"Why former US President Henry Ford's antisemitism still matters today"

https://twitter.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/1092957548104245249

In case they delete it (it is simply a mistake, not a link to a DBWI alt-history) here's the screenshot:

jpost-screenshot.jpg


Actually, Henry Ford as POTUS is one of these things which for some reason ;) seem more plausible to me today than they did a few years ago... Maybe in a Hughes-wins-in-1916 scenario, Ford as a Democrat defeats Newberry for the US Senate from Michigan in 1918. (In OTL, he lost narrowly and of course challenged the result for years: https://www.weeklystandard.com/eric...-henry-ford-was-the-worlds-biggest-sore-loser) 1920 looks like a Democratic year, and with a wide-open Democratic convention, anything is possible...
 

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Given the influence Fordism had on political ideologies, I've always wondered what would happen if Fordism itself became an all-round ideology. And Ford becoming a Democratic senator and then President? Hmmm. Does he turn the Democrats to the right instead of the way FDR turned them to the left?

fasquardon
 
One interesting difference between Ford and Trump: Ford was not a "tariff man."

"In 1928, Henry Ford attacked the [Fordney-McCumber] tariff and argued that the American automobile industry did not need protection since it dominated the domestic market. Its main interest was now to expand foreign sales." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordney–McCumber_Tariff

"Automobile executive Henry Ford spent an evening at the White House trying to convince Hoover to veto the [Smoot-Hawley] bill, calling it "an economic stupidity."" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot–Hawley_Tariff_Act
 
Also, Ford's employment practices with respect to African Americans were ahead of their time. Moreover, "In addition to his belief in equal treatment for all, Ford was staunchly opposed to capital punishment. He was a believer in criminal reform-give them a chance to make themselves into productive citizens, he felt, instead of locking them up in prisons where they were useless to themselves and everyone else. His thinking about capital punishment was connected to his opposition to war, behind which were conspiring capitalists whose intent, as David Nye put it, was "to harden the sensibilities of the people, for it serves their ends to have war." During the famous Sacco and Vanzetti trial, a cause celebre of the 1920s, Ford threw his support behind these men, believing as many did that they had been railroaded into a murder conviction because they were self-confessed anarchists. He tried unsuccessfully to get their death sentences, which were carried out in 1927, commuted to life imprisonment, so they would have a chance to present fresh evidence in a new trial. It was part of his commitment to the rights of the working man, the underdog. Probably the last letter Bartolomeo Vanzetti wrote was to thank Henry Ford for his efforts on his behalf." https://books.google.com/books?id=KpEMVQT48b0C&pg=PT131
 
One interesting difference between Ford and Trump: Ford was not a "tariff man."

"In 1928, Henry Ford attacked the [Fordney-McCumber] tariff and argued that the American automobile industry did not need protection since it dominated the domestic market. Its main interest was now to expand foreign sales." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordney–McCumber_Tariff

"Automobile executive Henry Ford spent an evening at the White House trying to convince Hoover to veto the [Smoot-Hawley] bill, calling it "an economic stupidity."" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot–Hawley_Tariff_Act
Also, Ford's employment practices with respect to African Americans were ahead of their time. Moreover, "In addition to his belief in equal treatment for all, Ford was staunchly opposed to capital punishment. He was a believer in criminal reform-give them a chance to make themselves into productive citizens, he felt, instead of locking them up in prisons where they were useless to themselves and everyone else. His thinking about capital punishment was connected to his opposition to war, behind which were conspiring capitalists whose intent, as David Nye put it, was "to harden the sensibilities of the people, for it serves their ends to have war." During the famous Sacco and Vanzetti trial, a cause celebre of the 1920s, Ford threw his support behind these men, believing as many did that they had been railroaded into a murder conviction because they were self-confessed anarchists. He tried unsuccessfully to get their death sentences, which were carried out in 1927, commuted to life imprisonment, so they would have a chance to present fresh evidence in a new trial. It was part of his commitment to the rights of the working man, the underdog. Probably the last letter Bartolomeo Vanzetti wrote was to thank Henry Ford for his efforts on his behalf." https://books.google.com/books?id=KpEMVQT48b0C&pg=PT131

Very intriguing. I wonder if it's plausible to have Ford win the Presidency either in 1928 or 1932. What might his effect be on the earlier stages of the Great Depression?

fasquardon
 
Yep, they deleted the Tweet apparently. I wish I were a fly on the wall when someone realized their screwup there :D
 
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