I have been informed that Dwight D. Eisenhower would not have been the chosen Leader of the United States after the overthrow of President Henry Wallace in 1945. Who would it be then?

I believe the USA, during a really bad war with the Germans, would not have gone for the Germanic name to be appointed as your Presidential What-if. I remember there was a bit of controversy when Eisenhower was promoted over a whole raft of Full-Colonels in the Regular Army but since the next REALLY GOOD MAN in line right behind him at that time was named Krueger, General Marshall went ahead and appointed Ike to the European job and shipped Krueger out to the Pacific to work with/for MacArthur.

I believe in line with your What-if that someone of the type you mentioned would have been chosen but that man would habe been General George Marshall, who had every attribute needed for any high office up to and including President, AND, he did not have a Germanic name as so many of our high-ranking Army/Navy Officers did at that time. Believe me, that was an important thing, then.

Bah De Bah Bah. Somehow my idea of the collisions of that nebulous “Powers that Be” brokering in our real onto Ike — a man for both political parties who’d see the construction of the war machine through– as they would in the alternate history under considerably different circumstances has been destroyed. Ah well. Live and Learn. All hail, quote-in-quote “President” George Marshall, I guess.

Update: On second thought, this would work out okay. You know… the “Marshall Plan”? The idea is that the alter-reality will work out to a point where it will easily converge back into our own reality, so our reality in 2006 would be identical in both.

(1)”I am very sorry for President Harrison, but I cannot see that our interests are going to be affected one way or the other by the cahnge of Administration.” — Henry Clay Frick

“Well, we have nothing to fear, and perhaps it is best. I fear that Homestead did much to elect Cleveland. Very sorry– but no use getting excited.” — Andrew Carneigie
(Homestead refers to this strike, which helped make election a blow-out for Grover Cleveland over Benjamin Harrison. Carneigie Steel being a supposed supporter of Harrison and the Republicans.)

(2) Hoover’s secretary of commerce Roy Chapin, on the election of FDR: “The mood the country was such that […] perhaps we are lucky that we didn’t get a Socialist or a Radical instead of Roosevelt.” (That’d be Norman Thomas or the Communist candidate, Foster.]

I believe you can call the “Gilded Age” of post-Reconstruction America a time when the two parties collided into being about the same entity. Perhaps you can say the same thing for post-World War America, wherein the two parties clamored to both have Eisenhower as the nominee. The 1892 selection of quotes shows the Captains of Industry aware that the party in the White House does not matter. Cleveland made an impassioned State of the Union address (written, mind you) concerning Big Business being out of control in running American’s lives into the ground. But he wasn’t about to do anything about it. The 1932 quote shows the Captains of Industry reconciling themselves to our new era. I believe anyone who has read Howard Zinn’s neo-Marxist History (A People’s History of the United States) knows the quote, I believe quoted from Richard Hofstadter, of Paranoid Style fame, is that every American president has been bound by American land-owners and that has the understanding that they are furthering American Capitalism. But we’re practical in America and just want a working system we can swim under. In the case of that semi-Socialist Capitalist Reform movement of “The New Deal” — it reaches its limit and will have to be reined in sooner or later, or the nation is going to just keep marching toward Centralization. Thus, consider that as soon as the system found a working order under Roosevelt’s “New Deal”, those oh-so-evil “Captians of Industry” will… well, here’s how the British Left put it:

(3) Manchester Guardian, reported in the NYT on July 23:
Both parties show the same trend. The “old guard”, in other words the “bosses” and “machines” of the Republican Party would not stand Wendel Willkie’s liberalism (actually, more importantly, neither would the rank and file Republican voter), so they turned with some reluctance to Mr. Dewey, and with some positive enthusiasm to Mr. Bricker as his running mate. The party ‘bosses’ of the Democrats, the by no means impeccable machines and the conservatives of the South, could not stand Mr. Wallace, who in the popular mind embodies the New Deal and racial equality. So they turned to the colorless Truman who has never upset anyone’s prejudices. […]
The New Deal is dead, whatever lip service may still be paid to it. Labor in the defeat of Mr. Wallace has been pointedly ignored, and those reactionary influences in the South which put a narrow rationalism above broad human rights have been appeased.

I note that “Labor”, was happy with Truman’s selection. And the South was happy to be done with Wallace. The “negroes” on the other hand…

(4) 7-23-1944: The National Negro Council, meanwhile, attacked the nomination of Mr. Truman and the platform adopted by the Democratic Convention as “poison to the Negro Citizen.” Edgar S Brown, national director, in a special statement said Mr. Truman as chairman of the Senate War Investigation Committe “has defeated every honest and insistent effort to secure consideration for Negro war workers.” Mr. Brown also charged that Mr. Truman was silent on anti-lynching and anti-poll tax legislation despite the fact that responsible Negro leaders urged him to protest. Other attacks by Negroes on the racial plank in the Democratic platform were made by [bunch of names I assume few people remember.]

Skip back to the Strom Thurmond posts on the 1948 election to see how things changed in four years amongst these two Democratic constituencies. I note for your consideration that in the year 1944, there was low-level rumouring that if Roosevelt picked Wallace as his running mate, the Southern States would bolt and have a “Jeffersonian Democratic Party”. But this probably didn’t get very far from the head of… Virginia Senator Harry Byrd. Keep in mind that in the Olde South when you elected a Senator, he’s Senator for life. Strom Thurmond, anyone? All of which raises a puzzling question: are we in America moving rightward or leftward? Go from Roosevelt at his New Deal high-point in 1936, on to 1940 with he and Henry Wallace, on to 1944 with Truman, then to Kennedy, theoretically Johnson as viewed in the 1950s– but that was a deception, Carter, and Clinton… and every Democratic Presidential Administration has been a step toward the right. Except that it really hasn’t been… Civil Rights would be advanced by Truman (as a big surprise to anyone watching his career before his presidency), Eisenhower with the help of Majority Leader in the Senate Lyndon Johnson (a surprise of sorts, note he was a segregationist when elected for his first term), and through his presidency (I’ll get to Kennedy on a later post). And back on economic matters, there are sleights of hands going on. For example, for the Manchester Guardian and its belief that the “New Deal” was dead after the dumping of Wallace in favour of Truman — wasn’t the “New Deal” killed in 1938?

(5)11-9-1938: As the final returns are counted, the New Deal has been halted; the Republican party is large enough for effective opposition; the moderate Democrats in Congress can guide legislation; the third term movement has been strongly checked; Federal relief money in elections has ben overcome by voters in several states; the White House Circle, which invented the Supreme Court bill and the “purge”, has been discredited; a barrier against New Deal extension program and candidates has been set at the gate of the 1940 Democratic Convention; the sit-down strike and the Democratic – CIO alliance have been emphatically rebuked; the Farm Belt has revolted; the country is back on a two-party system; the McNutt Presidential boom in Indiana has collapsed with the McNutt State ticket; and legislative authority has been restored to Congress.

Cross out some things and replace them with more contemporary items and perhaps we can have Bush’s sixth term blues. Though with Roosevelt, his two presidential elections and his first mid-term elections were massive; Bush has made the most of narrow victories. But consider the “McNutt Presidential boom has collapsed”, and I’m having trouble envisioning a President McNutt. After the first Tuesday of November in 2006, we will almost certainly see the Presidential ambitions of Santorum dead, we may end up seeing the Presidential ambitions of current-co-frontrunner George Allen dead, and toss in a curtailed Mitt Romney if his Republican successor cannot win the Massachusetts governorship.

The “What If” Scenarios of a Henry Wallace Presidency. I believe that the US Military, and Corporate Interests, would have overthrown Wallace in a coup. Part of my thinking here is because Roosevelt was aimed at for a coup. Now, in FDR’s case the would-be-leader of our nation would have been Respected Military General Smedly Butler. Let’s assume Wallace comes to power after Roosevelt’s death at the end of World War II. Who would be put in charge of the Nation? I give you two options of Respected Military Generals: Douglas MacArthur — perhaps a bit too polarizing for the nation to accept. Option two is a bit more likely, as he’s so congenial everybody will love him forever. Dwight D Eisenhower. Try to guess how firmly my cheeck is in my mouth here.

(6)3-6-1960 “Society for the Exposure of Political Nonsense, supposed electronic truth detector “Uniquack” on some political contrarianism that looks pretty prescient today:

Almost every political idea widely accepted in America today as true is either largely untrue or palpably false. […] For example, the general impression is that the civil rights debate in the South is a hopeless mess. As a matter of fact, it will probably do more in the end to enfranchise the colored people in the South than anything since the Emancipation Proclamation. […]

Kennedy, who has a reputation as a glamour boy, is developing into the toughest operator in the field. Or at least his father was. Nixon, who’s supposed to be a conservative, is nearer to a Dewey liberal than anything else. Today, some will point to him with irony as our “Last Liberal President”, some bits of rightism — his Supreme Court picks, for instance — notwithstanding. Johnson, who is tagged as a conservative, has done more for liberal causes than most of his liberal detractors. Indeed.

And the beat goes on…

South Dakota state SenatorBILL NAPOLI describes what the exceptions are to to the Abortion ban: A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.

Virginal Religious Rape victims, and the Rape has to be of the Worst Possible Sort. And this worst possible rape has to involve sodomy. Got that? The state, I suppose, gets to decide whether you are religious or not. And my guess is in the deep red states, religious is defined by how committed you are to various brands of Christianity. You had to have been really raped… there are degrees of rape in consideration here. First Degree Rape, Second Degree Rape, Third Degree Rape. Somewhere along the line, Sodomy is in the picture… you got it up the ASS. Got that? Didn’t get it up the Ass — Nope, sorry, no Abortion. You have to be a Virgin. (Perhaps we can extend Rick Santorum’s “Ring Thing” Virgin Pledge for High School Students on into adulthood, to tell the Virgins from the non-Virgins?) So, non-virgins (re: Sluts… asking for it, really) who have been raped in the worst possible way… nope, not in the Exception.

Hm. This is insanity. I almost wish they’d could just go ahead and go to that Alan Keyes-position of “Nope. No Exceptions. Life. Sacred. Raped? Not sacrifing the fetus for the Rape Victim. Sory. No Exceptions.”

Though even Alan Keyes… Okay. This I heard somewhere or other, and other people who heard it can probably tell me where. You’re in a burning building. You have the opportunity to rescue one or the other: a 2-month old baby, or 5 petri-dishes. I guess if you rescue the 5 petri dishes, you are rescuing 5 human lives instead of just one if you choose the baby, right? RIGHT??? Even Alan Keyes would probably choose the born baby here.

11-30: James Knight of four Texas electors chosen in the general election election said yesterday he had received three letters urging him to join a movement to keep Senator Kennedy from becoming President. Mr. Knight said one of the letters was signed by Governor Ross Barnett of Mississippi, another by ML Harris – a Montgommery, Alabama attorney, and a third by two Alabama electors.

He said the letters asked him to join a a “Southern Revolt” by backing candidates other than Kennedy and Johnson. One of the letters, Mr. Knight said, urged him to vote for a ticket comprised of Senator Harry F Byrd of Virginia and Barry Goldwater of Arizona.

12-13: Mississippi’s eight and Alabama’s six unpledged presidential electors agreed after a five hour session today to vote for Senator Harry F Byrd in an effort to bar John F Kennedy from the presidency. The fourteen electors said in a statement that they had not chosen a vice presidential candidate because that would do no good. The 840 word statement laid down an ultimatum. It said:

“Whether such a man [Byrd] will be inaugurated as President or not depends upon whether or not the people of the South, who have expressed their dedication to the principles of Constitutional government and the right of a state to determine for itself the questions of segregation and freedom of association are sincere in the continued expression of such dedication.” […]

The statement said that if Kennedy were denied a victory in the Electoral College the matter would go to the US House of Representatives, where the choice would be among the top three voted in the Electoral College. Once there, the statement continued, Senator Byrd would win because “it is incredible that any congressman from any of the Southern States could refuse to cast his vote and that of his state as a unit for a Southerner such as Senator Byrd, who has been recognized over the years as one of the strongest champions of the principles of constitutional government.”

“In this situation, the Republican delegation recognizing the inevitable defeat of Nixon and being fundamentally opposed to the liberalism of Senator Kennedy– would join the Southern Congressional delegations in assuring the election of Senator Byrd. Successful oppostion to vice presidential candidates Lyndon Johnson or Henry Cabot Lodge would be impossible because the Senate chooses the vice president from the top two in the list.”

The electors met in a session closed to the public, but open to WJ Simmons of Jackson, editor of a pro-segregation monthly newspaper, The Citizens Council. Also present at the meeting were some segregationist assholes from some organization of the same name as that assfart segregationist newspaper.

In 2003, Multnomah County made national news for including the fictional Star Trek language Klingon on a list of 55 tongues the county was prepared to translate for mental-health patients.

And that provides fodder for the latest “Ted Wheeler for County Commissioner” ad. “Common Sense for —-” has to be the most common, tedious and vague campaign slogan — and goshdarnedit if Ted Wheeler isn’t going to battle away the Uncommon Sense and tear of his opponent — the “Klingon Translator” miscue being overshadowed in Linn’s tenure by the more hard-to-get-into-the-picture “Hey! Let’s marry some gay people!” tact.

The problem with the “Klingon Translator” story is it’s too damned easy. It’s in the vein of the story of the woman who sued McDonalds for scalding hot coffee. In the popular imagination of the incident, we imagine the litiguous society out of control. Nevermind the details.

79 year old Stella Liebeck suffered third degree burns on her groin and inner thighs while trying to add sugar to her coffee at a McDonalds drive through. Third degree burns are the most serious kind of burn. McDonalds knew it had a problem. There were at least 700 previous cases of scalding coffee incidents at McDonalds before Liebeck’s case. McDonalds had settled many claim before but refused Liebeck’s request for $20,000 compensation, forcing the case into court. Lawyers found that McDonalds makes its coffee 30-50 degrees hotter than other restaurants, about 190 degrees. Doctors testified that it only takes 2-7 seconds to cause a third degree burn at 190 degrees. McDonalds knew its coffee was exceptionally hot but testified that they had never consulted with burn specialist. The Shriner Burn Institute had previously warned McDonalds not to serve coffee above 130 degrees. And so the jury came back with a decision- $160,000 for compensatory damages. But because McDonalds was guilty of “willful, reckless, malicious or wanton conduct” punitive damages were also applied. The jury set the award at $2.7 million. The judge then reduced the fine to less than half a million. Ms. Liebeck then settled with McDonalds for a sum reported to be much less than a half million dollars. McDonald’s coffee is now sold at the same temperature as most other restaurants.

The Klingon Translator story has a similar effect. It’s a little too easily sensationalized for its own good. In the end, our would-be-hired Klingon Translator, a man who regularly sang at “Klingon Karaoke ” at Bodacious Classics, would have tossed out his irregular, rarely needed service for free. For Mental Patients, mind you. Give me enough time and I will find you a case where a mentally deeply troubled individual refuses to speak, and internalized, any other language except that stupid science fiction language made real — Klingon.

So Ted Wheeler is a demagogue. Screw him. Re-elect Dianne Linn. If nothing else, she stuck her neck out for Gay marriage.

9-6: “There’s no doubt about it — we’re at our low point now,” conceded William C Battle, director of the Democratic Presidential campaign in Virginia. An “uphill battle” for Senator John F Kennedy was forecast by Governor Ernest F Collings.

“I think it is a little too close,” said Govern0or Luther Hodges of North Carolina.

“Tennessee looks like a toss-up right now,” said one of the state’s most respected political observers.

Florida will be lost unless the state’s Democratic officeholders join in a unified campaign, according to Governor Leroy Collins and James Jilligan, the party chairman.

And although Texas is the home state of Senator Kennedy’s vice-presidential running mate, Senator Lyndon Johnson, the Republicans claim the lead there. […]

There is also evidence of erosion of the tradional loyalty to the Democratic Party in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. However, few were willing to predict that vice president Richard Nixon could carry any of those five states.

The Republicans have moved quickly to capitilize on the South’s growing conservatism, a by-product of industrialization and urbanization. Party leaders voiced confidence that 1960 would bring the first big Republican victory in the South since Reconstruction. This is the situation facing Senator Kennedy as he prepares for his first extended campaign in the region:

— A negative reaction of unexpected proportion to the liberal Democratic platform and his Roman Catholicism
— The refusal of many Democratic officeholders to actively support the national ticket.
— Enthusiastic receptions for Mr. Nixon and such conservative members of his supporting cast as Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. […]

Opposition to the platform is generally assumed to lie behind the failure of Senator Harry F Byrd of Virginia to endorse the Democratic ticket. If his silence continues, many observers believe that it may cost Mr. Kennedy the state. They attribute President Eisenhower’s two victories there to Senator Byrd’s refusal to speak out for Adlai Stevenson. […]

Mr. Kennedy can expect little more than token support from many Democratic officials and not even that from some. A number of those actively campaigning have shown little enthusiasm for their work.

Governor Hollings is the only South Carolina official of prominence who has taken the stump in an attempt to blunt the Republican drivel. Senator Olin D Johnston endorsed the ticket, but Senator Strom Thurmond announced that he was “not in the bag this election.”

C Farris Bryant, Florida’s Democratic Gubernatorial nominee, served notice that “my principal concern is my own campaign.”

Neither of Georgia’s two Senators — Richard Russel and Herman Talmadge, has spoken out for Kennedy. Much of this reluctance, explained a leading Virginia Democrat, stems from a fear of local repercussions.

“Sure, I’ll endorse the ticket sooner or later,” Louisiana Governor Jimmie H Davis said, “But when I do, I’ll have to spend 25 minutes of a 30 minute speech denouncing the platform.”

In the current campaign, the Republicans are encouraging the Southerners to think that the Northern liberals are the party bolters. “The Kennedy organization has run off with the party. By Kennedy organization I refer to that broad alliance that managed to corral all the different shadings of the left — an alliance in which every member of that Left is both represented and happy.” [Republican Southern Campaign Chairman Potter.]

An important catalyst in the process of late has been the dawning realization that they cannot expect concessions from the Democratic Party on racial issues.

9-10: Georgians were surprised during the Atlanta appearance when James V Carmichael, president of Scripto Inc and a 1946 Democratic Gubernatorial candidate, announced that he would campaign for Richard Nixon. […]

J. Oliver Emmerich, editor of the State Times of Jackson, Mississippi, has written, “Many loyal Mississippians out of respect for the past give loyalty to the Democratic Party. But it is a ghost, a skeleton of what it once was. Some Mississippians say, ‘It is the party of our fathers and grandfathers’ yet we know and they know that those honored fobears would be in rebellion were they alive today and confronted by the irresponsible Democratic Party of today.”

9-24: Religion and “radicalism” have emerged as the major factors in the Presidential Contest in Virginia. both favor Nixon over Kennedy in this overwhelmingly Protestant state. […] Virginia’s Catholic population is only about 200,000, less than 5% of the state’s total, and in the “southside” the percentage is much smaller. Fundamentalist Protestant ministers in that area have been preaching against a Catholic President. Anti-Catholic literature has been circulated there and elsewhere.

The issue of “radicalism” cuts deeply through most of the state. This issue is chiefly responsible for the refusal of Senator Harry Byrd, patriarch and titular leader of the State Democratic organization to endorse the ticket. The position of conservatives such as Byrd is that Senator Kennedy and the Democratic party platform stand for a high-spending, centralized, labor-controlled administration. Mr. Nixon and the Republican platform are also regarded as too liberal, but they are considered preferable as the lesser evil.

10-27: President Eisenhower cautioned Virginians against following “false leaders to their destruction.” […]
Some observers saw in the President’s remarks an effort to advance the Presidential election prospects of Vice President Nixon. However, more political significance was seen in the introduction to the President to the campus audience by Senator Harry Byrd.

11-8: [Nixon won Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, and Florida. Mississippi voted for a slate of uncommitted Democrats ahead of Kennedy, ahead of Nixon.] […]

With important exceptions, civil rights never became an issue. Most voters seemed to believe they had little choice between the two parties. However, the pledge made and later withdrawn by vice presidential nominee Henry Cabot Lodge that a negro would be named to the cabinet undoubtedly cost the party southern votes. Some white southerners were alienated by Mr. Kennedy’s expressions of interest in the case of Reverend Martin Luther King, a negro integration leader jailed in Georgia on a traffic charge. Most observers contended that these losses were offset by the negro support he picked up.
…………………………..

It’s a bit bemusing to see how the wikipedia article shortens that sidenote into meaningless: —–In the 1960 election, also as a non-candidate, he received 15 votes from unpledged electors: all 8 from Mississippi, 6 of Alabama’s 11 (the rest going to John F. Kennedy), and 1 from Oklahoma (the rest going to Richard Nixon). —– The moral of that being that there’s a story behind every fogged-up fuzz.