Garrison
Donor
Sorry? that is precisely they topic we are discussing, a Nazi president in the 1940s. Now can you offer a plausible scenario for how this could happen?
WI Woodrow Wilson was re-elected and became a Nazi?
- Thread starter JacobB17
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He's right tho. The OP is still at a 101 level. The way you're framing it is at a grad school level.
It probably won't do the OP any good, and it'll most likely derail the thread into a lot of long winded abstract arguments about the nature of fascism and the American psyche.
Garrison
Donor
Well sorry but if someone is going put forward such a radical idea I don't think its unreasonable to find out how well they've thought it through and bluntly so far the answer seems to be not at all.
I didn't say it was unreasonable. I'm more saying that the discussion you want to have is not really workable for the thread. You should make a separate thread if you're itching to talk about it. I'll join in.
Garrison
Donor
I am at a loss. The OP puts forward an idea that basically ridiculous, a Nazi president of the USA, and you've arbitrarily decided that the reasons why are just to complicated so we should ignore them? If you don't feel able to explain why the scenario is possible after all, well you can always just say so.
When you go to Wilson's Presidental library/boy hood home after a long presentation about his family being slaveholding and them regarding the house slaves as second-class citizens with hand me down clothing you get to his boyhood room with Washington, Madison, Jefferson, and a whole host of others on the wall. All of them enlightenment figures who believed in Republican governance.
If your personal heroes are these folks, you might have different ideas on how to go about Republican governance which Wilson had, but they weren't going to support movements that were at their core against the ideal of full citizens voting for democratic government. The concept of handing over supreme power to the state is also anathema to America political culture going back to the start.
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I don't know exactly what the problem is. I offered to discuss in an alternate thread. I don't know why you would make such an aggressive statement when I was being cordial.
Garrison
Donor
You are trying to set the terms for what arguments people can and can't deploy in the thread, that is anything but cordial and I I think I am done with this exchange.
Agreeing with other posters that the direction your tangent was likely to take us was detrimental, and offering to have the discussion you want to have in another thread, where you can set all the parameters with your own post---it was certainly meant to be cordial, to you as well as others.
Sorry you didn't see it that way.
DougM
Donor
Frankly i dont get it either. The OP’s POD is minimally explained and frankly all but impossible for multiple reasons. Such as Wilsons Health, His track record not looking good for reelection, his personality not seaming to indicate he would go Faciest. The general culture os the US at the time. The very large number of recently trained ex soldiers that would be able to resist, all the traditional guns owned by many many many folks that would not exactly support the more standard power grab often seen with Facist take overs. etc etc.
Typically on this forum we expect to discuss things that can happen. And if it is questionable the discussion of how this happened and if it could very often takes up a large part of the topic. For excample try discussing “what happens after Germany invades England” or “what happens to the Uzs after Japan Wins WW2” and see how long it takes before the question is raised about HOW these things happen.
In part this is because HOW something happens is most of the time critical to what happens after said thing happens. For example asking “The white house blows up in 1952, what happens next?”. A reasonable question but without knowing why/how the POD happens you cant really discuss it as everyone will have their own back story and assumptions. And your comments may work based on your assumptions but wont work based on my assumptions of how something came about thus we cant truly have a worthwhile discussion.
For example I may assume that Wilson‘s personality changed as a result of his stroke or perhaps I assume that while physically he recovered he is now more or less a pupet to someone. a Figurehead that somehow someone uses to take over. Of course you still have an issue getting him elected after WW1 (sy my post about that issue somewhere above). So understand how something that is just short of ASB happened is extremely important to understanding the topic and have a useful conversation.
If the OP does not want to have this conversation or just wants to ignore how it came about they have a few options. Post this topic someplace other then this section of the forum, Or create thier own timeline and ot start an open discussion about the subject.
Typically on this forum we expect to discuss things that can happen. And if it is questionable the discussion of how this happened and if it could very often takes up a large part of the topic. For excample try discussing “what happens after Germany invades England” or “what happens to the Uzs after Japan Wins WW2” and see how long it takes before the question is raised about HOW these things happen.
In part this is because HOW something happens is most of the time critical to what happens after said thing happens. For example asking “The white house blows up in 1952, what happens next?”. A reasonable question but without knowing why/how the POD happens you cant really discuss it as everyone will have their own back story and assumptions. And your comments may work based on your assumptions but wont work based on my assumptions of how something came about thus we cant truly have a worthwhile discussion.
For example I may assume that Wilson‘s personality changed as a result of his stroke or perhaps I assume that while physically he recovered he is now more or less a pupet to someone. a Figurehead that somehow someone uses to take over. Of course you still have an issue getting him elected after WW1 (sy my post about that issue somewhere above). So understand how something that is just short of ASB happened is extremely important to understanding the topic and have a useful conversation.
If the OP does not want to have this conversation or just wants to ignore how it came about they have a few options. Post this topic someplace other then this section of the forum, Or create thier own timeline and ot start an open discussion about the subject.
Nazis are still on the fringe at least in a global sense in the 20s. Why would he be a Nazi, they were just another minor pollitical player in distant Germany? They might have started to be more visible to the outside world when Wilson would be ending his tenure in 1928, assuming he ran and won in 1924.
Also the only thing they'd have in common is being racist, which TBH in the context of giant European Empires and segregation was depressingly normal at the time and probably not going to be a element that makes them appeal againse the wider context of German ultranationalism. I don't really see how he'd find much comfort in such a German ideaology considering he would have been the president that fought them in WWI.
Also the only thing they'd have in common is being racist, which TBH in the context of giant European Empires and segregation was depressingly normal at the time and probably not going to be a element that makes them appeal againse the wider context of German ultranationalism. I don't really see how he'd find much comfort in such a German ideaology considering he would have been the president that fought them in WWI.
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Roosevelt seems more likely to go Nazi than Wilson. Roosevelt was mentally unstable and a literal thrill killer, whose government killed countless Filipinos (many in camps), TR used Naziesque claims about native Americans, believed that war was necessary to keep society vital, believed in the typical eugenic ideas of his time, strongly opposed states rights and hyphenated American identity…
A Teddy that lives to the Depression, gets elected, radicalizes, and creates a giant bureaucracy that pursues some of his ideas on war and race seems much easier than Wilson.
Frankly pseudo-Nazi TR in the 30s is fascinating, a lot moreso than Wilson becoming a Nazi for some reason. Wilson was a racist and all around bad bloke but Nazi? That particular ideology wasn't really in his wheelhouse IMO.
I do in fact have a scenario in mind for how a fascist and nazi-sympathizer (which, and I want this to be clear, Woodrow Wilson wasn't IMO) of sorts could get into the white house, but, as I said, the forum for that scenario is not the post-1900 one. And if for any reason you really can't see why, let it be enough for me to say that it'd require transposing and adapting to the 40's events so recent, that it'd be impossible to avoid a staff intervention
Now, if your reply is going to be that recent events can never to any extent be possibly adapted to an allohistorical, previous context, I'll tell you right now that I firmly disagree
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If you want to start a new thread about a Nazi president of the US, fine (though I think such a president unlikely) but it is ridiculous to make either Wilson or TR that person, not least because both of them were philo-Semitic.
Indeeed, TR made a proto-Nazi ridiculous:
"While I was Police Commissioner an anti-Semitic preacher from Berlin, Rector Ahlwardt, came over to New York to preach a crusade against the Jews. Many of the New York Jews were much excited and asked me to prevent him from speaking and not to give him police protection. This, I told them, was impossible; and if possible would have been undesirable because it would have made him a martyr. The proper thing to do was to make him ridiculous. Accordingly I detailed for his protection a Jew sergeant and a score or two of Jew policemen. He made his harangue against the Jews under the active protection of some forty policemen, every one of them a Jew!" https://www.bartleby.com/55/6.html
Indeeed, TR made a proto-Nazi ridiculous:
"While I was Police Commissioner an anti-Semitic preacher from Berlin, Rector Ahlwardt, came over to New York to preach a crusade against the Jews. Many of the New York Jews were much excited and asked me to prevent him from speaking and not to give him police protection. This, I told them, was impossible; and if possible would have been undesirable because it would have made him a martyr. The proper thing to do was to make him ridiculous. Accordingly I detailed for his protection a Jew sergeant and a score or two of Jew policemen. He made his harangue against the Jews under the active protection of some forty policemen, every one of them a Jew!" https://www.bartleby.com/55/6.html
Highly unrealistic scenario
Woodrow Wilson (WW in short) was in 1921 age 65, were Life expectancy was 53 years, in that time Capitol Hill consider Him as old and unfit to rule do age.
WW and Nazis ideology ?
WW was a racist and Imperialist, but was NOT into Conquest, Mass murder millions of peoples and creating a Master Race like certain A. Hitler.
Even with third term WW had reach most of his goals like racial segregation or that USA active intervene in World affaires like World War 1.
Garrison
Donor
Well if you want to import the elements of modern day US politics into the 1940s I agree the Writers Forum or ASB would be far more appropriate.
I am genuinely surprised you didn't understand my previous posts. Well that explains why our conversation has been going in circles.