Presidential challenge [Theodore Roosevelt through George W. Bush]

[1940LaSalle]

This may prove somewhat interesting: let's see if we collectively can come up with one or more plausible (non-ASB) points of departure and timeline concepts for each president of the United States. (This is the latter-day section of this challenge; the first part--Washington through McKinley--will be found in the pre-1900 forum.) NOTE: clichés and obvious PODs are to be avoided! That means that kennedy's avoidance of assassination is out of bounds for this challenge, for example. Same goes for 9/11 not occurring during Bush the Younger's tenure.

I left Barack Obama off the header deliberately: he's only been in office five months, approximately, which is not (in my view) sufficient time to develop any significant PODs.

Have at it! This should be interesting.

 

[Blue Max]

Theodore Roosevelt: --Adopts a strongly pro-business attitude, refuses to push additional reforms and begins the Dollar Era--US Businesses are no longer hobbled by the Sherman Anti-Trust act. The Dollar Era will continue into 1927, where the death of over a hundred children in the DuPlenis Machinery Factory would lead to nationalist outrage.

William Howard Taft: Statehood for the Phillipines. Taft was a tireless advocate of the Filipino people, but the methods used to suppress the Filipino insurgency were heavy handed and eroded US sympathy. Instead, Taft settles the situation by granting citizenship to the Filipino people and the Philippines become 49th US state, in 1938.

Woodrow Wilson: The Last President of AmeriKKKa. Wilson doesn't need Germany to find an enemy--that enemy would be reds, blacks, browns, or anyone else who shouldn't belong in Wilson's little racist world. Granted re-election, Wilson's involvement in the Mexican Civil War and his "Splendid Little Plan" to relocate the "Uppity N*****s" to Liberia would expend US Borders at a terrible price in human lives. To this very day Mexico hates the United States for the razing of its capital and the giant land theft that followed.

Warren G. Harding: Presidential Superhero. Harding was a throwaway isolationist on the ticket. But when he drank coffee enriched with radioactive Uranium Salts he turned into--ULTRAMAN! Harding personally flew to Petrograd and punched out Lev Bronstein, then followed up by solving world hunger thanks to his incredible prosperity beam.
[Note: Making Harding not suck is ASB. Sorry.]