What if: the Business Plot (White House Putsch) of 1934

While the previous posters have pointed out a number of problems with this timeline, I'd like to add another: the State governments. Ironically, the very president the Bussiness Plot would have overthrown was the exact same one who by his "Big Government"/Socialist New Deal policies created the agencies and and mechanisms for Washington to impose some level of direct, uniform control over the country. Let's assume this "March on Washington" is successful (For the sake of arguement, its initially pitched as another "Bonus Army" situation like Hoover had to deal with; the Great War veterans coulden't get the previous president to give them their checks early, so they're presenting their plight again to the new one). This time, the picketers are armed and either can overpower any army units sent to disperse them, or McArthur/whoever is in charge of the military can convince them not to fire and instead join the coup. Roosevelt "falls ill", Congress is taken into custody before its members can escape and agrees to write and pass the required laws to implement a Facist state (Democrats and even many Republicans likely doing so at gunpoint. Socialists are also at gunpoint, but get the bullet instead of the ballot), and the local citizens are sufficiently cowed. MacGuire gets on the radio and broadcasts his "Fireside Chat" explaining the circumstances and calls for obedience and order, the Big Red One parades down Washington avenue in their fancy new jackboots, everything looks grand.

Congratulations: you basically have a Facist government controlling the Post Office. No State government is going to recognize the new regime as legitiment, and still have a grip on the majority of the levers of government power. Assuming there weren't enough Senators and Represenatives who escaped to form a "Rump" legislature, I imagine most of the Governors are going to immediately denounce the new junta, mobalize the National Guard to protect themselves, call up local militias and organize them to bolster their ranks, and either call for new snap elections to create a new Legislature at a mutually agreeable and defensible location (St. Louis or Minneapolis come to mind; somewhere on the Mississippi seems likely), or form an "interim government" out of representatives from their state legislatures (with emergency powers delegated to the governors). Without the centeralization of power in Washington Roosevelt's 4 terms created, the coup will very quickly fizzle out as they have no way to martial the resources of the country or implement policy, and the party of Bussiness and the right-wing (I.E.: Republicans) get a knock to their reputation on a national level similar to how the Democrats fell following The American Civil War. Roosevelt is martyered, and the new government (Now with an even larger commanding majority of Democrats) honor his legacy by implementing his programs, which the Supreme Court isen't going to feel safe in opposing as they did IRL.
 
Again gonna fall flat on its face in the face of massive public opposition before the leaders are overthrown and our executed while at the same time basically turning America against facism
 
Again gonna fall flat on its face in the face of massive public opposition before the leaders are overthrown and our executed while at the same time basically turning America against facism
You mean executed all the people behind this plot, some of them being the richest and most powerful men in the country, that is going to help.
 
You mean executed all the people behind this plot, some of them being the richest and most powerful men in the country, that is going to help.

Depends on how far it gets, I suppose, but if a few thousand people die in weeks or months of fighting, there's gonna need to be some blood to satisfy the public. This isn't like the Civil War, where ending secession meant the Southern states had to be lived with, there'll be other suits to replace these idiots.
 
Depends on how far it gets, I suppose, but if a few thousand people die in weeks or months of fighting, there's gonna need to be some blood to satisfy the public. This isn't like the Civil War, where ending secession meant the Southern states had to be lived with, there'll be other suits to replace these idiots.
But why is this not a second Civil War between the fascist as we can call them (would be cool to see German and Italian support to the coup plotters) and the government.
 
But why is this not a second Civil War between the fascist as we can call them (would be cool to see German and Italian support to the coup plotters) and the government.

There aren't enough of them to form a cultural or regional identity. There may have been a disproportionate amount of pro-Fascist sentiment among the national elite, but how much sway in the general public did they actually have? Also, the CSA could claim that they seceded in order to govern themselves, and they had the support of state governments. Meanwhile, these guys wanted to impose their will on the entire country by force.
 
Meanwhile, these guys wanted to impose their will on the entire country by force.
That is true, and the only reason why they did it was they feared that Roosevelt would make them poor, thus everything is about money.
 
The "Business Plot" wasn't an actual thing. There was absolutely no chance of getting Smedley Butler to lead it (he was a well-known anti-imperialist and social democrat; it would be like asking Elizabeth Warren to lead a coup on behalf of Wall Street), and nobody would have followed MacArthur after the Bonus March. The idea of the American Legion ever supporting this is completely ASB because they actually supported Roosevelt in OTL, even when he cut vet benefits. They're not to going to join a bunch of super Hooverites in trying to take over (again, Bonus March); in fact, in the ASB event that it actually went through they would be more likely to form a paramilitary force to support FDR.

The whole thing was never more than a couple of idiots talking at a cocktail party. They had no ability to even try to pull it off. There are tons of militia and racial hate groups around this country currently who ponder pinheaded schemes to overthrow the federal government. Every so often one will even try to do it. That doesn't mean they're a credible threat.

Asking if the Business Plot could have succeeded is as ASB as asking if the Hutarees could have succeeded.
 
The "Business Plot" wasn't an actual thing. There was absolutely no chance of getting Smedley Butler to lead it (he was a well-known anti-imperialist and social democrat; it would be like asking Elizabeth Warren to lead a coup on behalf of Wall Street), and nobody would have followed MacArthur after the Bonus March.

I always got the impression that Douglas MacArthur was inexplicably immune to bad publicity for his entire career, and that whatever ill will there was over the Bonus March redounded onto Hoover instead of him. Not that it matters, since he was also loyal to the Roosevelt Administration and wouldn't lead a coup either. That George Van Horn Moseley guy seems scarier, especially since he was apparently even more racist and paranoid about commies than Dugout Doug. Still, I agree that getting this off the ground also seems beyond implausible.
 
I always got the impression that Douglas MacArthur was inexplicably immune to bad publicity for his entire career, and that whatever ill will there was over the Bonus March redounded onto Hoover instead of him. Not that it matters, since he was also loyal to the Roosevelt Administration and wouldn't lead a coup either. That George Van Horn Moseley guy seems scarier, especially since he was apparently even more racist and paranoid about commies than Dugout Doug. Still, I agree that getting this off the ground also seems beyond implausible.

I'm not sure. MacArthur was criticized in the papers for it and the suppression of the Bonus Army was quite unpopular with the public.

Van Horn Moseley was so obviously crazy that I can't imagine him getting much a following.

This thing would have gone nowhere.
 
This leads to the actual events...

The "Business Plot" wasn't an actual thing. There was absolutely no chance of getting Smedley Butler to lead it (he was a well-known anti-imperialist and social democrat; it would be like asking Elizabeth Warren to lead a coup on behalf of Wall Street), and nobody would have followed MacArthur after the Bonus March. The idea of the American Legion ever supporting this is completely ASB because they actually supported Roosevelt in OTL, even when he cut vet benefits. They're not to going to join a bunch of super Hooverites in trying to take over (again, Bonus March); in fact, in the ASB event that it actually went through they would be more likely to form a paramilitary force to support FDR.

The whole thing was never more than a couple of idiots talking at a cocktail party. They had no ability to even try to pull it off. There are tons of militia and racial hate groups around this country currently who ponder pinheaded schemes to overthrow the federal government. Every so often one will even try to do it. That doesn't mean they're a credible threat.

Asking if the Business Plot could have succeeded is as ASB as asking if the Hutarees could have succeeded.

Lets assume the organizer of the plot was astute enough to go to a general other than Butler, someone who was actually in sympathy and nearly as as politically stupid as the plotters. The ploters collect their 'army' which in the end is maybe 5,000 men, not 500,000, and not all veterans. A fair number of ordinary thugs, dupes, petty grifters, ect... are among the ranks. This lot converges on Washington, the leaders thinking they have something akin to their intent.

Of course to many people cannot keep their mouth shut. The plot leaders are busy bragging to their acquaintances (no one is going to admit they were friends as this unfolds) causing the bulk of the top business leaders and wealthy in the US to recoil as the rumors spread. Lower down the assemblying mob are initiating rumors as well, attracting the attention of law enforcement, new reporters, local govenors and other leaders. Stories run rampant on the rumor mill and in the news papers about the 'New Bonus Army' converging on Washington. Some veterans join, but the Legion, VFW, and other Vet organizations either announce no support or disavow connections.

Congress and the Army taking inspiration from the rumors and experience from the previous Bonus Army screen the incoming trains to Washington and the incoming BP army members are diverted to holding camps in nearby railway towns like Silver Spring, Rockville, Appomatox. Ect... Some get past & begain making trouble for the DC police. Others attempt to escape the Armys holding pens, leading to more fights, jailings and a riot at one or more location.

By this point its become a grossly over sensationalized news story, with exhaustive radio coverage, and news papers under control of the plotters pushing their version. Demagouges and anti Roosevelt leaders of all stripes make what they will of the situation. Groups of veterans, communists, and other anti administration individuals start traveling to Washington & they attract all sorts of publicity.

The Army and DC police take action, moving every suspect they can arrest to nearby Federal property. Ft Meade Maryland being one destination. The BP army ranks realizing they are in serious trouble desert & evade, heading home. Those remaining in custody are either given a train ticket or held pending Federal court appearances. The BP army is dissolved, with a few die hards in small groups in nearby cities for a few more days. Their leadership realizing the game is lost cut off contact and leave their mob unpaid and adrift in Depression era cities.

Worst case is a few hundred or perhaps a thousand manage to collect near enough the White House to attempt their takeover. A battalion of Army regulars rounds them up with bayonets and gunfire against the uncooperative.
 

It wouldn't get that far. There aren't 1,000 people of any one stripe in the United States who are both willing to rally under one flag, capable of wielding a gun in a revolt against the federal government, and stupid enough to actually try to.

Organizing stuff on this scale is really, really hard. There is a *reason* that nearly all attempted terrorist attacks fail, and none of them involve conspiracies this big and with this many people. It would end the same way every attempt by militia types, white nationalists, sovereign citizens, and neo-nazis ends: quickly and with everyone getting arrested by the FBI on domestic terrorism charges.
 
The whole thing was never more than a couple of idiots talking at a cocktail party. They had no ability to even try to pull it off. There are tons of militia and racial hate groups around this country currently who ponder pinheaded schemes to overthrow the federal government. Every so often one will even try to do it. That doesn't mean they're a credible threat.

I looked into it a while back, and came up with three explanations that fit events:
  1. The "plot" was some loose talk at a cocktail party that got sensationalized, as you said.
  2. The plot was a deliberate hoax by Butler. A ham-fisted fascist coup plot by Wall Street fat-cats is a suspiciously convenient thing for Butler to have fall into his lap, given his politics, and Butler's say-so is our main source for the alleged plot.
  3. The plot was a deliberate hoax by MacGuire, with Butler as the intended victim. The idea was to draw Butler into the plot by flattering his vanity, with either a public goal of exposing Butler as being willing to plot a coup to discredit him, or a private goal of scamming some money off of him somehow. Either way, it backfired badly when Butler took it seriously and went to HUAC.
 

Greenville

Banned
The plot here never had a historic reality. They never would've been able to enforce it if they did. A group of armed men going into the White House, State Department, and others will quickly be arrested by the police or military in this situation. An actual attempt to take over the government by force could occur, but it wouldn't succeed. Even Hitler tried to remove the Weimar government, the same fate would've happened here.

The American system wouldn't give way to a cou like this during a crisis like the Great Depression because it can recover from it due to its industrial base and the elected leaders can always be removed in an election.

Now a nuclear war with elections and civil rights suspended, yes such a move is possible.
 
I looked into it a while back, and came up with three explanations that fit events:
  1. The "plot" was some loose talk at a cocktail party that got sensationalized, as you said.
  2. The plot was a deliberate hoax by Butler. A ham-fisted fascist coup plot by Wall Street fat-cats is a suspiciously convenient thing for Butler to have fall into his lap, given his politics, and Butler's say-so is our main source for the alleged plot.
  3. The plot was a deliberate hoax by MacGuire, with Butler as the intended victim. The idea was to draw Butler into the plot by flattering his vanity, with either a public goal of exposing Butler as being willing to plot a coup to discredit him, or a private goal of scamming some money off of him somehow. Either way, it backfired badly when Butler took it seriously and went to HUAC.
2a. The "plot" was a deliberate hoax by Butler and Samuel Dickstein. Dicktstein did most of the things Tailgunner Joe McCarthy did, but he did them first in what they called the "Brown Scare". Even more than McCarthy, he was in it for the publicity and the money. He was also on the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, and made a lot of money selling visas.

(When that wasn't enough, he became a Soviet agent. In spite of the prospect of having a source in high places in the Main Enemy, they broke off with him after about three or four years because he wanted more money and only gave them leftover testimony from the proto-HUAC.)
 
While the previous posters have pointed out a number of problems with this timeline, I'd like to add another: the State governments.

I think you're grievously understating the power Washington held even prior to FDR, as the examples of Lincoln and Wilson provide. Lincoln was able to outright arrest members of State legislatures and even Congressmen while also instating conscription and income taxes that provoked quite a bit of anger, as the New York Draft Riots showed. Wilson meanwhile was able to break not only the Socialist party, but even the German-American culture in the Midwest.

Again gonna fall flat on its face in the face of massive public opposition before the leaders are overthrown and our executed while at the same time basically turning America against facism

I agree the circumstances might arouse a lot of anger, but there's no denying that there wasn't a lot of interest in Fascism and that the desperate situation at the time meant people were more willing to overlook things if it meant the chance of improving their well being. To get an idea of what I mean, here is an article from the New York Times in 1932:

May 22, 1932 — The hour has struck for a fascist party to be born in the United States. In the face of the most critical financial situation in the history of the country, Washington presents the amazing spectacle of more special groups seeking to get their fingers in the national treasury than ever before. From every section and from every layer of our economic life, the embattled lobbies have descended upon the capital. Bills to appropriate millions for the aid of special classes or industries are tossed into the House of Representatives, at the moment when federal finances are strained to the breaking point. Congress has one plain duty, to balance the budget, and to refuse every subtle appeal for money that is not foreseen by that budget. In the cities, where authorities confess themselves unable to cope with the sinister enterprise arrayed against them; in state capitals and county towns, where special privilege is bought and sold; wherever patronage is distributed and crime protected, there is the rumble of indignation among householders, the anger and disgust of taxpayers, which presage the gathering of moral forces into overt movement.

Someone will give the signal. It may be a mechanic, coming out of his engine-room, wiping his hands upon oily waste, in despair at the insecurity of his home; it may be a veteran teacher — like Peter the Hermit preaching a crusade — shocked to find the holy sepulchre of our national liberty in the hands of vandals. It may be the clean youth and imagination of a Charles Lindbergh, calling upon men of goodwill to join him in a party of law and order. It may be the sagacity and experience of a Henry Ford, summoning men to match the organization of the underworld with a still more potent organization. In every part of the country men are waiting for the call, and when it is heard, there will be a roar of assent from a million throats. The elements are assembled for the formation of this kind of fascism in the United States, composed of householders, heads of families and taxpayers. The stage is set.

For another example, the reaction to Italo Balbo's flight to America in 1933 is also particularly interesting:

The legendary Crociera del Decennale renamed Italian Air Armada: from 1 July to 12 August 1933, a flight of twenty-four seaplanes on a round-trip flight from Rome to the Century of Progress in Chicago, Illinois. The flight had eight legs; OrbetelloAmsterdamDerryReykjavíkCartwright, LabradorShediacMontreal ending on Lake Michigan near Burnham Park and New York City[5][6][7]. In honor of this feat, Mussolini donated a column from Ostia to the city of Chicago: the Balbo Monument; it can still be seen along the Lakefront Trail, a little south of Soldier Field. Chicago administration renamed the former 7th Street in Balbo Drive and staged a great parade in his honor. The Newfoundland Post Office overprinted one of their 75-cent airmail stamps, that had been issued just two months previously, for the event:[8] General Balbo Flight, Labrador, The Land of Gold, Air[9]

From Chicago they flew to New York City with an escort of 36 U.S. airplanes. New York population gave an incredible crowded and warm welcomes the pilots on Broadway (Manhattan). Millions of people acclaimed the big parade of dozens cars escorted by police horses throughout the streets on Manhattan. [10]The Time (magazine) also dedicated to him a cover for that feat.[11]

During Balbo's stay in the United States, President Franklin Roosevelt invited him to lunch and presented him with the Distinguished Flying Cross.[12] He was awarded the 1931 Harmon Trophy. The Sioux even honorarily adopted Balbo as "Chief Flying Eagle".[13] Balbo received a warm welcome in the United States, especially by the large Italian-American populations in Chicago and New York. To a cheering mass in Madison Square Garden he said: "Be proud you are Italians. Mussolini has ended the era of humiliations."[14] The term "Balbo" entered common usage to describe any large formation of aircraft.
 
I looked into it a while back, and came up with three explanations that fit events:
  1. The "plot" was some loose talk at a cocktail party that got sensationalized, as you said.
  2. The plot was a deliberate hoax by Butler. A ham-fisted fascist coup plot by Wall Street fat-cats is a suspiciously convenient thing for Butler to have fall into his lap, given his politics, and Butler's say-so is our main source for the alleged plot.
  3. The plot was a deliberate hoax by MacGuire, with Butler as the intended victim. The idea was to draw Butler into the plot by flattering his vanity, with either a public goal of exposing Butler as being willing to plot a coup to discredit him, or a private goal of scamming some money off of him somehow. Either way, it backfired badly when Butler took it seriously and went to HUAC.
Than if it was a hoax why did general Butler release this statement.
 
I looked into it a while back, and came up with three explanations that fit events:
  1. The "plot" was some loose talk at a cocktail party that got sensationalized, as you said.
  2. The plot was a deliberate hoax by Butler. A ham-fisted fascist coup plot by Wall Street fat-cats is a suspiciously convenient thing for Butler to have fall into his lap, given his politics, and Butler's say-so is our main source for the alleged plot.
  3. The plot was a deliberate hoax by MacGuire, with Butler as the intended victim. The idea was to draw Butler into the plot by flattering his vanity, with either a public goal of exposing Butler as being willing to plot a coup to discredit him, or a private goal of scamming some money off of him somehow. Either way, it backfired badly when Butler took it seriously and went to HUAC.

The plot here never had a historic reality. They never would've been able to enforce it if they did. A group of armed men going into the White House, State Department, and others will quickly be arrested by the police or military in this situation. An actual attempt to take over the government by force could occur, but it wouldn't succeed. Even Hitler tried to remove the Weimar government, the same fate would've happened here.

The American system wouldn't give way to a cou like this during a crisis like the Great Depression because it can recover from it due to its industrial base and the elected leaders can always be removed in an election.

Now a nuclear war with elections and civil rights suspended, yes such a move is possible.

2a. The "plot" was a deliberate hoax by Butler and Samuel Dickstein. Dicktstein did most of the things Tailgunner Joe McCarthy did, but he did them first in what they called the "Brown Scare". Even more than McCarthy, he was in it for the publicity and the money. He was also on the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, and made a lot of money selling visas.

(When that wasn't enough, he became a Soviet agent. In spite of the prospect of having a source in high places in the Main Enemy, they broke off with him after about three or four years because he wanted more money and only gave them leftover testimony from the proto-HUAC.)

The fact that the person who broke the news of the plot was a Stalinist agent is rather important. Such people are pretty well-known for demonizing the right wing and painting society as being under threat by fascists to an extent way beyond what is factually supportable. Virtually a guarantee that he exaggerated it at least somewhat.
 
The fact that the person who broke the news of the plot was a Stalinist agent is rather important. Such people are pretty well-known for demonizing the right wing and painting society as being under threat by fascists to an extent way beyond what is factually supportable. Virtually a guarantee that he exaggerated it at least somewhat.
Wait, if i am correct, was general Butler a Stalinist agent.
 
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