AHC: "Liberal Republicans, Conservative Democrats"

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

With a POD no earlier than 1944 you are to make the Republicans the liberal party, and the Democrats the party of conservatism. I will leave it to you to define those terms (after all, being SOCIALLY liberal is different than being Economically liberal!)
So, lets see the ideas you all come up with ;)
 
Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

With a POD no earlier than 1944 you are to make the Republicans the liberal party, and the Democrats the party of conservatism. I will leave it to you to define those terms (after all, being SOCIALLY liberal is different than being Economically liberal!)
So, lets see the ideas you all come up with ;)

I reckon a Dewey victory in 1948 could bring this about. He campaigns harder and manages to scrape past Truman.

I think it was around this, with a fairly conservative southern time that Reagan started considering switching parties, backing Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956.

In 1952, the democrats "draft Ike" for the nomination (not too much of a stretch, as he was considered to be closer to the democrats). I can't see Reagan in particular backing Dewey over Eisenhower here.

Eisenhower is elected in 1952, with a fairly conservative southern running mate. Like OTL, ike serves 2 full terms and is succeeded by Nelson Rockefeller, who is successful in aquiring Martin Luther King's backing. Rockefeller is known for passing the Civil Rights act and generally reworking the new deal.

Is it possible for some Republicans (the likes of Goldwater), to switch parties at this point in protest? Likewise, let's say that HHH decides his beliefs are more in line with the republicans.
 
I´d say it´s a perfectly plausible scenario. Even later should be possible though more of a stretch. The dems only recently (as in since the party started) became the progressives after all.

I personally think Roosevelt and the New Deal Coalition was when the first story of the present system were laid and Peelitebkearns is absolutely the latest possible POD. I just can't see it happening after then.
 
Not that hard. Have the Democrats never high jack the Progressive movement, and have them remain the Southern Dixiecrat Party.

But Progressive liberal Democrats had been etching out of the party in the North in huge numbers since the Herbert Hoover's "Southern Strategy" tried to kick all the blacks out of the Republican party and started their move to the right. The way to do this is to stop Barry Goldwater from getting the nomination in the first place in 1964 and keep the "Fifth Party System" along with having Dewey win in 1948.
 
In 1952, the democrats "draft Ike" for the nomination (not too much of a stretch, as he was considered to be closer to the democrats).
I don't know about "considered to be closer to the democrats". Both parties tried to draft him as he had been pretty circumspect in his views, but even so had publicly expressed very economically conservative views in the immediate post-war years. Wasn't he a lifelong Republican?
 
Not that hard. Have the Democrats never high jack the Progressive movement, and have them remain the Southern Dixiecrat Party.

Or, in the case of Rhode Island (though probably extended to all of New England as well, and maybe beyond): have the GOP hold a lock on the French-Canadian/Franco-American vote, the Portuguese-American/Cape Verdean-American vote, and the Hispanic-American vote, as an offset to the Democrats holding a lock on the Irish vote. That should be very easy to do.
 
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