Henry Ford for President

Henry Ford (1863-1947) was one of the most famous cars magnate but few know (well, out of historical-uchronical contest, at least) Ford had a strong political involvement. He run as Democratic candidate for Senate in Michigan on a Wilsonian Peace platform and lost. He tried to build a political-economical proposal with Thomas Edison, supporting monetary reform. In 1924 he was considered as a possible compromise candidate for the deadlocked Democratic convention. Lately he moved toward right, showing a strong anti-semitism (but he hated Jews since 1920s at least), pushing against unions and having some appreciations for Nazis and Lindbergh. However he payed blacks as whites, a gesture that was called progressive in his era. His main political vision could maybe be called a sort of Technocracy based on a no-Union, good-businessmen, peace-and-trade and no-Jew idea.
So what Henry Ford emerges as compromise candidate in 1924?
Could he beat the GOP in general election, maybe against a surging Harding?
And how his Presidency could be?
 
Nah ford was so busy with his cars to care, he would be one use more soft power that anything.
 
If one did happen, a Henry Ford presidency would be much more likely to happen in the 1930's - a Ford-Lindbergh ticket in either 1932 or 1936 (probably the former) might do it. People would probably look to Ford as someone who could "solve" the Great Depression (however unfounded that idea may be), especially while both the Nazis and the Technocracy movement were in their prime.

An "America First" Ford candidacy in 1940 might also be able to win, although by then the Depression is over and Ford would not have much of a chance.
 
Jacopo had a timeline in 2009 concerning this topic. It was called "Making History" and I can highly recommend it.
 
If one did happen, a Henry Ford presidency would be much more likely to happen in the 1930's - a Ford-Lindbergh ticket in either 1932 or 1936 (probably the former) might do it.

No. On the contrary, the 1930's was precisely the decade when Ford lost the acclaim he had formerly had as the symbol of prosperity and high wages for workers. (BTW, Lindbergh, born in 1902, wasn't even constitutionally eligible to run in either 1932 or 1936.)

"By the beginning of the 1930's Henry Ford began to lose the admiration of an American public that had once deified him." https://books.google.com/books?id=qI6dAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA410
 
I stated several months ago what I considered the most plausible Ford-for-president scenario:

"Maybe in a Hughes-wins-in-1916 scenario, Ford as a Democrat defeats Newberry for the US Senate from Michigan in 1918. (In OTL, he lost narrowly and of course challenged the result for years: https://www.weeklystandard.com/eric...-henry-ford-was-the-worlds-biggest-sore-loser) 1920 looks like a Democratic year, and with a wide-open Democratic convention, anything is possible..." https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ords-antisemitism-still-matters-today.461532/
 
Last edited:
(BTW, Lindbergh, born in 1902, wasn't even constitutionally eligible to run in either 1932 or 1936.)
If the 20th Amendment did not come in 1933 in this time line, Lindbergh, born February 4, 1902, would have been eligible to take office on March 4, 1937 if elected in 1936.
 
I agree with @David T: Ford in the 1930s was out of time and increasingly viewed with suspect for his Nazis sympathies. And probably nothing but a bullet could stop FDR to lead White House.
So my idea was more 1924 or 1920s in general: who could serve as his running mate? What about his policies?
Thanks to @HelloThere for his suggestion but I'm unable to find TL you mentioned. Could you show me where I can find that?
 
If the 20th Amendment did not come in 1933 in this time line, Lindbergh, born February 4, 1902, would have been eligible to take office on March 4, 1937 if elected in 1936.

Still, he wouldn't be eligible on election day and he'd be highly vulnerable to charges that he's too young. Look what happened to Tom Dewey in 1940 - that year he went from the Republican frontrunner to defeat at the hands of Willkie because he was seen as too young and inexperienced, despite his heroism as a New York prosecutor.
 
Youth will always be a point of challenge in term of leadership experience. But in an ATL, we can be dealing with issues where radical and new ideas are needed. There would be a challenge about a candidate not yet 35, but according to the constitution, he is not in the line of succession until March 4, 1937 and therefore eligible. In other words, if the current president passed away on March 1, the VP and others in the succession line would be president until March 4.
 
I agree with @David T: Ford in the 1930s was out of time and increasingly viewed with suspect for his Nazis sympathies. And probably nothing but a bullet could stop FDR to lead White House.
So my idea was more 1924 or 1920s in general: who could serve as his running mate? What about his policies?
Thanks to @HelloThere for his suggestion but I'm unable to find TL you mentioned. Could you show me where I can find that?

Here it is:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/making-history.140753/
 
Many thanks, I read this Ford TL but unfortunately this seems misunderstanding Ford's positions: it describes him as a nationalist, isolationist, almost fascist, eugenetic dictator, when he was a Wilsonian internationalist pacifist and was one of the few big businessman paying blacks the same then whites (and a good high wage for 1920s). I can't see him as a Bilbo-esque aspirant tyrant who inexplicably is almost universally loved by the American people (he won reelection in a 45-3 landslide!). I can't believe that Congress, Republican and Democratic parties, the Supreme Court and the other Costitutional institutions of United States allows him to pass his authoritarian acts. I can't believe he run as Republican after in 1918 was a Dem candidate (and a strong one, as a firm supporter of Woodrow Wilson) and I can't believe that the Republican Party simply capitulate when Ford formed his personal Nazi Party headed by Bilbo. And when Pershing decides to be the American Caudillo it's ridiculous.
Henry Ford was an opponent of capital punishment and appealed against Sacco and Vanzetti conviction, so I don't see him giving shoots randomly against blacks and "subversives".
He was an ardent anti-semite but this is an other thing.
 
Top