How does a Nixon win in 1960 shape the political parties going forward?
- Thread starter dw93
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GeographyDude
Gone Fishin'
I’d say we’re likely to see some Civil Rights legislation supported by President Nixon, might you say?
Well I mean if Nixon is assassinated like Kennedy in this universe, then Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. would become POTUS. Mr. Lodge was pretty liberal so we can assume he would attempt to get the Civil Rights Act passed. Not only that, but I think he probably would win re-election. Most likely I think we would see a more socially liberal republican party. Still economically conservative. I don't know about the Democratic Party though.
EDIT: Though even if Nixon is not assassinated I can imagine Nixon passing the Civil Rights Act as well. Though due to Nixon's experience I can see the Civil Rights Act have a higher chance of passing successfully.
EDIT: Though even if Nixon is not assassinated I can imagine Nixon passing the Civil Rights Act as well. Though due to Nixon's experience I can see the Civil Rights Act have a higher chance of passing successfully.
It probably for some time will make it difficult for a Catholic to be nominated for president. (Whether his Catholicism would in fact have been responsible for JFK's defeat is not the issue--the point is that the Democrats would have nominated Catholics twice and lost both times, and this might make them reluctant to nominate another Catholic.)
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It might complicate the calibration of the New Right somewhat -- a third of African Americans could still be Republicans, the white South might still be suspicious of the GOP until desegregation and voting rights is baked in. Or I guess you can just delay the Goldwaterite takeover until 1972.
GeographyDude
Gone Fishin'
BOTH of these — Civil Rights during term of Republican president and a third of African-Americans remaining Republican — will have a HUGE effect on the course of U.S. politics.
I suspect the Democrats will try to straddle the difference between northern and southern Democrats and generally be lukewarm toward Civil Rights.
The Civil Rights Act was less conservative v. liberal for the most part, and really just North v. South. Conservative Republicans like Everett Dirksen for the most part voted for Civil Rights. Goldwater was actually a tremendous outlier, which is why his nomination is so historically influential - the GOP would become eventually defined by someone who really wasn't a typical Republican at the time.
I don't think you'd usually get a third (except in a good year), but maybe 1/5th or 1/4th in a normal year. Perhaps the best test run of what happens when Goldwaterism is taken off the table was the race between Orval Faubus (the guy who tried to personally stand block the Little Rock Nine until National Guards moved him) and Winthrop Rockefeller (a pro-Civil Rights liberal Republican) - Faubus won 80% of African-Americans (while tying among whites).
That being said, the GOP could probably blow past 1/3rd if for whatever reason, it ended up the more economically progressive party, but that probably requires a much earlier POD than 1960.
Oswald might have the motive to kill Nixon ITTL, given Nixon's staunch anti-Communist views and Oswald was a former defector to the Soviet Union. I wonder if ITTL if Oswald shoots Nixon and gets shot himself, people are going to claim that Lodge was responsible like OTL people claim it was LBJ and the military complex as a popular conspiracy theory
With a pod of 3 years before JFK’s assasination I can’t say it’s likely Oswald shoots or even kills Nixon. Why would Nixon go to Dallas on November 22nd, 1963 in the first place?
considering A Nixon presidency in the 60s means the Bay of Pigs invasion was probably supported by the United States and succeeds Oswald probably does want to kill Nixon. An the Russians would see the Bay of Pigs invasion as just the United States response to what they did in Hungry Premier Khrushchev was genuinely shocked that Kennedy didn't do anything about Cuba that's why he put nukes there because he thought Kennedy was a coward.
Vietnam War Nixon not LBJ Goes in after that the butterflies have it.
civil rights act is passed under Nixon.
the real question is does he put a man on the moon like Kennedy was able to I see the United States still going to the moon 1st but I don't know if Nixon can light a fire under people like Kennedy did.
History Learner
Banned
The U.S. would win Vietnam pretty handily, so we avoid that national nightmare. I can still see some sort of "War on Poverty", given Nixon governed as a Big Government man IOTL.
GeographyDude
Gone Fishin'
That is interesting, and I think largely correct. Goldwater was a western libertarian* largely out of step for the Republican Party of his time.
Regarding Republicans and the African-American vote, I think in the last week of the campaign, Kennedy made a courtesy call to Mrs. King when her husband was in jail, and Nixon, perhaps as sitting vice president, felt that he could not.
But in the course of an 8-year presidency, Nixon might well be able to repair relations at least in the eyes of many African-American voters.
*U.S. style libertarian, not European!
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GeographyDude
Gone Fishin'
Now, we know that things are over-attributed and legends grow. But this was in fact one factor in a very close Kennedy victory.
If Nixon still wins, this incident is largely forgotten. And I think he has plenty of other ways to build African-American support. At least so he's not losing black voters in such lopsided numbers (as would later become the case for the Republican Party).
Richard Nixon tried helping Martin Luther King when he was jail but President Eisenhower didn't want to help and basically told Nixon to leave it. this was literally on the History Channel when I was a growing up and I read it in a book somewhere as well Eisenhower was trying to play down the middle on civil rights to keep the country Unified. this is one of several times Eisenhower seem to undercut Nixon. I still don't understand why Eisenhower had Nixon as a vice president if he did not want him to be by president. all the books I read about Eisenhower and his presidency it seems like he did not really care for his vice president so the question is why was he vice president was it just differences of opinions or what because I honestly think stupid stuff like this is why Nixon was the way he was.
sorry about the rant but I wanted to get that off my chest
also I just realized this if Nixon wins does it mean that he Demands a recount in Illinois because if that's the case Kennedy's brother might be in jail.
sorry about the rant but I wanted to get that off my chest
also I just realized this if Nixon wins does it mean that he Demands a recount in Illinois because if that's the case Kennedy's brother might be in jail.
I feel like the Republicans ITTL would become secular social liberals, whereas the Democrats would court the evangelical vote, become more socially conservative, and be more economically progressive/more supportive of a welfare state compared to the GOP. At this point the fall of Keynesianism and the rise of neoliberalism is pretty much inevitable, so I imagine the Republicans in the 80s ITTL are just as neoliberal and pro-business, but they're more secular and far less socially reactionary than they were during the Reagan era IOTL. If they're in power during the 1980s ITTL, the president might be defined by their commitment to minority rights rather than their conservative economics.
How would Civil Rights go under Nixon? Ironically, I'd call LBJ's handling of the issue in the 1960s very much a "Nixon goes to China" scenario. LBJ was very Southern, very Democrat and very well connected. Nixon isn't Southern, isn't a Democrat and is forever defined by his lack of beltway panache. Also unless he oversees a parliamentary revolution, he's dealing with a Democratic Congress. So do Nixon and LBJ cut a devil's bargain to get a CRA passed ITTL?
How do dieherd Dixiecrats react to Nixon if he starts ordering troops to enforce desegregation? How do the Democrats as a party react to Nixon leading the charge? Do we see a Democratic civil war? Without having the POTUS and LBJ behind CRA and instead Tricky Dick, how many blue congressmen who supported out of tribal loyalty IOTL don't for Nixon. And how many basically pro-CRA congressmen decide they hate Nixon more if the Democrats as a whole are seriously divided?
Do we end up with the Democrats suffering a lost decade in the 1960s as their Dixiecrat elements try actively fighting segregation, alienating the general public, while a lot of liberals jump to the GOP (including the future neocons early ironically). By the time they get their act together in the mid 1970s, they're aiming for centre but they've lost a lot of middle-class liberals, as well as black voters in general, the South 'blue dogs' having a lot of sway. Do they end up the Blue-Collar White Guy Party? Representing New Jersey sewage workers just as well as the Georgia farmer or Chicago cop. Not so much Red Tory as Blue Labour but of a very vague, safe centrist patriotic flavour. With a trucker hat somewhere. And an Eagle.
The Republicans might well lead the monetarist charge, perhaps "Hollywood Liberal" Reagan institutes his own version of rigeur? Reaganite Neoliberalism. If Nixon gets positive results in Cuba and Vietnam, the ideas that fuelled OTL's neocon hawks ITTL could end up the touchstones of Nixonian Liberal Interventionism.
Who gets control of Cuba when Castro gets taken out? Does Batista return or is he too much of a joke after he fled the previous year? Another strongman? How do Cuban-American relations develop? Despite very different circumstances I imagine the emigre community will still be large for economic reasons, depending on Cuba's prosperity and stability.
No Communist Cuba kills a lot of butterflies. For one the Marxist guerillas of Latin America and Africa are a lot less well supported.
How do dieherd Dixiecrats react to Nixon if he starts ordering troops to enforce desegregation? How do the Democrats as a party react to Nixon leading the charge? Do we see a Democratic civil war? Without having the POTUS and LBJ behind CRA and instead Tricky Dick, how many blue congressmen who supported out of tribal loyalty IOTL don't for Nixon. And how many basically pro-CRA congressmen decide they hate Nixon more if the Democrats as a whole are seriously divided?
Do we end up with the Democrats suffering a lost decade in the 1960s as their Dixiecrat elements try actively fighting segregation, alienating the general public, while a lot of liberals jump to the GOP (including the future neocons early ironically). By the time they get their act together in the mid 1970s, they're aiming for centre but they've lost a lot of middle-class liberals, as well as black voters in general, the South 'blue dogs' having a lot of sway. Do they end up the Blue-Collar White Guy Party? Representing New Jersey sewage workers just as well as the Georgia farmer or Chicago cop. Not so much Red Tory as Blue Labour but of a very vague, safe centrist patriotic flavour. With a trucker hat somewhere. And an Eagle.
The Republicans might well lead the monetarist charge, perhaps "Hollywood Liberal" Reagan institutes his own version of rigeur? Reaganite Neoliberalism. If Nixon gets positive results in Cuba and Vietnam, the ideas that fuelled OTL's neocon hawks ITTL could end up the touchstones of Nixonian Liberal Interventionism.
Who gets control of Cuba when Castro gets taken out? Does Batista return or is he too much of a joke after he fled the previous year? Another strongman? How do Cuban-American relations develop? Despite very different circumstances I imagine the emigre community will still be large for economic reasons, depending on Cuba's prosperity and stability.
No Communist Cuba kills a lot of butterflies. For one the Marxist guerillas of Latin America and Africa are a lot less well supported.
I imagine later Democrats might embrace social conservatism mixed with economic progressivism while the Republicans become a socially liberal fiscally center-right party. Both parties will have progressive/conservative wings but they might be the minority.
In general, Nixon in the early sixties seems a more pragmatic and realpolitik president. I feel he'd handle foreign issues better than Kennedy, but wouldn't make the same kind of breakthroughs on social issues that Johnson did. He'd be less charismatic, but more competent is what I'm saying. Less generally, I wonder what the 1964 primaries are going to be like for the Democrats
OTL Nixon supported national health care and signed OSHA and the EPA. So the GOP might be further to the left even on economic issues.
Once the VRA is in effect, Southern politicians will be just like they were OTL - other than a few holdouts they'll all loooooove their black brothers and sisters.
Once the VRA is in effect, Southern politicians will be just like they were OTL - other than a few holdouts they'll all loooooove their black brothers and sisters.