Landon Time Line
If Roosevelt is close to wrapped up, then a hypothetical Landon presidency begs a closer look. I scripted an event tree for that and gave it an initial run.
Mettermrck, I apologize, the only thing I slept was your "Just and Fair Deal".
The premise here followed the alternate election explanation of a WPA scandal handing Landon the election. My estimate is that Landon would have a possible working majority in the House between southern Democrats and Republicans, but a minority in the Senate. (I should double check the Senate composition in 1936, but historically, it was about 75% Democrat. with the staggered election of US senators, Landon would be lucky to have 35 Republican senators.). Between that and Landon's reputation as the second coming of Calvin Coolidge, I figured that instead of a big comprehensive counter-program what would have happened was a "death of a thousand cuts" for the New Deal. So there is a series of events where the Court invalidates New Deal legislation (just inverting the result of the historical decisions after the "Court packing" gambit scared two justices into upholding the New Deal). There is also some tax cutting - what would Republicans do for policy if they didn't have tax cuts - to roll back but not completely reverse the changes since 1929. The economic benefits of the "Just and Fair Deal" re-appeared in an "Economy Takes Off" event for the fall of 1938 that lagged the tax cuts by about a year.
The other point that still needs some work is the foreign policy. Here I give the player a choice in August of 1937 to select a Landon Administration foreign policy.
A) Hemispheric Hegemony - big navy, defend the Western Hemisphere, disengage from China and try to negotiate an accomodation with Japan.
B) Broad Shoulders - The second coming of Teddy Roosevelt - big WE boost, slight dissent increase, defend Versailles Treaty and China.
C) Isolationist - Let China go, accomodate German revisionism of Versailles, arms cause wars so severe WE penalties, etc.
So far, I've set up an event chain under A&C where the USA tries to broker a peace in China and a mini-Great White Fleet tour of Pacific capitals under Option B to show the flag and irritate the Japanese. There are also some incomplete events for free trade agreements in Latin America under Option A that would start to dismantle Smoot-Hawley and build on some of the historical agreements that Roosevelt negotiated - which Ghost_dk put into his Pol_Pack.
Anyway, the initial test run just to check out the main tax and foreign policy events ran into a timid Hitler. I selected the TR2 option as a maximum case for the USA. No absorption of Czechoslovakia and no conquest of Poland. So a bunch of events that trigger from a rampaging Germany didn't fire. The USA ended up with 1300 IC but a WE less than 70% by 1/1/42. Consequently, the navy and army were bit below historical.
Fortunately, I have a spring of 1939 save so I can restart from there and see what happens if a shooting war starts in Europe.
If Roosevelt is close to wrapped up, then a hypothetical Landon presidency begs a closer look. I scripted an event tree for that and gave it an initial run.
Mettermrck, I apologize, the only thing I slept was your "Just and Fair Deal".
The premise here followed the alternate election explanation of a WPA scandal handing Landon the election. My estimate is that Landon would have a possible working majority in the House between southern Democrats and Republicans, but a minority in the Senate. (I should double check the Senate composition in 1936, but historically, it was about 75% Democrat. with the staggered election of US senators, Landon would be lucky to have 35 Republican senators.). Between that and Landon's reputation as the second coming of Calvin Coolidge, I figured that instead of a big comprehensive counter-program what would have happened was a "death of a thousand cuts" for the New Deal. So there is a series of events where the Court invalidates New Deal legislation (just inverting the result of the historical decisions after the "Court packing" gambit scared two justices into upholding the New Deal). There is also some tax cutting - what would Republicans do for policy if they didn't have tax cuts - to roll back but not completely reverse the changes since 1929. The economic benefits of the "Just and Fair Deal" re-appeared in an "Economy Takes Off" event for the fall of 1938 that lagged the tax cuts by about a year.
The other point that still needs some work is the foreign policy. Here I give the player a choice in August of 1937 to select a Landon Administration foreign policy.
A) Hemispheric Hegemony - big navy, defend the Western Hemisphere, disengage from China and try to negotiate an accomodation with Japan.
B) Broad Shoulders - The second coming of Teddy Roosevelt - big WE boost, slight dissent increase, defend Versailles Treaty and China.
C) Isolationist - Let China go, accomodate German revisionism of Versailles, arms cause wars so severe WE penalties, etc.
So far, I've set up an event chain under A&C where the USA tries to broker a peace in China and a mini-Great White Fleet tour of Pacific capitals under Option B to show the flag and irritate the Japanese. There are also some incomplete events for free trade agreements in Latin America under Option A that would start to dismantle Smoot-Hawley and build on some of the historical agreements that Roosevelt negotiated - which Ghost_dk put into his Pol_Pack.
Anyway, the initial test run just to check out the main tax and foreign policy events ran into a timid Hitler. I selected the TR2 option as a maximum case for the USA. No absorption of Czechoslovakia and no conquest of Poland. So a bunch of events that trigger from a rampaging Germany didn't fire. The USA ended up with 1300 IC but a WE less than 70% by 1/1/42. Consequently, the navy and army were bit below historical.
Fortunately, I have a spring of 1939 save so I can restart from there and see what happens if a shooting war starts in Europe.
That would make a fascinating event as the Republicans scramble to put someone up hastily? Or is his ticket elected and the vice-presidential candidate automatically moves up?