Don't Change Horses Midstream

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Chapter 1: The 1944 United States Presidential Election
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    • Aaaaasima

    The choice of Wendell Willkie, who, only four years prior was running against Roosevelt as a Republican, as Roosevelt’s running mate shocked the American political world. However, it soon became clear what Roosevelt was trying to do. 80 years ago, president Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, ran for re-election during the civil war, and his running mate was Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat, and Lincoln forged a “National Unity” ticket. In 1944 US troops were fighting in France and the Pacific, and as such it seemed necessary to Roosevelt to forge such a ticket again. Willkie was more liberal than most of his Republican allies which supported him in 1940, and as such he was the perfect Republican for the job. Roosevelt had hoped to make a “Liberal Party”, a coalition of Liberal Democrats and Republicans, following the end of the war. Some Democrats objected to Willkie’s nomination, but they stopped their opposition once Roosevelt declared that he would refuse to be renominated if Willkie was not nominated as vice president, pulling off the same stunt he did in 1940 when people were objecting to Henry Wallace as vice president.

    In the meantime, Roosevelt’s (and the Democratic Party in general) increasing liberal stance on civil rights (such as opposing a segregated primary in Texas) led to two segregationist campaigns being formed: The Texas Regulars campaign of Texan Governor Dan Moody (without a running mate, as the constitution dictates that a person can’t win their state’s electoral votes if their running mate is of the same state, though Texas electors voted for random segregationist politicians elsewhere in the south as Moody’s running mate) and the Dixiecrat (portmanteau of “Dixie” and “Democrat”) campaign of Harry Byrd. Byrd, the Democratic senator from Virginia, had previously run in the Democratic Convention against President Roosevelt with the support of segregationist candidates, disappointed with Roosevelt’s increasingly liberal slant on civil rights. Byrd lost, only getting 119 delegates out of 1,176 delegates, but he managed to rack up enough support so that people came to him asking to run for president as a protest vote against Roosevelt. Byrd eventually gave in, and chose Mississippi governor Hugh White as his running mate.

    Roosevelt led in nearly all the polls, segregationist candidates aside. He won the support of the mainstream Democratic party and Republicans were beginning to support him as well, as they liked that Willkie was Roosevelt’s running mate and were turned off by Dewey’s aggressive rhetoric. Not only that, but successes in Europe and in the Pacific also helped Roosevelt.

    After a heart attack in October which could had killed him, Willkie consulted with his personal doctors and he resolved to take better care of his health

    When Roosevelt won on election day, and when the Democrats increased their majorities nobody was surprised. What was surprising, however, was Dewey’s surprise victory in Tennessee. By 3000 votes, Dewey was able to carry the Volunteer state, mostly out of vote splitting between Roosevelt and Byrd. It was considered the biggest surprise of the election.

    1944libbox.png

    Franklin D. Roosevelt/Wendell Willkie (National Union)-429 Electoral votes; 26,708,831 Popular votes (55.67%)
    Thomas E. Dewey/John Bricker (Republican)-51 Electoral votes; 19,512,272 Popular votes (40.67%)
    Harry Byrd/Hugh L. White (Dixiecrat)-28 Electoral votes; 1,069,889 Popular votes (2.23%)
    Dan Moody/various (Texas Regulars)-23 Electoral votes; 485,439 Popular votes (1.01%)

    Down Ballot, the Democrats had managed to win a lot of Republican seats, much to the chagrin of the Grand Old Party. Roosevelt’s gamble to win over Republicans with Willkie worked. The biggest piece of the pie was Robert Taft, noted conservative senator from Ohio, losing his seat by 3%. In the house, the Democrats won around forty more seats. Roosevelt’s plans for his unprecedented fourth term are this: He would win the war, try to lay the groundwork of the Liberal party then resign following the creation of a “United Nations” organization, which was supposed to be a League of Nations type organization, but with a sturdier structure so as to not to repeat the mistakes of the League of Nations.

    However, it appears that Roosevelt never lived to resign or even see the UN take shape, as he died on March 30th, and is being replaced with Wendell Willkie. Time will tell how President Willkie steer America through the war and the post-war era.
     
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    all hail the us liberal party
     
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    UCB79

    Keep this up- it's a great idea! This is not @
    all implausible- IOTL FDR in 1944 did make
    overtures to Wilke to return to the Demo-
    crats(but he did so after he had been re-
    nominated & Truman nominated & in any
    case Wilke soon died).Furthermore, FDR personally liked, even admired, Wilke. I've never wondered though what might have happened if the idea of running with Wilke
    had popped into FDR's head earlier(say after Wilke had been eliminated from the G.O.P. race by Dewey in the spring of 1944- only after that does this become practicable). So I VERY much want to see how you run with this! My
    one reservation regards FDR resigning- I very much doubt that once he became Pres-
    ident he would have ever- even in his 4th
    term- just given the job up, but hey, prove
    me wrong!
     
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    Chapter 2: The Willkie Administration
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    • Aaaaasima

    By the time Wendell Willkie was made president the war had been coming to a close. Allied forces had liberated most of Italy, France and the low countries, and they were already crossing the Rhine. The Soviet Union had begun to enter Berlin by April, and on April 29th Hitler shot himself. Hitler’s successor was German Chief Propagandist Joseph Goebbels as Chancellor and as for President Admiral Karl Donitz. Goebbels killed himself a day later, and he was replaced by the Minister of Foreign affairs Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk. News of the loss of Berlin had spread across Europe and the world quickly, and as such by May 6th 90% of German troops had surrendered and the other 10% had never heard the news at all. However, those 10% began to surrender as the days went by, and by May 10th only four German soldiers were still fighting (August Heinrich surrendered in 1950, Michael Kissling in 1964, Gerhard Basinger in 1967 and Kurt Gottesman in 1968).

    With Germany finished off by May only the Pacific Front had to be concluded. The allies had made great strides in defeating Japan by May. However, it became increasingly obvious that as the Japanese were retreating from the Pacific the Allies would have to strike the Home Islands. The question is: How? Invading was an option, but it would be costly and would drag the war on and on, but the option was never off the table. It was clear that Japan had to surrender unconditionally, and that the allies would never accept anything less. Their capital, Tokyo, had already been firebombed, so some Americans were wondering why Japan didn’t just surrender right there.

    A project, conducted by American, British and Canadian scientists in Tennessee had been going on since 1942. The project’s purpose was to make a nuclear weapon. On July 29th, 1945, the research and developed had came into fruition. The United States had tested their first nuclear weapon in a desert in New Mexico. Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Los Alamos laboratory which helped a lot in the development of the nuclear weapon said in an interview in 1965 that the first words the came into his mind were words from the Hindu holy scripture the Bhagavad Gita: “I have become death, destroyer of world's”. Afterwards, the US gave a stern warning that Japan must surrender or face “total and complete destruction”. Japan didn’t. On August 7th the US dropped a bomb on Niigata. Three days later on the 10th the US dropped a bomb on Yokohama. These cities were not chosen at random, rather, they were chosen based on their usefulness to the Japanese military and if the destruction of those cities could cripple the Japanese. Other cities, like Hiroshima, Kokura and Nagasaki were also considered. The nuclear explosions are still a source of controversy to this day.

    The nuclear explosions shook up the Japanese government, and a week later they surrendered unconditionally. On September 2nd Japan formally signed the treaty of unconditional surrender on the USS Missouri. The war was over.

    Willkie now was forced to deal with the post-war world. Eastern Europe had gone red, the Chinese civil war had resumed, Western Europe is in ruins and Greece erupted into civil war. Wendell Willkie had decided to take a stand against Communism, though not too much so as to not disrupt the world order. Willkie also sent massive aid packages to Europe and Japan, known as the “Marshall Plan” named after the architect of the plan, General George Marshall. The aid packages boosted his popularity at home and America’s image abroad.

    Domestically, Willkie went ahead with Roosevelt’s idea of a “Liberal Party”. On March 7th, 1946, Willkie made a speech which would be credited for the formation of the Liberal Party. Numerous Democrats and Republicans defected, and when all was said and done Liberals had become the strongest party in the Senate with only a one seat majority, but the defections seemed to have given the GOP the House of Representatives by a plurality. However, the Democrats still had a lot of loyalists in the north. Not only that, but a combination of strikes, the fall of Greece, an economic downturn and general political instability following the declaration of the Liberal Party led to a Liberal defeat in the 1946 midterms, with the GOP gaining the senate and the Liberals being tied with the Democrats in terms of house seats while the GOP gets a plurality in the House of Representatives.

    Willkie felt stranded. With the GOP allying with conservative Democrats to defeat liberal acts, Willkie was left with barely any allies. Willkie attributed the Liberal’s defeat in congress to the fall of Greece, and as such pursued a more aggressive foreign policy, and he appointed war hero and architect of the vastly popular Marshall Plan George Marshall as Secretary of State.

    However, it was not to last. On May 8th, Jewish terror group Lehi sent letter bombs to multiple officials in the US and the UK, and managed to kill two: British Member of Parliament and one of the leaders of the Conservative Party, Anthony Eden, and President Wendell Willkie.

    For the first time in the history of the United States the person taking control of the reins of the presidency following the death of the predecessor was not the vice president, and according to the 1886 Succession act if a president is removed from office in any way be it assasination, death, resignation or impeachment, and if there is no vice president the Secretary of State becomes president. Some were calling for a snap election, and indeed there were plans by the government to do so until the got scrapped not too long after the plans were made.

    With an unstable congress, bad economy and multiple countries aligning themselves with the Soviet Union, now President Marshall is faced with a lot of challenges in the two years he will serve in office (Marshall declared he would not run for re-election), and it remains to be seen whether or not he manages to to weather the storm, or fail miserably.
     
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    Oppo

    Quaid-e-Azam said:
    However, it was not to last. On May 8th, Jewish terror group Lehi sent letter bombs to multiple officials in the US and the UK, and managed to kill two: British Member of Parliament and one of the leaders of the Conservative Party, Anthony Eden, and President Wendell Willkie.
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    i hate you (just kidding)

    the marshall administration should be fun
     
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