I'd like to take five and codify a few things that may get this thread--which has incredible possibilities--on track. As I see it, our basis of design ought to be:
- Wilson is re-elected in 1916 as in OTL (probably an exceedingly close election as in OTL also).
- Implicit in all of this is the assumption of no Zimmermann telegram, nor any other casus belli that would lead to a declaration in 1917, 1918, or whenever.
- The war in Europe apparently grinds to an unspecified conclusion without American involvement. That's an open issue we need to agree upon: might I suggest an exhausting quasi-stalemate that pretty much leaves things back where they were in 1914, at least as far as Germany, the UK, France, and the Habsburg Empire are concerned? Russia, to be sure, will likely undergo a revolution or two one way or the other, so status quo ante bellum doesn't apply.
- Wilson does not suffer a stroke in 1919 as a partial function of the grind of stumping for the League of Nations--mostly because there is no League of Nations.
- The no-third-term ethic is in full force since there's no reason for Wilson to seek a third term.
- Much as it pains me to write this, one must assume TR dies in January 1919 as in OTL. His expedition to South America left his health in less than optimal condition; I don't see how one could reasonably argue that he didn't make that trip to Brazil.
- One may reasonably argue that there is no red scare as there was in OTL. Thus, attorney general Mitchell Palmer gets no boost for the presidency.
- The shift in the State Department from Bryan to Lansing occurs as in OTL.
- Charles Evans Hughes' daughter--and again I hate to say this--dies as she did in OTL, thereby recusing Hughes from the 1920 nomination.
I think that codifies everything. Shall we proceed from there?
In any event, I'm not sure I see a swing toward a "back to normalcy" state of mind since the US never departed from it in the first place. Hence, I don't think the GOP would get Harding in 1920. (It won't get Leonard Wood, either.) My guess is that a moderate-to-progressive type like WI senator Irvine Lenroot would probably get the nod for the top spot, with perhaps PA governor William Sproul as a running mate.
On the Dems' side, I'm not sure why James Cox wouldn't get the nod as he did in OTL. But Franklin Roosevelt for vice-president? I have my doubts on that. As a peacetime secretary of the navy, he would be obscure indeed. Rather, I submit that Cox would reach out to a rare man indeed--a true southern progressive of the day--Oscar Underwood of AL.
Not a landslide either way in the election, but my sense is that after the moralizing and preaching of the Wilson years, the nation would be ready for a change. And don't forget that Wilson only won the first time because of a split in Republican ranks, and the second time because of a personal falling-out between Hughes and Johnson. Thus, on 4 March 1921, the 29th president of the United States is Irvine Luther Lenroot of Wisconsin.
By the way, don't look for William Sproul to get the GOP nomination in '28: he would have died in office, similar to James Sherman sixteen years earlier. I'm guessing the '28 GOP ticket might well include two members of Lenroot's cabinet: Secretary of the Interior Herbert Hoover and Secretary of the Treasury Charles Dawes.
A few other points to ponder:
- With no involvement in a war, and no thrust toward a sacrificial mood, don't expect the Volstead Act to get out of committee--and thus no 18th Amendment, no Prohibition, no rise of the mob, and the '20s would roar a lot less.
- What happens to popular music? In OTL, the Storyville district of New Orleans was shut down (I believe by the provost marshal), and the jazz musicians worked their way north to Memphis and to Chicago. With no war, and Storyville still up and running, might jazz be still a largely New Orleans phenomenon, but beginning to spread because of the new technology, radio?
- Same sort of thing for literature: would F. Scott Fitzgerald have gotten some sort of inspiration in this timeline, or not? And at least one good thing: we'd be spared volumes of tedious Hemingway prose (I got him forced down my throat in high school and have cordially hated him since.)
- Does the automotive industry take off as it did in OTL, or is the growth somewhat slower?
- Radio was on the verge of going commercial in the Teens, but obviously didn't until 1920. Do we get somewhat earlier commercial radio (say, 1917 or 1918), and, as a corollary, earlier broadcast/commercial TV?
That's a long one. You take it from here and I'll weigh in later.