None of this is going into what it would take for Debs to get enough popular support to win the White House, but the only way he would get elected is if he had sizeable widespread support.
That he would have widespread support is what would make him so polarizing. If socialism has become that popular, then so too would the forms of political reaction that rise in response to it.
These things don't exist in a vacuum.
This is not the same as a question of what would happen if Nixon won in 1960 instead of Kennedy, there's a world of context that has to come with the eventuality of a Debs victory or even just a Socialist Party victory in general.
Even if there is a business plot, it's not going to get enough support to actually install a government the business leader's want.
Says who? If OTL tells us anything, is that the cultural grievances of the middle classes mixed with material
and cultural grievances of the upper classes is a very potent political force. Especially in an age where propaganda can be widespread.
That a socialist could win the presidency doesn't mean that all the cultural and political hangups of the United States have been surmounted, I think it would be safer to assume that those issues would actually be worse, that the opposition would be all the more fervent and committed.
And should push come to shove, there would be a lot more than just some angry capitalists supporting this kind of action. There's going to be small business owners, there's going to be culturally reactionary working class people, and so on. Civil society isn't always united behind the institutions they
ought to be loyal to.
In OTL they didn't just "let" Teddy bust their trusts nor did they just let FDR raise their taxes. They called the Roosevelts traitors to their own class and tried to obstruct through Congress and Supreme Court, but actually going through with an attempt to overthrow the government by force would not have gotten them what they wanted
Comparing normal politics to abnormal politics isn't going to get you anywhere. Not unless you're predisposing that Socialist President X governs in the ways the two Roosevelts did,
which is definitely plausible*, but I don't think that's what OP had in mind.
Reformists who attempt to bring balance to domestic politics and reformists/revolutionaries who seek to
upend the balance on behalf of the working classes are going to be different in their effect but, more importantly, also in their
perception.
Politics are about how different interests come into conflict with each other. And on a fundamental level, no matter how "radical" any proposal that comes from one of the mainstream parties is, it cannot represent the same level of threat. This is both because of the material interests of those parties often being linked to the upper classes' interests, but also because on a cultural level any proposals they make would be perceived as
in-group dissension.
Class traitors or no, Roosevelts are going to have a lot more
legitimacy than a trade unionist. They are more likely to be heard, considered, and tolerated, because they are
of those that are most offended by reformist politics.
The poor, the laborers, the workers and farmers, these people are an
other. And that has consequences for what is and isn't acceptable to do in opposition to them.
*Socialists the world over have moderated themselves when participating in electoral politics, and especially when they've achieved victories. So, it's not outside the realm of possibility that the governing Socialist Party actually isn't radical enough to raise tensions all that high.
the federal government was too powerful was backed by the popular support of the people
Popular support in the country is worthless if that support does not extend to those that are most capable of overthrowing the government/those who are most able to defend it.
The masses cannot be depended on to have the teeth to defend a government at a moment's notice.
But, I've talked enough.
