Plausibility Check - Catholic political party in the USA?

What would you all say the odds of an American version of the German Zentrum party might be? The odds of it being established, that is, not electoral odds. Say a coalition of Irish and Italian immigrants in the Northeast and Great Lakes to begin with, starting c. 1900? Impossible or merely implausible?
 
Implaussible
Highly highly implaussible (not impossible though)
I have a hard time seeing the Italians and Irish working together in 1900.
 
Conditions harsh enough to force the disparate Catholic factions into a unified politcial party in 1900 are exactly the kind of powder keg such a party would ignite.

Anti-Catholic sentiment was high at the time. Such a strong anti-assimilation move as forming their own party would bring the hammer down, and hard.
 
*Maybe* you could have one if the point of it was to unify against a perceived threat, sucg as the government passing some sort of legislation that would directly impact them (i.e. ending religious school in favour of a centralised secular curiculum). Obviously that would mean some sort of POD to explain said threat.
 
Many of the more prominent anti-Communist politicians in the 1950s (especially McCarthy and his close friends, the Kennedy family) were Catholic. Perhaps if you have some nightmarish scenario where the more fanatical elements from the Second Red Scare organize around McCarthy in a bid for higher office, while the Republicans and Democrats both move against such behavior, an anti-Communist, socially conservative Catholic party could emerge. But that's a bit of a stretch, and I'm not sure it's what you're looking for anyway.
 
Have proportional representation in at least several states and a lot of minor parties become viable.
 
Chicano party.

I got it. A reverse-Nativist Party created by new immigrants. Starts with 1800s Germans and Irish, continues to the 1900s with Italians, now it's Latinos. The Democratic Party never gets the hang of relying on immigrant votes, or perhaps only courts Protestant ones.
 
Actually, even without proportional representation a Catholic Party in the US would be feasible. There are plenty of areas where Catholics make up if not a majority, at least a strong minority of voters, and could win lots of SMD seats with first past the post rules. Similarly the Zentrum did well enough before proportional representation in Germany, and well with it as well.
 

mowque

Banned
Well, we have plenty of Catholic machines to work with. As mentioned above, if we get proportional representation, we could easily get such parties in PA and NY.
 
Maybe more luck if this is not a catholic only, but a general religious one? Maybe with the Jews... However, a rise of antisemitism, and well, no luck.
 
The rise of denominational parties in Europe is really a product of their societies. Early modern Europe often lacked large parties of mass appeal because of the conservative nature of their society and age old mistrust and hatred of other religion.

The US was too much of a clean slate despite a lot of anti-Catholicism among American Protestants. There was no kulturkampf. Two large parties were already in place by the time huge numbers of Catholics started arriving, and one or the other needed those votes in order to win.

Catholic interests were fairly limited in the US, being mainly on the need for a parochial school system and stopping anti-Catholic discrimination. They were able to do so through the existing political party system. You'd need a very different United States where an independent party makes sense.
 
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