"The Kingfish" as President, a WI Scenario.

Huey, P, Long was a long time Senator and Governor of Louisiana and head of the states political machine that lasted for almost three decades. Throughout his political career he was a long time supporter of Roosevelt and his policies. In 1935 he was assassinated by Carl Weiss in the state capitol building.

Supposing that Long's survived Weiss' assassination attempt in 1935. If he is then placed on the ticket in either 1940 or 1944 as a replacement for Wallace as VP with Roosevelt still winning his fourth term in 1944 but still dying in 1945. With Long then becoming the 33th President of the United States when Roosevelt dies. How would this scenario likely pan out, and what effect would it have domestically and abroad for the war and it's aftermath.
 
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Realistically, the best way to get Long into the White House is to have Roosevelt lose re-election in 1936. Not an impossible task if Long is still alive as he planned to run Burton K. Wheeler against Roosevelt and the GOP nominee. Wheeler draws more votes away from FDR and the New Deal giving the Republicans (presumably Alf Landon) the White House for the next four years.

Come 1940, you've got the public angered over the policies of President Landon that you've got the Democrats having a very tough convention with Roosevelt trying to pull a Grover Cleveland and Huey Long as the new face for the Democrats. The election of 1940 is less about Democrat vs Republican and is more New Deal vs Share Our Wealth. Long would win the nomination and have to unite the New Deal and SOW wings of the Democratic Party together which could be done by naming a New Dealer as his running mate. With Long's energetic campaigning, the SOW-New Deal Coalition manages to secure the White House.
 
Realistically, the best way to get Long into the White House is to have Roosevelt lose re-election in 1936. Not an impossible task if Long is still alive as he planned to run Burton K. Wheeler against Roosevelt and the GOP nominee. Wheeler draws more votes away from FDR and the New Deal giving the Republicans (presumably Alf Landon) the White House for the next four years.
Unless the economy doesn't recover anywhere near as much as it did in OTL, there's no way that Wheeler would be able to take enough votes away from Roosevelt to lead to Landon winning.
 
Where was the hostility coming from? I know they had issues but i'm not sure how they came about? With Long having quite a lot of time to change peoples opinions of him, might FDR come around. FDR did go on to incorporate many of the ideas in share the wealth in his Second New Deal.
 
Where was the hostility coming from? I know they had issues but i'm not sure how they came about? With Long having quite a lot of time to change peoples opinions of him, might FDR come around. FDR did go on to incorporate many of the ideas in share the wealth in his Second New Deal.
Huey Long said:
Hoover is a hoot owl and Roosevelt is a scrootch owl. A hoot owl bangs into the nest and knocks the hen clean off and catches her while she's falling. But the scrootch owl slips into the roost and scrootches up to the hen and talks softly to her. And the hen just falls in love with him, and the next thing you know there ain't no hen.
Huey Long repeatedly attacked Roosevelt, and even threatened to join a popular uprising against his fellow Senators:
Huey Long said:
A mob is coming here in six months to hang the other ninety-five of you damned scoundrels, and I'm undecided whether to stick here with you or go out and lead them."
Everyone in Washington hated him on a deeply personal level. He was the Donald Trump of the times.
 
Huey Long repeatedly attacked Roosevelt, and even threatened to join a popular uprising against his fellow Senators:

Everyone in Washington hated him on a deeply personal level. He was the Donald Trump of the times.

Except that Trump has actually done a lot to deserve that hatred.
 
Except that Trump has actually done a lot to deserve that hatred.

Its not that Trump and Huey did alot to anger their fellows than it is that it is just who they are that they have to make others angry at them to feel good about themselves .
What I wonder is the structure of the modern American Federal government .Was long supportive of Roosevelt's strong Federal level of control ,or was he a more decentralized kind of guy who wanted more power to the states ?
And what would the US involvement in WWII look like with a Long presidency ,if the US gets involved at all ?
 
Its not that Trump and Huey did alot to anger their fellows than it is that it is just who they are that they have to make others angry at them to feel good about themselves .
What I wonder is the structure of the modern American Federal government .Was long supportive of Roosevelt's strong Federal level of control ,or was he a more decentralized kind of guy who wanted more power to the states ?
And what would the US involvement in WWII look like with a Long presidency ,if the US gets involved at all ?
Long as president would be all about centralizing power on the executive branch; he was a strongman sort. As for WWII, IIRC Long was an isolationist, although he despised Hitler. Maybe he'd come round by the time the war started, maybe not.
 
Strongmen often dislike each other. The Axis was only a thing because the strongmen involved had a mutual enemy. Did Huey Long ever fear communists?
 
Strongmen often dislike each other. The Axis was only a thing because the strongmen involved had a mutual enemy. Did Huey Long ever fear communists?
He didn't seem to be particularly afraid; he met Socialist Norman Thomas in a debate between Long's plan and the Socialist Plan, and said that if the U.S. didn't pass "Share Our Wealth" the Socialists would win.

Long called Hitler a "sonofabitch", and he seemed to have an almost superstitious distaste for anti-semitism.
 
There ya go. There's no reason for Long to ally with the Axis, brotherhoods of evil are not historical inevitabilities.

Not to mention that Stalin was a strongman, himself.
 
supposing Long does come to power. We still haven't discussed what the likely impact on the war and the effects on the aftermath would be.

areas such as
Would he likely drop the bomb, aka Truman, or go for an invasion of Japan.

Also would he pursue containment against the Soviets.

Would he have likely been more assertive with Churchill, and strived for a more dominant role.

What about the situation between Long and Hoover is their any evidence pointing to how that might play out.
 
Long was not a fading of any sort. Sure he wanted to turn america into a banana republic, but he was not a fan of Hitler and was known to be very mad when compared to him.
 
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