Struggling to sleep at 3am gave me this weird idea dancing around my head.
Imagine, if you will, that years of wrestling, nature collecting, and shouting ‘bully!’ gave old Teddy Roosevelt the secret to an unnaturally long life, so much so that by the time the Great Depression hits, he feels, acts and looks like his 40 year old bad self, and instead of FDR, he stands for election, and wins the Presidency of the United States on a platform of rescuing the country.
For the purposes of this, he could either have never stood before, or this could be his third term, but it doesn’t really matter. How do you think he’d have tackled it? Any differently from FDR? Would he have secured re-election in 1936? 1940? 1944?
What would he have made of Hitler, Churchill, Stalin, the neutrality policy, and the outbreak of WW2? Anything that could have turned out differently, before his mysterious death/resignation sometime in 1945?
He would have had us in the war at its outbreak (he was the original jingo), which means Hitler may not have had the time to initiate Barbarossa. We would have lost a shit-ton more of our boys, and our victory wouldn’t seem inevitable.
He was a trust busting leader. He would have attacked entrenched capital and invested in public works. He was a leader in park creation and we would have had more and better parks.
He would have fought against isolationism and done more to fight Japanese and German expansionism.
I don’t understand your objection to Stringbean’s comment, especialy since your last sentence seems to echo his suggestion.
I could see it - TR starts to mobilize in September of 1939, starts to send troops and planes to England in early 1940. Maybe the Blitz is less devastating to London as a result, maybe the evacuation at Dunkirk is made unnecessary. In any case, a lot of American soldiers and pilots and seamen could be hurled at Germany and lost, if Germany is not yet entangled with the Soviets. With a lot of casualties and no gains to show, TR loses the election of 1940.
Where is evidence that he was jingoistic? With no intention to hide support of the Allies, both the UK and France would have been better positioned to repel the German invasion of the west.
It all rather depends when we parachute Roosevelt into WWII and its build-up. Assuming for the moment that WWI had not changed Roosevelt’s supposed jingoism and bellicosity; placing Teddy Roosevelt into the Presidency at the outbreak of WWII would perhaps show Roosevelt as an over-eager warmonger. Parachuting him into the Presidency in 1936 and Roosevelt can easily become the wise Churchill-like statesman who correctly warned against the dangers of Nazi-ism. And as it’s Roosevelt the Yellow Peril too.
I have no idea what you disagree with in my statement nor why you claim I am uneducated.
The Lion was a vocal proponent of America’s engagement against Spanish influence in Cuba and criticized Woodrow Wilson ceaselessly for his clinging to neutrality while Europe slaughtered itself in the trenches.
Whatever the fuck his social policies have to do with a clear historical record of aggressive foreign interventionism is beyond me. Do yourself some larnin’ 'fore you come at me with that shit.
I hate to be that guy, but the premise is flawed. FDR and Garner ran a campaign to cut back government and open trade. That’s why they won. The public was not ready for a loudmouth Republican interventionist. Capital “P” Progressivism was not an easy sell in '32.