AHC: LBJ as a Republican President

Hmmm, might be tricky. I can see him as a Republican in a TL where Progressives control the Republicans from 1912 onward, but I'm not sure how easy that is after then.

*maybe* Dewey in '44. let's say FDR is very sick but doesn't die soon before the election, and some other things happen that make Dewey look very presidential. Not sure what but ISTR someone did a TL like that once but it didn't get much further than that.

The only question is, are the Southerners powerful enough to put Thurmond in power in '48? If Dewey is the one to integrate the military, and then the Dixiecrats control it so Dewey wins a 2nd term.

Then, hwoever, you'd have to get LBJ so disgusted witht he waythe democrats have gone that he shifts to the Republicans. Would he?

There could be a way - suppose some shady stuff keeps him from winning election to the Senate for the first time. He might run as an independent and, if popular enough, win. then, as he tries to work with the Democrats,, their attitude so frustrates him that he drifts closer to the Repubican camp. Eventually he's a compromise nominee witht he Progressive GOP against the very conservative Democrats.

Okay, all of that *might* work, but how to actually put it into practice, I have no clue. Johnson was prideful enough, though, that if all the other stuff happens with his political career, he might just snub the Democrats and go to the republicans. But, whether it can, I don't know.
 
It's virtually impossible. He's Texan, and politics in Texas in the 20s and 30s and even later was, of course, totally dominated by the Democrats. He has to be a Democrat to get anywhere.

That being said...you could possibly get him to move elsewhere and build off of the politics of somewhere where Republicans are not automatically excluded from politics, even somewhere where the reverse of Texas is true (you have to be Republican to break into politics) You could also try to have an earlier party swap, though that's very difficult (too close to the war). Either of those might allow a President Johnson (R), though either are still marginally plausible.
 
That being said...you could possibly get him to move elsewhere and build off of the politics of somewhere where Republicans are not automatically excluded from politics

It would have to be his parents who make the decision to move the family; maybe instead of seeking to build a cotton farming dynasty, Sam decides to get involved in the interstate stock trade that his own father had been relatively successful in, but the new career is in modern agribusiness and is thus predicated on leaving Texas permanently. But even so, he and Rebekah will align with the Democrats wherever they migrate to; they're Bryanite populists. Of course if they're in some place like Iowa where the party is pretty stagnant, then when he comes of age an ambitious Lyndon might decide the GOP is the path of least resistance.

(But why wouldn't young adult LBJ just move back to where the exended family is, and go study at the University of Texas, for instance? They're the ones with the political connections that helped him climb the greasy poll in OTL. An LBJ who's grown up on the Great Plains shouldn't be any more culturally different than a Walter Cronkite or a Dwight Eisenhower, and that's not too alien a persona for a twentysomething who wants to go build a career in Texas politics.)

Handwave: Let's say the family does well as internal migrants in the twenties, but are impoverised during the Great Depression, and decide they have no choice but to stay put in their new location. And no scholarship to UT for Lyndon; certainly not to Southwest Teachers College, seeing as they don't accept out-of-state students, I assume.

Okay. In this case, it's just barely within the realms of possibility for a transplanted LBJ to end up like Wayne Morse or a more strident version of one of the young LaFollettes, depending on how impossible it is to get elected as a Democrat in the Johnsons' new home town/county/state.

But, for presidential reasons, I think we're talking about unnominatible progressive Republicanism. Unless a GOP prez does the New Deal, which is a whole new ball game.
 
LBJ runs a bar. He travels to Europe and discovers real beer. Runs for congress to get laws changed to allow microbreweries, etc. Opens a pub serving Real Ale and bitters, etc. As the microbrew movement swells, they form a national association, and LBJ wins the presidency of said organization.

So, he was a publican, quit, became a publican again, ie a re-publican, and was elected president based on that.

Technically counts, right?
 
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