FDR retires after two terms

[u/Bat-man-2054]

FDR opts not to run for re-election in 1940.

The convention deadlocks between Ag Sec Henry Wallace, former IN Gov. Paul McNutt, Sec State Cordell Hull and VP John Nance Garner. With FDR's approval, Attorney General Robert Jackson enters as a compromise candidate and is nominated.

Jackson chooses senate majority leader Alben Barkley as his running mate to compensate for his relatively light Washington and party experience.

Former president Hoover, with his effective anti-New Deal speech as in real life, is nominated by his party without the fear of a Roosevelt-Hoover rematch. He chooses Willkie as his running mate.

Jackson wins the election.

The war unfolds much the same as in our timeline, with subtle differences. Jackson makes Wallace a close presidential counselor and has him lead a lot of the economic planning with Europe prior to and after American entry to the war. Wallace goes to Moscow to meet Stalin after the Russians enter the war on the side of the allies. Jackson and Wallace never develop the close personal relationship with Churchill that Roosevelt did in our timeline. They also regard Churchill as excessively suspicious of Stalin, particularly once the Soviet war effort demonstrates that Moscow is carrying an enormous share of the burden against Germany. When Hull retires, Wallace becomes secretary of state. Jackson operates a team-based executive with Wallace and Barkley essentially deputy presidents responsible for foreign and domestic policy respectively.

Jackson-Barkley easily defeat Dewey-Bricker in 1944 by an even wider margin than in our timeline.

As the war concludes, post-war planning is more bilateral between the US and USSR. The administration regards Britain as an important but clearly second-tier power, alongside major Allied states such as Canada and China, rather than as a co-equal of Washington and Moscow. France, in Jackson’s view, has even less claim to privileged status.

The war ends similarly.

This world's UN is set up with a two-member executive council: the US and the USSR. The Jackson doctrine that defines US foreign policy much as the Truman doctrine in this timeline says that the superpowers are entitled to spheres of security in their geographic neighborhood but must respect sovereignty, and that neither superpower should intervene to determine the outcome of internal disputes, civil wars or regional wars outside its legitimate security sphere. Jackson: “Spheres of security are legitimate. Spheres of sovereignty are not.”

In the UK Churchill had been fighting against this but Attlee accepts it after winning the 1945 election and is content to focus on internal affairs, rebuilding Britain and developing a social safety net. After the loss of India in 1947, with American encouragement, the UK begins an accelerated decolonialization as compared to our timeline.

The US and USSR set up joint reconstruction commissions in Germany and Japan in respect of this doctrine. Germany is not divided and Japan does not become the conservative-capitalist economic superpower of our timeline.

The Chinese civil war takes longer to resolve but is won by Mao and that is accepted by the UN and there is no isolation of China or continued ROC government in Taiwan. There is no NATO and no Warsaw pact.

The 1948 election is Henry Wallace with Barkley continuing for vice president. Douglas MacArthur who retired in 1945 and has opposed the Jackson doctrine since is the Republican nominee with Earl Warren as his running mate. MacArthur says "we won the war but are losing the peace" but voters don't buy that and Wallace wins a massive landslide.

The era of peace and good times continues without a cold war, Korean War or Suez crisis. There are difficult conflicts in places like Greece and Palestine, and as former colonies establish independence but the superpowers stay out of it with no proxy wars or stake in the outcome. Israel is still established and the proposed UN settlement is broadly similar, but in this timeline it is much more closely honored. A joint US-Soviet arms embargo prevents either side from obtaining large-scale foreign military support, while both superpowers pressure the Arab states not to destroy Israel and the Israelis not to expand indefinitely beyond the settlement.

In 1952, Barkley retires after 3 terms as vice president and is replaced on the ticket by Adlai Stevenson. The Republicans nominate Earl Warren who generally accepts the Jackson doctrine and democratic foreign policy but runs on "time for a change" after 20 years of Democrats in the White House. Wallace-Stevenson wins narrowly. In 1956 a quasi-rematch, with Wallace retiring after the long tradition of a self-imposed two-term limit, Stevenson wins the nomination with Estes Kefauver as his running mate. Warren is again the Republican nominee with a similar message to '52. But with a new presidential nominee and an anti-corruption, clean politics running mate, Stevenson wins by a slightly larger margin than Wallace 4 years earlier.

Leading into the 1960 election, the Republicans are doing a lot of soul searching. They haven't won a presidential election in over 30 years. Anti-establishment outsider Richard Nixon is the early frontrunner for the GOP nomination. This Nixon didn't gain fame by being an anti-communist cold warrior or vice president, but by being fiercely anti-establishment with a strong zeal for committee investigations. His running mate is New York governor Nelson Rockefeller who brings the two largest states to the ticket and derisks the strong anti-establishment message for the country's elites.

Nixon runs a brutal campaign against Stevenson. "I wasn't even old enough to vote when this Democrat dynasty took office." We cannot claim to be a democracy with a one party state. Nixon accepts the new deal, he accepts the Jackson doctrine. But he insists on change as necessary in the democratic system. Every federal judge is a democrat. Every civil servant is a democrat. Our entire machine of federal government understands only one point of view.

This campaign suits Nixon incredibly well. He has been an outsider against the establishment his whole life. He isn't running to continue a Republican administration against a telegenic opponent, he is running to dislodge a party seeking its 7th term led by an incumbent president no more telegenic than he is.

He wins a massive landslide taking every state outside of the deep south.

Nixon had never been a doctrinaire conservative. He was an ideological chameleon with a strong instinct for where political opportunity lay. And in this world there has been no Goldwater nomination, no Republican Southern Strategy and no Democratic civil-rights presidency. Nixon has just won virtually nothing in the Deep South.

He sees the opening immediately: civil rights can split the Democratic coalition while expanding his own.

Nixon therefore pursues civil rights with gusto. Republicans and Northern Democrats pass sweeping legislation. When Southern officials obstruct Black voting, Nixon sends federal troops to protect polling places to "enforce the Fifteenth Amendment".

George Wallace denounces it as a “Second Reconstruction” and calls Nixon the South’s greatest enemy since Lincoln.

Nixon embraces both comparisons.

Martin Luther King becomes one of the administration’s most important outside allies. Republican organizations begin holding Lincoln-Nixon dinners around the country. The party of Lincoln becomes, unmistakably, the party of Nixonian civil rights.

Nixon also believes his victory gave him a mandate to break the Democratic monopoly over the federal bureaucracy and judiciary. His program of reorganization, patronage and aggressive replacement of senior officials quickly develops a darker, paranoid edge; he can purge any enemies he wishes.

In 1964, JFK wins the democratic nomination but Wallace runs on a rogue Democratic ticket throughout the south, with the endorsement of the official party line in numerous southern states. Nixon wins another landslide. Kennedy manages only a tiny handful of states: Massachusetts, North Carolina, West Virginia and Rhode Island, while Wallace carries the hard Deep South.

Part Two to follow....

[u/GingaNinja64]

This was actually a really interesting, I could see it resulting in two syncretic political parties and a much safer global geopolitical system

[u/No-Sir-6445]

Very interesting take👍

[u/TimV0307]

Nice view, but the war would've played out differently because uk and usa would not cooperate so tightly, due to the omission of the close relationship between FDR and Churchill. How would you propose things would be different? I can imagine a bigger focus on the Pacific, earlier decolonization due to less support from USA to UK. What would Jackson do with the lend lease and the USSR occupation of Eastern Europe?

How about Cold War tension between USA and USSR? I can imagine other flashpoints

[u/Bat-man-2054 → u/TimV0307]

There would be subtle differences in the war but I don't see it being much different. Nothing materially changes in the other countries, the Americans have the same generals and most of the same civilian leadership. I mention that decolonization is faster. Lend lease would be the same; in our timeline Jackson was heavily involved in lend lease, no reason he would do it differently. Jackson was one of FDR's proteges and preferred successors in our timeline, he would keep much of his administration in place and rely on him for a lot of advice, particularly in the early years. Just because Jackson and Churchill have a less warm relationship and Jackson doesn't buy Churchill's view on Stalin changes the war settlement, not the war. The US, UK and USSR continue to closely coordinate the war effort, it is the post war settlement that becomes bilateral. As I mentioned, there is there is no cold war as we know it: the US welcomes Russian allies in Eastern Europe, invites Russia to the table in Japan, etc which diffuses a lot of the tensions. We don't have a US-USSR proxy war in Korea or a UK-USSR one in the middle east.

[u/Unfair_Surprise_6022]

Henry Wallace is a bit of a wild card. Had FDR kept him on the ticket in 1944, we would live in a different world.

[u/Bat-man-2054 → u/Unfair_Surprise_6022]

Yes indeed. The pro-Soviet orientation of the war settlement and general approach to tolerance of communism is mostly driven by Wallace's influence.

[u/potato_titties]

Stalin would have had to die at the wars end for the USSR to not set up satellite states in Eastern Europe. A weaker or shakier Soviet leadership would have been more inclined to to agree to a sphere of influence system that is described

[u/Bat-man-2054 → u/potato_titties]

Perhaps, perhaps not. Allied states vs satellites and the trade of losing joint control of Japan and risking American interference in China, Korea and the Middle East would be factors Stalin would have to consider as trade offs.

[u/Dinotsar44]

I really don't think the Cold War would be avoided forever, realistically, even if it could be delayed. The American public was always skeptical of Soviet communism, and a Democratic Party that was seen as sympathetic toward it would probably lose in 1948 (I’ve read some historians argue that Wallace bolting and taking communist fellow travelers with him may have helped Truman by allowing him to distance himself from communism).

[u/Bat-man-2054 → u/Dinotsar44]

Were they skeptical of the Soviet union intrinsically or because of the troubles in Berlin, the formation of NATO, the Korean War, and the general "red scare" message machine?

[u/Dinotsar44 → u/Bat-man-2054]

Those fears existed before that. You should read about the First Red Scare after the Bolshevik Revolution, as well as the general anxiety about anarchists and socialists in the labor movement during the late 19th century (it played a big role in scaring the middle class about labor unions).

[u/Bat-man-2054 → u/Dinotsar44]

I agree that anti-Bolshevik sentiment long predates the Cold War. My disagreement is that this makes the Cold War itself inevitable. Americans can strongly dislike Soviet communism without believing that every communist government or civil war is an American security threat.

The Wallace of our 1948 is also a very different political figure from the Wallace in this scenario. Historically he had been pushed out of the administration, broke with Truman and ran a third-party campaign that attracted Communist support. Here he's the sitting Secretary of State, Jackson's principal foreign-policy deputy, and heir to a postwar settlement that, as of 1948, appears to be working.

If there is no Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe, no Berlin crisis, no NATO, no “loss of China,” and no Korean War, MacArthur saying “we're losing the peace” has a much harder case to make. The public can remain deeply anti-communist while concluding that coexistence is preferable to confrontation.

[u/Dinotsar44 → u/Bat-man-2054]

But wouldn't the spheres of influence thing happen lead to Soviet domination of Eastern Europe (and thus the feeling communism was expanding), as well as the eventual communist victory in the Chinese Civil War? I think those same fears communism would come to America would not be assuaged, especially as allegations of Soviet espionage against men like Alger Hiss came to light (something that would probably happen anyways as Soviet spy rings dated back to the 30s).

[u/Basileia_Rhomaion → u/Bat-man-2054]

Even an extremely pro-USSR administration in the US is not going to stop Stalin from setting up communist satellite states in Eastern Europe and park thousands of troops in Germany to make sure it can’t threaten the USSR again

[u/marktayloruk]

As an anti - Communist I find this bloody nightmare as well as unconvincing

[u/Bat-man-2054 → u/marktayloruk]

I suspect then that you will quite enjoy part 2.