Populist party suceeds

Straha

Banned
WI Bryan's Populists not coopted by Dems in 1896, win the presidency.
Consequences?
I think it would be 3 party US - Republicans pick up the business wing of the Northern Demo party. Populists pick up the Socialists. Democrats linger on as a regional party of white supremacy plus the urban Irish (Rum, Romanism and Rebellion) but with a disproportionate strength in Congress because of their regional bases.

The three parties have VERY fluctuating memberships as the Progressives go
back and forth between Populists and Republicans while many Southern
Populists alternately fight the local Dems as part of rainbow coalition and
try to take them over in the name of white supremacy.

Essentially you get a period of class warfare, rampant strikes and riots,
say 5-10K dead / yr 1896 - 1916. You also get the New Deal piecemeal over
those years. Some capital flight but more than compensated by effects of
more even income distribution by quintiles and regions.

Finance capital, Wall Street and the trusts are weaker. Main Street and the
economy as a whole is stronger.

Externally, no Spanish American War. We take arbitration after the Maine.
Cuba transfers to a US terretory. Spain keep the rest of their pacific possesions. Puerto Rico and cuba thus becomes part of the US. The Philippines doesn't become part of the USA. Without the loss of the Philippines the Spanish keep the rest of their Pacific Empire.

US Carib interventions are minimized and show more care for local
nationalism and populist local politicans. However, TR does build his canal
after his election in 1904.

No US intrevention in Vera Cruz in Mexico in 1914. Continual US support for
Mex revolutionaries rather than US capitalists. Intervention still happens
in 1916 but briefer and aimed at driving Villa away from the frontier rather
than his 'surpression'.

DuPont and Morgan not allowed to drag US into WWI.

US entry (if it comes) is bought and paid for as Italy in 1915.
 
Hearst

Read The Chief a few months ago. WR Hearst was deeply connected with WJ Bryan at this time--in the 1920's after a bad experience with Wilson Hearst reluctantly embraced the Republicans. If this Populist Party takes off Hearst is going to be in the cockpit. He might even succeed in becoming governor of New York--possibly even President himself. With Hearst this important in the Populist Party, Bryan's alleged pacifistic streak (D. Lloyd George was once thought a pacifist) may not keep the US from war with Spain. Hearst would also favor intervention in Mexico but he strongly opposed American involvement in WWI.

The US political system very strongly encourages two dominant parties. A 3 party system can only survive in America for a while (and even then if the parties are strongly regional).
 
First of all, WJ Bryan was not a member of the Populist Party. He was a Democrat, through-and-through. He was, however, the candidate endorsed by the Populists in 1896. In fact, if you want the Populists to survive, have Bryan die. He was the reason for the split in the Populist Party (mid-roaders, headed by Tom Watson favored remaining an independent party while most favored supporting WJ Bryan).
 
Is the best chance of the Populists succeeding for Clevland to seek reelection and for both big parties to split.

Was there any chance of Populists reaching out to the low income people in urban areas?

Was 1896 too late for having the 15th amendment enforced?
 

Straha

Banned
The US has had farmers parties (ultimately crystalized as the Populists and
basically merged with the Democrats in 1896) and has had a labor party, the
Socialists, who never overcame their handicap of being based on non english
speaking city dwellers. Now let us chart a slightly different course. Populists do NOT merge with the Democrats in 1896 beyond running joint electoral slates. They survive as a separate party. Second the USSC does not allow Jim Crow in the 1890's to disenfranchise blacks in Dixie plus a great many poor whites in the process - poll tax, literacy tests, restrcitive registration, etc. Plessy decided the other way, which was what the RR that bankrolled the suit had hoped for. Populists merge with the Socialists in the North and East. IWW uses them as a political front. CIO starts much earlier and is given party support (AFL was craft unionism by what amounted to a labor aristocracy, and only into economic unionism - CIO was industrial unionism and willing to organize the great non English speaking unskilled). Joint party backs them both. Next have TR's split with the Republcans stay permanent. He will run in 1916 on a fusion ticket with Debs as his VP. Still loses but throws it to Huhes instead of Wilson. Democrats fall apart outside the old strongholds in Dixie and the northern Urban machines.

Republcians tagged with intervention and the war. With TR as a front man rfor the Left it is hard to tag it with being unpatriotic. TR forms his Rough Rider divisions and is gassed at the front. The two hard money parties take the blame for the wartime hysteria, all the dead, and the postwar Depression. You get a 3 party system with the Peoples Party or Unity or whatever it gets called as the only one running in all 50 states.

Means that the Depression President doesn't have a conservative wing to mollify. US gets Britainbs socialist reforms of the 40's in the 30's. We
are today a social democracy in a German sense.
 
Like what would have happened if FDR lost in 1944. The Dems split into two hostile political groups, one dominated by segregation and the other by the far left. The GOP owns 60-65% in a BAD year and laughs heartily for the next fifty years.

Ick.
 
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