WI: No New Deal

Yes, I know this question has been done to death, but I want to create a new spin on it. The previous question are "How much longer does the depression last?" or "How much shorter is the depression?" depending on one's political leanings.

Let's say that whoever is in power, be it Roosevelt, Hoover, or whoever would replace Roosevelt as the Democrat nominee doesn't implement any kind of "meaningful" government assistance for the economy, what would the effect be for the social cohesion of the U.S.?

Mind you this is a time when Russia not too recently was taken over by the Communist Bolsheviks, and only a year after the U.S. election, Germany was usurped by the Nazis.

With no government assistance, could Fascist or Communist sympathies have festered even more than they did in the OTL?
 
Yes, and you'd have a good chance of a Huey Long type figure getting elected in 1936.
AFAIK Long was a pretty fringe figure, and only had sway in Louisiana. But maybe such popular figures like Long would start to introduce radical economic changes in their own States, perhaps even irrespective of Federal law.
 
A lot more riots. With no government aid, expect more unions and massive pushback from business owners. How bad the riots get depends on the animosity the American public feels towards factory owners "exploiting" workers, the fights between Union and scabs, and the level of violence directed at strikers by hired thugs.

I see a new thread of racism as whites compete with blacks for jobs. Women also see their new found independence curtailed (not much disposable income affecting many of the positions women moved into). Liberal materialism will fall out of vogue and the KKK may enjoy another resurgence (especially if they offer aid where the federal, state, and local governments won't).

Radical ideas become more palatable as the old ways fail to work. The youth especially will be most prone to extremism as there isn't much of a future for them. The idealized stories of a workers' paradise in the Soviet Union could lead a grass roots effort to overturn capitalism bringing about the numerous street fights of Weimar in places such as New York City, Detroit, and Chicago.

1936 will be ripe for a radical candidate. Such a candidate will likely push for MAJOR changes pissing off business interests and the rich. A REAL business plot could occur (Hey MacArthur, we have a deal for you!). If it fails or succeeds, whoever comes out on top will seize dictatorial powers (business will want their rights protected, the sitting President seeing the need to take full control of the reigns to crush such sedition and save the nation).

Crime and social instability increase with the Hoovervilles. How long until the dispossessed start moving against the shrinking middle class and then the upper class? Martial law comes into play (and the National Guard proves to be a steady job for cash and grub). Communities will be divided between those for order and those for change.

War vets likely go fascist (we fought and died for this?). They will become an important bloc for whoever wants to use them. They will NOT be supportive of the government as bonuses, pensions, and promises are broken.

Or it could be over by 1937 (some claim the New Deal was the problem with recovery).

Regardless, the coming war will still boost the economy out of the Depression...as long as it makes it to 1941.
 
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AFAIK Long was a pretty fringe figure, and only had sway in Louisiana. But maybe such popular figures like Long would start to introduce radical economic changes in their own States, perhaps even irrespective of Federal law.

It's funny, this is the second time this has come up in a week on the board, but Huey Long was quite well-known nationally and not relegated to Louisiana fame. Share Our Wealth clubs existed all over the country by the mid-30s, with millions of members.
 
One thing that tneds to be forgotten is that conserrvatives in 1932 not only wanted to slash spending but to impose a national sales tax. https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-al-smith-won-in-1928.451133/#post-17546442 This IMO would have had a disastrous deflationary effect.

What is frustrating about "what if no New Deal" questions is that they do not really examine the alternatives to the New Deal. "Doing nothing" was not an option for anyone. Conservatives were as ardent as liberals that "business as usual" was not an option. But to them the deficit was the big problem, and the drastic actions they recommended were to cure it by slashing spending and increasing taxs.
 
..l. "Doing nothing" was not an option for anyone. Conservatives were as ardent as liberals that "business as usual" was not an option. But to them the deficit was the big problem, and the drastic actions they recommended were to cure it by slashing spending and increasing taxs.

Well, spending was slashed. The Marines were withdrawn from Nicaragua & the other Banana republics, The War Dept lost over 50,000 men from the US Army, and weapons development was curtailed further. The Navy saw reductions as well. The Federal Highway program was reduced, despite that this put construction workers into the bread lines. Other Federal construction projects were taken off the budget & postponed for years. On the tax side Tariffs were raised, despite that they further discouraged business, & the Social Security 'tax' was implemented in the expectation the Treasury could borrow the retirement funds being deposited. The 'temporary' income tax of the Great War was extended yet again, and again.
 
We get a more radical version implemented in the 40s or 1950s, potentially by a third party. Which of the two big parties absorbs them or if we see it being democratic-republicans vs labor/progressives/social democrats? dunno, up to whoever does this atl.
 
Yes, I know this question has been done to death, but I want to create a new spin on it. The previous question are "How much longer does the depression last?" or "How much shorter is the depression?" depending on one's political leanings.

Let's say that whoever is in power, be it Roosevelt, Hoover, or whoever would replace Roosevelt as the Democrat nominee doesn't implement any kind of "meaningful" government assistance for the economy, what would the effect be for the social cohesion of the U.S.?

Mind you this is a time when Russia not too recently was taken over by the Communist Bolsheviks, and only a year after the U.S. election, Germany was usurped by the Nazis.

With no government assistance, could Fascist or Communist sympathies have festered even more than they did in the OTL?

No, you're not likely going to see anything resembling violent revolution in the US, for the simple fact that if Congress and the States have alot of actual power and are subject to the direct will of the voters. If people are screaming for SOMETHING to be done and their elected represenatives don't do anything, that the bums get booted out of office 2 years later and are replaced with opponents who run on a platform of doing so, and if the Feds don't seize the power to act it remains in the hands of the States who held it pre-New Deal and will have to respond to their constituency if, again, they don't want to be replaced with somebody who will. Russia and Germany were vulnerable to radical takeover because power was highly centeralized and governments were structured so the representive organs were either too weak or unstable to effectively address public concerns and win the support/popular legitimacy needed to organize resistance to takeover by the minority.
 
I think you'd see a revolution of some kind. The Russian Revolution was less than twenty years in the past and there is no reason a similar thing could not happen here. No clue the final outcome except that the USA we know today would not exist.
 
I don't think America has the potential for a massive communist or fascist movement. Out of the two scenarios, the fascist one seems the least likely. The CPUSA was much larger than the pro-fascist American groups like the German American Bund were. However, the US didn't have the same social conditions that created support for communist revolutions in Russia and China, namely a destitute class of peasant farmers agitating for land reform.

The US could certainly have more social instability, Huey Long style economic populism, fiercer labor disputes, and a more severe version of its perennial racial problems, but a bloody revolution is highly unlikely.

The audience in the famous newsreels that showed up at Madison Square Garden to listen to Fritz Kuhn, the Bund's leader, make a fool of himself ranting about the "Jew Deal" and calling FDR "president Rosenfeld" was probably the entirety of the groups's support at its high-water mark. Kuhn only moved to America in 1928, and the group's membership was mainly limited to German expats and recent German immigrants.

The Bund began attracting the attention of the federal government in the summer of 1937 as rumors spread that Kuhn had 200,000 men ready to take up arms. During that summer an FBI probe of the organization was conducted but no evidence of wrongdoing was found. Later in 1938 Martin Dies of the House Un-American Activities Committee wildly proclaimed that Kuhn had 480,000 followers. More accurate records show that at the peak of his power in 1938 Kuhn had only 8,500 members and another 5,000 “sympathizers

The interwar American communist movement was much larger, CPUSA's pre-WW2 membership peaked at 66,000 in January 1939. Mapping American Social Movements Through the 20th Century, from the University of Washington breaks down CPUSA membership further by year from 1922 t0 1950, as well as by region of the US. As late as '33 they only had 20,000 members, most of the increase was due to the Depression and the Spanish Civil War. Their membership cratered after Soviet-Nazi collaboration went public, and briefly recovered to its prewar peak between the end of WW2 and the beginning of the Cold War.

The CPUSA tried to infiltrate organized labor and the civil rights movement, with varying emphasis on different strategies at different times, but I don't think they ever became a mass movement or developed a distinctive identity the way the Chinese or Yugoslav communists did. The CPUSA still stuck to Stalinism after the Secret Speech, and it even criticized Gorbachev's reforms in the late 80s, it was an American clone of the CPSU.
 
"The US could certainly have more social instability, Huey Long style economic populism, fiercer labor disputes, and a more severe version of its perennial racial problems, but a bloody revolution is highly unlikely."

I agree that a full blown revolution is unlikely. However, could we see the US form into more of a post-war Social Democracy when compared with OTL? With even greater poverty before WW2, the post war situation and industrial base may make Americans demand more social services than were ever passed during the New Deal. Maybe even a NHS type healthcare system.
 
If someone gets elected and does next to nothing and a moderate recovery happens by the 1936 election (say, 17% unemployment by Election Day) and ends Prohibition, what are his re-election odds?
 

Thomas1195

Banned
If someone gets elected and does next to nothing and a moderate recovery happens by the 1936 election (say, 17% unemployment by Election Day) and ends Prohibition, what are his re-election odds?
The problem is that the conservatives were not the "doing nothing guys". They wanted to raise VAT.
 
Huey Long was bought & paid for by Mafiosi.

I have no idea to the validity of that, but his stances seemed to be based on his personal convictions. Politicians often have to deal with shady people, but that doesn't always mean that they're controlled by them.
 
I have no idea to the validity of that, but his stances seemed to be based on his personal convictions. Politicians often have to deal with shady people, but that doesn't always mean that they're controlled by them.
Dealing with them is one thing. Taking money to allow illegal slot machines, which Long did, is another.
 
I think you'd see a revolution of some kind. The Russian Revolution was less than twenty years in the past and there is no reason a similar thing could not happen here. No clue the final outcome except that the USA we know today would not exist.

Except it would have not have been a very nice revolution @ all. It would have seen the
overthrow of the government under the
pressure of thousands of hungry people. My
guess then is a sort of communist govern-
ment would then take power, but after a while it would be overthrown in a coup by
right-wing elements who would then have
ruled-out & out- by force, standing leftists &
many intellectuals up against a wall & shoot-
ing then. SEE Sinclair Lewis’ classic novel, IT
CAN’T HAPPEN HERE.

Somewhere I read that on election night 1932 one of FDR’s sons congrulated his
father & told him if he succeeded he would
be the greatest POTUS in history, to which
the Ptesident-elect grimly replied that if he
failed, he would be the last President.
 
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