MacArthur is POTUS in 1953
- Thread starter LNSS
- Start date
Teshuvah
Banned
Keep in mind the Korean War was still going on at the time of the 1952 election. I don't know a lot about it, but IIRC he had a falling out of sorts with Truman. Unsure if he'd still be active duty at the time of the 1952 election...
Anywho, if he's President, my gut says the Red Scare is probably much worse. He avoids the mistake McCarthy made attacking the military, since he knows it from the inside out. Unsure as to how he would deal with the Civil Rights movement.
Anywho, if he's President, my gut says the Red Scare is probably much worse. He avoids the mistake McCarthy made attacking the military, since he knows it from the inside out. Unsure as to how he would deal with the Civil Rights movement.
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I think Taft v Stevenson would be a squeaker
Taft & MacArthur 270 ev
Stevenson & Sparkman 261 ev
Taft & MacArthur 270 ev
Stevenson & Sparkman 261 ev
Virginia going for Taft is a bit iffy, I know that he intended to try and open up Southern states but I'm struggling to see it without the Ike effect.
I agree that's why I have Stevenson carry all of the south apart from Virginia, which Ike did carry by almost 13%
From what I've read, the unusually strong Republican performance in the South in 1952 was largely down to the the largely apolitical image of Eisenhower, one that made it more acceptable to vote Republican because in reality they were voting for the individual. Taft on the other hand was a veteran GOP heavyweight, about as clearly Republican as an Elephant running for office, a man who's likely to take things back to a clear Republican vs Democrat race in the eyes of Southern voter, in which case I can't see Virginia bucking its long-term trend,
Paul V McNutt
Banned
One observation, If the peace process takes the same amount of time as OTL and Taft still dies on July 31, 1953 ( The stress of the Presidency could have had made his health decline faster. ) then President MacArthur does not get the opportunity to attack China.
In fairness to MacArthur, wasn't he a pretty enlightened governor of Japan under occupation? Could he have been, well, less bad as President than people think?
In some respects. Criticism can be directed at his policy of purging anything of Japans history from the 1890s, which gave the Japanese the opportunity to dodge any knowledge of the brutrality & criminal acts of Imperial Japan. The policy was the reverse in Germany, with descriptions of the horrors of the nazi regime included in the childrens education & otherwise made public. Even in the US the near extermination of the native peoples, the terror against African Americans, ect... is openly discussed. When I lived in Japan I was struck by the ignorance of the Japanese to their recent history and careful avoidance of that subject.
His post war economic policy for Japan has been criticised as well, with haphazard reconstruction of the infrastructure, and a lack of redevelopment of the work for the skilled trades.
Between his lack of experience in legislative politics, his inability to work with Roosevelt, Marshal, Nimitz... in progressing the Pacific war & his increasingly dysfunctional ego I'd think he would have severe difficulty in accomplishing much. A US president is not a dictator & to get anything done he has to be skilled at persuading enough Congress critters to support the agenda with budget allocations & law. Treating Senators who disagreed with him the same way he treated a corps commander or staff officer would have created trouble beyond his comprehension.
Most of his policies where dictated by Washington during the occupation of Japan. If he ever became president the domestic affairs would likely be left to his underlings and for the foreign affairs well at best he only drops one nuke, at worst Eurasian gets wrecked again.
bguy
Donor
Taft had a good relationship with Harry Byrd and would have wanted Byrd as his Secretary of the Treasury if elected. Byrd could probably deliver Virginia for Taft.
Did Byrd actually say that he would endorse him? Seems more likely that he'd just stay neutral as in OTL.