AHC: Make Woodrow Wilson one of the most respected Presidents by Liberals

delariva

delariva

The challenge is as follows, with a POD no earlier than 1900, have Woodrow Wilson become one of the most respected presidents by Liberals in 2021, akin to FDR, JFK, etc. You can't change his personal political views, however other changes to American history are all game. To my understanding, this was largely the case for much of the 20th century, with his public perception only declining in the last 40 years or so, mainly due to his racism. The most challenging factor would probably be his racism, but if some other measure is taken to end or diminish the course of segregation much earlier, or if Wilson is responsible for a major Progressive domestic victory that overshadows anything else during his term, this may be easier. Very interested to see what you came come up with in regards to this.
 
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TRH

The US stays out of WWI and he decides against segregating the federal government for whatever reason. Most of his authoritarian excesses would be gone, and without the major action to reinforce Jim Crow modern day liberals could just pretend there wasn't anything he could have done about segregation anyways given the environment he was in.
 

Amadeus

delariva said:
The challenge is as follows, with a POD no earlier than 1900, have Woodrow Wilson become one of the most respected presidents by Liberals in 2021, akin to FDR, JFK, etc. You can't change his personal political views, however other changes to American history are all game. To my understanding, this was largely the case for much of the 20th century, with his public perception only declining in the last 40 years or so, mainly due to his racism. The most challenging factor would probably be his racism, but if some other measure is taken to end or diminish the course of segregation much earlier, or if Wilson is responsible for a major Progressive domestic victory that overshadows anything else during his term, this may be easier. Very interested to see what you came come up with in regards to this.
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It's not just his racism, it's also his outlandish attacks on constitutional rights during WWI. Sure, John Adams, Lincoln, and FDR trampled over civil liberties in a time of crisis. But at least Adams helped found the U.S. and authored the Massachusetts Constitution, Lincoln ended slavery and defeated the Confederacy, FDR brought America out of the Great Depression and fought the Nazis. With Wilson, there isn't a whole lot of lasting importance to counterbalance his failures other than the Federal Reserve and worker's compensation for federal employees. These accomplishments have been overshadowed by the New Deal and the Great Society, so it's easier to focus on how Wilson resegregated the federal government and basically outlawed criticism of his administration through the 1918 Sedition Act. And even if Wilson had been a civil libertarian, the fact is that his stubborn refusal to compromise doomed U.S. involvement in the League of Nations — his signature initiative.

To get Wilson to be more respected, having him lose in 1916 is a good start. Hughes takes the blame for WWI and Wilson defeats him in a re-match four years later. Working with a Democratic Congress, he passes more progressive legislation then dies of a stroke sometime in 1923 or '24. Wilson's presidency is largely defined by his domestic accomplishments and death in office, with his racism still being condemned by liberals. This would make it easier for modern progressives to admire Wilson.
 

Pedersen

Well, given that "liberals" is simply a moniker, that has very different meanings in different countries, and that the notion of what constitute "liberals" also changes over time, isn't the simple answer to just have "liberals" in the USA mean someone who endorses Wilson's political ideas, i.e.
- strong government regulation
- heavy foreign intervention
- segregation of / quotas for races

As for how to get there, simply have political figures support such ideas consistently win the democratic nomination, until it defines that party and by extension the term "liberal".
 

Mikestone8

Butterfly away WW2 and the Cold War.
.
W/o those - esp the latter - there is less pressure to do anyhing abt Black rights, so Wilson is far less criticised.

Personal note - Even *OTL*, most US history books of my Youth (1950s and early 60s ) still portrayed Andrew Johnson as a "good guy" who was persecuted by vindictive radicals for trying to continue Lincoln's lenient policy toward the South.I was about 20 or so before I encountered a book *defending* radical reconstruction. Needless to say, Wilson's racism never got mentioned at all. Somy suggestion is *not* fanciful.
 
NHBL

NHBL

I despised Wilson long before it was fashionable to, so I'm watching with interest to see if there's any possibility that he could be improved to one I merely dislike intensely.
 

SlideAway

Amadeus said:
It's not just his racism, it's also his outlandish attacks on constitutional rights during WWI. Sure, John Adams, Lincoln, and FDR trampled over civil liberties in a time of crisis. But at least Adams helped found the U.S. and authored the Massachusetts Constitution, Lincoln ended slavery and defeated the Confederacy, FDR brought America out of the Great Depression and fought the Nazis. With Wilson, there isn't a whole lot of lasting importance to counterbalance his failures other than the Federal Reserve and worker's compensation for federal employees. These accomplishments have been overshadowed by the New Deal and the Great Society, so it's easier to focus on how Wilson resegregated the federal government and basically outlawed criticism of his administration through the 1918 Sedition Act. And even if Wilson had been a civil libertarian, the fact is that his stubborn refusal to compromise doomed U.S. involvement in the League of Nations — his signature initiative.

To get Wilson to be more respected, having him lose in 1916 is a good start. Hughes takes the blame for WWI and Wilson defeats him in a re-match four years later. Working with a Democratic Congress, he passes more progressive legislation then dies of a stroke sometime in 1923 or '24. Wilson's presidency is largely defined by his domestic accomplishments and death in office, with his racism still being condemned by liberals. This would make it easier for modern progressives to admire Wilson.
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I agree with most of this. I think the other options here are:

(1) Through some combo of events US ratifies Versailles. Whether that's Wilson avoiding his stroke, Lodge being defeated for reelection by John Fitzgerald (JFK's grandfather) in 1914, or some other combo of events, it'll make the US a more active participant in the 1920s. And while that doesn't directly forestall the Nazis or World War II, it's certainly possible it prevents all of that.

(2) Another option is that Wilson's efforts at peace mediation in 1916 / early 1917 work, Germany doesn't resume USW, you get a negotiated peace, and Wilson ends up feted as the man who brought an end to WWI.

Basically, as Amadeus said, his domestic record (though significant at the time) has been overshadowed by FDR and the Great Society, and his foreign policy is - at best - controversial and usually seen as a failure (if, by supporters, as a noble failure) - so none of that ends up counterbalancing the increasing focus on his poor civil rights and civil liberties records. If you can make his foreign policy more successful, than his racism gets less emphasis. (Similar to how FDR is still venerated despite Japanese internment.)
 

Thon Taddeo

This is basically OTL. Historians (of all ideological stripes) tend to rate Wilson highly. It's a bit harder to tell with the general public, and rankings by the public tend to be highly biased towards recent presidents.

Wilson is very unpopular on this site, but that unpopularity isn't really widespread outside of it.
 

Mikey

Kill Colonel House. Wilson's most trusted and least reliable advisor.

In general, I don't think it's that difficult, really. Saving Wilson's reputation, not killing House. The main, obvious thing would be to get the Treaty of Versailles ratified, along with whatever improvements in the negotiation process would have been required to get us there.

The other possibility, I think, would be for Wilson to be able to successfully negotiate an end to World War I in 1916, which included a League of Nations that was, on the whole, successful. This isn't enormously far from OTL: the US had both Germany and Britain at least interested in coming to terms, and it had the leverage needed via American lending and commerce - especially to the UK.

Needless to say, it didn't happen, but it wasn't enormously far away. Wilson and the US State department mainly lacked the sophistication to actually get the job done, and by year's end, Lloyd George had ousted Asquith and the opportunity had passed.

From there, though, you'd depend quite a bit on what actually came of the Wilson peace. The political will domestically would need some kind of thaw between Wilson and Roosevelt/Taft ( the latter of whom headed up an organization called "The League to Enforce Peace" during WWI). If the war ends in 1916 with the League coming to the table, there's probably enough political will to get it in place. You also have a Democratic Senate (56-40 going into the 1916 election, 54-42 coming out).

The peace itself in Europe is probably relatively straightforward, without major political shifts on the Western Front, and Germany making some kind of restitution to Belgium. The eastern front is more complicated; Wilson's peace efforts never really reached Russia, but any kind of peace in 1916 probably at least gets some kind of stability for the Romanovs.

It's the next few generations that really matter, at least for Wilson's reputation: will the League succeed in ushering in an era of peace and prosperity, along with American leadership? Or will it fall apart by 1930?
 

Deleted member 109224

He gets assassinated before he can start resegregating the federal government. He gets remembered in a Kennedyesque way (romanticized in part due to the martyr status distracting from his downsides) and his legacy is more 'academic progressive reformer turned President with lots of promise' rather than 'hot mess of authoritarianism and racism.'
 

Expat

Sorry if this is bad form, but I'd like to argue that changing his personal views should be a valid avenue. People are capable of change, and we've got a POD of 1900. There are any number of scenarios where the man might have a revelation. Totally up to the OP if you want to up the difficulty, just want to acknowledge that it wouldn't be ASB to have a Wilson with a fairly different outlook make his way to office.

Especially if it was a highly-publicized "moderation," rather than radicalization. He very publicly renounces previous hard-line positions and is praised for it, but what he adopts is actually kinda milquetoast. It still plays in the public consciousness as a virtuous change, and makes its way into the public mythology as such. In perhaps 40-50 years, more critical takes might emerge, but not the wholesale rejection of OTL. In other words, a bit similar to the trajectory of FDR, or even Lincoln.

Meanwhile, he has to do good works on the progressive front, maybe play out the war differently as other posters more adroitly suggest.
 
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