AHC: Republican Party renames itself Conservative Party

[David T]

"...But don't forget, this is called the Republican Party. It's not called the Conservative Party."--Donald Trump, May 8, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/09/u...to-paul-ryan-signals-further-gop-discord.html

AHC: At *some* point the Republican Party actually changes is name to the Conservative Party--presumably in a "fusion" move with conservative southern Democrats. (The change in name doesn't even have to be permanent. Remember the party has temporarily changed its name before--to the "Union" party during the ACW to attract War Democrats. OK, so this is the same idea, only in reverse... ) There actually were scattered proposals for such a thing in the 1930's and 1940's; those who proposed it argued that the only way to defeat the seemingly invincible New Deal Democrats was to have a fusion ticket with someone like Harry Byrd on it; and that southern conservatives were just too allergic to the word "Republican" for this to happen without the party changing its name.

Yes, I know it's something very difficult to do. Parties are proud of their names, and anyway there were many Republicans who did not consider themselves conservatives. But that's why it's a *challenge*...

 

[greenbay2014]

I think the Republican Party would choose to retain its name to maintain its association with Abraham Lincoln, notably considering Lincoln's overlooked political stances that were fairly liberal for the time and not Conservative.

 

[kodak]

I think the Republican Party would choose to retain its name to maintain its association with Abraham Lincoln, notably considering Lincoln's overlooked political stances that were fairly liberal for the time and not Conservative.

That, and the Republicans had a solid liberal wing until the most recent realignment. Wouldn't see it happening amy time before 1980.

 

[Politibrit]

I think the Republican Party would choose to retain its name to maintain its association with Abraham Lincoln, notably considering Lincoln's overlooked political stances that were fairly liberal for the time and not Conservative.

You could go with a Confederate Victory, which would prevent the Republican label being a badge of pride by turning it into the party that lost the Union. The Democrats are more competitive in the North after the war, and eventually they emerge as the progressive party in American politics, and the Republicans mop up whatever conservative Democrats remain within the Union. When the Republicans struggle to win an election at some point down the line, the party abandons there tarnished name and rebrands themselves as the Conservative Party to reflect the changes. My memory of American party politics in the second half of the 19th century is a little hazy, to me this doesnt sound all that implausible, but I could be wrong.

 

[Alexander the Average]

Actually considering this happening in a timeline I'm working on. In a nutshell during the depression an independent socialist party begins to break into US politics. As a result the Democrats aren't able to monopolise, and thus regulate left-wing radicalism, so they switch their main tactic to being the moderate "voice of reason" between socialism and laissez-faire capitalism (although in practice they are dragged further to the left than IOTL). The Republicans still suffer their historic defeat in 1936 (although actually do a bit better than OTL in the electoral college due to the rising third party splitting votes), and whilst they do recover in subsequent elections, it's nowhere near as much as IOTL due to a large section of their voter-base switching to the Democrats on the grounds that they're the only ones able to keep the socialists out. This change in political landscape also results in the Republican Party moving to the right, as it becomes apparent that the liberal "we can do the New Deal better than the Democrats" strategy they employed OTL isn't going to be a big vote winner in the new political climate. As civil rights becomes a hot topic during the mid-40s (Wallace was still VP in 1944), the Southern Democrats and Republicans form a pact as the Conservative Party. As the Conservative Party becomes more right-wing and reactionary the progressive wing of the Republican Party breaks and forms the centrist Independent Republican Party, who are ultimately a very fringe force in American politics but do manage to take about 15% of the Conservative's vote share with them. This split, combined with the passing of civil rights legislation, basically results in the Conservatives becoming a minor party in American politics, which by now has become a duopoly between a radical social democrat party and the Democrats who have become a catch-all party akin to European Christian Democrats. I have some other stuff planned for them later, but I don't want to give it all away.

 

[Plumber]

A top Cruz advisor said "we might need to change our name" lately to cleanse the stain of Trump from the GOP brand. So Democrats get a trifecta come November, and by 2017, presto.

 

[Wildcard F. Kennedy]

Yes I could see this happen after this cycle with Trump. Those that support him maintaining their Republican identities, while those that disagree break off to form their own. Conservative party, if you will.

This could lead to the birth of a 3 party system, which might be a welcome change!

 

[David T]

For one such proposal, see Harold Lord Varney's "Autopsy on the Republican Party" in the January 1937 issue of the *The American Mercury.* Varney argues that FDR was in deep trouble in 1935, and

"The task for the Republican Party was unmistakably plain. Obviously the spell o£ the Roosevelt leadership was shattered. The country was weary of Radicalism and was in a mood to respond enthusiastically to a purposeful opposition. The Republican duty was quickly to construct such a leadership by the establishment of a new genuine coalition with conservative Southern Democrats. Such a coalition, o£ course, would have required painful sacrifices by the Republicans. After the shattering Congressional defeat of 1934, it would have been futile to hope that conservative Democrats who still controlled local or State party machinery would swing over to the Republicans as subordinate units: what was necessary was something more closely resembling a new Conservative Party.

"Had the minds of Republican leaders been centered on the primary purpose of halting the New Deal, it is probable that a working arrangement could have been reached with the Democratic Conservatives which would have smashed Dr. Roosevelt’s party. The price would have been the tendering of the Presidential nomination in 1936 to a Southern Democrat, the most obvious possibility being Senator Byrd of Virginia. It would have been necessary that the old Republican Party be merged into a new and broader organization in which the conservative Democrats would have played a co-equal part. The dramatic impact of such a non-partisan gesture of patriotism would have broken down the South’s inhibition against Republicans. It would have been an act of farsighted political vision such as that of Stanley Baldwin in 1931 when he prolonged the life of the British Conservative Party a full generation by yielding the Premiership to Ramsay MacDonald. It would, for the first time in American history, have united the Conservatives of both parties into an overpowering anti-Radical coalition." http://www.unz.org/Pub/AmMercury-1937jan-00001

Now Varney tremendously exaggerates both the (admttedly real) problems FDR was having in 1935 and the likelihood that the GOP could take advantage of them by submerging itself in a broader conserbative coalition--but it at least shows that the idea was around.

(Varney is a mildly interesting figure: in a long lifetime he moved from the Industrial Workers of the World http://www.workerseducation.org/crutch/others/varney.html to the John Birch Society...)

 

[Arkenfolm]

There's a ton of Americans who vote solid Republican every election but refuse to call themselves Republicans and instead emphasise they are conservatives, and there's a big difference. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this happens in the next couple of years.

 

[David T]

I had forgottten that there was a prominent Republian who as late as the 1970's talked about changng the party's name (and probably to something with the word "conservative" in it):

"Though he was elected as a Republican in 1968, Nixon was not really a Republican. Beginning in January 1970, he began to plot the replacement of the Republican party by a new, Nixonite party, one that would draw on some of the same groups, including Southern Democrats, that had helped to elect him in 1968. He explained to Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman, the White House counsel, the 'need to build our own new coalition based on Silent Majority, blue collar, Catholic, Poles, Italians, Irish. No promise with Jews and Negroes.' It was to be right-wing but not 'hard right-wing.' This project preoccupied him almost to the end of his presidency. At different times its name was 'Conservative Party,' 'Independent Conservative Party,' or 'Republican Independent Party.' He wanted decisions to be based on political grounds, with special emphasis on 'Italians, Poles, Elks and Rotarians, eliminate Jews, blacks, youth.' In April 1972, he thought that he and John B. Connally, the renegade Democrat whom he had appointed secretary of the Treasury, 'could move to build a new party, the Independent Conservative Party, or something of that sort, that would bring in a coalition of Southern Democrats and other conservative Democrats, along with middle-road to conservative Republicans.' If they could bring it off, he saw Connally as the new party's candidate for president in 1976." http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1994/07/14/nixon-redivivus/

I viewed the idea very skeptically in a soc.history.what-if post::

"Even if the ICP is just a way to change the name of the Republican Party to get conservative Democratic support, it still won't fly. First of all, it's unnecessary--as 1972 showed, Nixon could get plenty of conservative Democratic votes running as a Republican. Second, it would just run into too much resistance from Republicans who would want to keep their party's name. Remember that by definition every elected Republican office holder comes from a state or district where the label "Republican" is either a positive asset or at the very least not a fatal liability. Most of them would have grave doubts about changing their party's name...

"FDR talked in much the same way of getting progressive Republicans like Willkie to join the Democrats in a new Liberal or Progressive Party, with conservative Democrats excluded. That didn't come to anything, either. To be sure, progressive Republicans did *as individuals* vote for Democratic candidates and conservative Democrats *as individuals* did vote for Republicans. Eventually this happened sufficiently for there to be a de facto party realignment. But this is the only kind of relaignment--one where both parties keep their historic names and structures even as they lose many of their old supporters and take on new ones--that we are likely to see in the US.

"Some may point to the realignment of 1854-6. But this was a very unusual event, involving new issues--the Kansas-Nebraska Act and nativism--that destroyed one old party (the Whigs), weakened the other (the Democrats), and led to the birth *and* rapid demise of a third one (the Americans or Know-Nothings) and the emergence of a lasting fourth one (the Republicans). And even this realignment might not be possible if electoral laws had been what they are today..." https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/rtQw6NAbr9U/fxsSsWL5I9EJ

 

[Indicus]

You could go with a Confederate Victory, which would prevent the Republican label being a badge of pride by turning it into the party that lost the Union. The Democrats are more competitive in the North after the war, and eventually they emerge as the progressive party in American politics, and the Republicans mop up whatever conservative Democrats remain within the Union. When the Republicans struggle to win an election at some point down the line, the party abandons there tarnished name and rebrands themselves as the Conservative Party to reflect the changes. My memory of American party politics in the second half of the 19th century is a little hazy, to me this doesnt sound all that implausible, but I could be wrong.

Well, the Republicans could tarnish the Democrats as being the party of traitors ("half of the Democratic Party committed treason while we Republicans fought for the Union").

 

[Politibrit]

Well, the Republicans could tarnish the Democrats as being the party of traitors ("half of the Democratic Party committed treason while we Republicans fought for the Union").

That is a possibility, but the obvious counter to that would be that Lincoln fought the war extremely ineptly if he managed to lose given all the advantages that the Union have. The most likely cause of this peace would be for the Democrats to be win in the North on that platform, so if that happened the extent to which people could criticize the Democrats for making peace would be limited, as the Union gave them a mandate to do so in the first place. Under those circumstances, I think it would be more likely that Lincoln would be remembered as a kind of Lord North, the man who lost the Union the South in a war which, in time, many would come to question the justification for as the CSA estabilished itself as a nation.