I Became Stalin?!

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 McCarthy’s 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 won’t tolerate those unions, commies, and troublemakers who keep nagging. I’ll deploy my army anytime I want!”

“Uh… are you serious about what you just said? That’s 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, FDR’s 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.

MacArthur’s 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. MacArthur’s campaign did have the effect of cutting down our support rate, but on the other hand, it also angered some people… Dewey benefited from MacArthur’s campaign without getting his hands dirty.”

“…”

“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 didn’t 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 Party’s popularity.

First, Roosevelt’s unprecedented fourth term challenge. 

Since the first president Washington, all presidents had given up on further challenges in the re-election, regardless of their popularity.

Although it was not a constitutional provision, it was a customary practice that had been established. 

Roosevelt succeeded in the third term, and he became the target of the attack by the opponents.

At that time, there was also an emergency situation of the war in Europe, but now that the war was over, there was nothing to say to the attack that he should step down.

And there was also the health problem that was publicly known except for himself who denied it.

“Roosevelt? Even if I support him as president, how long can he be president?”

<If you vote for Roosevelt, Wallace will be president!>

The health problem kept holding him back. It would be nice if he could show a vigorous external activity as president, but in fact, his health was not that good, so there was no answer.

Many people didn’t even know that Roosevelt was riding a wheelchair. 

The White House officials tried hard to hide it from the public. As a result, many people didn’t know that Roosevelt had a disability.

But he couldn’t shake off the image of an old and tired president. 

He couldn’t compare with MacArthur, who had a tough general image who rolled on the battlefield as a field commander, or Dewey, who had a relatively young and clean image.

And if Roosevelt died, the president would be Vice President Wallace. 

Roosevelt thought he would fill the fourth term and tried to entrust the work to Wallace, who was the closest to his policy, despite the opposition of the surroundings. But the perception of the people was different.

“Damn it, the gap is still narrowing. I’ve been leading this country for 12 years! The people know that too.”

“Yes. The possibility of winning is… the Democratic side is much more favorable.”

The polls still favored Roosevelt. The Senate and the House of Representatives would also be dominated by the Democrats if the survey was correct.

“Is that… true?”

“…Yes, it is.”

And there was one more corner that the Democrats believed in.

Roosevelt nodded quietly at Wallace, who nodded quietly. He closed his eyes slightly and relaxed.

“That’s right… then it’s done…”

***

Time passed and the fateful day drew closer. A huge shock hit the Washington political scene.

<MacArthur, dissatisfied with the primaries, declares independent candidacy!>

<The split of the Republican Party? 14 conservatives support MacArthur!>

<Dewey, dark clouds over his presidential campaign. The Kremlin smiling?>

MacArthur finally decided to run as an independent candidate, rejecting the Republican nomination. 

He still looked down on both Dewey and Roosevelt, and several hard-line anti-communist congressmen supported him.

“General MacArthur is the only one who can save this country from the red menace!”

“Long live MacArthur! Long live the United States of China! God bless America!”

His popularity was not low just because it had dropped. Rather, his supporters, who thought his defeat was due to the commies who were secretly sabotaging and sabotaging the United States of China, became more united.

“General MacArthur lost the primaries because of the commies hiding in the US government!”

“The commies are eavesdropping on me! They hid a bug in my ear!”

“Drive out the commies! Defend the freedom of America!”

“Oh, say can you see~”

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 Kremlin’s 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 couldn’t 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?”

MacArthur’s fluctuating support rate, Dewey’s support rate that rose and then plummeted due to the split, and FDR’s support rate that was still high but didn’t 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 didn’t 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 hadn’t 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 enemy’s split. 

MacArthur openly criticized both Dewey and Roosevelt, and the mainstream Republicans couldn’t stop them and just kept their mouths shut and made theoretical arguments.

“…Let’s 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…

“Don’t 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.