From
1936: A Year that Shook the World, Mary Elizabeth Brown, 2000, Harvard Press:
The 1936 election season was even more intense than its prelude. The promise of what Roosevelt's "new deal" could have been was hot on everyone's lips, and thus, it and its variations proved the key talking point of the election. The Democrats promised to give further strength and power to the NRR, and the establishment of federalized social welfare to a large degree, while the Republicans, cognizant of the necessity of such a thing, promised a similar, but more diluted, version. Huey Long promised all those things and more, with his "Share Our Wealth" party, named the Social Populists by a sarcastic H.L Mencken, who meant the term as an insult, but it was quickly adopted as a favorite among fishermen. Sinclair and Thomas promised something similar to Share Our Wealth, but their socialist sympathies and ideals alienated many more conservative voters, particularly in the Midwest, who turned to the Kingfish for reform in moderation.
The predicted victor of the 1936 presidential election was John Nance Garner and his chosen VP, Al Smith. A massive
Reader's Digest poll agreed with this opinion. [1] However, many were not sure of the thing's veracity. The Republican ticket, of Hamilton Fish III and Frank Knox, was not expected to do well, as was true. The People's General Marxist Party (derogatorily referred to as the "Red" or "Semitic" Party by many, particularly Father Coughlin) was something of a wild card in the polls, for while it had considerable support in California and New York, it had none anywhere else, really. The Social Populists' influence was almost a perceptible thing, and Long drew his power base from the Midwest, the South, and the converted Farmer-Laborites.
This was the state of the elections on November 3rd. When they ended, the country would never be the same.
From the "Lucifer and Beelzebub" speech given by Father Charles Coughlin on November 1st, 1936, encouraging citizens to vote for the Long/Wagner ticket. (Note that Wagner was deeply uncomfortable with being associated with Coughlin) [2]:
My friends, I ask you to think seriously of your decisions this November. President Garner has done nothing, and now you want a New Deal in all its finance. And I say to you that this is just and good, for truth and right is on the side of the reformer here. But we, poor sheep, must not be led astray by the false shepherd. Friends, do you know who this false shepherd is? Yes! It is the insidious Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy, masterminded here and now in the United States of America by Lucifer and Beelzebub, made manifest by the false governor Upton Sinclair and his pathetic crony Norman Thomas...
I have often, in the past, asked for social justice. Fish will not give it to you, and Garner neither! They might pretend to do so, but their actions are a charade. Sinclair will take it from you, with the Internationale playing, while the Soviets march through Washington and New York. The only man running in this election who will give you more and make your life more decent and more godly is Huey Long. He will share our wealth, so that we can live up to the ideals of the Founding Fathers. He will provide education for those deprived of it, and security for our unemployed and veterans. He will make this country a good country for godly, Christian, men and women. He will cut out the fat and the pampered excess of this nation, and it shall rise again, anew, like Lazarus.
I asked you to think on your choice, and that is all I would have you do. When you work, or when you idle, merely think: do I want the Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy running this country? It is your choice, and it is up to you.
Good evening. God bless you. [3]
From a speech given by Upton Sinclair on October 12th, 1936:
We must end poverty. The goal of Mr. Thomas' and I campaigning is as simple as this. This country cannot, as Abraham Lincoln put it, long endure thus...
We must adapt to the desperation of desperate times, for that is all we can do. This Depression was like a natural disaster; it cannot be halted, only healed after its blow...
There are those who claim that Mr. Thomas and myself are going to destroy the great and glorious heritage of Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, and the sadly deceased Mr. Franklin D. Roosevelt. We are not even going to alter it. We merely wish to bend with the wind a bit, but this will by no means be permanent. It is merely a thing that needs be done. The Socialist ideal must work in America, else we are all doomed to the tyranny of the crazed autocrat in common man's clothing, Huey Long. Thank you.
Continued from
1936: A Year that Shook the World:
The election, when it arrived, was a massive upset. While Garner and Smith came in second electorally, they only carried 13 states, with their chief electoral draw coming from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. All told, they accrued 161 electoral votes. Fish, meanwhile, was successful in carrying Pennsylvania, Maine, Vermont, and Arizona, giving him 47 votes. Sinclair and Thomas won California, where Sinclair was governor, New York, and Wisconsin. This gave them a remarkable 84 votes, but this was not enough to trump the ultimate victor: Huey Long. Long, as predicted, easily carried the South, Texas, and the Great Plains. If one looks at a map of Long's electoral victories, it is clear that he was not foisted upon the American people cruelly; they, like Hitler in Germany, voted him in by 253 electoral votes. While not technically an unequivocal victory, as the majority was not technically his, he was proclaimed the victor by Congress with little-to-no discussion. Now, the Kingfish would have to rule.
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Footnotes:
1. IOTL, Landon was predicted to win by a landslide, and he lost, by something more than a landslide.
2. Based on snippets of OTL speeches, but it's mostly original. By the way, ITTL, he stays what we'd call a Rooseveltian, but supports Huey still.
3. OOC: I feel dirty writing from Coughlin's perspectival. I need to take a computer shower.
