Wilson's Re-election w/ a Different WWI

Say the invasion of Belgium is averted and the British decide to stay neutral in WWI -- how does the US Presidential Election of 1916 play out? For that matter, how does it play out if WWI doesn't break out at all? Or with any other relevant WWI PoD you can think of?

To start, can Wilson win without being able to brag as much that "he kept us out of war"?
 

JoeMulk

Banned
Probably a greater focus on domestic issues, in which case Wilson would be reelected or not based on how the economy was doing. If France was still in the war then US supplies would still have the economy doing well but with England neutral the Germans might have won by 1915.
 
Wilson did originally want to run on a ticket of his domestic policies and only later adopted he kept us out of war after the Democratic convention adopted the slogan for him.

Honestly by the time you've butterflied away the war I haven't the faintest idea what the domestic front is going to look like for the US. Will we be a more contented nation without constant fears and anxieties over a world going to hell all around us? Will the nation be poorer without the revenues generated by selling arms, grain, and equipment to the Allies? The latter will happen, war provides a lot of opportunities. Of course once it's a contained war the US probably goes mercenary and sells to both sides of the conflict, just not as much as OTL.

Also, how does Britain stay neutral here? And why don't the Gerries invade Belgium, they have to be able to get to France. Britain won't leave someone who helps keep the peace in their colonies, nor will they take the hit on their prestige by leaving them to dry.

Wilson would probably be remembered more as one of the great Progressives domestically, some of his greatest contributions, after all, were in the economic spectrum solidifying Progressive victories (because let's face it people aren't going to have an appetite for Roosevelt and Taft's constant trust-busting antics forever).
 

JoeMulk

Banned
Maybe if Wilson is a two termer another Democrat gets elected in 1920 on his coatails. But again it all depends on the economy. Of course the 1920 election wouldn't be as lopsided as OTL since Wilson wouldn't have pissed off the Irish and German voters.

Another effect of this timeline might be the socialist movement not completely dying out as it did OTL because of suppression in 1917-18.
 
Say the invasion of Belgium is averted and the British decide to stay neutral in WWI -- how does the US Presidential Election of 1916 play out? For that matter, how does it play out if WWI doesn't break out at all? Or with any other relevant WWI PoD you can think of?

To start, can Wilson win without being able to brag as much that "he kept us out of war"?

Almost certainly yes.

This issue has been extensively discussed in the past over on soc.history.what-if, and particularly by David Tenner who is the "resident expert" there on American history. Mr Tenner's conclusion is that the 1916 election was decided primarily on Mr Wilson's domestic record, with the war issue playing only a very minor role. This matches what might be intuitively guessed from the electoral map, since Hughes swept both the Northeast - the most pro-Allied section - and the isolationist Great Lakes area, a result which would have been inconceivable had the vote focused mainly on war issues.

So far as the war's absence has any effect, it helps Wilson, as he will do better among German and Irish voters. Expect him to carry all the states he carried OTL, and probably also Indiana and Minnesota, which went to Hughes by less than one percentage point. Incredible as it may sound, he even has a chance in Massachusetts, if the Irish there turn out for him in larger numbers.
 
Also, how does Britain stay neutral here? And why don't the Gerries invade Belgium, they have to be able to get to France. Britain won't leave someone who helps keep the peace in their colonies, nor will they take the hit on their prestige by leaving them to dry.

Perhaps the Germans turn East to concentrate on Russia. Wilhelm certainly tried that at the last minute.

The pressures to invade Belgium from the General Staff were considerable, however, which points to the basic inflexibility of prewar German staff planning. So it is perhaps unlikely. But it's not impossible. For one thing, up until 1913 the General Staff kept an updated plan for a "turn East" scenario, deploying five of eight armies to the Russian frontier, with the other three moved to stand on defense in Alsace-Lorraine in case the French did decidce to come to the aid of Russia.

But without a violation of Belgian neutrality, British intervention becomes harder for Grey to pull off. British honor "had to wear a Belgian coat."
 
This seems to be the consensus; thanks all. :)

Also like the ideas on how 1920 TTL may play out...


Probably very similar to 1916. On this TL, the Democrats have not alienated northern and western farmers - the mainstay of their 1916 win - by wartime price-fixing and economic discrimination in favour of the South. Nor of course have they offended German or Irish voters. Also, without the stresses of war leadership and the League of Nations battle, Wilson's health very likely holds up through 1920.

He has about a 50/50 chance of electing a Democratic successor, and even if the Republicans win, it will be nothing like their OTL landslide, but more the sort of victory Hughes would have got had those late returns from California gone the other way .
 
Hmm, yes -- and Progressivism would most likely march ever on...

Well, it would have been a mite stronger. The Democratic Congressional losses in 1914 and 1916 suggest that it had already "peaked" and that the 1920s would in any case have been a more conservative decade than its predecessor, but the contrast might have been less sharp than OTL.

Speaking of which -- if the Socialists don't get crushed by the war (as JoeMulk noted), how much bigger could they get in the upcoming decade?

Probably not much, if the Democrats choose reasonably progressive candidates. Even in 1916, the Socialist vote was almost halved from 1912, presumably because the Wilson Administration's domestic policies were winning over Debs voters.

Note also that in the Depression, which should have been the Socialists' big chance, they got nowhere. Most voters went with FDR and the New Deal. This is the usual fate of third parties. A major party steals their clothes.
 
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