WI No Prohibition in US?

What would the effects be if Prohibition, for some reason or another, was never implemented in the USA? What possible effects can we predict? What would the effects be on US politics, organised crime, the Kennedy fortune?
 

mowque

Banned
What's the exact POD? Prohibition was like a incoming tide. The movement was huge and widespread. How exactly do you plan to stop it?
 

boredatwork

Banned
much smaller kennedy fortune.

Less popularity of hard liquor in US

No nascar, no stock car racing

Smaller police departments across the US

Much weaker organized crime in the US -> smaller atlantic city, possibly no Las Vegas.

No good couner-example for drug restrictions, but no model to base them off either.

No constitutional right to booze (it is in there... funny enough)*

and stuff...

*just kidding
 
Joe Kennedy's involvement in liquour importing during prohibition is limited to unproven rumours. So without prohibition the Kennedys would still be as rich and influential but without people blowing unproven rumours into the cause of Joes success. After all he was an exceptional man who was well on his way before prohibition.
 
There could be butterflies which would effect automobile racing in the USA, NASCAR more directly.

With no prohibition, "good old boys" down South would not have bootlegged as much liquor. Bootlegging resulted in modifying their automobiles to out run the law. This naturally resulted in racing each other.

There would be some sort of stock car racing in the US, but it might not be as big as it is now. Or perhaps the US would be more into Indy car or formula 1.
 
Beer Garden's may have survived throughout the midwest as a center for civic and social life. The tavern lobby will also maintain its considerable political clout.
 
Nativism would have to take a whole new prejudicial slant against immigrants. Many scholars and others have observed that Prohibition was really veiled bigotry against more recent European immigrants who enjoyed alcoholic beverages as part of their culture. This was in part because many of these immigrants openly allowed and celebrated the consumption of alcohol without moral stigma. Take this in contrast with Protestant groups who shunned alcohol as a badge of identity, source of immorality, and a means of separation from immigrant groups, and Prohibition takes on a new, class-and-ethnicity conscious hue.

Almost everyone liked to drink, even those who nominally subscribed to 'dry' religious groups. Hence the obvious failure of Prohibition.
 
Last edited:

Stephen

Banned
Almost everyone liked to drink, even those who nominally subscribed to 'dry' religious groups. Hence the obvious failure of Prohibition.

Funnily enough I dont like drinking. To me alchohol is just a rather odd flavour added to some drinks often bitter or unpleasent ones which makes me feel dizzy if I drink alot of it. But unfortunatly having a social life requires you to spend a rediculous amount of money purchasing and consuming these off tasting drinks or being seen as a wimp. Which is anoying.:mad:
 
Joe Kennedy's involvement in liquour importing during prohibition is limited to unproven rumours. So without prohibition the Kennedys would still be as rich and influential but without people blowing unproven rumours into the cause of Joes success. After all he was an exceptional man who was well on his way before prohibition.
I think it's clear from some of the things Joe Kennedy said to the people close to him, around the time Jack and Bobby were running their hearings on organized crime, which he was deeply worried about, indicate that he had been involved with the very same gangsters at some point in his career.
Without prohibition maybe he wouldn't have made those connections, I'm sure he would have made his money elsewhere, enterprising chap that he was.
On the other hand maybe without prohibition his sons wouldn't have run those hearings at all, what with organized crime being less of a beast, and subsequently JFK's campaign for president wouldn't have been as high profile, so maybe he doesn't get elected, or maybe he has to wait another term.
 
Less organised crime in the cities and less corruption in the police. Canadian fisherman would be less well off and F.Scott Fitzgerald would have to have written the Great Gatsby differently or maybe never have written it.

A lot of beer would have passed prohobition so it may not have affected as many people as supposed
 
Top