Challenge: A major socialist party in the United States

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to have a party describing itself as socialist win at least 10% in every US presidential election since 1924.
 

Nikephoros

Banned
Maybe if we find a way to eliminate the Soviet Union before it is founded, you might remove a lot of the stigma associated with communism/socialism in the United States. Not sure if that is enough, but it is a start.
 
First off I think you would have to place the starting point for this TL after the 1929 crash and during the early years of the Depression. Maybe Hoover's inept policies would have sparked a strong socialist party. Also, FDR must be out of the picture. A Hoover-like successor, with similarly inept skills, would provide greater impetus. I don't think this phenomenon would last past WWII, as the wartime economy ended the Depression and highly stimulated the American economy.

As mentioned, this socialism would have to be a market-based socialism, sort of a capitalist-socialist hybrid like many European nations. I'm surprised that a socialist movement did not spring up during the Depression, but I agree that the USSR had a lot to do with that.

Imagine McCarthy's response to the Red Scare AND a viable American socialist party? Freaky ... that'd be an awesome scenario!
 
I'd say your POD will have to prevent the Red Scare from happening, as well as preventing a Soviet Union. I've thought about this scenario before, and the 1912 election is what I'm looking at right now, with a TR victory keeping the U.S. out of WWI and possibly allowing a negotiated peace in 1915-1916.
 
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