AHC: Henry Jackson Democrats and Pat Buchanan Republicans

How do you get the two main parties to stay somewhat the same on most issues, but on the topic of foreign policy, the Democrats are hawkish and neoconservative, while the Republicans are uneasy with foreign interventions in a non-cold war setting?
 
you're not going to get BOTH parties being conservative socially

I think OP is saying Dems are socially liberal but hawkish and GOP is isolationist conservative

Easiest way to do this is have Gore win in 2000 and then die on 9/11. Lieberman pursues many interventions which pushes Republicans to be more anti war. By 2008, the wars and recession lead to the victory of Republican Chuck Hagel over Democrat Hillary Clinton
 
I think OP is saying Dems are socially liberal but hawkish and GOP is isolationist conservative

Easiest way to do this is have Gore win in 2000 and then die on 9/11. Lieberman pursues many interventions which pushes Republicans to be more anti war. By 2008, the wars and recession lead to the victory of Republican Chuck Hagel over Democrat Hillary Clinton
uh

read:
the two main parties to stay somewhat the same on most issues

he assumed both were consie
 
You could get both fairly moderate/broad swaths.

It’d be really hard to keep die hard abortion and die hard anti abortion types in the same party, but you might have it where there’s a substantial pro life wing in the Democratic Party and a substantial pro-choice wing in the Republican - enough that the parties have to split the ticket or make major compromises.
 
Have the SC keep punting and abortion law change one state legislature/courthouse at a time to dodge the issue for long enough and it goes away.
 
I don't think this is too difficult all things considered . . . George W. Bush, of all people, said in 2000 "If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road. And I'm going to prevent that." Now, that's mostly just campaign rhetoric -- if the opposition takes Position A, you're expected to take Position B, even if you don't really mean it. But I think that kind of points in the direction that this could happen:

Basically --
1) Have Gore-Lieberman win the election in 2000, with the two Democrats picking up Bill Clinton's baton for 'humanitarian intervention' a la Bosnia, Yugoslavia, fairly limited missile strikes on Iraq and Afghanistan
2) DON'T have 9/11 happen

Without a Republican in the White House or the Pentagon, 1993 to 2005 is going to be a dozen years of U.S. interventions led by Democratic presidents. And without 9/11 -- which would be a "Democrats are soft" conservative talking point had it happened under a Gore presidency -- Republicans won't move in lockstep to PNAC neocon 'War on Terror' mentality. If Gore continues operating in a Clinton model of frequent but subdued foreign intervention, and without major threats like Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda being on the nightly news every day, I can see a rise of watered-down Buchananism. The Republican standard-bearer won't be a paleocon per se, I don't think, but someone who can build a bridge between paleocons and establishment Republicans.
 
I don't think this is too difficult all things considered . . . George W. Bush, of all people, said in 2000 "If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road. And I'm going to prevent that." Now, that's mostly just campaign rhetoric -- if the opposition takes Position A, you're expected to take Position B, even if you don't really mean it. But I think that kind of points in the direction that this could happen:

Basically --
1) Have Gore-Lieberman win the election in 2000, with the two Democrats picking up Bill Clinton's baton for 'humanitarian intervention' a la Bosnia, Yugoslavia, fairly limited missile strikes on Iraq and Afghanistan
2) DON'T have 9/11 happen

Without a Republican in the White House or the Pentagon, 1993 to 2005 is going to be a dozen years of U.S. interventions led by Democratic presidents. And without 9/11 -- which would be a "Democrats are soft" conservative talking point had it happened under a Gore presidency -- Republicans won't move in lockstep to PNAC neocon 'War on Terror' mentality. If Gore continues operating in a Clinton model of frequent but subdued foreign intervention, and without major threats like Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda being on the nightly news every day, I can see a rise of watered-down Buchananism. The Republican standard-bearer won't be a paleocon per se, I don't think, but someone who can build a bridge between paleocons and establishment Republicans.

I could see Chuck Hagel or Mark Sanford working as that sort of bridge
 
I could see Chuck Hagel or Mark Sanford working as that sort of bridge

Here's my idea:

1) Al Gore is elected in 2000
2) 9/11 doesn't happen
3) A member of a militia kills Al Gore to try and avenge Waco around 2002
4) McCain is nominated in 2004, and chooses John Hostettler (prominent Religious Right congressman who was one of the few Republicans to vote against Iraq) as his running mate
5) McCain's helicopter crashes on the campaign trail, leaving Hostettler on top of the ticket
6) Lieberman finds it hard to appeal to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, leading to his defeat in 2004 to Hostettler
7) Hostettler voted against many bills to bring foreign aid to Israel IOTL, and his opponents were funded by numerous pro-Israel groups, so maybe he does something to piss off Israel during his tenure leading to Democrats lining up in support of Israel
 
Here's my idea:

1) Al Gore is elected in 2000
2) 9/11 doesn't happen
3) A member of a militia kills Al Gore to try and avenge Waco around 2002
4) McCain is nominated in 2004, and chooses John Hostettler (prominent Religious Right congressman who was one of the few Republicans to vote against Iraq) as his running mate
5) McCain's helicopter crashes on the campaign trail, leaving Hostettler on top of the ticket
6) Lieberman finds it hard to appeal to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, leading to his defeat in 2004 to Hostettler
7) Hostettler voted against many bills to bring foreign aid to Israel IOTL, and his opponents were funded by numerous pro-Israel groups, so maybe he does something to piss off Israel during his tenure leading to Democrats lining up in support of Israel


The two deaths thing is obviously a bit of a contrivance but that’s actually pretty clever. Good spot on Hostettler, I’ve never heard of him before but he sounds fascinating.
 
How do you get the two main parties to stay somewhat the same on most issues, but on the topic of foreign policy, the Democrats are hawkish and neoconservative, while the Republicans are uneasy with foreign interventions in a non-cold war setting?

You mean get a right-wing Republican who wants to get troops out of Syria and Afghanistan running against an internationalist Democrat? Impossible! :p

(I don't think posts here should be about current politics, but they shouldn't pretend recent events didn't happen if the challenge is to find out whether it's plausible that they happen...)
 
What effects would a Robert A. Taft Presidency have on the directions that the parties go in? Maybe Robert Taft defeating Truman in 1948 would result in more dovish Republicans and more hawkish Democrats?
 
You are right that there would be some similarities between them. Both Jackson and Buchanan probably are/were more interventionist on economics than the average member of their party. Neither would have much appeal to the postgraduate liberal vote that forms much of the Democratic Party's base today. Perhaps this is a good scenario for a Liberal Democrats (UK)-style third party emerging.
 
The Republicans would probably be stronger in the midwest than they are OTL while the Democrats would probably be stronger in the South than they are OTL.
 
You are right that there would be some similarities between them. Both Jackson and Buchanan probably are/were more interventionist on economics than the average member of their party. Neither would have much appeal to the postgraduate liberal vote that forms much of the Democratic Party's base today. Perhaps this is a good scenario for a Liberal Democrats (UK)-style third party emerging.

Why would Scoop Jackson's platform not appeal to a lot of postgraduate liberals? In the 1976 primaries, he performed extremely well in the wealthy suburbs of Boston for example.
 
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