1920: The Polar Bear Expedition turns into Vietnam

[Meursault]

President Wilson agreed to send a limited force of American troops into Russian territory in summer 1918 as part of the Polar Bear Expedition, America's first anti-Communist crusade and one of its first wars of aggression. This amounted to relatively little; American deaths totaled only 110 and killed even fewer Red Army soldiers.

But let's change this, purely for the sake of changing it. Say that, rather than retreat from Arkhangelsk, the Soviets reinforced their position using the captured Allied war materiel and decimate the 85th Division, inflicting six or seven hundred casualties on the Americans before they can take the city. Wilson, as resolved as ever to win the war, begins to expand America's involvement in Russia, forming a relationship with the Whites analogous to that of America and the South Vietnamese, supporting General Pyotr Wrangel, a monarchist, as the most conservative possible leader for the movement.

The situation escalates into an anti-American guerrilla war over the next few years, while events in Europe play out largely the same. The 1920 Presidential election is approaching in the United States, and both major Parties are planning to campaign around the conduct of the Polar Bear Expedition.

The Democrats have nominated Wilson Attorney General Andrew Mitchell Palmer for President, feeling his anti-Communist Raids as Attorney General make him uniquely qualified to tackle the Red Menace. South Carolina governor Richard Manning, a Progressive segregationist, is nominated to balance the ticket geographically and ideologically.

The Republicans have taken up a dovish position on the issue of the Polar Bear Expedition, hoping to channel anti-World War sentiment into a broader peace coalition against the Russian intervention. Towards this end they nominate Wisconsin Senator Robert LaFollette for President and humanitarian Herbert Hoover for Vice-President.

Eugene Debs is mounting a third-party Socialist campaign from prison.

How do you vote, and how does the nation vote? Discuss with maps.

(Comparable elections: 1964, 1968, 1972 IRL)

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Very interesting proposition. At the time, probably Palmer, though in retrospect it's hard to say, and it seems Wilson's looking for an unending war which I don't think I'd be too fond of. For the Hell of it, Palmer.

[Meursault]

Who do you think wins nationally, Cathcon?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Do we still have the horrible post-war economy, or is that significantly changed? I can't say who I think would win without knowing how the public feels about the war. However, I'd expect the Republicans to do very well in the Mid-West as they did in real life and make gains among immigrants and the like who probably were cast in a suspicious light under the Wilson administration. I could see some weird shifts in votes from real life with Palmer maybe making gains among upper-class and anti-communist voters in New England while losing out heavily among Catholics and other immigrant demographics. South is probably solidly Democratic. As for the West, it seems like the Republicans off the bat have more appeal their due to the geography of the two tickets, and there might be a good number of voters who'd be against Wilson's war-mongering. Advantage to La Follette assuming the same economy, but I can see Palmer, with the administration behind him, lambasting the Republican campaign as being friendly to communists and socialists and forming an interesting coalition to push him to victory.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

This has the campaigns on equal footing, and it's a La Follette victory 276-255

[Meursault]

That's about how I see it, too. When I have time I'm going to do a timeline using this scenario as the base, with the Democrats evolving into a hawkish, moderately authoritarian State-capitalist Party much earlier, with the GOP adopting a prairie populist/Georghst platform in response. I should note that it's Alexander Palmer, not Andrew.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

The premise & results are very interesting, and is be glad to see whatever you come up with.

[Mechaman]

That's about how I see it, too. When I have time I'm going to do a timeline using this scenario as the base, with the Democrats evolving into a hawkish, moderately authoritarian State-capitalist Party much earlier, with the GOP adopting a prairie populist/Georghst platform in response. I should note that it's Alexander Palmer, not Andrew.

I usually just call him AG.

Anyway, yeah very interesting premise.  I imagine if the GOP did morph into a semi-Georgist movement (not entirely outside the realm of possibility, given the differences between the eastern establishment and the more western parties that were certainly more sympathetic to left populism) it would in effect unite the radical elements of the working class.  Henry George's 1886 campaign was specifically tailored toward the disaffected urban working class at the time, especially Fenian activists who were active in the Land League.  Assuming that Wilson also fumbles on the the Free State issue at Versailles . . .. . . . well the results would be very interesting in places like New York City and Boston.  Later on, I would expect some pretty heated arguments going on behind the walls of Tammany Hall, which at the time was in a stage of conflict between upper class lace curtain interests and the more radical labor unions.  Whether this results in the machine becoming a mouthpiece for the new direction of the party or reversing course and drifting towards the far left by empowering the unions to effectively run the city.  In the former case I can imagine that there would be a pretty nasty working class revolt, one much worse than 1886, that could lead to a political civil war between the machines and their formerly die hard working class ethnic voters in the 1920s.  In the latter case I can imagine anti-Tammany "reformists" taking over the New York Democratic Party and running a pretty racist and classist campaign against the newly Republican ethnic working class.  Especially if the Irish don't surrender some of their political power and promote other minorities to leadership positions, the charges of "corruption" could prove damning for labor interests in the city in the 1930s.

Arguably, IRL it was the Republican 1920s that set the political direction of the parties.  LaFollette's split with Coolidge in 1924 hinted at a permanent conservative control of the party that was cemented with the Election of 1928 when Hoover charged Smith's campaign of advocating "state socialism".  The prevalence of morality issues in 1928, like Prohibition and "the nation's values", which many previous national (emphasis, given that many local and state level GOP parties embraced such tactics long before 1928) GOP tickets tended to outright avoid, also set into place arguably the roots of Evangelical Republicanism.  With the GOP becoming more left wing in such a hypothetical timeline as Meursalt suggests it would be interesting to see where the "Real Protestant America" ends up.  Would northern moralists give up their allegiance to the GOP in response to the "foreign invaders" taking over and feel more in common with the moderate authoritarianism of the Democrats?  Or would they become "Yellow dog Republicans"?

Very interesting premise.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I don't think the Democrats would have done much better in this scenario.  There was a strong feeling that America needed to turn inward and a great dissatisfaction with the economy that I don't see Palmer overcoming.  Most VP candidates from the Deep South still hurt support in some parts of the North I think. Hoover helps LaFolette, and Debs and Christensen (if he still runs) don't get much traction. 

something like this:

389-142

I think that in any case Palmer's heart is not really in continuing a foreign war except to win it and come home.  I get the sense his crusades were mostly about trying too hard to be a good soldier for the Wilson Administration.