Chapter 193:
Chapter 193
The MacArthur-McCarthy duo, who had stirred up an unexpected storm and gathered tremendous popularity in the early stages of the primaries, suddenly lost their appeal.
Commies! We have to catch the commies! Commies!
People were fed up with McCarthys extremism, who only talked about finding commies. They looked for a more moderate alternative.
Mr. MacArthur, how do you plan to lead the future of the American economy?
Just let the businesses do their profit-making activities freely. I wont tolerate those unions, commies, and troublemakers who keep nagging. Ill deploy my army anytime I want!
Uh are you serious about what you just said? Thats not a joke?
And MacArthur was not much different. People finally realized why he had been kicked out of the Philippines.
During the presidency of Hoover, FDRs predecessor, retired soldiers who were struggling to make ends meet due to the Great Depression staged a protest to demand early payment of their pensions (Bonus Army). MacArthur labeled them as thugs and suppressed them with bloodshed.
95% of the protesters were real veterans or their families, but MacArthur claimed that only 10% were real protesters and the rest were professional agitators, commies, or instigators. He crushed the protest with tear gas and tanks.
MacArthurs reckless assault order caused massive damage to the marines, and his negative reputation spread among the soldiers.
Eventually, the popularity of the Mac-Mac duo plummeted.
On the other hand, Thomas Dewey, the leader of the Republican moderates and the former Democrats of the South who supported the friendly air policy of Roosevelt and Wallace, gained more popularity.
I will formally submit the Veterans Bill to the Congress of the United States of China! We will provide pensions, housing, and health insurance to our great American war heroes. And when they go to college, they will receive assistance from the federal government. Long live the United States of China! Long live the American army!
Woo-hoo! Dewey! Dewey! Dewey!
The Roosevelt administration was also not free from the Bonus Army incident. The government, which was under financial pressure, offered public works jobs created by the New Deal policy instead of early payment of pensions, and the veterans accepted it.
But a hurricane hit the area, and hundreds of them ended up dead.
This also hurt the support for the Roosevelt administration.
Taking advantage of this gap, Dewey and Truman joined hands and made several pledges to target the tens of millions of war veterans who emerged as the swing voters of the presidential election.
In the end, the bigwigs of the Republican Party joined forces and supported Dewey.
I hereby declare that I will withdraw from the Republican presidential primary and officially endorse Thomas Dewey as the candidate.
I realized my shortcomings during the primaries, and I decided to lend a hand to his presidential campaign because there is a more suitable candidate than me. Dewey for president!
As the situation reversed dramatically and the support rate declined, the Mac-Mac duo tried to find another breakthrough, but they were no match for the seasoned politicians of Washington with the combination of a retired soldier and a freshman congressman.
The Republican Party hereby elects Thomas Dewey as the presidential candidate and Harry Truman as the vice-presidential candidate of the United States of America!
Causing one incident after another, Dewey was finally elected as the Republican candidate to face Roosevelt.
In front of him, who was cheering with Truman and the Southern defectors of the Democratic Party, MacArthur bit hard on the pipe he had been chewing on.
***
The support rate of the Republican Party is alarming, Your Excellency. MacArthurs campaign did have the effect of cutting down our support rate, but on the other hand, it also angered some people Dewey benefited from MacArthurs campaign without getting his hands dirty.
nove(l)bi(n.)com
Also, there was an opinion that the fourth term is not allowed, that it would only create another dictator. Many votes from the South also left
Truman, that bastard! I knew he would do that!
In fact, the real power was the senior members of the Southern Democratic Party, and Truman was nothing but a puppet, but Roosevelt still had a grudge against Truman.
He snorted at those who didnt know the state of the nation and kept insisting on the anti-Soviet policy. He sank his body deep into the chair, feeling both physically and mentally exhausted.
Seeing him, the officials of the Democratic Party felt a bit of anxiety.
Is he really okay?
There were several more reasons for the decline of the Democratic Partys popularity.
As tens of thousands of MacArthur supporters started rallies in each major city, many people flocked to see them.
The yellow press took advantage of this and poured out all kinds of slanderous articles.
[The Kremlins spy, heading to the White House?]
[State Department internal spy report: McCarthy was right!]
A cartoon of a devil with a red mustache and a hairy chest sitting on the White House and cackling hit the whole country.
Anyone could see that it was clearly Stalin who was drawn in the cartoon. Below it was a brief comment.
<MacArthur or Stalin?>
It was nothing but a rude comment that implied that choosing any other candidate than MacArthur was tantamount to electing Stalin.
The furious protest of the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Alexandra Kollontai, forced the newspaper that published the cartoon to issue a correction, but they did not refrain from sarcasm in the correction.
<Our newspaper publishes a correction for the cartoon due to unavoidable circumstances. The candidates competing with MacArthur in this election are not Stalin, but Roosevelt-Wallace, Dewey-Truman. But our cartoonist couldnt tell the difference between them and Stalin, so he made a mistake. We apologize deeply.>
Hahaha! Look at this!
Heh, are there really commies in this country?
MacArthurs fluctuating support rate, Deweys support rate that rose and then plummeted due to the split, and FDRs support rate that was still high but didnt seem to look up.
In the midst of such a storm, the day of destiny finally arrived.
***
Ha, is this a joke?
I thought the US electoral system was not normal, but I didnt know it would help us.
The report contained the results of the US presidential and congressional elections.
The US presidential election was unique in that it was decided by the number of electors in each state.
The candidate who got one more vote in the state monopolized all the electors in the state, which were determined by population.
That is, you could sweep dozens of electors with a 51:49 ratio, or you could only get three electors with a 99% vote.
Roosevelt lost a lot of votes to Dewey in the Northeast states and to MacArthur in the South, and he barely won in many places.
Of course, he had a slight advantage in the number of electors, so he eventually won the victory, but his vote was less than MacArthur, who ranked second in the electors.
If the Republican Party hadnt split, Roosevelt might have lost
On the other hand, there might have been voter consolidation due to the split.
In real history, Roosevelt won all four elections comfortably.
The gap narrowed in the fourth term, but.
But this time, he barely won even with the huge windfall of the enemys split.
MacArthur openly criticized both Dewey and Roosevelt, and the mainstream Republicans couldnt stop them and just kept their mouths shut and made theoretical arguments.
Lets proceed with the plan as planned.
Yes, Comrade Secretary-General.
The US still had a lot to give us.
The amount of aid from the US, which promised to hand over three nuclear weapons and dig up the land, was finally set at 30 billion dollars. Of course, only when Roosevelt got the approval of Congress
Dont we have to give them a gift too?
We had to throw a congratulatory party for the new president.
With the blood of the war criminals.