WI: No Longer Franklin Roosevelt

No Longer Jack was a timeline which should have lead to a bigger trope than it did. A politician is injured in the brain, resulting in a drastic shift in personality. It's a brilliant way to do a sort of ASB soul swap in a radical but totally realistic way. In that case, it was JFK becoming something of a Nixon paranoid on steroids. It could be done with anyone else. This thread is also inspired by the film Gabriel Over the White House, where the president gets in a car accident and returns a totally different person who basically achieves world peace and success, except he's Mussolini and does it through being a tyrant and excusing it as truly democratic.

For the purposes of this scenario, we're going with Franklin Roosevelt. The premise is that Roosevelt is injured in the brain in such a way that he is "no longer" Franklin Roosevelt. For the sake of this argument, we will say that it was the assassination attempt in 1933, which here hit him in the head but he survived. The interesting part of this scenario is that in that period, people were very desperate for a resolution to the Depression. This lead to the rise of fascism in Europe, but there were many people in America who said the president should -if only temporarily- assume dictatorship. The New York Times said For Dictatorship If Necessary. Roosevelt rejected it. However, let's say our alternate Roosevelt does not. Let's say our alternate Roosevelt becomes just as bombastic as John Kennedy in No Longer Jack, and is all too happy to take the power of a democratic dictator and take down his opponents by any means necessary. Perhaps he even believes he is divinely guided. What if we really had a Gabriel Over the White House scenario?
 
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Hey, I think we've talked about this... ;)

My takeaway from NLJ (No Longer Jack) was that post-bullet JFK was not at all capable to lead the country; he was a raving, maniacal, anti-Semitic, madman.

But Roosevelt? I think if he became thus and assumed powers thus, he'd probably be very favorably remembered today, as the man who did what was needed. We might've had a hard time going back to democracy.

That said, if you want to do a TL of this, I'd be thrilled to help out.
 

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
You could go further back and have him not suffer brain injury. In fact, I know exactly where you could change him- July 28th FDR drinks contaminated water at a BSA meeting during a large Polio outbreak. August 8th, during a family holiday to Maine, Roosevelt reportedly felt tired. August 9th, 1921, Roosevelt fell into the Bay of Fundy. The next day, he began to suffer chills, the day after his legs became weak and was diagnosed with a cold, and the next day he was paralyzed from the chest down. He was soon diagnosed with Polio.

Roosevelt not contracting Polio would undoubtedly change- or unchange- him, whilst not radically at first, the further down the line we go the larger the gap between the man we know and this new one will have been vast.
 
You could go further back and have him not suffer brain injury. In fact, I know exactly where you could change him- July 28th FDR drinks contaminated water at a BSA meeting during a large Polio outbreak. August 8th, during a family holiday to Maine, Roosevelt reportedly felt tired. August 9th, 1921, Roosevelt fell into the Bay of Fundy. The next day, he began to suffer chills, the day after his legs became weak and was diagnosed with a cold, and the next day he was paralyzed from the chest down. He was soon diagnosed with Polio.

Roosevelt not contracting Polio would undoubtedly change him, whilst not radically at first, the further down the line we go the larger the gap between the man we know and this new one will have been vast.

That's a great POD. I love it. Norton?
 
I'm unlikely to do a timeline, but you've tempted me. From an objective standpoint, that fits the thread. It's an FDR who would be different from our Roosevelt because of the effect of polio on his personality. I don't have much further comment on it in that regard, other than to say we can explore it in the discussion.

For me in regards to what I would do as a story, there are two strains of thought regarding that. On the one hand, that would be a good way to keep Roosevelt as a flippant elite, making for a Conservative Roosevelt down the road. In regards to "Gabriel Over the White House", he'd be Judd Hammond before the car accident, potentially. In short, the rich jerk which is different from the actual Roosevelt of 1932. That would make for someone who handles the Depression quite differently and lacks the introspection and empathy of our Roosevelt. However, on the other hand, that is a more moderate version of a different Roosevelt personality, which isn't as bombastic a narrative as one where he changes into a drastic personality who becomes basically a dictator. I don't know if purely a more conservative Roosevelt - an FDR who is not humbled - would do that.

Potentially the two scenarios could be combined. We could have a healthy FDR running in 1932; potentially even a rather conservative FDR in 1932. Horror of horrors, OTL FDR in his 1932 platform attacked Hoover for overspending and failing to balance the budget, among other things. And then we could have FDR get a McGuffin bop on the head (likely in the form of a bullet) which changes his personality. We could do fascist FDR, bombastic FDR, benevolent tyrant FDR, evil FDR who destroys his enemies and more, and any combination of those. It'd be a neat fake out for readers. They think they're getting a story where Roosevelt is a rich conservative Democrat who will handle the Depression that way, and who beats Hoover purely because Hoover is the unpopular incumbent rather than major ideological differences. And then you pull the rug out from under them.

EDIT:
I'm speaking from the assumption, potentially erroneous, that FDR was more conservative prior to polio. Correct me if I'm wrong, please. It's been years since I studied Roosevelt in detail.
 
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Japhy

Banned
I mean the thing with No Longer Jack was that JFK's injuries didn't make him into a different person entirely, but like Phineas Gage made him in a way *more* himself, his emotional responses were stronger because he lacked the means to control them, and the aspects of his personality that were negatives were there before the injury, and they were just there more now, and were more prominent.

To simply have FDR become Gabriel over the White House would be simply to make him into a different man entirely. What would make sense would be to play up, well, the lesser devils of his nature rather than just make him into a radical. I mean you want to play around with a more radical FDR there are plenty of ways to do it besides creatively ripping off a really good concept.

Odds are with FDR-as-Gage we'd see the opposite happen, him becoming more patrician and conservative, with his ego and genius getting in the way of him actually working with the men who helped cook up the New Deal.
 
On "No Longer Jack", I have to disagree to some degree. Taking certain negative preexisting personality traits to an extreme was an element. Lack of control was certainly an element. However, there were elements which were not Jack Kennedy. It was more a matter of Kennedy being thrown off whack into a chaotic, nasty personality, and becoming a Nixon paranoid to an extreme. He becomes a different person. For example, Kennedy would never talk to Barry Goldwater like that, because he was Goldwater's friend. I think he threatened Robert Kennedy and put Johnson into temporary control, which is also something he wouldn't have done. Basically it's JFK becoming a crazy person.

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I mean, I would assume you could make up a thousand different people or rather personalities out of the elements in each person's mind. And it's just a mcguffin to have fun at the end of the day; a different person in the same body with the same world around them.
 
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One aspect in not having FDR contract Polio, would be the fact that it is likely he would make Kennedy look lazy in the terms of extramarital affairs if given the chances. FDR's marriage was more for show after he was caught by Eleanor in his affair in 1918. They were really just political partners after that point if I remember (but the public didn't know that).

One might assume he may continue if he wasn't crippled by the disease.
 
FDR -- Playboy of the Western World

It might be plausibly argued FDR was a driven man after the polio. Without that humbling/forced empathizing experience, he wouldn't have gone far in politics. Because the drive to prove himself wouldn't have been there.
 
It might be plausibly argued FDR was a driven man after the polio. Without that humbling/forced empathizing experience, he wouldn't have gone far in politics. Because the drive to prove himself wouldn't have been there.

Hadn't he already ran for Vice President though? I've always taken it as polio only delayed him a few years. His mother for one wouldn't have allowed him to lose focus I wouldn't think
 
Quite by random, I ran across this image that perfectly sums up the alternate egotistical, flippant conservative FDR.

FDR.jpeg
 
EDIT:
I'm speaking from the assumption, potentially erroneous, that FDR was more conservative prior to polio. Correct me if I'm wrong, please. It's been years since I studied Roosevelt in detail.

That would be an incorrect assumption. He was already a progressive politician by the time he was elected to the New York state senate a decade before he got the disease.
 
He was the VP nominee in 1920. Cox was the nominee.

When Elanor caught him in the affair she was quite willing to give him a divorce. He was inclined to take it. His mother was the one to stop it, with threats to cut off his money.
 
If we go by Japhy's point that it should exacerbate your negatives, sounds like Roosevelt wouldn't be the most interesting choice. Maybe Clinton would be a fun one. Make him super impulsive, unrestrained in attacking Republicans with maybe even swear words being dropped in public, and womanizing up to eleven. Plus, you have the commonly thought of as impossible to lose election to make interesting just like No Longer Jack did with 1964. There is also the attacks on the World Trade Center, HW Bush assassination, Waco, and Oklahoma City where his reaction would be vastly different if he was unrestrained.
 

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
If we go by Japhy's point that it should exacerbate your negatives, sounds like Roosevelt wouldn't be the most interesting choice. Maybe Clinton would be a fun one. Make him super impulsive, unrestrained in attacking Republicans with maybe even swear words being dropped in public, and womanizing up to eleven. Plus, you have the commonly thought of as impossible to lose election to make interesting just like No Longer Jack did with 1964. There is also the attacks on the World Trade Center, HW Bush assassination, Waco, and Oklahoma City where his reaction would be vastly different if he was unrestrained.

I'd say FDR works better for subtle changes, such as no Polio; he lacks the humility and humbleness that he developed as a result of his disease, and whilst still a Progressive, he's less grounded and more prone to rash decisions.

Clinton would be interesting, although if he goes unrestrained Newt might be made a hero for trying to impeach him.
 
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