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What if Wendel Wilkie died in 1939 and wasn't around to come out of no where and take the GOP nomination in 1940 and help FDR create the coalition that was able to build toward intervention? I'm just listening to a political history podcast by John Dickerson about the 1940 election and he's making the case that intervention, including Lend-Lease was only possible due to Wendel Wilkie leading an interventionalist wing of the GOP out into public prominence and helped FDR build a pro-intervention coalition that he hadn't thought possible before Wilkie got traction. So what if Wilkie isn't around and Dewey gets the GOP nomination and runs a 1940 campaign against the idea of intervention, which then means come 1941 FDR is not able to build a coalition around helping Britain, so Lend-Lease can't pass in 1941? In fact would an isolationist like Dewey make an issue out of FDR's Destroyers for Bases Agreement and force FDR to take a much less supportive position in 1940 of Britain? Can FDR get it later or would Britain exit the war in the meantime over financial issues? Would US politics shift enough to get into the war at all or would the GOP-Democratic divide be such that US entry is delayed due to say not being able to organize the ABCD Line against Japan, thus delaying the Japanese attacks on the US and UK?
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