Every Man a King: A History of the Long Presidency and Beyond

Why do you believe the Republicans do so poorly? Is Long the liberal candidate and Garner the conservative candidate, leaving no room for the Republicans in the election after being blamed for the Recession?

Thank you for your clarification. I'm enjoying the read!
 
Why do you believe the Republicans do so poorly? Is Long the liberal candidate and Garner the conservative candidate, leaving no room for the Republicans in the election after being blamed for the Depression?

Thank you for your clarification. I'm enjoying the read!

I think that's the reason. A Garner presidency would be totally and utterly disastrous. I believe it would make Hoover look like a better president.

I think the Republicans should have done better because Hoover was probably a better president than Garner.
 
fjihr is exactly right on this front. In addition, the third and fourth parties make the margin even greater. By the way, please note the fact that the Republican ticket of Fish and Knox got almost 6 times as many votes as in OTL.
 
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From The Rise and Fall of the Social Populists (1933-1964), Eichiro Azuma, 1996, Pennsylvania Press:

On February 5th, 1937, Huey Pierce Long of Louisiana was sworn in as the 33rd President of the United States. In his inaugural address, Long promised the implementation of his policies on a national scale.

films-huey-long-details.jpg


From Huey Long's first inaugural address [1]:

Today, I stand as President of the United States, on hallowed ground, where 30 great men before me have stood and been sworn in as well. Some of these great men were our founding fathers; Washington, Adams, Jefferson. Now, 1937 marks what is nearly the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Constitutional Convention which made us a nation.

At that Convention our forefathers found the way out of the chaos which followed the Revolutionary War; they created a strong government with powers of united action sufficient then and now to solve problems utterly beyond individual or local solution. A century and a half ago they established the Federal Government in order to promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to the American people...

I intend to uphold these messages, but I will not be afraid to adapt them for what our country needs to do to survive in the days and months and years to come. This depression has been something awful, and I mean to do something about it. The American people chose me, a practical nobody, to serve this country, and I aim to...

They, shockingly, voted in a new party (and may I remind you that the two party system has been entrenched since the Civil War) because they wanted, no, they needed change. And again, I say that I will give it to you. I will share the great bounty that America has so rudely hidden from the masses with the very same! I will share our wealth! God bless America!

[shouts of "Kingfish! Kingfish!" ring out]

Now, that's really not necessary. But it does prove my point. I now have God and the American people on my side, and that's enough to change the world.

From a letter sent by Howard P. Lovecraft (later Vice President after Wagner) to an unnamed intimate:

I don't quite know what to make of Long. To be true, I agree with the ideals behind a number of his policies, SOW [Share Our Wealth] in particular, but the extremity of some of his views I challenge. Wagner, to me, seems as a sort of balloon that Long rides: he can take him to the stratosphere, but it is Long who literally pulls the strings. Besides, he was not born in this country, so what good is he, as a sort of elevated kraut? [This was a rumor suppressed most brutally by the S-P regime, especially during the election season.]

Regardless, Long needs a contrasting element in his cabinet. Wagner certainly is not it.

The Cabinet of Huey Pierce Long [2]:

Vice President: Robert F. Wagner (SP-NY)
Secretary of State: William E. Borah (R-ID)
Secretary of the Treasury: James Couzens (R-MI)
Secretary of War: Smedley D. Butler* (D-PA)
Secretary of the Navy: James Forrestal (D-NJ)
Secretary of the Interior: Lytle Brown (R-TN)
Secretary of Commerce: Jesse H. Jones (D-TX)
Attorney General: Frank Murphy (D-MI)
Secretary of Labor: Edward Heating (D-CO)
Secretary of Agriculture: Ernest Lundeen (SP-MN)
Secretary of Information and Broadcasting: Charles Coughlin (SP-MI)

(This last was a new position, created specifically for Coughlin.)

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Footnotes:
1. This is based in part on Roosevelt's OTL address.
2. Based on (with changes) who Long actually would have picked, according to his bizarre 1935 book My First Days in Office, in which he vetted HERBERT HOOVER as his Secretary of Commerce.
 
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Those are some strange Cabinet picks.

This is going to be interesting. The US going to be hit by a tide of morally gray policies.

Also, I think Coughlin would be "Secretary of Information".
 
Those are some strange Cabinet picks.

This is going to be interesting. The US going to be hit by a tide of morally gray policies.

Also, I think Coughlin would be "Secretary of Information".

What did you expect with the Kingfish in the White House? I think Secretary of Information is better.
 
Uh, HP Lovecraft is vice president. I'm interested to know how an obscure pulp fiction writer with a lot of friends made the rather large jump to Vice-President of the United States.
 
Uh, HP Lovecraft is vice president. I'm interested to know how an obscure pulp fiction writer with a lot of friends made the rather large jump to Vice-President of the United States.

Wait and see. (He becomes more and more politically invested, and, with more years of life, he runs for mayor of Providence, then as a Maine Congressman, then as VP, as a devout Social Populist.)

Also, I think it's hilarious.
 
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