How did disillusionment during World War 1 lead to hardings victory?

Answer 1

Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 - August 2, 1923) was the 29th President of the United States (1921-1923), a Republican from Ohio who served in the Ohio Senate and then in theUnited States Senate, where he protected alcohol interests and moderately supported women's suffrage. He was the first incumbent U.S. senator and the first newspaper publisher to be elected U.S. president.[1][2]

Harding was the compromise candidate in the 1920 election, when he promised the nation a "return to normalcy", in the form of a strong economy, independent of foreign influence. This program was designed to rid Americans of the tragic memories and hardships they faced during World War I. Harding and the Republican Party wanted to move away from the progressivism that dominated the early 20th century. He defeated Democrat and fellow Ohioan James M. Cox in the largest presidential popular vote landslide (60.32% to 34.15%) since popular-vote totals were first recorded.[3]

Harding not only put the "best minds" in his cabinet, including Herbert Hoover as Secretary of Commerce and Charles Evans Hughes as Secretary of State, but also rewarded his friends and contributors, known as the Ohio Gang, with powerful positions. Cases of corruption, including the notorious Teapot Dome scandal, resulted in prison terms for his appointees.[4] Harding was a keen poker player who once lost on a single hand an entire set of White House china dating back toBenjamin Harrison.[5] But he did manage to clean up corruption in the Veterans Bureau.[6]

Domestically, Harding signed the first federal child welfare program, dealt with striking mining and railroad workers in part by supporting an 8-hour work day, and oversaw a 50% unemployment rate drop.[7] He also set up the Bureau of the Budget to prepare the United States federal budget. Harding advocated an anti-lynching bill to curb violence against African Americans, but it failed to pass. In foreign affairs, Harding spurned the League of Nations and (Congress having rejected theTreaty of Versailles) signed a World War I peace treaty with Germany and Austria separate from the other Allies. His greatest foreign policy achievement came in the Washington Naval Conferenceof 1921-22, in which the world's major naval powers agreed on a naval limitations program that held sway for a decade.

In August 1923, Harding suddenly collapsed and died in California. His administration's many scandals have earned Harding a bottom-tier ranking from historians,[8] but in recent years there has been some recognition of his fiscal responsibility and endorsement of African-American civil rights.[9] Harding has been viewed as a more modern politician who embraced technology and was sensitive to the plights of minorities, women, and labor.[10]