DBWI: The CIO not affiliated with the Republican Party

Although not as influential as it used to be the CIO has been a major power broker within the Republican Party since the 40s and a major source of support in elections.

How would the Republicans and the CIO have evolved if they hadn't formed their alliance? In particular would the Republicans have still been able to make inroads into the South without CIO support? Also how would this affect the rivalry between the CIO and AFL?
 
Although not as influential as it used to be the CIO has been a major power broker within the Republican Party since the 40s and a major source of support in elections.

How would the Republicans and the CIO have evolved if they hadn't formed their alliance? In particular would the Republicans have still been able to make inroads into the South without CIO support? Also how would this affect the rivalry between the CIO and AFL?


For one thing, the Republicans would not be
what they are today, the leftish of our two
major parties. Union support & votes would
have instead gone to the Democrats, pushing THEM to the left. As prominent a
Democrat as Richard Nixon has admitted
he'd be a Republican today if they weren't
so pro-union.
 
Last edited:
For one thing, the Republicans would not be
what they are today, the leftish of our two
major parties. Union support & votes would
have instead gone to the Democrats, pushing THEM to the left. As prominent a
Democrat as Richard Nixon has admitted
he'd be a Republican today if they weren't
so pro-union.

Kind of putting the cart before the horse. I mean it helped that Lewis was a card-carrying Republican but the CIO probably wouldn't have affiliated if they didn't see the Republicans as having the potential to be the party of the unions.

I personally think the AFL will probably absorb the CIO.

Lol ASB! There is no way that the CIO would rejoin the AFL. They are as different as night and day (industrial versus craft, social unionism versus business unionism, support for Civil Rights versus separate-but-equal, political engagement versus staying out of politics) and the CIO would having nothing to gain from tying themselves to that moribund clique.
 
Almost as ASB as the South ever going dyed in the wool Republican.
Democrat dominance in the South is overstated. The Republicans had been moving into the border states since the 20s and Democrat hegemony in the Deep South was seriously weakened by Operation Dixie and the Civil Rights Amendments. Sure they still tend to be the top dogs but you don't get any one party States anymore. It wouldn't be that hard for the Republicans to come out totally on top. Maybe if the whole Social Gospel 2.0 thing worked out and they were able to break the evangelical vote away from the Dems?
 
Although not as influential as it used to be the CIO has been a major power broker within the Republican Party since the 40s and a major source of support in elections.

This is obviously written from an ATL where the CIO was not taken over by its left wing and did not back the Progressive Party in 1948...:p
 
OOC: In all seriousness, John L. Lewis *did* endorse Willkie in 1940. If even someone with Lewis' towering prestige couldn't get most CIO unions or unionists to back the GOP, it's hard to see who could.
 
Democrat dominance in the South is overstated. The Republicans had been moving into the border states since the 20s and Democrat hegemony in the Deep South was seriously weakened by Operation Dixie and the Civil Rights Amendments. Sure they still tend to be the top dogs but you don't get any one party States anymore. It wouldn't be that hard for the Republicans to come out totally on top. Maybe if the whole Social Gospel 2.0 thing worked out and they were able to break the evangelical vote away from the Dems?

1-Most Southern blacks support the Social Gospel.
2-I just cannot envision a Presbyterian, Episcopalian or Unitarian courting the evangelical vote.
 
Kind of putting the cart before the horse. I mean it helped that Lewis was a card-carrying Republican but the CIO probably wouldn't have affiliated if they didn't see the Republicans as having the potential to be the party of the unions.



Lol ASB! There is no way that the CIO would rejoin the AFL. They are as different as night and day (industrial versus craft, social unionism versus business unionism, support for Civil Rights versus separate-but-equal, political engagement versus staying out of politics) and the CIO would having nothing to gain from tying themselves to that moribund clique.

But remember Wendell Wilkie- a former
utility executive- naming Lewis as his running mate in 1940. Plus labor had
been cooling toward FDR & the Democrats
prior to 1940- during the great sit-down
strikes of 1937 he had sniffed "A plague
on both your houses"- & this, as well as
Wilkie's move, helped convince organized
labor that the G.O.P. did have something to
offer them after all. The rest,, as they say,
is history.
 
Top