Lenroot Vs McAdoo Vs La Follette: Who wins 1924?

In an alternate 1924 election, who'd win the presidency?

  • Irvine Lenroot(Republican)

    Votes: 31 91.2%
  • William G. McAdoo(Democrat)

    Votes: 1 2.9%
  • Robert M. La Follette Sr(Progressive)

    Votes: 2 5.9%

  • Total voters
    34
Then it's fair to say that if the stroke changed anything, it only hardened his position on the issue. The fact is that Wilson saw himself as an agent of God himself and he was on a divinely ordained mission for peace - that kind of hubris never leads to a happy ending in politics.
Yeah, Wilson struck me as having a huge ego and an attitude which was the equivalent of "my way or the highway." He apparently never thought to consider that there were alternative courses of action which didn't involve either his way or the highway. Seriously--Wilson's betrayal of France after the end of World War I was absolutely unacceptable! :(
 
Also, what other presidential decisions were on this list?

Off the top of my head: Vietnam War, Buchanan's refusal to confront the South, Iran-Contra, Watergate, Lewinsky scandal, Jefferson's Embargo Act, and Johnson's decision to side with the white planter class during Reconstruction.
 
Off the top of my head: Vietnam War, Buchanan's refusal to confront the South, Iran-Contra, Watergate, Lewinsky scandal, Jefferson's Embargo Act, and Johnson's decision to side with the white planter class during Reconstruction.
I actually agree that all of these were mistakes. :)
 
So do I. However, if I personally were doing a top 10 list worst mistakes list I would take off Lewinsky and the Embargo Act and replace them with the Iraq War and the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Kansas-Nebraska was certainly a mistake. As for Iraq, I'm not completely sure that it was a mistake; after all, Saddam Hussein was a brutal tyrant as well as a continued pain-in-the-ass to the U.S.
 
after all, Saddam Hussein was a brutal tyrant as well as a continued pain-in-the-ass to the U.S.

I don't want to derail the thread so I'll keep my thoughts on this short. I absolutely agree that Hussein was a sick degenerate of a man, however he'd already been neutralized by Bush Sr. and Clinton. By 2003 removing him from power was simply unnecessary, and it was such a foolish mistake to sacrifice so many American lives just to replace him with the even worse evil that was ISIS. Jay Garner, the general originally in charge of the Iraq occupation, lamented back in 2014 that Iraq was more or less destroyed by the war and the US should never have gone to war there in 2003. I for one agree.

That said, the fact that we are now talking about a completely irrelevant topic goes to show just how forgone President Lenroot's election would be in 1924. There was no realistic way he or the GOP in general could have lost that year. What is most interesting to me is how having a moderately progressive Republican president in power from 1923-1933 would impact the history of that period.
 
I don't want to derail the thread so I'll keep my thoughts on this short. I absolutely agree that Hussein was a sick degenerate of a man, however he'd already been neutralized by Bush Sr. and Clinton.

I wouldn't call Saddam neutralized when there were no-fly zones that constantly needed to be monitored and when the sanctions regime on Iraq was falling apart by 9/11.

By 2003 removing him from power was simply unnecessary, and it was such a foolish mistake to sacrifice so many American lives just to replace him with the even worse evil that was ISIS. Jay Garner, the general originally in charge of the Iraq occupation, lamented back in 2014 that Iraq was more or less destroyed by the war and the US should never have gone to war there in 2003. I for one agree.

In regards to ISIS, what should have been done is that Sunni Arabs should have been given a greater stake in policy-making in Iraq. One way to try doing this would have been for Washington to push for Ayad Allawi to become Iraqi Prime Minister instead of Nouri Al-Maliki, though I don't know if this would have actually been successful. A system of decentralization in Iraq would have also probably helped since it would have allowed Iraqi Sunni Arabs to run their own affairs without much interference from the Iraqi central government.

I don't think that talking about ISIS significantly weakens the case for the Iraq War--at least no more than talking about the Khmer Rouge significantly weakens the case for the previous French withdrawal from Cambodia. Basically, my point here is that Iraqis didn't have to choose between Saddam Hussein and ISIS; rather, they could have picked something else--something much better.

That said, the fact that we are now talking about a completely irrelevant topic goes to show just how forgone President Lenroot's election would be in 1924. There was no realistic way he or the GOP in general could have lost that year. What is most interesting to me is how having a moderately progressive Republican president in power from 1923-1933 would impact the history of that period.

Agreed.
 
Lenroot wins just like Coolidge. "Silent Cal" didn't actually do much to merit a team in his own right, he just so happened to be in office during a time of peace and prosperity. I also assume that most people didn't want to elect a fourth President in three years (Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Davis/LaFollette) just as in 1964. That said, Lenroot's presidency would have more of a progressive bent and he'd most likely run again in 1928 - putting him in office during the Great Depression.
Would the Great Depression be likely to happen with Lenroot in charge?
 
Completely agreed about Japanese-American internment but the U.S. was with Canada was a good thing. It gave the U.S. the opportunity to try acquiring additional living space in Canada and even though the U.S. failed to win this war, at least Americans could say that they tried to capture Canada--which is better than not trying at all and thus not knowing what would have happened.

This is also why I am a big fan of the U.S.'s war with Mexico in the late 1840s. The U.S. really benefited from acquiring a lot of living space in the Southwestern U.S. as well as in other parts of the U.S. (though the cruelty towards Native Americans was absolutely unacceptable).

Yikes. A bit fond of the old Imperialism, then?
 
Yikes. A bit fond of the old Imperialism, then?
I have no problem with conquering sparsely populated territories for living space as long as the indigenous population isn't expelled or killed and is given full rights and full equality in the annexing country. After all, this made America great--though, again, the cruelty towards Native Americans was absolutely unacceptable.

If you're not going to conquer a sparsely populated territory to use as living space, though, then you might as well not conquer this territory at all. The only exception that I would probably make in regards to this would be if a country is unwilling to abolish slavery and thus you need to conquer this country in order to abolish slavery there.
 
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