What if FDR didn't die in 1945?

[Lord Baal]

Forget his foreign policy, I want to see how the Share Our Wealth program goes. I'm a big fan of that personally.

You like hyperinflation and economic chaos?

 

[Karalysia]

You like hyperinflation and economic chaos?

Like I said, big fan of it.

 

[Lord Baal]

Like I said, big fan of it.

 

[innonimatu]

Almost certainly with the same against Britain, given his hatred of the UK - which I never really understood, since he was never really given a reason to hate them as much as he did. I don't see him passing sanctions against China though. Not enough trade to really justify it. He'd likely sanction the USSR just for the hell of it though, given his feelings towards communism. In fact, that there might be the only chance of him acting against Germany; the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact might convince him to side with the Western Allies.

I've always found the Kingfish fascinating. Certainly way more interesting than FDR.

I believe that what you call his hatred of the UK was more or less unanimous among american politicians of the time. The British Empire was the rival of the USA at the time. Plus the USA had been expanding westwards first, and then against Mexico. But during the late 19th century american politicians rejected any further expansion into Mexico because any new territory, being contiguous, would inevitably be organized into states populated by Mexicans! And that they did not want to risk - all political elites in a representative democracy fear having new, different people added to their electoral pool. Immigrants could be assimilated, but the mexicans, with their history of political instability, those the american politicians feared.
So the only possible expansion was to the north, to the western territories of what is now Canada, in the event that the British Empire became too weak to defend those. I know little about internal american politics in the early 20th century, but it seems to me that in the early 20th century the appeal of this should still be high. Up to, and including, FDR, I expect that his old-style imperialist calculations should still be common among american politicians.

 

[LightSpectra]

So the only possible expansion was to the north, to the western territories of what is now Canada, in the event that the British Empire became too weak to defend those. I know little about internal american politics in the early 20th century, but it seems to me that in the early 20th century the appeal of this should still be high. Up to, and including, FDR, I expect that his old-style imperialist calculations should still be common among american politicians.

Not really. World War I had eliminated most Americans' taste for imperialism. Hence why the '20s and '30s were a period of major isolationism, even though there were still a few old-school imperialists pushing for acquisition of Pacific territories.

 

[Dachs]

But during the late 19th century american politicians rejected any further expansion into Mexico because any new territory, being contiguous, would inevitably be organized into states populated by Mexicans! And that they did not want to risk - all political elites in a representative democracy fear having new, different people added to their electoral pool. Immigrants could be assimilated, but the mexicans, with their history of political instability, those the american politicians feared.

There was some of that in play, but the chief reason that the Whig party refused to pass the full-annexation version of the Guadalupe Hidalgo treaty was the fear that it would be employed to extend slavery into the Mexican states and less out of the Whigs' dislike of Catholics and non-WASPs (though, again, that was a factor). Similar efforts to turn Mexico into a protectorate a decade later culminated in the unsigned McLane-Ocampo treaty, which was rejected by the Republican congress of 1860 mostly because it was associated with the previous administration and the more or less dead Democratic party.