DBWI: The Business Coup had asked a different officer to lead the government?

DISSIDENT

Banned
During the Great Depression some decades ago, President Franklin Roosevelt was deposed for his socialistic economic policies by wealthy industrialists and conservative elements in the Army and organized Great War veterans. The Business leaders approached Douglas Macarthur who had broken up the Bonus Marchers to serve as leader in Roosevelts place and offered him the weapons and men they had gathered so long as he swore to uphold American principles of free enterprise and respect their right to run their companies without undue federal interference. Macarthur lead the march on Washington DC and the White House, Roosevelt was injured and died several weeks later as he had been apparently suffering polio and not disclosed this and the injuries caused fatal complications.

The civil war between Macarthur, the Patriotic section of the Army and Navy that supported him and his business backers and Communist, anarchist, and those merely seeking a return to pre-coup representative democracy lasted six years, with Red Minnesota holding out until 1943 and several of the Appalachian Miners Councils until 1947. Macarthur, a noted military tactician, was able to bring the nation under his effective control and eventually fear of being shot as a communist traitor lead to the average American holding his tongue and going about his business.

Macarthur kept the nation out of the Second Great War, though many of his business supporters sold arms to the Axis powers. The war ended in 1948 when the Nazis and Soviets agreed to a cease fire along a line in the Ukraine negotiated between the recently deceased Hitler's young successor Heydrich and an aging Stalin. Britain had bowed out in 1940 and was suffering unrest at home and in its colonies.

Douglas Macarthur died in 1964, still in power, though the businessmen and veterans who had put him there had for the most part long since died themselves. He appointed Curtis Lemay his successor. Lemay faced increasing dissatisfaction with a government viewed as an illegitimate and incompetent military dictatorship founded to oppose a man now dead and deal with an emergency long since passed. Liberal and left wing and African American underground leaders such as William Ayers, Stokely Carmichael, Mark Rudd, Malcolm Little, Abbie Hoffman, Tim Leary and Charles Milles Maddox would bring about the Revolution against the corrupt and complacent corporate backed military dictatorship headed by the politically isolated Lemay.

At the time of the Business Coup, other officers were considered as possible leaders, many of whom, probably would have outright opposed it, as some officers tended to the left, or felt that the American military was being used to benefit large corporations in other nations, in effect racketeering. What if a more liberal minded officer had been approached to head the coup and he had sounded the alarm? Perhaps the oppression of General Macarthur and the bloodshed of the Revolution from 1966 onward could have been avoided.
 
Oh great, time for another topic where the Brits and Chinese show up to tell us how American socialism is doomed to fail and will destroy us, just like how "National Socialism" and Soviet Communism did. Which ignores, of course, our nicely booming economy, and their rather impressive recession right now. :rolleyes:

As for the POD itself, I can't really see them going for anyone else. MacArthur already had the repressive credentials from the destruction of the Bonus Army, and the suitable bedrock of a love of militarism to ensure loyalty to the cause. Imagine if they had, in their regressive delusions, picked Smedley Butler? Ah, if only.
 
Well in the long run the coup just ended up radicalizing the population and led to the successful revolution that followed, and man when the revolution came pay back was a #$$%. Ten years of blood shed later the average american was out for blood, and out to make sure that a coup would never again destroy our republic.

In the short run they won in the long run they just sowed the seeds of their own destruction.
 

DISSIDENT

Banned
National Socialism and Soviet communism fell under entirely different circumstances to that which the Underground and the Black Panther military squads have established after the People's Revolution in which socialism, racial equality and an end to military imperialism in Latin America, Southeast Asia and other places and corporate and military control of the nationwere brought about.

National Socialism failed because Heydrich and his SS thugs were too aggressive and provoked a conflict they could not win.

Soviet Communism lost its credibility after Stalin let Heydrich take half the country out of exhaustion and then Heydrich tried to go another round a decade later with Beria and the nuclear exchange between them ended both governments.

The Revolution established true People's Socialism instead of the reactionary military-industrial oppression of the fascist dictator Macarthur and his bootlick stand in Lemay. Yes, some of the initial leaders went too far such as Maddox and his executions of military officers and attempted assasination of Field Marshal Cinque, or Leary's dosing civillian water supplies with mind altering substances to sabotage cooperation with Lemay's hatchetman North's death squads. But Field Marshal Cinque organized the Revolution, got things together, ended the military-corporate dictatorship and even converted some of the corporate executives' children to the Cause.

Now, I have to go to the Communal Grocery to get the food ration the Panthers are dispensing since I spent my monthly Workers Credits on new sheets. Long live Chairman Bill Ayers.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Gah, Socialism is an evil ideology that promotes Atheism and sexual perversions. God will not allow the America people to continue this sin. All men were not created equal. That is the biggest lie in World History. USA will fail, down with socialism!!
 
Id like to note that the amount of state intervention into the economy varies by state. A good rule of thumb is that the closer you get to the middle of the country the more radical it gets. Really other then a legally enshrined right to unionize you can operate a business more or less unfettered by the state when your on the coasts.

Also the Chairman may be a bit of a hardliner but he has a history of respecting states rights.
 
Do you really have to give a great big history lesson instead of just asking your question?

OOC: This is getting to be a really annoying trend with DBWI's; the entire thing that makes DBWIs so much fun is leaving the background relatively open so other posters can fill it in as the thread progresses. Infodumping in the OP breaks character, and makes it less fun for everyone else.
 
OOC: I think its funny TheCrow once suggested this and he was bombarded with MacArthur would never do it's. Strange how it seems to be accepted now.
 

DISSIDENT

Banned
OOC: He was their back up choice after Butler. Macarthur seems like the kind of guy where if you stroked his ego right and said it was to defeat communism, he would go for it and become a dictator.
 
OOC: He was their back up choice after Butler. Macarthur seems like the kind of guy where if you stroked his ego right and said it was to defeat communism, he would go for it and become a dictator.

OOC: I completely agree. I just thought its funny that no one had agreed with him. He even ended up getting banned cause of some things said in it. My intention is not to disencourage. I love this idea I encourage you to continue. Just wanted to state the actual irony of this...

Edit: I'm talking about TheCrow here.
 
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Rush Tarquin

Gone Fishin'
OOC: He was their back up choice after Butler. Macarthur seems like the kind of guy where if you stroked his ego right and said it was to defeat communism, he would go for it and become a dictator.

OOC: I wouldn't say young, ambitious Macarthur was incapable of leading a coup, but I think the situation would have to be pretty dire for him to think he could get away with it. The Business Plotters were pretty crackers.
 
OOC: I wouldn't say young, ambitious Macarthur was incapable of leading a coup, but I think the situation would have to be pretty dire for him to think he could get away with it. The Business Plotters were pretty crackers.

OOC: The other issue with MacArthur leading a business plot coup is that, post-Bonus Army, he's pretty at the bottom of his popularity with the troops and the public.

That said, I agree that if his ego were stroked enough he could probably be talked into a coup; just consider everything that happened between him and Truman in Korea.
 
How big was the US Army in 1937?

Was it really big enough to control the entire country? If not, the coupsters are just left sitting in Washington with a lot of distinguished hostages.
 
How big was the US Army in 1937?

Was it really big enough to control the entire country? If not, the coupsters are just left sitting in Washington with a lot of distinguished hostages.

Don't have an exact figure to hand, but the army's size was minuscule at the time; defense spending was still pretty much at rock bottom.

A lot would probably depend on how MacArthur's coup comes across to the National Guard and State Defense Forces (which are still a viable force in the 1930's, instead of a largely unimportant footnote). Between the Guard and the SDF, the various state governors could probably assemble a large enough force to oust MacArthur, especially if (as seems likely) any regular army units are less than enthusiastic about joining the man responsible for the attack on the Bonus Army.
 

Rush Tarquin

Gone Fishin'
Don't have an exact figure to hand, but the army's size was minuscule at the time; defense spending was still pretty much at rock bottom.

A lot would probably depend on how MacArthur's coup comes across to the National Guard and State Defense Forces (which are still a viable force in the 1930's, instead of a largely unimportant footnote). Between the Guard and the SDF, the various state governors could probably assemble a large enough force to oust MacArthur, especially if (as seems likely) any regular army units are less than enthusiastic about joining the man responsible for the attack on the Bonus Army.

OOC (though why even continue the pretence at this point): I think a civil war timeline with Macarthur on one side and Smedley Butler on the other would be a pretty interesting read. It could indeed be a boon for leftist ideology in the US, especially if those who would be the most likely to put down a revolution - ie. the soldiers - were in fact the first to become true believers.
 

DISSIDENT

Banned
Basically what I had in mind as the background for this was Macarthur does pull it off and some elements of the army and navy side with him, as do more conservative state governors. There is a civil war between those state governors and whatever armed forces they possess which are as pointed out, not inconsiderable, and those elements of society which would naturally oppose a military dictatorship backed by old money (miners in West Virginia forming a series of short lived communist states, Minnesota going communist and basically becoming an independent state for about a decade and resisting MacArthur attempts to retake it).

He sort of pulls a Franco and concentrates on mopping up Pinkos as he calls them in America and stays out of WW2 though his business backers lean towards the Axis in personal opinions and sales policies. Attempts at an alliance are met by Macarthur making unreasonable demands for rewards or bribes as he wants to consolidate power at home and maybe beat up on Latin America a bit, rather than make himself look bad by picking on someone his own size.

WW2 ends in a stalemate with the Nazis getting a bit exhausted and Hitler dying a somewhat mysterious death not long after removing Hermann Goering and appointing Reinhardt Heydrich his successor. The Japanese get some nice oil rich "trade concessions" in the Dutch East Indies. The Soviets and Germany are both not too happy at their compromise and secretly ready themselves to go another round later, a round which will have a lot of fallout.

Macarthur basically presides over a stifled and oppressed US that looks like a bizarre cross between a prolonged 1930s with the army breaking strikes, Francoist Spain, with a little bit of It Can't Happen Here thrown in. People don't like it, but to complain is to have the Army shoot you for supporting the communist Soviet spy traitors.

By the time he dies, the discontent is getting a bit louder, and he has trouble making excuses for the dictatorship once the Nazis and Soviets finish each other off in the late 1950s.

He appoints Curtis Lemay as his successor and Lemay is a bit out of his depth and lacks any sort of popular support leading to a left wing revolt by the OTL leaders of the Weather Underground and Black Panther Party who have grown up under an actual dictatorship and more severe repression, especially the Black Panther Party. A bloody revolution erupts, the guy who kidnapped Patty Hearst and lead the Symbionese Liberation Army ends up in charge until he goes a bit overboard, then the guy who lead the Weather Underground gets put in as a more reasonable leader.
 

DISSIDENT

Banned
BTW, I am thinking of making an actual timeline about this, as I somehow gather it would be better received in that format. Any suggestions or encouragement are welcome.
 
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