WI Wendell Willkie Becomes President in '41

He and his Veep would die before their terms are over, leading to an interesting 1944 election and a possible administrative crisis.

Willkie was a reluctant isolationist, and it would be hard to see him trying to avoid war with Germany. I'm less sure that he would push Japan into a corner--so WW2 might be against Germany only with US war entry in 1942/3, perhaps.

Question is, Willkie would die suddenly of the flu in 1944. What happens when the political campaign goes to pieces in the middle of a war?
 
I don't think he'd die as he did in OTL if he were president. Maybe he'd live a bit longer, or the stress of managing a war would accelerate his death.
 
Republicans in Congress aren't going to let Willkie push any sort of preparedness legislation, and will likely try and get Willkie to slow down Roosevelt's own legislation that helped amp up the U.S.' armaments industry shortly before the war started.

I'm not exactly sure of how things would go. I get the feeling, though, that Willkie's own relatively internationalist views would be hampered by the Republicans in Congress, who were at the time stridently isolationist.
 
I'm pretty sure the whole country was isolationist. Roosevelt campaigned on an isolationist platform. If anything, Wilkie being elected might mean larger aid shipments to the Allies.
 
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