America certainly backs Mac. His cabinet is looking good too. Nixon as Attorney General is certainly good. Granted what I know of him is from years back. A college professor of mine dedicated a bit of time explaining how Harding basically left the actual work to his cabinet (which he described as half great and half inept cronies) while the President spent most of his time finding ways to mess around with his mistress inside the White House without getting caught. His administration was largely forgettable otherwise which is why I say mixed.
You mean to say several egotistical jerks who hate each other and worship another egotistical jerk doesn't make for good government?
Probably makes up part of the reason they renamed it...
That's more than I knew of him until today, very interesting
Can't say that period is one I've ever researched much...On paper, Hoover could have been an ok-ish president if he didn't have to deal with a Great Depression, and he actually paid attention to what happened in the country after 1937......
True.
Starting World War III which i would classify as a bad thing.
Well if WWIII were to start in a TL then the early 50s would be one of the “best” times for NATO. Soviets don’t have much of a nuclear arsenal and the US has better delivery systems. Wouldn’t be nearly as weird of an affair as Turtledove’s series on the subject.
Yes, by 1956 it's probably too late as western Europe will be at risk of devastation from Soviet MRBMs and IRBMs. ( Or have I fallen for Russian propaganda and exaggeration?)
-Only thing was, the US didn't realize that.
True, the late 40s and 50s are the best period for the United States to start World War III, after that the Soviet Union will start to catch up.
So the question becomes how Mac reacts to finding out about this bomber gap. He could get aggressive abroad then when the Soviets protest he calls their bluff. Or maybe he pulls a Reagan and ups defense spending to keep the gap wide and spend the Soviets into oblivion.
Pretty much what Ike ended up doing, even though he didn't like it, as part of his famous farewell speech.
True, Hoover did not completely sit on his hands during the Depression, in fact I've heard some hardcore conservatives decry him as "FDR light" though his response to it was wholly inadequate, and rather than recognize his shortcomings he instead doubled down on supporting his policies after FDR was elected. He does get credit for saving millions in Europe from starvation post WWI though. Perhaps there is some timeline where Hoover "rescues" the nation from the depression by being elected as a progressive Republican in '36, but OTL he was wrong and seemingly proud of it.
Fair enough... looking forward to seeing where this goes!
Should check out the campaign, some Democrats claimed that Hoover was spending too much, bring too much Socialism into the USA
WW3 in 1956 could see Western Europe come out ok. It really depends on the failure rate of the MRBMs and IRBMs that the Soviets deploy.
I don't think this is an accurate depiction of Hoover's response to the depression. I definitely don't think his response was good, but not at all for the reasons you listed. He did follow a far more interventionist approach than ever before in American history. However his tariff bill was the catalyst that turned the Great Depression from the relatively normal (although it was still bad) recession to the era defining catastrophe it came to be. Perhaps the single most significant issue leading to the severity of the Great Depression was the decrease in the supply of money, which, as I'm sure we all know, is catastrophic during a recession. Both of these factors bear FAR more responsibility for the depression becoming what it did than any lack of fiscal response, or intervention programs on behalf of Hoover. Furthermore, going harder into any of these programs would not have fixed the monetary issue, or the repealed the tariff (thats quite the opposite of more intervention), and therefore would not have fixed or ended the depression whatsoever. None of this is to say that Hoover doesn't deserve blame for his response to the Great Depression, he absolutely does, however its not for the reasons you gave, and is instead due to a combination of his signing the flat out terrible Smoot-Hawley tariff, as well as his failure to act to try and fix the most pressing issue regarding the supply of money.
The Hot War made for a good read though
Most people are going to come up short if you compare them to Ike. As for new direction, I've got a few plans...
Haven't researched Soviet missile capability too much, but a quick browse of wiki suggests that the best thing the Soviets had in 1956 would be the R2, basically an upsized V2 - not clear what the payload on those were but nukes of that era were still fairly heavy. So it might still be early enough to escape the apocalypse? Margins are certainly a good deal tighter than in 1949 though.
That's... ironic.
I more or less agree with your analysis here especially on tariffs and Hoover's refusal to abandon the gold standard, but would like to point out that the contraction of the money supply and problem of underconsumption by the public could have been better alleviated by direct aid to individuals as opposed to the corporate programs of railroad and bank aid he did pass.
