If the North loses the Civil War, whither go the Republicans?

I've seen timelines go either way- either the GOP is hopelessly discredited and blamed and self-destructs (as in Turtledove), or it becomes the dominant party as the Democrats are tarred with treason and rebellion. In your opinion which situation is more plausible?
 
The latter. Just look at what the War of 1812 and the Vietnam War did to the parties that opposed them. Also, the Democrats largely relied on two bases of electoral power at this time: the South, and immigrant communities in the North. One of those bases can no longer vote, and the other is intrinsically vulnerable politically.
 
Democrats winning in ‘64 is a given if the Civil War is lost in, say 1862 for example, after that, maybe in ‘68 if it’s a good candidate, but after ‘72 it’s all up in the air with who the Dems nominate and what new platform the Republicans campaign on.
 

Marc

Donor
Here's a proposition for you, if the North loses the Civil War, neither major political party survives more and few decades as North America descends into bloody chaos.
 
Here's a proposition for you, if the North loses the Civil War, neither major political party survives more and few decades as North America descends into bloody chaos.

Chaos would require that the powers that be fail to put down all dissenting voices. That's never really happened in American history.
 

Marc

Donor
Chaos would require that the powers that be fail to put down all dissenting voices. That's never really happened in American history.

The United States of America being defeated on its own soil by an enemy militarily inferior and culturally detestable never happened. We are talking about an extremely outlier event, therefore radical possibilities should be entertained as plausible.
 

Marc

Donor
Well, except for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Cloud's_War

Probably several other examples I'm forgetting, too. In any case, you didn't really lay anything specific out other than "Losing the war will cause everyone to go Mad Max." Not a lot of specifics to engage with.

Mad Max is a bit extreme don't you think? Consider the 30 Years War, the multiple sides of numerous modern civil wars from Russia to Mexico to Spain, and so on. Or just a large number of armed black soldiers not agreeing to giving up, along with the sons and daughters in spirit of John Brown...
When I read propositions put forward an imaging of soft and weakly conventional outcomes to great tragedies, I am reminded of Yeat's tremendous poem:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
 
Mad Max is a bit extreme don't you think?


Hard to pick the nuance out of "descends into bloody chaos." That could entail equal, more, less, or much much more violence than Mad Max.

Consider the 30 Years War, the multiple side of numerous modern civil wars from Russia to Spain, and so on.

Those all involved parties contesting the legitimacy of the central government, or whether there should be on in the case of the 30 Years' War. That wasn't really a feature of the ACW, since the rebels wanted to leave the oversight of Washington rather than change who held power there. And with them gone, who else would go even further than the Confederates did?

Or just a large number of armed black soldiers not agreeing to giving up, along with the sons and daughters in spirit of John Brown...
When I read propositions put forward an imaging of soft and weakly conventional outcomes to great tragedies, I am reminded of Yeat's tremendous poem:

That sounds like the CSA's problem more than the USA's.
 
I've seen timelines go either way- either the GOP is hopelessly discredited and blamed and self-destructs (as in Turtledove), or it becomes the dominant party as the Democrats are tarred with treason and rebellion. In your opinion which situation is more plausible?

I think how the war is lost had something to do with it.

If they loose in 62-63 because Lee and Jackson run circles around whomever Lincoln appointed this week, then it's the Republicans fault for mismanaging the war.

If it's because the North's morale breaks in 64 because the war looks to go on forever, the Democrats who make the peace, because Northern revachist say they were"that close" to taking Atlanta and Richmond.

If the CSA is a relatively good neighbor versus being 'the eternal enemy' the blame or credit increase/decreases for what comes next.
 

Marc

Donor
I think how the war is lost had something to do with it.

If they loose in 62-63 because Lee and Jackson run circles around whomever Lincoln appointed this week, then it's the Republicans fault for mismanaging the war.

If it's because the North's morale breaks in 64 because the war looks to go on forever, the Democrats who make the peace, because Northern revachist say they were"that close" to taking Atlanta and Richmond.

If the CSA is a relatively good neighbor versus being 'the eternal enemy' the blame or credit increase/decreases for what comes next.

As has been discussed to death, there is just about zero chance that the CSA and the USA can live as good neighbors.
Talking points:
What happens to West Virginia with a strong Confederate victory?
What happens to the border states with large slave holdings - in particular Maryland?
How are the territories west of the Mississippi handled? Who gets the New Mexico territory.
What happens when southerners attempt to recapture slaves along the border?
What happens when the growing power of the abolitionist movement rips out the guts of those who agreed to the great surrender?
What happens when the Irish immigrants start hanging more blacks in New York?
How long will Texas or Alabama or Georgia stay in the Confederacy?
And so on...
 
As has been discussed to death, there is just about zero chance that the CSA and the USA can live as good neighbors.


That is the majority opinion. There has always been a a minority who has disagreed. I could easily refute all your points but I'll go with the two impacting the Northern Home front most.

What happens when the growing power of the abolitionist movement rips out the guts of those who agreed to the great surrender?

What happens when the Irish immigrants start hanging more blacks in New York?

An abolitionist speaks up. Someone yells back "My brother/husband/son/father is dead because of dumb self rightous------- like you." Abolitionist has rotten food or bricks thrown at them. There is just as large a crowd in the North who wish not to repeat the "foolishness" of the States War.

Irish man see the blacks competing for the low rung jobs. Irish man burns down the black man's home while their cousin on the police force looks the other way. Their other cousin is lace curtian Irish and is starting to rise up the social order, going to college, introducing their sister to their old money class chum. Perhaps when their hiring they'll choose their distant cousin over the black who should go back south, in their mind.

That isn't every situation and every interaction but situations like this are likely more common than screams for revenge and class solidarity, at least in tls where tensions between the USA/CSA aren't stoked.

The others, like the Confederacy can't settle borders or states will secede from the south are based off two premises. One is that the military and political figures of both sides, who have just seen a devastating war, want to fight round two anytime soon and won't work hard to avoid such a war. The second is that the Confederates are too stupid to realize their are more Yankees than them, that industrialization is key to survival, and that if we secede from each other we are weakening ourselves.

The Confederacy didn't hold on as long as they did by being that dumb. The racists among them didn't win the peace and reimpose segregation by being that dumb.

I think our low estimation of the chances decent USA-CSA relations comes down our dislike of the Confederacy and also all the issues that are still with us from that time. It is essentially the reversed image of rosie, earlier pieces of peace and harmony like Churchill's "If Lee had not won at Gettysburg" or Kantor's "If The South Had Won The Civil War".

It, in a word, has as much basis in reality as Lost Cause Mythology did in 1900, which is some, but not all, and creating a prism that is comforting to how we'd like to view reality rather than reality itself.
 

Marc

Donor
In the beauty of the lilies
Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom
That transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy,
Let us die to make men free;
While God is marching on.

Sorry, that was sincerely believed in by large numbers of Americans during the Rebellion. And that isn't mythology.
 
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The Confederacy didn't hold on as long as they did by being that dumb. The racists among them didn't win the peace and reimpose segregation by being that dumb.

I think our low estimation of the chances decent USA-CSA relations comes down our dislike of the Confederacy and also all the issues that are still with us from that time. It is essentially the reversed image of rosie, earlier pieces of peace and harmony like Churchill's "If Lee had not won at Gettysburg" or Kantor's "If The South Had Won The Civil War".

It, in a word, has as much basis in reality as Lost Cause Mythology did in 1900, which is some, but not all, and creating a prism that is comforting to how we'd like to view reality rather than reality itself.

Great point, well argued. We see the same prism applied pretty much everywhere in alt-history, especially in regard to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. That’s not to say that the prism is necessarily wrong, but it’s there and filters out thinking of what was likely or even possible.

Of course this prism has its champions (as well as villains) which are most notably the Western liberal countries of France, Britain, and the United States, who all are favored under a thin veil of geographical determinism which is then used to justify their (and the prism’s) politics.
 

That is the majority opinion. There has always been a a minority who has disagreed. I could easily refute all your points but I'll go with the two impacting the Northern Home front most.


An abolitionist speaks up. Someone yells back "My brother/husband/son/father is dead because of dumb self rightous------- like you." Abolitionist has rotten food or bricks thrown at them. There is just as large a crowd in the North who wish not to repeat the "foolishness" of the States War.

Irish man see the blacks competing for the low rung jobs. Irish man burns down the black man's home while their cousin on the police force looks the other way. Their other cousin is lace curtian Irish and is starting to rise up the social order, going to college, introducing their sister to their old money class chum. Perhaps when their hiring they'll choose their distant cousin over the black who should go back south, in their mind.

That isn't every situation and every interaction but situations like this are likely more common than screams for revenge and class solidarity, at least in tls where tensions between the USA/CSA aren't stoked.

The others, like the Confederacy can't settle borders or states will secede from the south are based off two premises. One is that the military and political figures of both sides, who have just seen a devastating war, want to fight round two anytime soon and won't work hard to avoid such a war. The second is that the Confederates are too stupid to realize their are more Yankees than them, that industrialization is key to survival, and that if we secede from each other we are weakening ourselves.

The Confederacy didn't hold on as long as they did by being that dumb. The racists among them didn't win the peace and reimpose segregation by being that dumb.

I think our low estimation of the chances decent USA-CSA relations comes down our dislike of the Confederacy and also all the issues that are still with us from that time. It is essentially the reversed image of rosie, earlier pieces of peace and harmony like Churchill's "If Lee had not won at Gettysburg" or Kantor's "If The South Had Won The Civil War".

It, in a word, has as much basis in reality as Lost Cause Mythology did in 1900, which is some, but not all, and creating a prism that is comforting to how we'd like to view reality rather than reality itself.

Great post. It really does seem like a lot of the modern discussion around this stuff just seems like they've taken the Lost Cause mythology and reversed it (ie, all the villains become heros and all the heros become villains, but the narrative otherwise stays the exact same). The great point made by C. Vann Woodward...was that most of the Lost Cause mythology really was just made up, so you don't get any closer to the reality by just reversing it.

For example, the Lost Cause mythology makes Sherman into this monster who pillaged the South because he hated the South (and that's bad!). The modern mythology now talks about how he's some great hero for scouring the evil South and making them pay for slavery. In reality, Sherman wasn't even hated in the South after the Civil War. It's not like he actually tried to kill people, and he justified the scorched earth tactics by genuinely wanting the war to end faster. His personal politics were probably rather inegalitarian (sympathethic to the Southern Democrats, unsympathethic to the freedman).

Also broadly speaking, there's also this Daniel Goldhagen-style belief that every Southerner was just inherently going to be an evil white supremacist by virtue of being a white supremacist. And obviously, the South was a racist place (similar to how Weimar Germany was anti-semitic), but there are other reasons to explain Jim Crow than "this ethnic outgroup is just inherently bad." It's actually kind of an interesting comparison.

To vastly oversimplify it, Goldhagen has this theory that German culture dating back to the medieval ages was inherently eliminationist anti-semitic and that this explains the Holocaust. Broadly speaking, this is a very unpopular historical theory, especially in Israel and America, but it is more popular in Germany itself. Probably because 1) it fits into the German self-flagellation historical narrative and 2) it absolves current generations of possible anti-semitism (ie, the rationale is that if anti-semitism was an evil bad thing of the evil bad Old Germany, then New Germany has absolved itself completely). I kind of see the Reverse Lost Cause as an American version of that. It's superficially fashionable to bash old white Americans for whatever reasons, but in doing so, it also absolves the modern speaker of the same crimes (ie, by treating racism as just an inherent trait of the evil Old South, the New America can be totally absolved, instead of applying the lessons of the past to today).

It's not like "military occupation ended in 1876 and the South was immediately taken over by evil KKK Nazis." Terrorism asides, biracial political coalitions actually remained common in the South from 1876-1890. The one-party Jim Crow regimes only popped up after the upper-classes in the South, instilled with scientific racism (prevalent among the upper classes of both the South & North and really almost entire industrialized world), were terrified at biracial populist political alliances between blacks and poorer whites - and they responded by lining up behind the most racist people they could find to disenfranchise all the blacks (and many of the poor whites). Obviously, not to violate the current politics rules, but that historical takeaway should provide a more politically troubling and relevant political lesson to almost everyone today than "Jim Crow happened because Southerners are just an inherently evil and racist people."
 
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