What is a TR campaign against Cox in 1920, and subsequent term like?

raharris1973

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The prospect of TR being healthy enough to run for President and secure the Republican nomination in 1920 has been discussed before a few times.

A few necessary preconditions discussed have been his son Quentin not being killed in WWI and/or him not doing his "River of Doubt" exploration of the Amazon.

Let's say that happens here.

Then, we have one of the iron laws of 20th century US politics, the 1920 election is an inevitable reckoning and rejection of whatever administration led the US through WWI. Wilson and his works, including Democratic nominee James Cox, will be repudiated.

Combining the two, it looks like TR could become the challenger to the incumbent Democratic Party and would be favored to win, simply because of backlash.

However, TR and Warren Harding could not be more different. What would TR's rationale for his own Presidency be and how would he contrast himself from the Wilsonian Democrats?

"Normalcy" does not seem to fit TR. Withdrawal and isolation from the world, getting out of the way of private business, and restoring civil liberties do not seem anything like TR's top three passions.

What is TR's campaign about?

What is his Presidency about, assuming he lives a full term, or is at full capacity for at least half his term?
 
What is TR's campaign about?

He probably still rabbits on about "progressive" policies, though no one will pay much attemtion. They'll be voting for him out of hatred for Wilson and, by association, the Democratic Party, not for or against particular campaign planks.

What is his Presidency about, assuming he lives a full term, or is at full capacity for at least half his term?

Probably a frustrating one. He'll get a Republican Congress swept in with him, which will be highly conservative. It will certainly reject any foreign alliances and won't be much into progressive measures. All in all, probably a lot like 1908/9, the final year of his OTL presidency. Bull Moose is dead and he won't be able to resuscitate it.
 
The prospect of TR being healthy enough to run for President and secure the Republican nomination in 1920 has been discussed before a few times.

A few necessary preconditions discussed have been his son Quentin not being killed in WWI and/or him not doing his "River of Doubt" exploration of the Amazon.

Let's say that happens here.

Then, we have one of the iron laws of 20th century US politics, the 1920 election is an inevitable reckoning and rejection of whatever administration led the US through WWI. Wilson and his works, including Democratic nominee James Cox, will be repudiated.

Combining the two, it looks like TR could become the challenger to the incumbent Democratic Party and would be favored to win, simply because of backlash.

However, TR and Warren Harding could not be more different. What would TR's rationale for his own Presidency be and how would he contrast himself from the Wilsonian Democrats?

"Normalcy" does not seem to fit TR. Withdrawal and isolation from the world, getting out of the way of private business, and restoring civil liberties do not seem anything like TR's top three passions.

What is TR's campaign about?

What is his Presidency about, assuming he lives a full term, or is at full capacity for at least half his term?

I'm having trouble finding it online, but there are a lot of newspaper archives and articles written by TR post-1916 that lay out his thinking and likely platform. He was probably going to go all in on "Americanism," anti-immigration, pro-Red Scare, attacking the Wilson Administration for lack of preparedness and softness towards Germany. Leonard Wood's campaign -- which pushed much the same platform -- was based on TR's.

(TR's 1918 commencement address at Indiana University is illustrative. http://theodore-roosevelt.com/image...AO9dn4en9ME1cSFY_RdA_-bCzBEqAROyelaB6cgCqrHxc)
 

raharris1973

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He probably still rabbits on about "progressive" policies, though no one will pay much attemtion. They'll be voting for him out of hatred for Wilson and, by association, the Democratic Party, not for or against particular campaign planks.



Probably a frustrating one. He'll get a Republican Congress swept in with him, which will be highly conservative. It will certainly reject any foreign alliances and won't be much into progressive measures. All in all, probably a lot like 1908/9, the final year of his OTL presidency. Bull Moose is dead and he won't be able to resuscitate it.

If somebody says cracking down on the KKK and promoting civil rights I'm gonna puke. (not because I think it would be a bad thing, but because I think the thought TR would do this is TR-worship)
 
If somebody says cracking down on the KKK and promoting civil rights I'm gonna puke. (not because I think it would be a bad thing, but because I think the thought TR would do this is TR-worship)

He certainly won't do anything for their political rights. See his letter of Dec 4 1916 to Henry Cabot Lodge.

"I believe that the great majority of the negroes in the south are wholly unfitted for the suffrage, and that - - - giving them an unbought, uncoerced and undefrauded suffrage - - would reduce parts of the South to the level of Haiti - - The Fifteenth Amendment in the south has been a failure and has been largely responsible for the failure of the Fourteenth Amendment - - - pubic opinion in the north will not sanction such a policy - - -"
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
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I'm having trouble finding it online, but there are a lot of newspaper archives and articles written by TR post-1916 that lay out his thinking and likely platform. He was probably going to go all in on "Americanism," anti-immigration, pro-Red Scare, attacking the Wilson Administration for lack of preparedness and softness towards Germany. Leonard Wood's campaign -- which pushed much the same platform -- was based on TR's.

(TR's 1918 commencement address at Indiana University is illustrative. http://theodore-roosevelt.com/image...AO9dn4en9ME1cSFY_RdA_-bCzBEqAROyelaB6cgCqrHxc)

Very interesting -

This would seem to have several logical consequences for governing:

"anti-immigration"

Perhaps earlier and more thorough support for the national origins quota act. Does he also go for total Asiatic exclusion? On the one hand, it fits with anti-immigrationism, on the other hand, it is a revision of his "Gentlemen's Agreement" with Japan, and he had a certain respect Japan, and he might think putting the Japanese on the same quota basis as the southern and eastern Europeans might be a happy medium for limiting immigration but not singling out the proud Japanese for humiliation.

"pro-Red Scare"

So yeah, no recognition of the USSR. Probably Eugene Debs and others stay in jail.

Does this extend to not letting the US government support famine relief in the Soviet Union?

"attacking the Wilson Administration for lack of preparedness"

Could an implication of this be a resistance to naval arms limitation talks? No Washington Treaties?

Will he be demanding things like the Nine Power Treaty over China? Will he be demanding the cancelling of the Anglo-Japanese alliance? Would he accept any limits on US fortifications in its western Pacific possessions?

"attacking the Wilson Administration for....softness towards Germany"

Could an implication be when the Germans default on reparations, and the French occupy the Ruhr, Roosevelt cheers them on and encourages them, unlike the British?

Also, would the Dutch government be the recipient of nagging letters and lectures complaining about their asylum for the Kaiser?

It seems to me that any of these significantly alter the geopolitical landscape of the first half of the 1920s, and by extension, the entire interwar era.

....and that leaves aside foreign policy.

Any big environmental or infrastructure projects?

How do tax rate cuts compare with those of Harding-Coolidge-Mellon in OTL? If taxes are not cut as much, does the US build up a greater fiscal surplus?
 
I have often assumed that a healthy TR could have the 1920 GOP nomination for the asking, but Lewis L. Gould in The First Modern Clash Over Federal Power: Wilson Versus Hughes in the Presidential Election of 1916 (pp. 128-9) notes that "It might have be difficult, however, for the GOP to swallow Roosevelt after he had, for many party members, cost the GOP two national elections." Whether TR really did cost the GOP 1912 and 1916 may be debated [1] but that is certainly how it seemed to a lot of Republicans. OTOH, he had reconciled with some of his old enemies in the party, there was nobody in the party with remotely his prestige, and if it be objected that they didn't need his prestige because they would win overwhelmingly in any event, that was perhaps not quite so obvious at the time as it would be subsequently.

[1] I have argued that even without the TR split, Taft would have lost in 1912, because the 1910 elections had already shown him to be very unpopular: see my posts at https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-tr-doesnt-run-in-1912.462459/#post-18501361 and https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-tr-doesnt-run-in-1912.462459/#post-18502310 As for 1916, while TR's belligerence may have cost Hughes some German-American votes in the Midwest, Hughes lost the key state of California (and therefore the election) on the issue of progressivism, not peace. In California, the war seemed very distant, while Hughes aligning himself with anti-Hiram Johnson Old Guard Republicans, crossing a picket line in San Francisco, opposing the Adamson Eight Hour bill, etc. were far more salient. But for many Republicans it was an axiom that they were the natural party of government, so if they lost elections (like 1912 and 1916) it could not possibly have been the result of their nominating a weak candidate but must be the fault of someone else...
 
I have often assumed that a healthy TR could have the 1920 GOP nomination for the asking, but Lewis L. Gould in The First Modern Clash Over Federal Power: Wilson Versus Hughes in the Presidential Election of 1916 (pp. 128-9) notes that "It might have be difficult, however, for the GOP to swallow Roosevelt after he had, for many party members, cost the GOP two national elections." Whether TR really did cost the GOP 1912 and 1916 may be debated [1] but that is certainly how it seemed to a lot of Republicans. OTOH, he had reconciled with some of his old enemies in the party, there was nobody in the party with remotely his prestige, and if it be objected that they didn't need his prestige because they would win overwhelmingly in any event, that was perhaps not quite so obvious at the time as it would be subsequently.

[1] I have argued that even without the TR split, Taft would have lost in 1912, because the 1910 elections had already shown him to be very unpopular: see my posts at https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-tr-doesnt-run-in-1912.462459/#post-18501361 and https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-tr-doesnt-run-in-1912.462459/#post-18502310 As for 1916, while TR's belligerence may have cost Hughes some German-American votes in the Midwest, Hughes lost the key state of California (and therefore the election) on the issue of progressivism, not peace. In California, the war seemed very distant, while Hughes aligning himself with anti-Hiram Johnson Old Guard Republicans, crossing a picket line in San Francisco, opposing the Adamson Eight Hour bill, etc. were far more salient. But for many Republicans it was an axiom that they were the natural party of government, so if they lost elections (like 1912 and 1916) it could not possibly have been the result of their nominating a weak candidate but must be the fault of someone else...

I've often wondered if this alternate 1920 could lead to an 1844-type situation, where the front runner for the nomination is a former President. But his controversial position in the party prevents him from getting enough votes to win, and the convention turns to a dark horse.

Ironically, if TR doesn't prevail at the convention, then Harding might be nominated anyway.
 

raharris1973

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Was Mexico doing anything a US administration could have regarded as provocative in 1921-1924?
 
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