AH Challenge: Keep both major US political parties 'Big Tent'

[Expat]

By big tent I basically mean the muddied water days of there being conservative and liberal Republicans and conservative and liberal Democrats.

Let's assume that social progress continues more-or-less apace of OTL, though the specifics may change.

Where would you look for a POD?

Is the arrival of civil rights legislation *guaranteed* to end this situation as the racist side blames one party or the other and excludes African Americans from their party of choice?

 

[overoceans]

Is the arrival of civil rights legislation *guaranteed* to end this situation as the racist side blames one party or the other and excludes African Americans from their party of choice?

I would think so. From the 19th Century up to about the 1940s, the Democratic Party was able to appeal to cosmopolitan immigrant communities in the north, along with culturally homogenous, xenophobic rural folk in the south, because their basic program, at least as far as culture went, was laissiez-faire and local-control. "We're the guys who'll let Irishmen get falling-down drunk on the streets of Boston, and southern Baptists beat up Catholic priests for serving wine at Communion, without interference from do-gooder federal busybodies." The respective communities didn't care what went on elsewhere, as long as the federal government allowed them to pursue their own idiosyncrasies at the local level.

The New Deal did little to alter this settlement, because in the 1930s both urbanites and the rural poor had an interest in federal economic intervention.

But, with the adoption of the civil-rights agenda, the Democrats became the undisputed party of federal control. Starting with Trumans' bills, they were no longer saying "Well, Vermont can have integrated tennis courts if they want, and Alabama can have segregated tennis courts if THEY want", they were saying that tennis courts everywhere had to be integrated. (Tennis courts are a synechdoche, possibly inaccurate as far as the 1940s went, but you get the point.)

So, as that trend continued, people with an objection to federal pre-eminence inevitably found that they could no longer support the Democratic Party, and went looking for another political home. The Dixiecrats failed to mount an effective challenge, and eventually the Republicans decided to "hunt where the ducks were", and re-model themselves into the party of old-style decentralization.

And I really don't know if there is a way out of this, unless you somehow find a way for African-Americans and other marginalized groups to decide that federal intervention into local affaris is not in their interest.

 

[GeographyDude]

By big tent I basically mean the muddied water days of there being conservative and liberal Republicans and conservative and liberal Democrats.

This is quite a challenge and potentially makes for a very intriguing timeline.

Now, Pres. Ronald Reagan was an optimistic guy. He acknowledged what could be viewed as the 'mean' side of conservatism (we're against people on welfare, we're against the Soviets), but then he takes a step beyond and emphasizes what are the positive things we're going to do instead. For example, Ronnie Reagan was a peace through strength kind of guy. Of course, the Democrats have their 'mean' side, too, as does the Reform Party, the greens, the libertarians, even the old guild socialists if you want to go way back.

Maybe if both major parties had had more of these step beyond, transcendental leaders, office holders, and candidates.

Maybe if third parties just did a better job and stirred the pot, even though usually getting well less than 5% of the vote (John Anderson and Ross Perot being exceptions).

And some specifics:

The Democrats seemed to get a reputation for being 'weak' on defense because major Democratic leaders and candidates were against the Vietnam War in '68 and '72. Maybe this could have just played out differently. Perhaps being strong defined in different but largely overlapping ways. And the Cold War in the 70s and 80s something other than just propping any old dictatorship which claims to be anti-communist.

The whole thing with the IRS vs. religious schools (most notably, the IRS vs. Bob Jones University), maybe if the persons in favor of this supposed sacred right to discriminate on racial grounds had been called out earlier, had been publicly debated more. This whole episode might seem pretty esoteric, but apparently this was a major reason why evangelical leaders became disenchanted with Pres. Carter. And many of the rank-and-file evangelicals slightly later parted company with the Democrats over abortion in '78, '79, and 1980.

Maybe if Republicans had gotten ahead of the curve on civil rights, instead of the OTL where Pres. Reagan was actually caught off guard by this very issue of Bob Jones University vs. the IRS, to the point where he felt he had to reverse the policy of his administration.

So, this would be a timeline where both parties are more centrist and where both parties compete more competently and skillfully for the center.

But perhaps you're looking for something different. There's always multiple issues cutting across each party where both are at best somewhat loose coalitions. Maybe something more like this?

 

[overoceans]

The Democrats seemed to get a reputation for being 'weak' on defense because major Democratic leaders and candidates were against the Vietnam War in '68 and '72. Maybe this could have just played out differently.

Interesting that Ron Paul has never really gotten a reputation for being "weak", even as he opposed the Iraq invasion and various other post-911 interventions, and called for the closing of military bases around the world.

I guess an antiwar agenda might go down a bit better(if not actually succeed) with Middle America when it's not accompanied by flag-burning, breast-flashing, and reverential chanting of the names of the dictators whose countries you are against attacking.

 

[jahenders]

I think the size of the tent in either party expands and contracts over time depending on the issues they're focusing on and the degree to which different interests can agree on a solution that all can support.

Republicans were big tent in the latter half of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th -- big business interests, laborers (both of whom supported the GOP's tariff strategy) as well as many African-Americans, due to Lincoln's abolition of slavery and the party's stance on civil rights.

Democrats were big tent in the New Deal era -- labor unions, southern Dixiecrats, progressiveshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism, and others in support of FDR's deal.

As far as race, I don't think civil rights laws were the tipping point. Rather, it was when many minorities concluded that the financial benefits advocated by the Democrats outweighed the party's long-standing opposition to equal rights.

At present, both parties have contracted their tents with polarizing economic or social positions that scare off many people.

Viable third parties would further shrink the tents by giving fringe elements in both realistic alternatives (Greens, Tea Party, etc).

By big tent I basically mean the muddied water days of there being conservative and liberal Republicans and conservative and liberal Democrats.

Let's assume that social progress continues more-or-less apace of OTL, though the specifics may change.

Where would you look for a POD?

Is the arrival of civil rights legislation *guaranteed* to end this situation as the racist side blames one party or the other and excludes African Americans from their party of choice?

 

[Emperor Julian]

Franklin Delano Roosevelt chooses a Southerner to be his VP in 1944, who opposes Hubert Humphrey and the pro-Civil Rights crowd in 1948 and keeps the Civil Rights Plank out of the Democrat platform and the Dixiecrats loyal. He then loses to Dewey, who pushes civil rights as much as he can and who wins majorities of the black vote. Eventually, the Civil Rights Act and voting rights acts get passed by Republican presidents, who retain the northeastern social liberals and the black vote while failing to gain as much blue collar support or any support from rural white Southerners, who remain solidly Democratic.

 

[Saphroneth]

The abortion thing's particularly amazing - because if you look back to the 70s you see evangelical Christianity not defining abortion as a sin, and indeed it's barely a political marker.
Then that changed.

 

[Wendell]

The abortion thing's particularly amazing - because if you look back to the 70s you see evangelical Christianity not defining abortion as a sin, and indeed it's barely a political marker.
Then that changed.

And that, probably more than civil rights per se, is where the big tents really start to collapse historically. THeoretically, SCOTUS could have punted on Roe, and the issue would have stayed considerably more low-key.

 

[GeographyDude]

And I think it's entirely possible evangelicals could have taken a two-track strategy:

hey, it's going to take several years at least to pass a constitutional amendment,

in the meantime, we need to do the smart things to reduce the incidence of abortion. Not everyone has great families, so when a nineteen-year-old young women only has a thirty-hour slightly-above minimum wage job, because those are the kinds of jobs which are available in her community, she doesn't really have a realistic choice to be single mom. And the more evangelicals look at these kind of very realistic economic circumstances, the more at least some of them might start leaning toward progressive economics.

And by asking, why might a good person get an abortion, that circles back to the question of personal conscience and ethics versus written in law.

 

[Saphroneth]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slackt...lical-view-thats-younger-than-the-happy-meal/
This article's fascinating, by the way.

 

[Dunning Kruger]

Retain the Fairness Doctrine, eliminated in 1987, which required media companies to broadcast both viewpoints of an issue. Politicized media wasnt nearly as prevalent before then and it was much harder to homogenize political views without the forum that talk radio and now cable news provides.

 

[Wendell]

Retain the Fairness Doctrine, eliminated in 1987, which required media companies to broadcast both viewpoints of an issue. Politicized media wasnt nearly as prevalent before then and it was much harder to homogenize political views without the forum that talk radio and now cable news provides.

1987 is too late to stop the trend, and the Fairness Doctrine will need to go away be sheer necessity once the internet gains widespread usage.

 

[Dunning Kruger]

1987 is too late to stop the trend, and the Fairness Doctrine will need to go away be sheer necessity once the internet gains widespread usage.

Good point on the internet. But I disagree about the trend aspect. It wasnt until the 90s that the Republicans narrowed their base.

 

[Wendell]

Good point on the internet. But I disagree about the trend aspect. It wasnt until the 90s that the Republicans narrowed their base.

I disagree; The Southern Strategy was more than thirty years in the making by 1992. What matters is the rise of social conservatives in the party from, in particular, the Reagan years onward. Once abortion became a partisan issue, there was a new engine for votes, and the socially liberal, fiscally conservative middle fell out of the GOP, to be cemented by the relatively centrist Arkansas governor who won the presidency in 1992.

 

[Dunning Kruger]

I disagree; The Southern Strategy was more than thirty years in the making by 1992. What matters is the rise of social conservatives in the party from, in particular, the Reagan years onward. Once abortion became a partisan issue, there was a new engine for votes, and the socially liberal, fiscally conservative middle fell out of the GOP, to be cemented by the relatively centrist Arkansas governor who won the presidency in 1992.

The social conservatives werent that big of a deal until the 88-92 period. Before then it was hawks versus doves and tough on crime.