DBWI: Conservative Republicans, Liberal Democrats

You'd still need to get rid of the large progressive wing of the GOP. They's the gang that voted in fellas like Samuel M. Jones as president due to that whole Recession of 1893.
 
Make the GOP the party of traditional marriage and low taxes, and the Democrats the party of Abortionists and regulation

I'd argue the current state of the parties is due to the failure of the Democrats to adopt the Liberal Civil Rights plank during the 1948 convention, as it forced the Democrats to double down on the White Southerner vote. As we all know, that has continued to the present and helped to move the party as a whole to right since the 1970s. However, I still think the GOP could've been moved to the right if Nixon had selected Mark Hatfield as his running mate in 1968 (As he nearly did), as Hatfield could appeal to Southern evangelicals while maintaining the party's growing base of urban minorities. IIRC, the only reason Nixon didn't was Hatfield was opposed to Vietnam and Nixon thought his stance on school prayer would be an obstacle to any gains. Given the contemporary thought at the time, I don't think that was a good call.

I know someone will probably cite the failed Goldwater movement as key to making the party conservative as well as cracking the Solid South, but the consensus is clear that such a possibility is impossible due to how fast Rockefeller, Romney, etc. put it down and how incoherent a "Southern" strategy would be while maintaining the Black vote.
 
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Not only was Hatfield opposed to the Vietnam War, he wanted to cut defense spending by 1,000 percent. Hatfield may have been more comfortable in the Democratic Party. Only problem is that Oregon is rock-ribbed Republican and the state voted Democrat for President only once in the 20th century.
 
OOC: They make the appropriate tribalistic noises, but on polices Trump is the most liberal Republican presidential nominee since Dewey, and Bill Clinton is essentially a traditional Southern bourbon pol and his wife was a Goldwater girl from the collar counties. If their takeover of their respective parties lasts, we will get back to Republicans on the left and liberals on the right. The takeover may not last, in the UK Labour vomited out the Blairites and the Tories have been edging away from Thatcherism, but US parties historically have flopped around political positions.
 
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