I doubt it. Politics of racial identity were much different in the past and I don't think having a mixed-race presidential nominee would sway the Black electorate after four years of FDR's New Deal.
AHC: Make African-Americans a solidly Republican voting group
- Thread starter Hcira1
- Start date
No Southern Strategy, and Democrats controlled by die-hard Dixiecrats whose New Deal and War On Poverty programs are crafted to exclusively benefit whites.
Easy, have the Dixiecrats control the party completely. Have Woodrow Wilson types completely dominate the party until the 1970s. Have them be hard core segregationists the entire time. Considering how strong the Dixiecrats were it is quite possible.
Democrats support Civil Rights----not until 60's Remember the SOLID South of 1948-1970 was DEMOCRAT----and I know--because I grew up there---Strom, Robert Byrd, etc----also remember that when Ike ran in the south in 1952 & 1956 he appeared on most ballots twice---once as a republican, once as a Independent---
1) Option One:
- Truman for some reason doesn't desegregate the military, Eisenhower gets all the credit for it.
- Eisenhower does everything he did otl for civil rights.
- Nixon bails MLK out of jail instead of Kennedy and wins the 1960 election.
- Nixon goes through with all the otl civil rights legislation.
- Nixon wins by a landslide in 1964, further discrediting the Goldwater faction of the GOP. Rockefeller becomes the 68 gop nominee.
- No gop southern strategy in 68, conservative Dems from the South have Wallace run as a independent, causing the Dems to lose, even if there is a Vietnam.
- Dems decide in 72 to adopt a Law and Order conservative platform and go with their own Southern Strategy.
2) Option Two:
- Have a conservative Democrat in office as president from 1925-1933. They are in office during the Great Depression and lose all credibility.
- Progressive Republican Teddy Roosevelt Jr wins the 32 nomination and implements a slightly more moderate New Deal.
- Unlike his otl relative, Teddy Jr. Doesn't segregate the CCC work camps, makes lynching a federal crime, and doesn't nominate former kkk member Hugo Black to the US Supreme Court.
- Teddy Jr steps down in 40 due to poor health. Dewey becomes the next president and leads us through WW2. Probably desegregates the military post war if Teddy doesn't do it pre war. Progressive SC picks under Teddy and Dewey means the Civil Rights movement happens around the same time and they get credit for it.
- Truman for some reason doesn't desegregate the military, Eisenhower gets all the credit for it.
- Eisenhower does everything he did otl for civil rights.
- Nixon bails MLK out of jail instead of Kennedy and wins the 1960 election.
- Nixon goes through with all the otl civil rights legislation.
- Nixon wins by a landslide in 1964, further discrediting the Goldwater faction of the GOP. Rockefeller becomes the 68 gop nominee.
- No gop southern strategy in 68, conservative Dems from the South have Wallace run as a independent, causing the Dems to lose, even if there is a Vietnam.
- Dems decide in 72 to adopt a Law and Order conservative platform and go with their own Southern Strategy.
2) Option Two:
- Have a conservative Democrat in office as president from 1925-1933. They are in office during the Great Depression and lose all credibility.
- Progressive Republican Teddy Roosevelt Jr wins the 32 nomination and implements a slightly more moderate New Deal.
- Unlike his otl relative, Teddy Jr. Doesn't segregate the CCC work camps, makes lynching a federal crime, and doesn't nominate former kkk member Hugo Black to the US Supreme Court.
- Teddy Jr steps down in 40 due to poor health. Dewey becomes the next president and leads us through WW2. Probably desegregates the military post war if Teddy doesn't do it pre war. Progressive SC picks under Teddy and Dewey means the Civil Rights movement happens around the same time and they get credit for it.
Southern Dems are different back then than Western and Northern Dems
No because dismantling legal segregation in the United States required extensive intervention in the economy through Governments telling business they could not practice discrimination. Hence the reasoning Barry Goldwater and other small government types gave for opposing Civil Rights legislation. Implementing an aggressive civil rights agenda would be difficult for the Republicans as the alliance between Capitalists and Southern White Supremacists had been the bedrock of American Conservatism since the New Deal Era.
This question comes up a lot and to me feels somewhat repetitive. However if one accepts that the GOP not only implements a civil rights agenda, but owns the issue, it is doubtul they will become the party of African Americans. Most ethnic minorities in Modern democracies with a left-right spectrum tend to vote to the left of the majority group, (People of Color in Britain, France, New Zealand and Australia for example). It is partly civil rights reasons but it is also economics, the GOP for decades has tried to solve this problem and keeps running into the need for an economic agenda.
That being said there is a scenario that could happen. Let's say that the Democrats fracture at some point in the middle of the 20th century, with the Dixiecrats and Conservative Republicans splitting off to form a unified conservative party. The GOP would be free (or forced) to make an aggressive pitch to African American voters in Northern Industrial and Midwestern cities, competing with the Democrats who would be much more left wing labor centric. In this scenario though the Republicans will still have a fight on their hands, you would probable see them loose but by narrower margins than OTL and doing well with wealthier more socially conservative voters.
1. No, not really. The GOP was also pro-business, even before the New Deal: things like tariffs, economic modernization, and laissez faire capitalism (the kind Coolidge preached) were all overwhelmingly "pro-business" and therefore civil rights. The modern GOP - i.e. a coalition of libertarians, Wall Street businessmen, Southern evangelicals, rural farmers, and working-class whites - is a late 20th century phenomenon.
2. With that said, the GOP could certainly push for civil rights. "Southern white supremacists" never started voting Republicans until the 1950s onwards, when the Democratic embrace of civil rights (and later abortion rights, religious freedom, etc.) drove them away. In fact, on a local level the South never became overwhelmingly dominated by laissez faire capitalists until the Bush era - the Democrats controlled most state legislatures until that point. Lastly, being pro-business and pro-civil rights were never exclusive. William Howard Taft was very pro-business; he also pushed for civil rights. Calvin Coolidge systematically dismantled Progressive legislation, but also spoke favorably for civil rights. Benjamin Harrison tried to pass a bill that would protect civil rights and also raised tariffs.
1: Being Pro Business probable means the Republicans would pass civil rights legislation banning formal segregation, however I still doubt they would push for things like the Office of Economic Opportunity, Affirmative action or diversity requirements necessary to make integration a reality.
2: The South was an economically more conservative area of the country than the North for two reasons. The first was that preserving White Supremacy inherently meant opposing things like Social Security for domestic or farm laborers, or any disruption to the existing order. The second was the massive opposition to Labor in the South. Southern Democratic Congressman and Senators were part of the coalition which passed Taft-Hartley in 1947. The first wave of outsourcing was in fact to the Southern Right to Work states with cheaper land and weaker labor laws. This was a process which began back in the 1950s.
One area of civil rights where the GOP could be more liberal than the Democrats could be bussing within (not in between) cities. The GOP could say they are all for bussing students from one working class neighborhood to another but not from a working class neighborhood to a middle class white suburb, while the Democrats are either divided or anti-bussing.
He died on February 8, 1936. Nor is there any reason to think he would get a larger African American vote than Landon did--maybe less, because he was a conventional conservative Republican who would likely be more hostile to the New Deal than Landon was. Yes, Curtis advocated antilynching legislation. So did Landon.