DBAHC: What's the Matter with Kansas?

I just finished reading Thomas Franks' book What's the Matter With California? For those unfamiliar with the book, it explores the rise of social conservatism and how the Democrats managed to turn the West Coast, notably, California, into a stonghold after having been a progressive Republican stronghold through the 20s.

Maybe it's ASB, but your challenge is to make a similar change happen in the midwest instead? Extra points if the GOP isn't replaced by the Farmer-Labor Party.

And what would be the effects?
 
Farmers are natural liberals, especially farmers with limited incomes, and the midwestern liberal tradition runs pretty deep. I suppose it might be possible, but I wouldn't know how.
 
Farmers are natural liberals, especially farmers with limited incomes, and the midwestern liberal tradition runs pretty deep. I suppose it might be possible, but I wouldn't know how.

Exactly, I don't see any way for the Democrats to capture the Midwest without entirely reversing what the two parties stand for. I mean, look at the two main pillars of the Democratic Party:

  • Fiscal conservatism. How could a party that bases itself on limited government and free markets support the massive subsidies that Republican administrations have doled out to the farmers over the years?
  • Social conservatism. The whole idea behind conservatism in America is the preservation of individual liberty - keeping government out of private life. That's why the Democrats pride themselves on the "socialist" label when the Republicans apply it to their liberal policies towards black and gay citizens (of which, it must be remembered, California has a lot). To a Democrat, socialist and conservative policies towards one's personal life are synonymous, which is why they're able to cooperate with the CPUSA in places like New York despite their differing economic views. Social Conservatism doesn't square at all with the reactionary Traditionalist Conservatism espoused by Midwestern and Southern Republicans, and would be a bad fit for the religious Midwest.

I suppose you could have a Democrat who broke with one or the other of the two pillars and became briefly attractive to midwesterners, but he'd probably face some of the same challenges with his base that President McGovern did. McGovern flipped California for the Republicans for the first time in decades, but he was stymied all throughout his tenure by his own constituents and allies in the Midwest who fought his efforts to legalize marijuana and promote racial equality.

Edit: cut out the explanation, you can figure it out yourself.
 
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Actually, now that I think about it, there's one PoD that might work, but it's kind of cheating: maybe if George Wallace really did leave the Republican Party after quitting as McGovern's VP, his proposed "American Values Party" would have split the Republican vote enough for the Democrats to dominate the Midwest.

It's unlikely, though, because for all his fiery populism I can't see Wallace upsetting the delicate balance between the Southern right-wingers and lefty Farmer-Labor types that had existed in the GOP since President Shipstead's day. You might need a much more militant Black Nationalist movement - maybe the BNP tries to get its aims across through terrorism rather than the ballot box? I can't see Senator Cleaver ever advocating violence, though, so he'd have to be butterflied out of the picture.
 
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