primary reason by a wide margin why Wilson was elected in the first place in 1912. In a head-to-head rematch, TR would have sent Wilson packing quite efficiently. No, it was only TR's premature demise in April 1920 (as a result of the aftereffects of tropical diseases contracted on any number of his expeditions) that kept that rematch from happening.

Wilson's third term, gained at the expense of Illinois governor Frank Lowden and achieved by a popular vote margin of approximately 0.08%, might well go down in history as one of the worst decisions made by American voters. Consider:
  • The raids sanctioned by the Justice Department under Palmer curtailed civil liberties, especially speech, badly until the famous Mencken case of 1923. Recall that H. L. Mencken authored an editorial in the Baltimore Sun that took Wilson and Palmer to task for being irresponsible in their charges; Mencken was indicted for sedition. In his trial, Mencken's defense attorney Clarence Darrow read verbatim from the Constitution at several points, reminding the jury that the rights set forth were not to be abridged. Mencken's acquittal started to reverse the curtailment, but it took a change of administration to really accomplish that.
  • Race relations took a huge step backward. Wilson was not overtly racist, but took no pains to exclude those who were from his staff. Moreover, it was well known that he had no sympathies for blacks whatsoever, and sanctioned moves that kept them relegated as second- or third-class citizens. In the face of a rash of KKK-led lynchings in OK, TX, AR, and MS in 1923 following race riots in Tulsa, OK, Wilson obliquely praised the Klan and blamed the riot victims, to the outrage of most of the nation.
  • Wilson spent inordinate sums in trying to enforce the letter of Prohibition: a clearly impossible task less than a year after taking effect. Recall that Lowden, in the 1920 campaign, called prohibition "unworkable", "impractical", "unenforceable", positing that it would be exceedingly expensive to gain anything like a modicum of compliance--and he proved right. Wilson clung stubbornly to a dry philosophy, squandering millions on arrests of otherwise-regular citizens. And his moralizing from the White House quickly moved from tolerated to grating to comical.
And those are only a couple of major items I could think of. Thank goodness PA governor William Sproul and MA governor Calvin Coolidge formed a solid GOP ticket in 1924, and sent putative Wilson successor McAdoo packing. Still, it took more than two decades of the GOP in the White House (Sproul/Coolidge; Dawes; Willkie; Eisenhower) to undo Wilsonian damage.
 
Wilson spent inordinate sums in trying to enforce the letter of Prohibition: a clearly impossible task less than a year after taking effect. Recall that Lowden, in the 1920 campaign, called prohibition "unworkable", "impractical", "unenforceable", positing that it would be exceedingly expensive to gain anything like a modicum of compliance--and he proved right. Wilson clung stubbornly to a dry philosophy, squandering millions on arrests of otherwise-regular citizens. And his moralizing from the White House quickly moved from tolerated to grating to comical.

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. Contrary to popular belief Wilson was "wet" and Lowden was "dry", and his enforcement of prohibition post WWI was minimal. Pontification aside, to Wilson the evils had less to do with beer or wine than that of the saloon. Although he ratified the amendment its biggest backers were republicans. Lowden's congressional allies were still very much in the the pocket of the Anti-Saloon league, and they felt prohibition was "unenforceable" because the Fed's lacked the coercive means to do so. Federal enforcement was minimal to non-existent until after the 1924 republican sweep.
 
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OOC: my memory of popularities of Wilson and the key members of the Senate in 1919 is a bit dim (haven't re-read Heckscher's biography lately) but if memory serves, wasn't Wilson's popularity fading somewhat anyhow, given constant sermonizing on the League? Seems to me he would have faced an uphill fight for re-election in 1920.
 
OOC: my memory of popularities of Wilson and the key members of the Senate in 1919 is a bit dim (haven't re-read Heckscher's biography lately) but if memory serves, wasn't Wilson's popularity fading somewhat anyhow, given constant sermonizing on the League? Seems to me he would have faced an uphill fight for re-election in 1920.

OOC: Yes Wilson was experiencing a drastic drop in popularity, and the GOP ate the democrat's lunch as a result of it. But Lowden was nevertheless a major backer of prohibition. The problem facing this DBWI is getting the board to come up with enough successes for him to win a third term, while overcoming their complete distaste for the man and his presidency.
 
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