AHC: Make the Republicans socialist and the Democrats libertarians

So every now and then someone asks what would have had to have happened to get the Democrats and Republicans to switch places in the US political system. Even I've done that. But quite frankly that's getting boring by now. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to make the Republicans a centre-left (by European standards) party, with actual socialists on its left-wing, whilst the Democrats are the party of deregulation, unfettered neoliberalism, and with a sizeable libertarian bloc. Bonus points if the Republicans still mobilise religious populism to appeal to their base.
 
Hit Eugene Debs in the head with a chair and make him become a Republican in the 1890s, he becomes a governor of Indiana and becomes McKinley's VP. Debs then ascends to the presidency and appoints another socialist in 1912. For the Democrats, well, hit Barry Goldwater in the head which makes him a Democrat.
 
Party politics evolve slowly, but it's difficult to get two parties to actually switch places like the Republicans and Democrats did, because most of the time this involves both of them having to pass through a middle ground - the OTL switch of the Reps and Dems on "social issues" was mostly the result of the Dixiecrats placing so much import on [lack of] Civil Rights, and the Republican leadership's decision to take advantage of the situation and court them heavily (the famous "Southern Strategy").

But it's harder to abruptly about-face on economic policy, which is more universal and fundamental to both parties (at least, historically). Without yet touching on history, I would see the process as likely going something like:
1. Republicans start getting more and more economically left, Democrats remain there, American economic discourse and policy just starts migrating leftwards
2. American economic policy is now broadly leftish
3. In response to some internal pressures, the Democrats start shifting liberal economically, until eventually they're roughly where modern Republicans are and the polarity is switched

Or, of course, it could go the other way around.

I think we actually almost saw something like this. The 90s saw Clinton leading the Democratic Party to more and more liberal economics with a general feeling of deregulation and free trade (specifically, for example, NAFTA and the repeal of Glass-Steagall). Starting under the Tea Party, the Republicans began changing from a party controlled by its Rockefeller-type magnate overlords into a much more populist party. While OTL saw the rise of the Tea Party linked pretty closely to Obama, the rise of the populist core of the Republican Party was actually a long time coming and would likely have occurred during tough economic times regardless of the particular president.

So let's say something like, Gore wins in 2000 and continues the Democratic Party's push towards increasing liberalization. Environmental laws stay on the books, but free trade and unregulated markets are the names of the games, and enthusiasm for free trade as China starts taking jobs from even formerly secure manufacturing sectors like technology eventually causes some unions to get angry. Unions start to break with the Democratic Party, and the Republicans are smart enough to figure out a way to court them. As the Democrats continue to push "right" economically, poor white Republicans, led by the new unions and nativists, start agitating to protect American jobs. The housing bubble, which was gonna pop no matter who was president, does so, and lower-middle and middle-middle class white Americans are the biggest victims (as OTL), and a grass-roots Tea-Party like group starts calling to protect good Americans from Wall Street predators (it's more credible than the Tea Party, though, because there's no way to accuse it of being racist or hate-driven).

When the dust settles by 2015 or 2020, we get the seemingly paradoxical positions whereby the Republicans call for less taxation but more regulation and the Democrats more taxation but less regulation.
 
So let's say something like, Gore wins in 2000 and continues the Democratic Party's push towards increasing liberalization. Environmental laws stay on the books, but free trade and unregulated markets are the names of the games, and enthusiasm for free trade as China starts taking jobs from even formerly secure manufacturing sectors like technology eventually causes some unions to get angry. Unions start to break with the Democratic Party, and the Republicans are smart enough to figure out a way to court them. As the Democrats continue to push "right" economically, poor white Republicans, led by the new unions and nativists, start agitating to protect American jobs. The housing bubble, which was gonna pop no matter who was president, does so, and lower-middle and middle-middle class white Americans are the biggest victims (as OTL), and a grass-roots Tea-Party like group starts calling to protect good Americans from Wall Street predators (it's more credible than the Tea Party, though, because there's no way to accuse it of being racist or hate-driven).

When the dust settles by 2015 or 2020, we get the seemingly paradoxical positions whereby the Republicans call for less taxation but more regulation and the Democrats more taxation but less regulation.

Maybe in 2016 Donald Trump wins the Democrat presidential nomination, appointing his political ally and personal friend Hillary Clinton as his running mate, whilst long-time Independent Bernie Sanders is able to galvanise a new generation of progressive Republicans.
 
I'm thinking of something with the Non-Partisan League. If they grow within the Midwestern Republican Parties maybe they can eventually take control of the Party at large? Avoid the state owned bank in North Dakota from being a failure (not sure how to do this) and prevent Governor Frazier from being recalled. Thus the NPL could grow through the Midwest and West during the 1920s. Avoid FDR come the Great Depression, (maybe have him lose the 1930 election for Governor) then the NPL could possibly seize the Republican Party apparatus and win the Presidency in 1936. Probably controlling Congress as well. That provides a Socialist or at least Social Democratic Republican Party.

Edit: Meant 1928 for the Roosevelt gubernatorial election, considering he only won by a few thousand votes. And it was his political comeback.
 
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Hit Eugene Debs in the head with a chair and make him become a Republican in the 1890s, he becomes a governor of Indiana and becomes McKinley's VP. Debs then ascends to the presidency and appoints another socialist in 1912. For the Democrats, well, hit Barry Goldwater in the head which makes him a Democrat.

Are they both hit with the exact same chair?:p
 
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