How to make a Socially Conservative Economically left USA?

[SuperFrog]

Well, Deal Coalition Retained has a similar premise. In it, the Democrats shift towards southern populism and *neoconservatism, while the modern GOP is still molded by a (slightly more moderate) Ronald Reagan. The big change is Nixon being elected in 1960 (he defeats LBJ, who runs as a moderate on civil rights), leading to blacks becoming mostly a Republican voting block. George Wallace ends up being the definitive Democratic President: a social conservative who gets universal health care and universal basic income passed.

As the timeline stands now, Democrats are very Christian (think Bob Casey), being pro-life as well as anti-death penalty. There are also very white and working class, and still heavily influenced by organized labor. The GOP has a focus on economic conservatism and isolationism (as opposed to the generally hawkish democrats), and outside of drugs generally leave social issues alone. The Government encourages nuclear families, women's and lgbt rights are stuck somewhere in the late 70s, and the 60s counterculture was thoroughly crushed.

 

[Sam R.]

It’s pretty simple. Have a minor Georgian bureaucrat deface DeLeonism, corrupt the party, cripple the Union of Councils and use reactionary social politics and religious appeals when the British invade.

 

[Sam R.]

Yeah, it's quite hard to keep a nation in one political alignment forever, because sooner or later factors will either refute that ideology or get that ideology blamed by the populace for a crisis.

ideology never does Triumph but why?
for when it rules its just common sense to all eyes.

 

[Bassoe]

Yeah, it's quite hard to keep a nation in one political alignment forever, because sooner or later factors will either refute that ideology or get that ideology blamed by the populace for a crisis

To keep people attached to an ideology, make them dependant on it. No one will revolt so long as they know he consequences of revolting will be worse for them personally. Governments need to learn that if they fail enough of their citizens that the enraged failures become a voting bloc, someone will weaponize the failures against them.

 

[mr1940s]

Perhaps avoid the Vietnam War (and the resulting split of the New Deal Coalition) and have Henry "Scoop" Jackson be President.

 

[TheNixonator]

I’d just like to point that a Socially Conservative America would not be necessarily religious.

 

[David T]

There has been just one Republican president who if he wanted to could have moved the GOP to the left on economic issues--his campaign even showed some signs that he was interested in doing that. However, he can only be discussed in Chat (current politics).

 

[Whanztastic]

I’d just like to point that a Socially Conservative America would not be necessarily religious.

How so? Social conservative movement in the US has traditionally been fueled by religious Puritanism, racial segregation, female disenfranchisement, or a combination of the three.

I'm skeptical of the premise that it can be easily divorced from racial policies as the initial post asked.

 

[mork23]

Maybe this worlds LGBT is turned into a way to integrate themselves into that society. While that the rest changes they stay the same and start to spread to other LGBT people. The political class that is conservative starts to pander to them and they end up as conservative.

 

[Enigma-Conundrum]

How so? Social conservative movement in the US has traditionally been fueled by religious Puritanism, racial segregation, female disenfranchisement, or a combination of the three.

I'm skeptical of the premise that it can be easily divorced from racial policies as the initial post asked.

Yeah, it’s quite hard to do that - mostly because the correlation between longtime conservative bastions in the US and states who had Jim Crow laws is Totally Coincidental. Trying to divorce these two things kind of misses the reality of US history, imo. Hell, the only reason conservative economics caught on there is that ol’ Ronnie Raygun managed to join the old favorite of states rights with conservative economics. This goes back to my point that bonding conservative social policy with leftie (not liberal, it’s way more populist than anything) economics is best achieved by going to the 60s south, seeing as they had no shortage of economic populists with hard-right cultural conservatism. Get any of them elected in response to the liberalism and *gasp* societal change of the period, and you get a version of what OP wants.

American social conservatism - which has pretty much always had a religious foundation, mostly due to the increased role (mostly) Protestant religion plays in American traditionalism - was looking for another movement to latch onto in response to civil rights and whatnot. That’s the big takeaway here.

 

[Copperhead]

Perhaps avoid the Vietnam War (and the resulting split of the New Deal Coalition) and have Henry "Scoop" Jackson be President.

Would a victory in Nam also work?

 

[theg*ddam*hoi2fan]

Would a victory in Nam also work?

Depends when. If it’s in 1970, enough people are sick of Vietnam that odds are a victory will make bugger-all difference.

 

[Anarcho-Occultist]

A Perfect Democracy: The World That Huey Made has this happen.

 

[Bassoe]

Would a victory in Nam also work?

Probably not, the average American citizen wouldn't be affected in the slightest regardless of if Vietnam was ran by a leftist Soviet puppet regime or a rightist American one, only if they were legally enslaved by the draft and sent to die in a foreign jungle for the whims of neoconservative military planners and military-industry complex megacorporations. By getting involved in Vietnam at all, the US lost.

As for this thread's question, the obvious answer would be to look to the Marshall Plan for inspiration. There was a time when American politicians understood that desperate people were more vulnerable to communist propaganda and that if they didn't want all of Europe siding with the Soviets, they'd have to help them rebuild and they did. Now imagine if that same attitude, that the best way of preventing support for communism was to keep capitalism working for people had been retained and it got McCarthyism and the Red Scare sicced against race-to-the-bottom exportation of American jobs to be done cheaper abroad as treasonous transfer of American industrial capabilities to Communist China*.

So you get the Democrats as a libertarian party, advocating for the upheaval of social norms which while nominally good stuff like women, minority and lgbtq rights, also includes the Cult Of The Free Market crazies and the libertarian right to send all jobs abroad crowd, vs the Republicans who're devoted to a strong social safety net as the caring, Christian thing to do, also it'll prevent the formation of massive numbers of angry disillusioned unemployed for the communists to potentially exploit.

* This works better if you read it in the overly hammy voice of a fallout-style propagandist video.

 

[TastySpam]

But with a federal anti-sodomy law. That alone makes it a dystopia.

As non-ideal as that is, I can't imagine a country in 1990 being where the UK was in 1950 should constitute being dystopian. That stuff should be reserved for stuff like you know, Hitler and 1984 and stuff.

 

[TastySpam]

I mean, we could always butterfly out Jim Crow. There was nothing inevitable or inherently American/Southern about Jim Crow, as C. Vann Woodward points out in his famous book (The Strange History of Jim Crow). I suppose that only makes the whole thing more tragic, knowing we could have avoided it.

 

[Madeleine Birchfield]

So you get the Democrats as a libertarian party, advocating for the upheaval of social norms which while nominally good stuff like women, minority and lgbtq rights, also includes the Cult Of The Free Market crazies and the libertarian right to send all jobs abroad crowd, vs the Republicans who're devoted to a strong social safety net as the caring, Christian thing to do, also it'll prevent the formation of massive numbers of angry disillusioned unemployed for the communists to potentially exploit.

If the Republicans pass civil rights, I could see the reverse where the Republicans are socially liberal and economically liberal whereas the Democrats are Christian democrats and cultural conservatives.

 

[Tamara]

Maybe a William Jennings Bryan presidency?

 

[Wendell]

Huey Long in 1932?

 

[Sam R.]

There has been just one Republican president who if he wanted to could have moved the GOP to the left on economic issues--his campaign even showed some signs that he was interested in doing that. However, he can only be discussed in Chat (current politics).

Yes Ike’s legacy continues to divide. Best practice employer and employer social responsibility could have been baked into the MIC like Sweden’s ultra right were obliged nobly to care for “their” workers.