Woodrow Wilson died in 1924 after suffering a stroke a few years earlier. He was seeking a third term at the time of his death, so this scenario explores what could've happened if he survived and was re-elected.
Wilson was very racist and, especially in his later years, delusional. It's not too far of a stretch to say that he may have bought into Nazi ideology if he had lived to see it's rise. I believe that Nazism would experience the same bit of brief popularity in the United States as in our timeline, but perhaps this affects Wilson.
Let me lay out the timeline. The year is 1924. Woodrow Wilson runs on the Democrat ballot and wins. I'm not sure by how much, but assuming Follette and Calvin Coolidge still run in this timeline, I think it's safe to assume he would win. It's hard to say what he would have done differently if he had served in this time, but he would just miss the great depression by a year. He would no doubt continue to re-segregate the government and spread racism. I believe that this means that not only does far right beliefs and racism rise in popularity, but the impact of the great depression on minorities is much greater. Wilson could potentially put us into the depression sooner, and I don't see a way he could avoid it. He was responsible for a huge amount of national debt in his previous terms, so the great depression would likely be worse. I believe Wilson might use black people, or non-white Americans in general, as a scapegoat for the great depression. His presidency would end just before Nazis in America became prevalent, but he could either: Survive and use his influence to promote Nazism or; Nazism becomes more popular in the US earlier because of Wilson.
I'll write more later.
This is ridiculous for many reasons, not the least of which is that Wilson would have no sympathy at all for Nazi anti-Semitism. I don't just have in mind his appointing Louis Brandeis as the first Jewish Supreme Court justice but his specific defense of the Jews at Versailles, where Llloyd George said that "There is obviously something to be said to justify the hostile feeling of the Poles against the Jews. M. Paderewski told me that, during the war, the Jews of Poland were by turns for the Germans, for the Russians, for the Austrians, but very little for Poland herself." Wilson replied that "It is the result of long persecution. The Jews of the United States are good citizens...Our wish is to bring them back everywhere under the terms of the law of the land."
https://books.google.com/books?id=rRrRBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT146
Anyway, if Wilson is healthy enough to run in 1924 and gets nominated, he will of course lose. "Coolidge prosperiy," bitter memories of the War from German-Americans and others, etc. would be more than enough to assure his landslide defeat (epsecially since he will continue to insist the US join the League of Nations, which most voters by this time considered a dead issue). And Wilson's last political thoughts as expressed in his 1923 "The Road Away from Revolution" were hardly Nazi or extremist--they were in fact stupefyingly banal: the best answer to Bolshevism was to Christianize and humanize capitalism:
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In these doubtful and anxious days, when all the world is at unrest and, look which way you will, the road ahead seems darkened by shadows which portend dangers of many kinds, it is only common prudence that we should look about us and attempt to assess the causes of distress and the most likely means of removing them.
There must be some real ground for the universal unrest and perturbation. It is not to be found in superficial politics or in mere economic blunders. It probably lies deep at the sources of the spiritual life of our time. It leads to revolution; and perhaps if we take the case of the Russian Revolution, the outstanding event of its kind in our age, we may find a good deal of instruction for our judgment of present critical situations and circumstances.
What gave rise to the Russian Revolution? The answer can only be that it was the product of a whole social system. It was not in fact a sudden thing. It had been gathering head for several generations. It was due to the systematic denial to the great body of Russians of the rights and privileges which all normal men desire and must have if they are to be contented and within reach of happiness. The lives of the great mass of the Russian people contained no opportunities, but were hemmed in by barriers against which they were constantly flinging their spirits, only to fall back bruised and dispirited. Only the powerful were suffered to secure their rights or even to gain access to the means of material success.
It is to be noted as a leading fact of our time that it was against “capitalism” that the Russian leaders directed their attack. It was capitalism that made them see red; and it is against capitalism under one name or another that the discontented classes everywhere draw their indictment.
There are thoughtful and well-informed men all over the world who believe, with much apparently sound reason, that the abstract thing, the system, which we call capitalism, is indispensable to the industrial support and development of modern civilization. And yet everyone who has an intelligent knowledge of social forces must know that great and widespread reactions like that which is now unquestionably manifesting itself against capitalism do not occur without cause or provocation; and before we commit ourselves irreconcilably to an attitude of hostility to this movement of the time, we ought frankly to put to ourselves the question, Is the capitalistic system unimpeachable? which is another way of asking, Have capitalists generally used their power for the benefit of the countries in which their capital is employed and for the benefit of their fellow men?
Is it not, on the contrary, too true that capitalists have often seemed to regard the men whom they used as mere instruments of profit, whose physical and mental powers it was legitimate to exploit with as slight cost to themselves as possible, either of money or of sympathy? Have not many fine men who were actuated by the highest principles in every other relationship of life seemed to hold that generosity and humane feeling were not among the imperative mandates of conscience in the conduct of a banking business, or in the development of an industrial or commercial enterprise?
And if these offenses against high morality and true citizenship have been frequently observable, are we to say that the blame for the present discontent and turbulence is wholly on the side of those who are in revolt against them?
Ought we not, rather, to seek a way to remove such offenses and make life itself clean for those who will share honorably and cleanly in it?
The world has been made safe for democracy. There need now be no fear that any such mad design as that entertained by the insolent and ignorant Hohenzollerns and their counselors may prevail against it. But democracy has not yet made the world safe against irrational revolution. That supreme task, which is nothing less than the salvation of civilization, now faces democracy, insistent, imperative. There is no escaping it, unless everything we have built up is presently to fall in ruin about us; and the United States, as the greatest of democracies, must undertake it.
The road that leads away from11 revolution is clearly marked, for it is defined by the nature of men and of organized society. It therefore behooves us to study very carefully and very candidly the exact nature of the task and the means of its successful accomplishment.
The nature of men and of organized society dictates the maintenance, in every field of action, of the highest and purest standards of justice and of right dealing; and it is essential to efficacious thinking in this critical matter that we should not entertain a narrow or technical conception of justice. By justice the lawyer generally12 means the prompt, fair, and open application of impartial rules; but we call ours a Christian civilization, and a Christian conception of justice must be much higher. It must include sympathy and helpfulness and a willingness to forgo self-interest in order to promote the welfare, happiness, and contentment of others and of the community as a whole. This is what our age is blindly feeling after in its reaction against what it deems the too great selfishness of the capitalistic system.
The sum of the whole matter is this, that our civilization cannot survive13 materially unless it be redeemed spiritually. It can be saved only by becoming permeated with the spirit of Christ and being made free and happy by the practices which spring out of that spirit. Only thus can discontent be driven out and all the shadows lifted from the road ahead.
Here is the final challenge to our churches, to our political organizations, and to our capitalists—to everyone who fears God or loves his country. Shall we not all earnestly coöperate to bring in the new day?
www.gutenberg.org
