"Are you now or have you ever been, a Fascist?" The Century of the Common Man

[Indy Prez]

07/11/1944
FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT & HENRY A WALLACE RE-ELECTED

 

FDR easily wins re-election to an historic fourth term, though with reduced electoral college margins and despite the split with the Unpledged Dixiecratic Wing of the party due to the renomination of pro-labour Vice President Henry Wallace. Senator Harold S Truman lost a close convention floor-fight over the nomination but conceded graciously and endorsed the eventual nominees. 
 But tragedy would strike almost a year later when the President died of a massive stroke in the Oval Office, retiring upon remarking to an aide of 'a terrible headache'. The nation mourned it's patrician statesman and wartime leader from coast to coast as well as abroad, where the city of Berlin was about to topple and Japanese defeat was within sight.
 The 33rd Vice President of the United States was about to become the 33rd President...

[Peter the Lefty]

Oh boy.  Please, someone let Wallace see light on the Soviet Union.

[Indy Prez]

VICTORY IN EUROPE & JAPAN!

Under the weight of Allied pressure, the Nazi war machine is crushed upon the capturing of the city of Berlin. President Wallace and Soviet leader Josef Stalin congratulate one another, Wallace "hoping this could be the beginning of a wonderful alliance."
 The USSR will call for a joint US-Soviet invasion of the Empire of Japan, which Wallace refutes, hoping to blockade the islands. But Stalin will go ahead, deploying Russian troops to Korean ports and the US will jump in at the last minute. Wallace's insistence on co-operation with the Soviets will anger many American Imperialists in the upper echelons of the burgeoning military-industrial complex, hoping to end the war unilaterally with an Atom bomb, whose development Wallace orders to be scrapped.
 The invasion will end up costing collectively little more than ten thousand Soviet and American lives. VJ day will be celebrated by millions in the streets of Moscow, New York, Rome, Shanghai and Buenos Aires. The anti-imperialist Wallace will fight with Stalin and himself over the trial of the Emperor for war crimes, whom the Japanese consider to be divine. Russia will defy the US and dethrone the Emperor, but not execute or exile him to Siberia, as a compromise.
 Meanwhile, General Lesley Groves, Senator Robert Taft of Ohio and other right-wingers will plot an attempt to reinstall a business-friendly administration.

[Lumine]

President Wallace is a very interesting (and terrifying) scenario, but I must ask, only 10.000 casualties? An invasion of Japan would be incredibly complex and bloody, and it would take a lot of time to end resistance (Even considering a 1945 start the invasion would last well into 1946).

[Indy Prez]

President Wallace is a very interesting (and terrifying) scenario, but I must ask, only 10.000 casualties? An invasion of Japan would be incredibly complex and bloody, and it would take a lot of time to end resistance (Even considering a 1945 start the invasion would last well into 1946).

Not as terrifying as the last sixty-seven years (if you ask anyone who lived them). I think 10, 000 is actually a ridiculous overestimation on my part, but it makes for a better tl story. Had the US aligned itself with the USSR sooner and declared war on Japan, there is little doubt that the beleaguered Empire would have surrendered. The only reason the USSR had not declared war on its old rival to the East was because it was already fighting the Nazi menace on it's Western front and would not have survived a combined Axis Invasion.

[Donerail]

I'll call BS on your 10,000 casualty figure. Let's look at the estimates here:

-Gen. Lauris Norstad: 500,000 US fatalities
-Joint Chiefs of Staff: for a 90-day campaign, 456,000 casualties and 109,000 dead/missing
-Admiral Nimitz: 49,000 in the first 30 days, with 5,000 of them at sea.
-Gem MacArthur: 23,000 in the first 30 days, 125,000 by 120 days.
-William Shockley on behalf of Secretary of War Henry Stimson: 1.7-4 million American casualties, with 400,000-800,000 fatalities and 5-10 million Japanese fatalities.
-LA Times war correspondent Kyle Palmer: half a million to a million
-Herbert Hoover: half a million to a million

There's a reason we've never had to manufacture any more Purple Hearts. Soviets or not.

Had the US aligned itself with the USSR sooner and declared war on Japan, there is little doubt that the beleaguered Empire would have surrendered.

Doubtful. They were entirely willing to fight on to the bitter end; that's why it took an atomic bomb to get them to stop.

[Indy Prez]

I'll call BS on your 10,000 casualty figure. Let's look at the estimates here:

-Gen. Lauris Norstad: 500,000 US fatalities
-Joint Chiefs of Staff: for a 90-day campaign, 456,000 casualties and 109,000 dead/missing
-Admiral Nimitz: 49,000 in the first 30 days, with 5,000 of them at sea.
-Gem MacArthur: 23,000 in the first 30 days, 125,000 by 120 days.
-William Shockley on behalf of Secretary of War Henry Stimson: 1.7-4 million American casualties, with 400,000-800,000 fatalities and 5-10 million Japanese fatalities.
-LA Times war correspondent Kyle Palmer: half a million to a million
-Herbert Hoover: half a million to a million

There's a reason we've never had to manufacture any more Purple Hearts. Soviets or not.

Had the US aligned itself with the USSR sooner and declared war on Japan, there is little doubt that the beleaguered Empire would have surrendered.

Doubtful. They were entirely willing to fight on to the bitter end; that's why it took an atomic bomb to get them to stop.

 President Truman is known to have increased the figure repeatedly after giving an interview in August 1945 where he claimed that the bomb would have saved "thousands of lives", then in December of that same year "a quarter of a million of the flower of our young manhood was worth a couple of Japanese cities", and in November of 1949 "500, 000 [American] casualties", in January 1953 "as much as a million [Japanese and American] casualties" and finally, in April 1959 "the bomb stopped the war and saved millions of lives".
 You can fact-check this or look it up if you don't believe me. The proof is staring you straight in the face. You can believe what you want to believe or you can be objective.
 All you have there are some estimated figures from known anti-communists who wanted to end the war unilaterally so they could declare it won on their terms and sustain the military-industrial complex for as long as they saw necessary - so your call is BS.

[Donerail]

I'll call BS on your 10,000 casualty figure. Let's look at the estimates here:

-Gen. Lauris Norstad: 500,000 US fatalities
-Joint Chiefs of Staff: for a 90-day campaign, 456,000 casualties and 109,000 dead/missing
-Admiral Nimitz: 49,000 in the first 30 days, with 5,000 of them at sea.
-Gem MacArthur: 23,000 in the first 30 days, 125,000 by 120 days.
-William Shockley on behalf of Secretary of War Henry Stimson: 1.7-4 million American casualties, with 400,000-800,000 fatalities and 5-10 million Japanese fatalities.
-LA Times war correspondent Kyle Palmer: half a million to a million
-Herbert Hoover: half a million to a million

There's a reason we've never had to manufacture any more Purple Hearts. Soviets or not.

Had the US aligned itself with the USSR sooner and declared war on Japan, there is little doubt that the beleaguered Empire would have surrendered.

Doubtful. They were entirely willing to fight on to the bitter end; that's why it took an atomic bomb to get them to stop.

 President Truman is known to have increased the figure repeatedly after giving an interview in August 1945 where he claimed that the bomb would have saved "thousands of lives", then in December of that same year "a quarter of a million of the flower of our young manhood was worth a couple of Japanese cities", and in November of 1949 "500, 000 [American] casualties", in January 1953 "as much as a million [Japanese and American] casualties" and finally, in April 1959 "the bomb stopped the war and saved millions of lives".
 You can fact-check this or look it up if you don't believe me. The proof is staring you straight in the face. You can believe what you want to believe or you can be objective.
 All you have there are some estimated figures from known anti-communists who wanted to end the war unilaterally so they could declare it won on their terms and sustain the military-industrial complex for as long as they saw necessary - so your call is BS.

I can see what kinda timeline this will be...

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I loled when I read about Robert Taft's coup plot. You may not like his politics, but I doubt he would support a coup in order to achieve his agenda.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Ah, the lovely and benevolent Soviet regime, if only we'd realized our folly and had kept our alliance with them after the war (the only reason that WWII itself was just because our enemies were fascist, fighting communists on the other hand is unthinkable).

[Indy Prez]

The United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union and the Republic of China are the inaugural signatories of the United Nations Charter, dictating an end to the war and a strong global moderator as envisioned by FDR.
 Wallace refuses to lift wage and price controls or liquidate war bonds, preferring to ease the US from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy easily. The siege of Japan provided President Wallace with a few months to file executive orders and sign into law the Housing Rights Act of 1945 to desegregate the federal govenement and armed services and build new houses in what would be known as 'suburban areas' as well as 'slum clearance' in the inner cities to raise existing projects and replace them with new high-rise tenements.
 Most returning soldiers will be delegated jobs in the postwar economy and temporary housing for their families but the expected inflation and unemployment still occurs...
 
In 1946 Detroit, President Wallace will speak to a gathering of United Auto Workers before things get too heated and he is forced to leave in his motorcade when shots echo out across Dodge Main Street...

[Indy Prez]

I loled when I read about Robert Taft's coup plot. You may not like his politics, but I doubt he would support a coup in order to achieve his agenda.

Hm. He did co-sponsor slum clearance but if you think of the length Texaco went to get rubber tires to Francoist Spain or the amount of democratically elected leaders and innocent people Reagan, Carter and Johnson had killed or removed from power for nationalising multi-billion dollar US companies often with fatal losses, it's not too far from the truth... I can't see Taft holding much sway or having much purpose in a social democracy.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

What I read when I see that is "yes, there's a good reason to kill Henry Wallace".

[Indy Prez]

PRESIDENT WALLACE SHOT IN DETROIT

Reads the headline in the New York Journal-American later that day, flagrantly claiming a fatal sniper's bullet shot the President in the heart in an astoundingly detailed report on the aftermath of the event. Later news flashes will contradict this story and the New York Journal-American's circulation will drop into the thousands amid rumours of a right-wing plot to decapitate the government and insert Secretary of State Stettinius. Much of these rumours gain traction with a rabid unemployed veterans, labour, women's and civil rights movement across the nation.
 Wallace's would-be assassins are stopped by three brave female factory workers. The two snipers had occupied a munitions plant just across the street from where Wallace had begun delivering his 'Century of the Common Man' Speech. In the course of an expensive investigation into the two hitmen, links are revealed tying the men to some of the biggest faces in the underworld and moneyed establishment. Wallace will add them and Southern racists to his sh**tlist in what will come to be known to John Birchers, the KKK and various other right-wing factions as Wallace's Great Purge or the Fascist Witch Hunts...

[Indy Prez]

The recuperated President Wallace proposes a new series of socioeconomic programs called the Better Society, aimed at improving the life of everyday Americans through a massive postwar public works program building highways and high-speed rail networks to connect the country, Amendments to the Constitution guaranteeing healthcare as a right for all Americans, transitioning War Bonds into Peace Bonds and a new Department of Science in the federal government.
 This will infuriate many conservative Democrats who see the popular President as a threat to the Party. The former Republican will not compromise with them, preferring to inspire a new further-to-the-left coalition of New Dealer types and put his ideals on hold for the new Congress.