alternatehistory.com

I know this is a rather misused premise, but hear me out.

FDR is assassinated two days after his inauguration. Garner assumes the presidency and immediately signals his intention to hold to conservative economic policies. The result is a worsening of the Depression, rather than amelioration.

Throughout 1933 and 1934, there are riots by unemployed workers in cities across the country. There are strikes among many of those still in work as government(s) and employers lower wages and roll back labor rights. Labor unions discuss the possibility of a general strike.

In response to the breakdown in order and the threat of strikes, the Garner administration declares martial law in much of the country, utilizing the Army and National Guard to prevent union activity and arresting union leaders and organizers by the thousand. Describing the situation as an attempted communist revolution, the administration takes increasingly repressive measures over the winter of 1934-35, censoring the media, arresting opposition figures (both Democrat and Republican), and suspending elections.

Fighting breaks out, as union workers and unemployed form paramilitary units in industrial areas to combat the armed forces. Terrorist acts occur in major cities, and by the summer of 1935, large parts of the countryside are in a state of armed rebellion.

Plausible? Impossible? Practical problems?

What do you think it would take to make all that happen, if the situation as I've described it doesn't seem to be enough? Would such a civil war end up like a Spanish situation, with rival governments, capitals, foreign representation etc? Or would it be more of a peripheral rebellion, like some of the Latin American conflicts within recent memory? Who would win?

All ideas appreciated.
Top