Democrats electoral prospects without Vietnam

From the 30's to the 60's, the Democratic Party was a dominant political force in the National scene, only losing to the massively popular Ike, partly due to post war fatigue from another military disaster for the Democrats, Korea. With the consequences of Vietnam and LBJ's Civil Rights Agenda that ended up fracturing the Dem base from their traditional white working class and Southern base. As a result Republicans had a near monopoly on National power for 25 years, losing one election in the process.

Let's assume a timeline where JFK is still assassinated but LBJ were to somehow lose to Goldwater. With Goldwater doing nothing about Civil Rights, you get an untenable situation of daily mass protests and boycotts on a scale similar to Gandhi's India. Goldwater does not give an inch and clamps down hard on civil Liberties and institutes a virtual police state.

Meanwhile in Vietnam he follows in LBJ's path of gradual escalation using the same domino theory tropes. However without the goodwill brought by JFK's death, the Country is divided and there is a massive left wing anti war movement.

With a quagmire in Vietnam as well as domestic troubles at home, Goldwater surely loses in 68. A resurgent Kennedy dynasty ensues as Robert Kennedy's antiwar stance and promises of social and economic justice captivate the party. How long does the gravy train ride? Would the Democrats be able to more amicably settle the Vietnam War and Civil Rights if they were not the ones seen to have started it and would merely be the ones to swoop in to save the day?
 
1) There's virtually zero chance Goldwater would have won against LBJ though there are scenarios where he could have done somewhat better and 2) while Goldwater's stances on civil rights issues were pretty bad, he *was* a civil libertarian and would not have instituted a de facto police state
 
Ok let's assume that LBJ is felled by the Bobby Baker scandal as the man turns on him and has the receipts to prove it. Being politically damaged, LBJ deigns his Presidency to be a caretaker role and does not run for re election. His VP Hubert Humphrey loses to Goldwater in a close race.
 
Hm, an opening for the Democrats to be more coherently opposed to the war. Interesting. Democratic hypocrisy on the war has been forwarded as a primary reason the left-wing counterculture rejected political participation in the 1960s. I suspect if that excuse didn't exist they would just find another one- civil rights hypocrisy, capitalist hypocrisy, something. But the idea that something else might happen...that the collapse of trust in political systems in the US might be avoided...it's intriguing.
 
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