Also, I think that without the collapse of the black nuclear family with the implementation of the GMI, blacks would be more conservative ITTL.
New Deal Coalition Retained: A Sixth Party System Wikibox Timeline
I think it's possible they adopt Liberty Conservatism as a more "electable" ideology, but they won't change the policies they support just because of the party they support.
@tuxer, how about an equalized gradual removal-educational treatment like in 1980s Switzerland combined with the War on Drugs?
Or better, a Switzerland-inspired treatment only?
Or better, a Switzerland-inspired treatment only?
The latter because the War on Drugs was never about ending drug trafficking but generating profit for private profit-driven prisons. That's why the War on Drugs failed in the first place.
Not just that, it was also a way for Nixon to associate his political enemies with crime. His advisors actually suggested that he decriminalize marijuana, but he said no for that reason.
Wallace is probably not one to do that as his political enemies don't consist of those same people. You'd probably still see a war on drugs, but with different motives.
And I thought Wallace would be more accepting of the Switzerland treatment.
And boy did Nixon's loss in OTL 1960 (to Kennedy) and 1962 (to Pat Brown) make him so bitter, paranoid and power-hungry.
And boy did Nixon's loss in OTL 1960 (to Kennedy) and 1962 (to Pat Brown) make him so bitter, paranoid and power-hungry.
Last edited:
1974 Midterms
“The Democrats have sold us out for the altar of big, authoritarian government. The Republicans, well, they talk a good game but they aren’t so different. Each view your private bedrooms as their personal playgrounds! It’s time for a new choice! A third choice!”
-Edmund “Jerry” Brown-
“The Democrats have sold us out for the altar of big, authoritarian government. The Republicans, well, they talk a good game but they aren’t so different. Each view your private bedrooms as their personal playgrounds! It’s time for a new choice! A third choice!”
-Edmund “Jerry” Brown-
After eight successful and widely popular years as Governor, the California economy booming well beyond the national average, Governor Ronald Wilson Reagan surprised observers by announcing he wouldn’t seek a third term as Pat Brown tried to. All expected him to try for President in 1976, but to seek it from retirement rather than from the bully pulpit of Sacramento wasn’t thought to be Reagan’s most likely option. Favored to win in a landslide, his bowing out set off a furious scramble to succeed him. Republicans rallied around his chosen successor, Congressman Barry M. Goldwater Jr. Worried about his legacy, the tax cuts, the spending reductions, the strides on civil rights, Reagan and his allies cleared the field for Goldwater – the Congressman a solid liberty conservative and strident supporter of Reagan’s agenda. One term was needed to solidify it and prevent any successor from overturning the key aspects.
Meanwhile, the Democrats had been engaging in field clearing of their own. After the realignments and silent purging of Pat Brown loyalists between 1966 and Jesse Unruh’s Senate bid in 1968, the populist wing had largely inherited the Democratic Party from the liberal wing – granting undisputed the title of party leader to Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty. Having come within a hair of toppling Brown in the 66 primary, he begged off running four years later out of personal respect and friendship with Reagan (and the calculation that no one could defeat the Gipper). However, the colorful and socially Conservative Mayor had set up the foundation for a gubernatorial run for the last six years and took the plunge not one week after Reagan announced his retirement.
For those on the liberal wings of both parties, the two leading candidates were as unacceptable as they were unbeatable in the primaries. Goldwater was just as purist as his Senator father – without Reagan’s pragmatic streak – while in some ways Yorty was even more conservative than the Gipper. His fiscal populism was practically Hooverian in comparison to Wallace and other national Democrats, though he tempered it with a pro-union record. As a result, immense pressure was brought to bear to find an acceptable choice for wayward liberals in search for someone they could support. Not wishing to back a hopeless challenger like in 1968, all seemed resigned to Goldwater v. Yorty until the giant in the room threw his hat in the ring for the nomination of the Progressive Party. Secretary of State Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown Jr.
Pat Brown Democrats and Pete McCloskey Republicans deserting their nominees for the charismatic and youthful Jerry, Goldwater and Yorty recalibrated their campaign strategies. Instead of tacking to the center, to come out on top in the volatile three-way race they’d play to their base. Goldwater crisscrossed the state defending Reagan’s record, announcing that he’d add on more tax cuts and speed up deregulation to generate further economic growth. The African-American areas of the state were peppered with how Yorty betrayed them while Mayor of LA and how Goldwater’s record in Congress compared to it. Yorty in the meantime never let the mantle of populist crusader slip from his grasp, condemning Goldwater – but never Reagan – for being out of touch and hostile to the working man “In the fields and the factories.” Any comment about Civil Rights was shot back as a dishonest attempt to “play the race card,” which riled up downscale whites angry at accusations of racism. Brown drilled to his base as well, but with a sunny demeanor. Eschewing attacks, he painted Barry Jr. and Sammy Y. as bitter and dirty campaigners. “A Candidate You Can be Proud Of!” became Jerry’s slogan, repeated ad nauseum in liberal strongholds.
By just over 170,000 votes, Barry Goldwater Jr. had sent the message that the Reagan Legacy was here to stay. However, what remained to be seen was whether Barry Junior’s intended legacy would hold the same popularity as his predecessor, Yorty ready to pounce at the slightest mistake or misstep.
------------------------------
Once a solid Republican Midwestern state, Indiana had gone through a massive realignment starting in the late fifties. Both Senate seats and the governorship had fallen into the hands of the Democratic Party, several good election cycles cementing these wins. After the election of Jimmy Hoffa in 1968, his handpicked party leaders had transformed the INDP into one of the strongest political organizations in the United States, defying Republican attempts at breaking through time and time again. The reelection of Senator Vance Hartke by a 61-37% margin during the GOP headwind of 1970 was indicative of that.
Elected in 1962 during Richard Nixon’s midterm, Senator Birch Bayh was not considered vulnerable after his rather easy reelection six years afterward. Most of the Republican base had been wiped out by Hoffa’s campaigning, the GOP holding no statewide office and only three representatives. The lone bright spot was Indianapolis, the capitol city’s educated workforce and black population keeping Republican hopes afloat. Secure in his office, popular Mayor Richard Lugar threw his hat in the ring on the standard Liberty Conservative platform that had seen success in neighboring Ohio and Illinois – a large contrast to the Kennedy liberalism of Bayh.
------------------------
In the four years between the Goldwater sweep of 1968 and the general collapse of 1972, the Prairie and Mountain West had swung hard to the Democratic Party. As the Republicans largely shifted from the Goldwater and William Langer brands in favor of Liberty Conservatism, the economic leftist-inclined states (most of them had large union presences) began to shift from their Republican roots to the Wallace Democratic Party. On the national level many kept voting GOP due to the latent pacifist and isolationist German and Scandinavian Immigrants not taking to the LeMay Doctrine, on the state level politicians such as George McGovern combined the new-Taftite isolationism with economic liberalism to win in the states. It was in this environment that North Dakota Lt. Governor began his challenge of longtime Senator Milton Young.
Young, worried about his chances, decided to bow out rather than seek another term. The Republican candidate for the open seat was Congressman Mark Andrews, challenging the populist Guy on a standard Goldwater-esque platform. It had usually been enough to win North Dakota on any given year, Goldwater and McCloskey winning the state by double digits.
--------------------------
While Bobby Kennedy was practically a Governor for life if he so desired, his nomination by President Wallace to the Supreme Court left a vacuum in Albany that was… rather well received by the powers to be there. The old “Three men in a room” style of governance (the Governor, Speaker of the State Assembly, and President of the State Senate) had been upset by the boy scout that was Governor RFK, and Tammany Hall, the Griffin Machine, and the Cohnites were eager to reclaim their dominant position once more. Lt. Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr, while an opponent of the state machines, wasn’t the heavyweight that Kennedy had been. Disenchanted with Albany politics and unable to find his niche as his father had fifty years previously, he announced before 1973 was up that he would be retiring rather than seeking a second term.
Oddly for an open seat, the Democratic primary were rather sleepy affairs. The two opposing Democratic machines largely settled on a compromise ticket, that of Buffalo area State Senator and noted conservative Democrat James Griffin and Tammany Hall favorite NYC City Councilman Paul O’Dwyer. Often cross-endorsed by the Republican and Conservative parties, Griffin was considered a strong choice. With his selection the Democrats hoped to both hold the Wallace coalition and make serious ironroads in Upstate NY.
However, the political dynasties were not easily cowed. A maze of Republican Machine hacks, Rockefeller moderates, and ambitious pols were vanquished by as much an outsider as Bobby Kennedy was in 1966 – author and former CIA Operative Kermit Roosevelt Jr. Grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, the swashbuckling yet intellectual intelligence officer was an interesting choice by the Republicans. A good friend of Iranian Prime Minister Ismael Shafae from their work instigating the 1953 Coup against the Soviet-aligned government, his work had been mostly as a foreign policy advisor and commentator since leaving the CIA (his books on Third World policy being some of the most widely read texts in the Western world). It surprised everyone when he ran for Governor rather than wait to challenge Ramsey Clark in 1976, but the Republicans quickly coalesced behind him as the race descended into a hard-fought slugging match as was common in New York politics.
New York was one of five large states that switched governors in 1974. It, Pennsylvania, and Texas were gained by the GOP with Roosevelt, John Heinz, and John Tower (defeating incumbent Lloyd Bentsen in a rematch after the latter adopted controversial regulation policies) while Ohio and Florida went Democratic with Astronaut John Glenn and elderly legend Claude Pepper coming out of retirement. As with the general tone of Wallace’s midterms, a collective wash overall.
-------------------------
After the massive uproar following his crucial vote for Amcare, longtime Senator George Aiken decided to retire rather than face a challenge from popular Governor Roger MacBride – a primary he would be hard pressed to come close in, let alone win. As such, in deep-red Vermont the open seat race was MacBride’s to lose. After being elected in 1968 on a modest plurality, the heir to Laura Ingalls Wilder bulldozed the divided opposition in two 65+ percent reelections despite – as a Goldwater Republican with a conservative record – being out of the mainstream of the state. His relationship with the moderate Republican-controlled legislature was contentious to say the least, but his campaign and legislative team was one of the best in the business and his low tax, smaller government agenda passed with popular support. No other challenger stepped up to challenge him, and he sailed unopposed through the primary.
With the Vermont Democrats in a very sorry state – barely even competitive with seven total legislators – the party forfeited the race in favor of throwing their backing behind the candidate of the VT Progressives. While the Progressive Party across most of the nation was a miniscule force or a vehicle for top-tier candidates to avoid primaries, in Vermont the Progs had established themselves as the chief opposition to the ruling Republicans. Economically liberal but culturally libertarian, the party was far more small government than the Progs of other states, owing more to Vermont’s nature of rugged individualism than anything else. Choosing Burlington City Attorney Patrick Leahy as its nominee at the state convention, initial hopes were for hitting 42% against MacBride.
Without Democrat spoiler candidates, the race unexpectedly tightened as it neared the home stretch. Leahy focused his ire not on the popular state Republicans, but on MacBride and the national Republicans that he was allied with. Ads compared him to Barry Goldwater and Spiro Agnew, neither popular in the state. The Governor’s numbers began to sag, considering that what Vermonters enjoyed in Montpellier didn’t seem preferable in Washington.
The Progressives would make themselves into a potent force despite Leahy’s loss. Killing the longtime GOP supermajorities in the legislature, former gubernatorial candidate Thomas Salmon took the Governor’s mansion by three points to succeed MacBride. Two party rule was restored in the Green Mountain State, only the opposition to the Republicans not being the same as nationally. An anomaly only applicable to Vermont, or an ominous trend? Only time would tell.
-------------------------
Contrary to Republican hopes and Democratic fears, the fabled “six year itch” never materialized. The elections were a wash, plain and simple. In the senate, Republican gains in Illinois (James Thompson defeating Adlai Stevenson III due to goodwill from his conviction of Richard Daley) and Dan Evans defeating longtime Senator Warren Magnuson in Washington state tempered by the Democratic victories in the open seats of ND (William Guy), SD (Richard F. Kneip), and NH (John Durkin). The one crucial factor that distinguished this election was the solidifying of the political coalitions around a central ideology: the Democrats around what was being called Communonationalism (the combination of communitarianism and nationalism; social conservatism, a robust nuclear and interventionist military might, and New Deal economics) while the vast majority of Republican candidates rallied around Projectionism and Liberty Conservatism (fiscal conservatism, the use of conventional military might as deterrence and foreign aid to fight communism, and a hybrid social conservatism/pro-civil rights platform). Most left-libertarians, diehard Kennedy liberals, pacifists, and social liberals began to feel shut out and disconnected from their party’s apparatuses.
Last edited:
What even is this chart where Democrats under Sam Randall are about as liberal as under Nancy Pelosi
You know what they say: You can never have enough competent wacky people.