Johnnie Cochran wasn't there to bail him out essentially
Alternate Wikipedia Infoboxes VII (Do Not Post Current Politics or Political Figures Here)
- Thread starter BigVic
- Start date
Oh, I had no idea who he was. That does make sense though since this is a “weird” presidents list after all.
Hoo boy Democrats are FUCKED ITTL. They had two murderer presidents within the last 30 years!
Bargaining With the Devil, Or, How Warren G. Harding Surviving Led to an Early Southern Strategy:
Warren G. Harding sighed wistfully as he read the election returns. How mightily he had fallen. Here he was, the incumbent who'd won over 60% of the vote four years prior, behind his opponent. It had been close-fought battle, but a losing one nonetheless. It was time to prepare a concession telegraph to send to President-elect Underwood, he supposed. As he began to write it, he inevitably found his mind thinking of the past, of how he could have survived the challenged.
It had all started with the stupid Teapot Dome thing. Albert Fall, the Interior Secretary, got caught in perhaps the most brazen example of Cabinet bribery the nation had ever seen, and even after he'd left his position in March 1923, the spectre of the scandal had hung under the Harding administration's neck like a millstone. Congressional investigation had dogged him for two years. Harry Daugherty's scandals did nothing to help. The 1922 midterms had gone poorly for his party, and the newly narrow Republican majority had arguably only been saved by how bad the 1920 result had been for the Democrats. As 1924 had dawned, Harding's once-soaring popularity slowly dropped, and the Democrats aggressively aimed for actual victory.
The Democratic Convention had come and gone and produced a surprisingly united party behind Senator Underwood. Meanwhile President Harding struggled to get his party in line; some, with, of course, Robert M. LaFollette as their ringleader, had been quite aggressive in trying to investigate whether or not he had been involved in Fall's schemes, and these inquiries seemed incapable of dying down. The general election campaign had somehow been even more scandal-ridden than the rest of his presidency. Questions over Teapot Dome still lingered, but new scandals to rock the nation emerged instead. The first and biggest of these was, of course, the discovery by the press of Nan Britton, President Harding's mistress. The Harding campaign struggled to respond to public knowledge of the president's affair; it was made worse when they found out about their illegitimate daughter, Elizabeth. This evolved explosively when the press got their hands on documents showing the Republican Party itself had been paying hush money to President Harding's other mistress, Carrie Fulton Phillips, and the fact she'd blackmailed him to not vote for the declaration of war against Germany. New scandals became commonplace as the American people learned how the Harding White House really worked; for example, the public revelation of the president's blatant violation of the Volstead Act in serving liquor to his Cabinet didn't dent Harding's numbers much (since, after all, too many Americans were themselves engaging in such blasé violations of the act) but did draw the ire of Wayne Wheeler, the tyrant leader of the powerful Anti-Saloon League. Wheeler and the ASL would never back the wet Underwood, but would end up doing little to support the reelection of President Harding. That the president had retained Harry Daugherty in his place even as corruption scandals remained swirling around the attorney-general did nothing to staunch the bleeding.
The final factor was the president's health. In the midst of a tour of the West that had included the first presidential visit to Alaska, the president had had a sudden pique of ill health starting July 27, 1923; on August 2, he had what was later understood to be a heart attack and nearly died. The president would ultimately live, for now, but was very physically weakened by the episode, and never fully recovered. His ability to campaign in 1924 would be rather limited. In some ways this didn't affect the president much - like four years prior, his was a decidedly front-porch-style campaign - but it limited his already low-energy form of presidenting, and gave way to further negative articles as his team largely failed to hide his ill health. Indeed, the front porch style he favored likely backfired, and was part of why Underwood defeated him. Such was how the Harding reelection campaign slowly died a death of a thousand cuts. That the result was as close as it was was a testament to the natural advantages of the Republican Party of the time and the depth of the hole the Democrats had gotten themselves into in 1920.
A part of President Harding stirred and he wanted to blame it all on LaFollette. He'd launched his own "independent" bid with the support of "progressive" organizations and split the party like his own bête noire, Teddy Roosevelt. That Underwood's margin had exceeded LaFollette's share in key states like Rhode Island and Delaware and that many LaFollette voters would have chosen Underwood was lost on many men like Harding. Indeed, many historians agree that Underwood could have made much of the ground he might have lost in the Northeast in the West. But that is not something so easy to predict, especially at the time. And so the defeated president bitterly resented LaFollette for "stealing" his second term.
Harding looked at the finished telegram. Even as Rhode Island, Nevada, and Oregon remained in doubt, he knew there was no point in delaying the inevitable. Even if he got all three he had lost. So he ordered the telegram sent to Underwood, and became a lame duck. He left office on March 4, 1925, and died on June 3 of that year. So a scandal-ridden president passed onto the history books.
Warren G. Harding sighed wistfully as he read the election returns. How mightily he had fallen. Here he was, the incumbent who'd won over 60% of the vote four years prior, behind his opponent. It had been close-fought battle, but a losing one nonetheless. It was time to prepare a concession telegraph to send to President-elect Underwood, he supposed. As he began to write it, he inevitably found his mind thinking of the past, of how he could have survived the challenged.
It had all started with the stupid Teapot Dome thing. Albert Fall, the Interior Secretary, got caught in perhaps the most brazen example of Cabinet bribery the nation had ever seen, and even after he'd left his position in March 1923, the spectre of the scandal had hung under the Harding administration's neck like a millstone. Congressional investigation had dogged him for two years. Harry Daugherty's scandals did nothing to help. The 1922 midterms had gone poorly for his party, and the newly narrow Republican majority had arguably only been saved by how bad the 1920 result had been for the Democrats. As 1924 had dawned, Harding's once-soaring popularity slowly dropped, and the Democrats aggressively aimed for actual victory.
The Democratic Convention had come and gone and produced a surprisingly united party behind Senator Underwood. Meanwhile President Harding struggled to get his party in line; some, with, of course, Robert M. LaFollette as their ringleader, had been quite aggressive in trying to investigate whether or not he had been involved in Fall's schemes, and these inquiries seemed incapable of dying down. The general election campaign had somehow been even more scandal-ridden than the rest of his presidency. Questions over Teapot Dome still lingered, but new scandals to rock the nation emerged instead. The first and biggest of these was, of course, the discovery by the press of Nan Britton, President Harding's mistress. The Harding campaign struggled to respond to public knowledge of the president's affair; it was made worse when they found out about their illegitimate daughter, Elizabeth. This evolved explosively when the press got their hands on documents showing the Republican Party itself had been paying hush money to President Harding's other mistress, Carrie Fulton Phillips, and the fact she'd blackmailed him to not vote for the declaration of war against Germany. New scandals became commonplace as the American people learned how the Harding White House really worked; for example, the public revelation of the president's blatant violation of the Volstead Act in serving liquor to his Cabinet didn't dent Harding's numbers much (since, after all, too many Americans were themselves engaging in such blasé violations of the act) but did draw the ire of Wayne Wheeler, the tyrant leader of the powerful Anti-Saloon League. Wheeler and the ASL would never back the wet Underwood, but would end up doing little to support the reelection of President Harding. That the president had retained Harry Daugherty in his place even as corruption scandals remained swirling around the attorney-general did nothing to staunch the bleeding.
The final factor was the president's health. In the midst of a tour of the West that had included the first presidential visit to Alaska, the president had had a sudden pique of ill health starting July 27, 1923; on August 2, he had what was later understood to be a heart attack and nearly died. The president would ultimately live, for now, but was very physically weakened by the episode, and never fully recovered. His ability to campaign in 1924 would be rather limited. In some ways this didn't affect the president much - like four years prior, his was a decidedly front-porch-style campaign - but it limited his already low-energy form of presidenting, and gave way to further negative articles as his team largely failed to hide his ill health. Indeed, the front porch style he favored likely backfired, and was part of why Underwood defeated him. Such was how the Harding reelection campaign slowly died a death of a thousand cuts. That the result was as close as it was was a testament to the natural advantages of the Republican Party of the time and the depth of the hole the Democrats had gotten themselves into in 1920.
A part of President Harding stirred and he wanted to blame it all on LaFollette. He'd launched his own "independent" bid with the support of "progressive" organizations and split the party like his own bête noire, Teddy Roosevelt. That Underwood's margin had exceeded LaFollette's share in key states like Rhode Island and Delaware and that many LaFollette voters would have chosen Underwood was lost on many men like Harding. Indeed, many historians agree that Underwood could have made much of the ground he might have lost in the Northeast in the West. But that is not something so easy to predict, especially at the time. And so the defeated president bitterly resented LaFollette for "stealing" his second term.
Harding looked at the finished telegram. Even as Rhode Island, Nevada, and Oregon remained in doubt, he knew there was no point in delaying the inevitable. Even if he got all three he had lost. So he ordered the telegram sent to Underwood, and became a lame duck. He left office on March 4, 1925, and died on June 3 of that year. So a scandal-ridden president passed onto the history books.
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"The M in Democrat stands for Murder!"
-Common GOP quip ITTL
(Though, I just noticed that, I wanted to also add a GOP criminal president lmao, but I forgot)
Now they just need President John Wayne Gacy to make three!
What about that US politician who changed his name to Low Tax something and killed his opponent just before the election. I think his victim's widow won the election. Can't remember the specifics.
Wasn't that the guy from the SomethingAwful forums?
I don't get the shiny star since I saw your post on Reddit, but I was curious, was there an actual chance of FDR recognizing the Vichy regime as France's official government?
Also what's former Germany like?
Idk what that is but I looked him up and his name was Byron (Low Tax) Looper. He actually legally changed his middle name Anthony to Low Tax and ran in the Republican primary for a congressional district and State Senate seat at the same time, losing the primary for the congressional race but winning the State Senate primary. His opponent was Democratic State Senator Tommy Burks whom he murdered on October 18, 1998. Since it was too late to change the ballots Burks' widow Charlotte won the election on write-in campaign. Looper was convicted of first degree murder in 2000 and died in prison in 2013, aged 48.
Had he won the Republican primary for that congressional race Looper could've gone on to face Congressman Bart Gordon in the 1998 election. If Looper had murdered Gordon like he did with Burks and gotten away with it (he was only caught IOTL for the murder of Burks since he seen driving away from the scene of the crime by Burks' wife and a worker on the farm spotted his car nearby). So had he won that congressional seat in 1998 he could go onto an illustrious political career and get himself elected President and end up resigning in disgrace or impeached of his crime was ever found out.
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Now that sounds like a timeline waiting to be written!
(Also SomethingAwful was a forum which was popular back in the 2000s, they're famous because they're essentially proto-4chan and most of modern internet culture arose from there, Lowtax (real name Richard Kyanka) was the admin and founder of the site, he sadly committed suicide on 2020)
I was not aware of the coincidence. I've never even heard of SomethingAwful before.
Definitely. They were trying to push Darlan as a figure until he got murdered in North Africa. There was a real belief that the Hero of Verdun was never REALLY a puppet. And FDR hated DeGaulle.
Or a President Ted Bundy or Jim Jones
Also Richard Kyanka named himself Lowtax as a reference to Byron Looper's middle name.
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A failure of D Day, no De Gaulle and the Petainists remained in power in the south of France?
Either way, it's brilliant.
Yes, despite the US public opinion reluctances, FDR kept considering Vichy France as the legal French authority until pretty late in the war.
Here with De Gaulle dying before doing pretty much anything the French resistance remains largely divided and unorganised with the communists groups being the more powerful ones. Here D Day isnt a thing, the western allies concentrate their forces on the mediteranean front with a landing in Provence and they manage to get Vichy from switching side (well in OTL Vichy remained technically at war with Germany) again. Here FDR take the gamble of accepting Pétain rather than establishing a costly AMGOT or risking France falling into the hands of communist partisans in a savage liberation.
Germany has been divided among Rossevelt-ish plans. Prussia and Saxony have ended up locked communist dictatorships and the iron curtain falls pretty much at the same place. West german republics osscilate between Austrian-ish neutrality or Atlanticism but they are all fairly democratic.
Yes I kinda explained it just above. When the yanks accept the Vichy regime as a legitimate partner against a few concessions: Pétain has to retire (he is almost 90 anyway), the regime has to finally write a constitution, get rid of the craziest antisemitic dispositions it put in place and by all means prevent communists from getting close to power.
The Yanks accepting to keep the Vichysts in office turns the much more disorganised Résistance appaled. They create their own Comitee of National Liberation and they announce the formation of a new French republican government with soviet and british approval. France is in a quasi civil war by the end of 1944 with assassinations all around when a stalemate is forced as no one want or need a new war in France.
The two zones end up becoming two distinct countries.
South France is a conservative authoritarian US-backed regime to the likes of Spain or Portugal led by a de facto junta who has no intention of letting the colonies go but who switched to a de jure civilian rule in the 60s.
North France was influenced by communist resistance ideals in its founding but its not a "French GDR", it is a democracy, quite an unstable and very passionate one, but no faction has managed to take power and turn it into a people's dictatorship (well the PCF tried at one point but it didnt went well)
Huh, TIL.
When did North France and the Netherlands partition Belgium? And does North France also control Luxembourg?
Around the 50s. Here the belgian monarchy was abolished by referendum and Belgium really struggled to exist as a nation without anything to keep the two communities together.
For Luxemburg I dont really have an explanation lol I work a lot with vibes and decided to mix the broad idea of "cold war divided France" with Roosevelt's "Wallonia plan"
I make pretty infoboxes but that doesnt mean I really know what I am doing lol
