Anyone but Wilson
I'm inclined to agree, but the only practical place to stop him (short of his death) is at the Democratic Convention. TR has little to contribute.
Anyone but Wilson
Americans embraced the war after 1917. Given a proper build up, they could acept it as inevitable in 1915 or 1916.It can't be much more. After all the OP requires TR to win in 1916 as well as 1912, which will be next to impossible if he has attempted to push the country into war, or if it is widely suspected that he will do so if re-elected.
And 1916 will be hard enough anyway. If TR is seen as a warmonger, the Democrats, who will have barely missed victory in 1912 and may well be in control of Congress, will make the very most of it. Add to this the fact that many (perhaps a majority) of the *Republicans* in Congress will be Regulars who supported Taft in 1912, and will in all likelihood be praying for a Democratic victory to give them a chance to regain control of the GOP, so that crippling himself further by advocating (or even seeming to advocate) war could easily put the final nail in his coffin.
A shorter war or a less than World War (e.g. if Germany is clear that violating Belgian neutrality will bring in both Britain and the US but that a war with France and Russia won't or probably won't and they never do violate Belgian neutrality. OTL they could see that the US didn't want to get involved and the UK (or Grey and Crowe at the FO at any rate) did want to get involved and not on their side) would have huge implications for the levels of national debt in all major world powers plus lower levels of post war medical costs and disability pensions and no (or smaller) gluts of war surplus shipping, aircraft and lorries to cause an industrial recession. No Bolsheviks and Russia probably remains integrated in the world economy. Likewise with a reasonably stable Russia in the 1920s integrated in European diplomacy, China is less likely to be as chaotic and divided a country as the Great Powers (likely Britain, France, the US and Russia) can act in concert and (relative) harmony to maintain order. If the Austrian empire doesn't break up into smaller states with "beggar my neighbour" economic policies that helps world trade as well. So a shorter or less extensive WW1 or no WW1 at all and the world economy is automatically more robust. WW2 and the Cold War didn't help either but it was 1993 before global trade levels reached the same level as 1913 OTL.Why should it be any more robust than OTL?
Americans embraced the war after 1917. Given a proper build up, they could acept it as inevitable in 1915 or 1916.
The OP itself contains change. For TR to win in 1912 a shift of public opinion must have started. For him to win again in 1916 it must have become tectonic.
The fact is that it's to wide a POD.
TR wins 1912 is big enough to change US politics in a manner that will force us to reconsider everything about the 1916 election. With a double POD, we must assume that:
1. TR winning in 1912 changed things;
2. Him winning again in 1916 means that those changes were successful
Wasn't it implicit on the title?So the OP should read "WI Americans were totally different people in 1912 than they were OTL"?
Wasn't it implicit on the title?
Maybe without the "totally' at least for 1912.
Alternate history creates alternate people.
And yet people keep running for president.Only gradually in most respects, and more in some than in others.
Frex, the 1912 campaign never touched on foreign affairs to any important extent, so there is no reason for a different outcome to have any noticeable effect on public and Congressional attitudes toward, say, a war in Europe. Any speeches on the subject by the POTUS - whoever he is - will be pretty much ignored unless they happen to agree with what most folks are thinking anyhow. Few if any opinions will be changed in any significant way. TR will be dealing with the same attitudes as Wilson was OTL.
The "bully pulpit" is largely a myth. It only works if the preacher is telling the congregation what they want to hear.
Americans embraced the war after 1917. Given a proper build up, they could acept it as inevitable in 1915 or 1916.
The OP itself contains change. For TR to win in 1912 a shift of public opinion must have started. For him to win again in 1916 it must have become tectonic.
The fact is that it's to wide a POD.
TR wins 1912 is big enough to change US politics in a manner that will force us to reconsider everything about the 1916 election. With a double POD, we must assume that:
1. TR winning in 1912 changed things;
2. Him winning again in 1916 means that those changes were successful
And yet people keep running for president.
Sometimes there is a retrospective pessimism built into the conservative view of Alternate History. Nothing ever changes much, one president is more or less like the other, it's all Kismet.
One of the reasons why I keep my - self out of that view is that I actually vote on every election and hope that it will mean something.
You may be right. I hope you're not, because if alternate historians can't change the past by changing election results that means that citizens can't change the future by casting votes.
I won't try to change your mind. I just like to think the cup is 1/16 parts full.
TR is about as different from Wilson as a Shelby Cobra is from a Prius. He would have generated changes.
Why have a TR POD and go small?
Wilson is someone you vote against, TR is someone you vote for.
Why have a TR POD and go small?
Because he is a bigger than life figure well suited for bold, adventurous writing.How is a TR PoD different from any other PoD?
He was a smart politician with a colourful personality, but at the end of the day still a politician subject to the same practical limitations as any other. He was indeed popular, but if the 1904 election stats are any guide, little if any more so than McKinley in 1900, once allowance is made for the growth in the electorate. His EC landslide was largely down to Democrats abstaining, thanks to them having nominated their weakest candidate since 1872. Eight years later he would not have this advantage, as all the major Democratic hopefuls were safely in the mainstream of their party.
In 1912 he did well in Republican Primaries, but come November all he seems to have done is provide a temporary home for progressive Republicans who would otherwise have had to vote Democratic, as they were to do in 1916. In short, though his administration would have differed from Wilson's in style, I don't see why we should automatically expect it to produce world-shaking changes.