POD: Southern conservative democrat John Garner becomes the president in ‘32 instead of FDR. He handles the depression not much better than Hoover and the country sees no recovery in sight. Huey Long sees an opportunity and runs his own independent campaign in 1936. Meanwhile, with no New Deal, the CPUSA sees a gargantuan rise in membership and votes, gaining 21 seats in the midterms of 1934. Huey captured the presidency in 1936 and by 1948 the CPUSA had surpassed the GOP to become the main opposition to Long. Thus begins the fifth party system (1948 - 1992)
*Note the Cold War still exists but is more detente due to the strength of CPUSA.
*Note Believe it or not strong communist parties existed in west european countries postwar (France, Italy)
Major parties:
Democratic-Longists
Ideology: Christian democracy, populism, agrarian populism, populism, neoliberalism
Base: South, southern farmers, areas of the midwest.
Description: Long came to power in 1936 and immediately instituted new, big government, populist recovery plans and reforms. This was not enough to eliminate the depression (or stop the rise of the communists) but it definitely did help offer relief for people. He entered WWII, like FDR, in 1941. He had originally ran as an independent, but by 1948 the CPUSA was looking like a threat so he united with the previously nascent Democrats to form a coalition. The party ruled the national government nearly uninterrupted for the whole period of the Cold War. They controlled all civil service positions, and corruption ran rampant. Finally the party’s hold on power came under heavy threat in the ‘70s. The party was hit with the double whammy of a huge financial laundering scandal that casted doubts on the party’s legitimacy, combined with the seemingly unsolvable stagflation of the 1970s. The party was forced to merge with the GOP and go into electoral coalitions with the Socialists to keep going through the late ‘70s and ‘80s. In the 80’s the party underwent a neoliberal transition and started to implement austerity and deregulation, setting the stage for the populism of the 21st century.
Communist Party USA
Ideology: Communism, Leninism (1919 - 1971), Democratic socialism (1971 - 1991)
Base: Unions, industrial workers, western US, upper midwest.
Description: The CPUSA, by 1948, was able to rise past all the other parties to become the main opposition to the longists. Though it was never able to capture the presidency, it was able to take control of many state governments and was even able to take control of the House of Representatives multiple times. Up until the 1970s, the party maintained a strict Leninist, pro soviet stance. By 1968, with the brutal breaking up of the Prague Spring, and rising left, anti-authoritarian movements at home (Civil rights, anti-vietnam), the party started to move towards a more broad, anti-authoritarian democratic socialism. The person who helped accentuate this was charismatic party leader Michael Harrington who revised the party constitution to remove sections expressing support for the USSR and other authoritarian governments. He led the CPUSA to its best performance in an election, in 1980, nearly winning the presidency and taking a supermajority in the House. After the Longists took a neoliberal turn in the 80s, the CPUSA strongly opposed it. The CPUSA reformed into the Democratic Socialist Party after the fall of the USSR in 1991.
Minor parties:
Socialist Party of America
Ideology: Democratic socialism (1901 - 1958), Social democracy (1958 - 2005)
Base: Midwestern farmers, small producers, middle class, intellectuals.
Description: The more moderate father of the CPUSA, the Socialists were never able to achieve the success that came to the Communists after the depression. They rarely got any electoral votes in presidential elections. They were still able to have influence on policy through their seats in the house and the senate though, especially when they’re was no majority in congress. They at first advocated for a reformist path to socialism, before undergoing a transition in the ‘50s that led them to accept capitalism and moderatism. They survived all the way to 2005, until they merged with the DSP.
Republican Party
Ideology: Liberal conservatism, liberalism, libertarianism.
Base: Business owners, wealthy, farmers.
Description: The GOP never really was able to revive itself after the depression. After Huey Long swept the nation, they became irrelevant. They only managed <10 seats in the House for the remainder of their existence, being mostly occupied by either: big business owners, nerdy college conservatives or the remaining small farmers that supported the party. The party limped along until the late 1970s, when the threat of the Communists winning an election threw the GOP into merging with the Longists. One consequence of this was the Longists growing warmer towards neoliberalism.
Union Communists
Ideology: Communism, Leninism, Stalinism
Base: Stalinists, USSR supporters, some union workers.
Description: After the CPUSA took an anti-authoritarian split, many of the ardent stalinists in the party split to form a unabashedly pro soviet party. The party had little success and soon became a fringe party. It disbanded in 1985.
YAPms map, 1948, start of the fifth party system:
https://www.yapms.com/app/?m=2d7d
YAPms map,1964, best performance for the Longists (Huey Long had died 2 months prior after a long battle with cancer):
https://www.yapms.com/app/?m=2d87
YAPms map,1980, best performance for Communists ('70s economic crisis + laundering scandal + charismatic Harrington):
https://www.yapms.com/app/?m=2u1u