AHC: Quickest Solid South demise

Have difficulty seeing that. GOP senators by 1940, legislatures by 1960, President by 1970, say. Or at least each stage happens 10-20 years earlier than OTL.
 
Um... Death of the Democratic Party, altogether?

But it is precisely the South that makes such a death very unlikely.

Walter Lippmann in "Why I Shall Vote for Davis," in the *New Republic,* October 29, 1924, pretty much summarizes the extreme difficulty of destroying the Democrats or replacing them as the main anti-Republican party in the US during this period--the great obstacle is the South:

"First, the practical politics of the La Follette movement. Here in the East its supporters, the New Republic among them, are arguing that the new party is to destroy and supplant the Democratic party as the opposition to conservative Republicanism. This seems to me impossible. *The Democratic party is more or less indestructible because of the solid South.* [My emphasis--DT] A party which enters every campaign with roughly half the electoral votes [I assume that what Lippmann meant was "half of the electoral votes necessary for victory"--DT] is not in my opinion going to disappear. It seems extremely unlikely that La Follette will break the solid South, and almost as unlikely that the Southern Democrats will coalesce, as the New Republic has suggested, with the Eastern Republicans. If the Democratic party survives, and if the Republican party survives, there is not under the presidential system of government any permanent future for a third party..."

Saying "well, eventually the South will get tired of voting for a losing party" ignores that they showed no signs of doing so even in years like 1924, when anyone could see the Democrats couldn't win. Davis still carried all eleven ex-Confederate states--even in the closest one, Tennessee (which had a vigorous Republican Party in the eastern part of the state and had narrowly gone for Harding in 1920) he got an absolute majority. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1924
 
POD 1900, how quickly can the South Republicanize, all the way down the ballot?

If there's no Depression, the Solid South crumbles in the 1930s. It cracked visibly in the 1920s - with Hoover carrying Florida, Texas, Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina in 1928, and nearly carrying Alabama, and Texas electing a Republican Representative from 1920 through 1930.

But the Depression bashed the Republicans nationally. Also, the New Deal offered benefits to the poor whites of the South, including the mountaineers who had been the core of Republican support. So the South returned to solidity for another 20 years.

The crumbling resumed in the 1950s, and was not complete until the 2000s.

If the process that started in the 1920s continues, it might be completed by the 1970s. Though it might take longer, as the Republicans will remain the party of civil rights, and draw on black votes, which white Southerners view as anathema.

OYAH, as early as 1910 or so, "Boss" Crump in Memphis made use of black votes as a Democrat, and other whites didn't seem to care too much. So a transracial Republican coalition in the South?
 
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Al Smith is narrowly elected in 1928, the Great Depression occurs under his watch with a presidency similar to Hoover's otl, and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. is the Republican candidate in 1932.

Roosevelt offers a New Deal-style series of programs, creating a reverse New Deal coalition. The GOP remains the party of civil rights, and you have massive infrastructure programs like otl TVA and the like. He remains even more hawkish than his otl cousin's presidency, starting up the military industry in the South as early as the mid-30's when war begins to break out in Europe. He secures factory jobs for poor whites and civil rights for blacks, industrializes the south, with Republicans enjoying the massive supermajorities that the Dems enjoyed throughout the 30's in otl.

Perhaps an Eisenhower-style Interstate Highway System in the late 30's or early 40's. Conscription (and perhaps lend-lease) begins earlier, freeing up jobs formerly occupied by blue collar whites to blacks and women. Unemployment falls to nearly pre-Depression levels and with the massive capital investment, the postwar economic boom is even bigger. Then either MacArthur or Eisenhower is his successor; earliest Dem victory is probably 52 or 56, maybe with Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. advocating a "return to normalcy."

A Republican-wank scenario to be sure, but without needing to maintain the Southern Democrats' support like FDR did, civil rights (at least similar to the otl Civil Rights Act of 57 and perhaps earlier desegregation of the military, earlier desegregation of public schools, etc.) will advance much quicker than otl. We might even see the first black southern reps since Reconstruction by the late 40s and early 50s (most likely Republicans).

Again, this might be a bit over the top; this is definitely meant to be best-case scenario for the GOP

Moreover, there would probably be a conservative backlash in the mid 50s or early 60s.
 
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