FDR assassinated in 1933
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Michael Z
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« on: September 30, 2006, 06:50:16 PM »

I've just finished reading The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick (awesome book, by the way), which follows an alternate reality scenario where FDR was assassinated in 1933. The background history of the novel is that President Garner was followed by President Bricker in 1940, and both of them made a complete pig's ear of everything - America doesn't recover from the Depression, isn't properly prepared for any form of Axis aggression, and thus duly loses WW2 in 1947. The West Coast is turned into a Japanese-dominated zone called the PSA (Pacific States Of America), while the East Coast belongs to the Nazis with all the horrors that brings, Nuremberg Laws and all.

What do you think? What if FDR had been assassinated in 1933? How would things have been different under President Garner? How would this effect subsequent elections, and how would WW2 have panned out?
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ATFFL
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« Reply #1 on: September 30, 2006, 09:15:40 PM »

Actually, the US is broken into 4 countries, as I recall.  Pacific states, Rocky mountain states, The South and the Northeast/midwest.  Nitpicking, I know.

There are some problems with his follow on to the change.  I doubt Garner would have been as bad as presented.  The New Deal never pushes the boundry of the COnstitution.  However, his tax system might be even more punitive on the rich.  The lack of some ND programs would help the economy overall, but would hurt his popularity.  It may have cost him the election in 1936.

Either way, he would break up the UAW strike at the end of '36.  Without this, Unions never develop much power, and certainly not any influence in the Democratic party.  It might even put the Union supporters into the hands of the Communist party.  In either case, the Unions never become a major factor in American life.

EDIT:  DId you know Dick started on a sequel?
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Colin
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« Reply #2 on: September 30, 2006, 09:47:05 PM »

Usually this becomes a very politically motivated alternate history that's why I always try to stay away from it. Usually people will either say that America would collapse in upon itself, or become another Nazi Germany, or become a third world country etc. without the guiding hand of FDR. Others will go the opposite and have the American economy booming by 1937 because FDR isn't in power and have whoever is in power stop the Second World War, end rascism, and beat up Hitler all at the same time.

All in all I'm not even touching this since usually no matter how you want to write them they always end up as either one of those two extremes.
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #3 on: October 01, 2006, 05:21:13 AM »

I don't think Garner could have made an effective president in conditions of such acute crisis as the winter of 33. It's not just the policies either - much of Roosevelt's function in 33,34 was more to do with mass psychology than with his exact policies. Remember - there were no banks operating in the US on inauguration day, and people literally were starving out on the Kansas plains. Now take the chaos of an assassinated president (and of course, there was an attempt) and a little known running mate who's an elderly machine politico from a region way out of the mainstream of American politics? I don't see it.
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MaC
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« Reply #4 on: October 03, 2006, 12:07:54 AM »

good idea, basically.
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Nym90
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« Reply #5 on: October 03, 2006, 12:48:17 AM »

I don't think Garner could have made an effective president in conditions of such acute crisis as the winter of 33. It's not just the policies either - much of Roosevelt's function in 33,34 was more to do with mass psychology than with his exact policies. Remember - there were no banks operating in the US on inauguration day, and people literally were starving out on the Kansas plains. Now take the chaos of an assassinated president (and of course, there was an attempt) and a little known running mate who's an elderly machine politico from a region way out of the mainstream of American politics? I don't see it.

Excellent points.

A lot of what made Roosevelt great was that he was able to restore hope and optimisim to a nation in total despair. It is absolutely inconceivable, I think, for anyone who has lived their entire lives in America or any other first world nation having grown up after that period to have any real idea of just how bad things were in 1933. His policies most certainly helped a lot, too, but restoring hope was the biggest single thing that Roosevelt did.
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Michael Z
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« Reply #6 on: October 03, 2006, 11:11:44 AM »

Actually, the US is broken into 4 countries, as I recall.  Pacific states, Rocky mountain states, The South and the Northeast/midwest.  Nitpicking, I know.

There are some problems with his follow on to the change.  I doubt Garner would have been as bad as presented.  The New Deal never pushes the boundry of the COnstitution.  However, his tax system might be even more punitive on the rich.  The lack of some ND programs would help the economy overall, but would hurt his popularity.  It may have cost him the election in 1936.

Either way, he would break up the UAW strike at the end of '36.  Without this, Unions never develop much power, and certainly not any influence in the Democratic party.  It might even put the Union supporters into the hands of the Communist party.  In either case, the Unions never become a major factor in American life.

That's probably a more realistic assessment. You know how Dick liked to go just a little overboard at times. Wink

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Yeah, apparently he turned it into a completely different book altogether, changing the characters and events. At least as far as I know.
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J. J.
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« Reply #7 on: November 12, 2006, 06:54:20 PM »

I would expect that the US would have either gone further left of taken a right wing turn.  I've had a passing interest in the "Business Plot."  I've often wondered if there could have been basically a palace coup that limited FDR's power and made the country more militaristic.
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