In an effort to defeat Grant, the Democratic Party accepted the nascent Liberal Republican Party’s platform of and candidates in the 1872 elections. In OTL, they still lost. But, if the coalition had won, likely due to someone other than Greeley being the nominee, what would happen to the Liberal Republican and Democratic Parties? Do they continue to fuse together in opposition to the Radical Republican faction of the earlier Republican Party? If so, do we see the Democrats being subsumed by the Liberal Republicans?
I’d imagine if this were the case we’d see them just become the Liberal Party rather than having two Republican Parties.
With the Liberal Party being dominated by classical liberalism, does the remaining Republican Party become more populist and progressive as a result?