AHC: The GOP Stays a Progressive Party

There's a substantial, in fact an unusual amount of factors working against the establishment of a third party in the US, not least the presidential focus of periodic third party challenges, which does nothing to ensure the status of a third party long-term. There were AIP attempts to establish a Congressional presence in Wallace heartlands which really came to nothing. I know 'reactionary third party' is one of those tropes that occasionally bubble up on here but there's an utterly enormous amount of factors working against it.

Normally I'd agree but I think if both parties are deliberately locking out social conservatives altogether a third party probably will happen. There are simply too many social conservatives in the USA for them to perpetually stay silent.
 
Normally I'd agree but I think if both parties are deliberately locking out social conservatives altogether a third party probably will happen. There are simply too many social conservatives in the USA for them to perpetually stay silent.

How do you think they'd manage to achieve this lock out though? Do you suppose the GOP establishment happily consented in the OTL post-war takeover by the right? It's very hard to lock anyone out in US parties if they have the support base. They're not centralised institutions like European parties.
 
Perhaps a ford presidency lasting to 1981, with Rockefeller retained as VP? This would give Reagan the nomination in 1980, but party fatigue would have been kicked into overdrive. This could be enough to have a democrat win in 1980. We will just say Ted Kennedy, since he nearly won the nomination anyway. Then somehow, have a more moderate George HW Bush win in 1984, and hold the presidency until 1993. This would, in essence, create an at least more socially moderate GOP, perhaps socially liberal, but probably not progressive.
 
If prohibition and tariffs continued to be issues for longer, the partisan nature of these issues could have kept progressives in the GOP.
 
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