WI: MacArthur elected President in '52

Say Douglas MacArthur becomes the Republican nominee in 1952 after a deadlocked convention between Taft and Eisenhower, and then goes on to beat the Democratic nominee in the general election.

What would his presidency be like?

Most importantly, what happens in the Korean War? Would MacArthur escalate the conflict to full-on war with China (and use nukes), or seek a settlement similar to OTL?
 

Bomster

Banned
President MacArthur personally flies a nuclear bomber to Beijing and then rides the bomb down Strangelove style and destroys communism forever.

But in all seriousness he certainly be a rather hawkish president, I think, like Reagan before Reagan. I don’t know too much about him tho.
 
For one, I 100% doubt that any convention with Eisenhower in the running would go with Douglas MacArthur.

Maybe if Taft and McCarthy and maybe somebody else brought the Republicans into a deadlock they'd go with MacArthur.

He'd definitely pick a moderate and could beat Stevenson or Truman.

MacArthur would be the most hawkish President of the 20th Century.

The Korean War would not be a stalemate and any potential US military confrontation is likely to escalate.

If we butterfly the 22nd Amendment or have it fail to get ratified (which would only require a PoD in early 1951 as opposed to in the '40s), then MacArthur the warmonger could reasonably be POTUS for three terms before his death, assuming his popularity holds.
 
There is a reason the Republican party leaders dropped the idea after meeting him personally. Had he somehow been elected I suspect he'd remain popular with a hardcore minority, & regarded as a dangerous elderly old fool by the majority.
 
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