AH Challange: swap the two parties on the spectrum

Is it possible to make it so that in 2011 the Democrats are the party of conservatives, big business and the Christian right, and the Republicans are the party of liberals and the centre left?

With a POD from 1900 onwards.

Or would you need to change things around earlier?
 
Is it possible to make it so that in 2011 the Democrats are the party of conservatives, big business and the Christian right, and the Republicans are the party of liberals and the centre left?

With a POD from 1900 onwards.

Or would you need to change things around earlier?

Democrats can't ever be the party of big business, they could be socially conservative though, with a Christian populist slogan.
 
Go back before the civil war and the Democrats were the conservatives. Just go back to the first part of the 20th century and they were still the party of the "solid south," consisting of many Christian conservatives.

The kicker is business and industrial interests. That is the traditional GOP stronghold. But can you switch the parties in the 20th century?

I say yes. Elect a Democrat to the white house in 1928, when the parties had virtually grown together in ideology. Make sure he is as unresponsive as Hoover. Then, the Republicans will have the chance to offer a "new deal" and return the parties to their Reconstruction-era right-left alignment.
 
Why not?

What about the Bourbon Democrats for example?

We know what a Bourbon Dem is, thank you very much.

They nominated only a couple Bourbon Democrats in a very conservative age. To insure that, the Populist Party can't ever gain so many votes, and the merger in 1896 can't happen. That's the only way.

Still, Republicans were always more business friendly than the Democrats, and the Bourbons in the North couldn't match the big time populists in the South. Essentially, I like the 1928 scenario. I also could believe that the Republicans elect Thomas Dewey in 1948, and in a slow but happening cycle, the Democrats shift to the right to combat the "Party of Dewey".
 
Have the 1920 Republican nomination go to Leonard Wood (a Theodore Roosevelt protege) or Hiram Johnson (a pro-regulation populist) instead of the laissez-faire Harding, and give the pro-tax and pro-central-planning Hoover a major role in the new administration (probably Treasury Secretary in place of Andrew Mellon).

Whereas Harding and Mellon responded to the 1920-1921 recession by rolling back high wartime tax rates (cutting the top rate from 77% to 24%) and implementing a deep austerity program to keep the federal government running a surplus to pay down the national debt, a Wood+Hoover or Johnson+Hoover team would more likely keep taxes high, use the additional revenue to fund expanded poor relief, and increase regulation and central planning to try to root out "inefficiency" in the private sector. If the depression winds up deeper than OTL, implementing a Social Security-like program, a WPA-like program, and a National Recovery Act-like program is not out of the question.

If the Democrats nominate John Davis in 1924 as per OTL, I could very easily see him running to Wood's or Johnson's right. Davis was a conservative Southern Democrat, who IOTL opposed much of FDR's New Deal and argued several of the court cases challenging the constitutionality of various aspects of the New Deal. As TTL nominee, he'd likely serve as a rally point for conservative opposition to the quasi-New Deal policies of our hypothetical Wood or Johnson administration.

There's a variety of ways things can proceed from that point. Probably the best option in terms of this AHC would be for Davis to win and start trying to roll back Wood/Johnson's policies, but only succeed in rolling things back a little. Davis gets reelected in 1928, then the stock market crashes and the economy goes south again around 1930 or 1931, and Hoover or another pro-government Republican successfully defeats Davis's VP in 1932 by blaming the renewed depression on Davis's economic policies.
 
If I recall, up until the 1960s, the Republicans were the Social Liberals, and Democrats Social Conservatives. Nixon's Southern Strategy I think made the Republicans switch over time (I think the Republicans had strong showing in the Northeast up until the 1988 Election).
 
If I recall, up until the 1960s, the Republicans were the Social Liberals, and Democrats Social Conservatives. Nixon's Southern Strategy I think made the Republicans switch over time (I think the Republicans had strong showing in the Northeast up until the 1988 Election).

From the Wilson era to the Consciousness Revolution, they were divided by region, not party, on pretty much everything.
 
And so push the big businesses over to the Democrats? Makes sense.

Yes it does.

Good suggestions from everyone so far.

I am interested in the contrasts between the liberalism and progressivism of strong tendencies within the Republicans in the past and their posiitons now, and the same with the Democrats and their conservative wing.
 
Easy; make the modern day similar to the Progressive era. The GOP is the party of northern liberals and blacks, while the Democrats are a coalition of the Southern Christian right, immigrants, and Western farmers. Both parties would be fighting for both the business and the labor vote.
 
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