History is the great exposer of liars and fools, and no period of the modern era is more fraught with fact, documentation, and analysis than World War 2 - by far the most universally significant and transformative few years in human experience. It was also, at least in the surviving Western democracies, a rare period of relative moral clarity and internal political unity for the sake of country and freedom. So what would have happened if today's American politics had been in effect at the time? I present some notional reactions from each constituency in turn, projected back to WW2.
1. Economic conservatives
Roosevelt is a Communist who is taxing us to death to pay for his war with our German brothers while Uncle Stalin pulls the strings, wasting our nation's wealth defending Bolsheviks while doing their bidding at home. He forces us to compromise with labor unions like a dictator, and undermines private-sector job creation through massive public-sector mobilization, full employment, and resource rationing. Is this the America we want? One where Big Gubmint tells you how much gasoline, rubber, silk, and other things you can have, just so some lazy Socialist frog or pollack won't have to earn a living under superior German management? Where American business owners are stripped of real workers and forced to employ women just so the men can go save some grass-skirt-wearing island monkeys from the far more enterprising Japanese?
And how dare this President tell us we can't choose to invest in German war bonds instead of Allied ones if the Nazis are giving bigger dividends? It's my money! Not yours, not the gubmint's, mine, and I'll damn well invest it in whatever will pay me the highest profits! That's called capitalism, Comrade Roosevelt, and it's what Germany is fighting to protect against the Bolshevik hordes that threaten us all. So teach this President a lesson, fellow productive Americans, and sell your US war bonds (since the Germans are going to win anyway) and invest in the Third Reich instead. The profit margin under Germany's innovative economic model - known as the Murdering People in Large Numbers and Taking Their Shit system - is much higher than the Allies can deliver with their touchy-feely Socialist plans to rebuild liberated countries.
Why, just the other day, Moody's further downgraded the credit of the Allied governments while reaffirming strong confidence in the credit of Germany and Japan. And have you seen the size of the budget deficit lately? Roosevelt is driving this country bankrupt, building roads, ships, and aircraft factories for which there isn't and will never be any private-sector demand. Even in the unlikely event that he won, we would all still lose because capitalism would be defeated, and America would become an impoverished Soviet province in the aftermath of this war. So resist this Bolshevik regime, put your money into the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire, and tell Roosevelt that maybe you'll consider bringing your money back if he lowers taxes and agrees to end the minimum wage and bring back child labor. If this action causes American deaths or defeat, it's his fault.
[Note: Wealthy conservatives were indeed quite sympathetic to Nazi Germany prior to the war, and had actually plotted a coup in 1933, but they learned fast to shut the fuck up and fall in line once the war began. Somehow I don't think that would happen today: They would not only be acting as clandestine agents for the Germans, but perhaps actively promote Nazi propaganda and seek to undermine the US government while blaming the consequences on Roosevelt.]
2. Religious conservatives
To all God-fearing Americans, the signs are clear: The Beast has arisen, and his name is Franklin Roosevelt, leading his demonic hosts in the War of Armageddon. The people of Germany, rising up in defense of their homeland against the Jews who murdered Christ and steal all that their big noses can smell, are waging a valiant defense against the forces of Satan arrayed beneath the smoldering red flags of Communism. The Germans have seen the Beast among them, and have chosen to give their life's blood to purify the world of the unclean. But when Americans should be helping them, and admiring them, and emulating their godly crusade at home, we are forced by a New England liberal Jew-loving President to instead fight on the side of the devil.
Rise, true believers in Christ, and purify the land of the non-believers! "Gott mit uns" too! End the blasphemous scientific inquiries occurring at America's universities, and send the godless Jews Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer to meet their lord Satan in Hell on a flaming pyre. But even if the Germans are not as God-fearing as they could be, and we have to purify them too, there's no reason to rely on weapons and industrial techniques based on faithless scientific principles: Our soldiers will be invincible once armed with Faith, and we must stop employing women in factories - they are the origin of all sin, filthy and weak creatures who must not be permitted to leave the home, vote, or speak without being spoken to.
Besides, we don't need the things they're making: It has been proven that prayer can both heal and kill, so we have no need for rifles, artillery, tanks, ships, aircraft, or medical supplies. True Christians should march on their nearest Army supply depot and burn it to the ground to show their faith in God.
3. Xenophobe / Racist / Birther conservatives
It makes me sick how soft on the Jap infiltrators this administration is. We've got them all rounded up in camps all nice and neat, but instead of doing the obvious thing and shooting them all, what does Roosevelt do? Feeds them! At a time when Real Americans have to ration all sorts of things, we have to give a portion to keep up a bunch of slant-eyed spies sent here to kill us all. While Real Americans are over there in the Pacific being slaughtered by their kind, we're made to sit back and put them up in some cushy Hilton where they're waited on hand and foot by our people. I bet they get room service and solid gold dinnerware too from all the Jews in this administration.
It makes me wonder about Roosevelt, if that is his real name - maybe he's got Jap blood. After all, the Japs mispronounce r sounds, so his name might be Loservelt: Makes sense given all the ways he keeps trying to lose this war, obeying the Geneva Conventions that protect our enemies, letting black people fly fighter planes, and putting our manufacturing in the hands of the weaker sex. And while our women are being turned into mouthy lesbians by working in factories, who's looking after the children? Black nannies, that's who - and without the presence of the white mother to keep the servants in line. It's a conspiracy to raise white children to think being black is normal and respectable.
I'm just gonna start calling FDR a Jap, because I ain't seen no proof that he ain't. No birth certificate or photo album of his entire life is going to make me think otherwise. Just look at him - if you look hard enough, you can kinda see a little bit of slant to his eyes. And I heard that that wheelchair is actually a secret communications device through which he receives orders from Tokyo. Every American casualty is a result of his active conniving, and every American victory occurs despite him. I hear he's even got a little Shinto shrine in the Oval Office. When are Real 'Murrcans gonna wake up and hang the bastard?
4. Republican Congress
News article: "For the sixth time in as many months, the GOP-controlled House of Representatives has refused to approve the Roosevelt administration's federal budget requests except their own salaries - which they have increased by 715% - despite immediate consequences for American troops overseas and the citizenry at home. They have also continued to block every judicial and regulatory appointment, bringing the machinery of the United States government effectively to a halt in the midst of a World War. As a result, supply ships are idling in harbor, aircraft lay abandoned on airfields for lack of replacement parts, tanks deployed to Europe are without gasoline, and a number of divisions overseas have been without food for weeks.
When asked, the Republican Speaker of the House had this to say: "Look, we made it very clear to President Roosevelt - if he does what he's told, reduces upper-income taxes from 90% to 0 like we demand, ends all laws restricting the power of business owners, and stops punishing our campaign contributors for doing business with the Nazis, we'll consider passing a budget. All the bad things happening to our troops overseas as a result of this impasse are his fault - if he would just do what we say, our troops might get some supplies. Besides, we're not here to coddle weak soldiers who need to suckle at the taxpayer's teat: Let them forage, or eat the enemy, or start a battlefield business and pull themselves up by the bootstraps. His accusation that we are "holding America hostage" is the most divisive, irresponsible rhetoric, and shows how out of touch this President is with the American people.
5. Pundits
In the ongoing controversy between Nazism and democracy, the rhetoric on both sides has gotten quite heated, with some independents and moderates bemoaning the acrimonious tone of the war. Just the other day, President Roosevelt described the war in the starkest possible terms, as a struggle for the survival of everything decent and wholesome in mankind - comments that eerily resemble the black-and-white attitude of the Third Reich he is criticizing. But does such shrill partisan rhetoric serve the public interest? Is there no room for middle ground between those who favor liberal democracy and those who favor exterminating minorities and militarily conquering neighbors?
In the opinion of this editorial board, the problem is not that the Nazis are murderous psychopaths - a label that is fraught with all sorts of judgmentalism and hypocrisy when applied by a nation that has ever done anything wrong in its entire history - but that global geopolitics in general have lost their sense of etiquette. Mr. Hitler goes on inchoate rants accusing the Jews of fluoridating his water, and then Mr. Roosevelt says dictatorship is criminally destructive; Hitler annihilates Poland, and Mr. Roosevelt responds by trying to "liberate" it - it's exactly this kind of uncivil, tit-for-tat politics that the American people are tired of.
And since our purview is the American side of things, I say the ball is squarely in Roosevelt's court to stop being so negative and controversial. When was the last time he prefaced a criticism of Nazi Germany by saying that he respects their opinions? Wouldn't that be nice, folks? Just because the (clearly biased) people in the US government claim the Nazis are shooting at us and exterminating millions of people is no excuse for their own extremist attitude. Yes, they have done some things wrong, and our side has done some things wrong, but that's no reason to fly off the handle and get self-righteous. The less President Roosevelt acknowledges the nuances of our situation, the more he comes to resemble what he opposes, leaving the American people no alternative but to sit this one out.
6. Naderites / Dumb Lefties / Truthers
Down with Poservelt! Down with the capitalist shill who forces workers to make concessions to Big Business for the sake of his war machine! What the hell are we fighting for - clearly not enough effort was made to make peace with Hitler, and besides the US government is no different from the Third Reich. We still have segregation in this country, so that makes this country morally equivalent to an eliminationist totalitarian state waging wars of extermination across an entire continent. FDR is a cold-blooded murderer, because stray bombs sometimes land on civilians or cause civilian casualties. He's just like Hitler, who rounds up conquered civilians and has them executed as a warning to their neighbors. Not like Stalin, whose forces of Worker Liberation are undoubtedly fighting under the highest humanitarian standards.
In fact, this whole war is just a corporate conspiracy to weaken the Soviet Union through a straw man puppet (Germany) so that we can sweep into Europe and end Communism under the guise of liberators. Well, I won't be fooled, Poservelt! Stop your brutal murder of the people of Germany and Japan, and choose peace! Stop appeasing the bankers and capitalists with your "New Deal" trojan horse designed to pacify workers with scraps! Pearl Harbor was an inside job, wasn't it? You can clearly see in photos of the exploding battleships that it was a controlled demolition. We can't trust this administration: Americans, resist! Walk out of the arms factories and hold sit-ins to block supply convoys! If the Third Reich wins and comes here, we'll resist them too in the same way, and they'd have to respect us. And if not, we can always call on the Soviets to come save us, and that would be ideal: Finally, real democracy in America - the kind they have in the USSR, where racism, misogyny, brutality, and secrecy are things of the past.
7. Libertarians / Militia Nuts / Anarchists
While it can't be denied that Franklin Roosevelt is a treasonous, thieving Communist dictator who should be hanged from a tree, it must be acknowledged that the Nazis also deviate substantially from ideals of liberty and should be duly rebuked for their misbehavior. Now, granted, quite a few libertarian-oriented people are actively engaged in pro-Nazi activities because they support white supremacism, but that doesn't mean we condone Nazism: We also have members who grudgingly agree to pay taxes for the sake of their country in a time of emergency, and have no particular interest in racial issues as long as non-whites stay out of their neighborhood and don't talk back to them.
So, I've taken the liberty of contacting Herr Ribbentrop to see if something can be worked out, and surprise surprise, he is far more amenable to reason than the Socialist madman Roosevelt. If we agree to sabotage our nation's wasteful and tax-heavy war effort so that Germany can secure itself in Europe, the Third Reich agrees to provide us with funding for a Second American Revolution to overthrow the current left-wing government in America. Now, we would never let a foreign government take us over, but they're welcome to have Europe in exchange for helping us liberate ourselves from King Franklin I. We would usher in a Golden Age like the 1890s, where children are free to work in factories rather than being oppressively forced to go to school; where taxes are zero for job-creator businessmen, and for everyone else are whatever those businessmen think they should be; and of course where Gubmint stops interfering in the private decisions of citizen groups like the Ku Klux Klan to murder and oppress people in an unofficial capacity.
Let the Eurotrash rot in the statist quagmire of their own making while we build a capitalist paradise like the 11th century. Now, you may be wondering how we'd stop the Germans (or the Soviets, if they win) from invading us after we take over, and the answer is simple: Tricorner hats. And flutes. And Don't Tread on Me flags. You see, that's how the colonial militia defeated such a mighty empire as the British - not because the weaponry of the era made a much more level playing field possible than could ever occur today, but because the costumes and symbols of the colonials were magically infused with victory.
But even in the unlikely event that tricorner hats are not magic, those who collaborate with the foreign army invasion would be greatly rewarded - i.e., it would be a tremendous opportunity to practice rational self-interest like the goddess Ayn Rand commands us. Informing on your neighbors could be a great profit-making opportunity, and being part of a collaborationist militia to hunt down and kill those who resist despite no longer having a profit motive to do so would be a chance to pull yourself up by the bootstraps under the new regime. And really, isn't that what true liberty is: Being able to follow your own crass, degenerate, selfish interests without moral or legal restraint? Hell, the more I think of it, the more invasion sounds like Liberty!