Political Alignments with a GOP-Nixon CRA

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 catalyzed the trend of the South moving towards the Republicans and caused black support for the GOP to go from around ~30% to ~10%.

Had Nixon been president in 1960 and been the one to push through a civil rights bill, how would it have affected political alignments in the US?

The Conservative movement was already noticeably more tied to the Republican party than the Democrats and I'm not sure that could change due to the economics of the party.

Reagan won't be elected in 1966 without A Time for Choosing. Odds are Goldwater will be the Conservative candidate in 1968 here, though I doubt the GOP could feasibly clinch a fifth term.

In 1968 the Democrats will either be the party of the cultural backlash (Johnson triangulating or Scoop Jackson being the nominee perhaps?) or a cultural-conservative movement may just fare particularly well against two pro-civil rights candidates.
 
Republicans don’t lose the black vote, stay the Party of Lincoln (at least to a certain degree), and Nixon could be looked at as one of the best Presidents. If this does happen, I may need the rest of President Nixon 1960’s record and accomplishments in his Presidency other than this to truly look at it clearly. On top of this, we may see an American version of One Nation Conservatism.
 
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It definitely slows the realignment of American politics along ideological lines. At the same time it increases pressure on the coalitions in each party.

The Democrats were ready to pop and had honestly only been sustained by a series of individual relationships and ever-diminishing post-Reconstruction momentum. That coalition was going to unravel. If their share of the black vote is smaller, that means the Dixiecrat share is larger, and that's not something non-Dixiecrat Democrats could really tolerate. It's one thing to pay lip service to southern whites, to turn a blind eye to their worst behavior, or to create a narrative where they're evolving into a new south (i.e. the Carter model), it's another thing if they hold the balance of power in your party between labor and urban liberals.

IOTL the shift to more minority voters and more middle class voters made the passing of the Dixiecrats an acceptable trade-off (especially since the timescale on that transition was decades long). Here, that's not happening, and with Dixiecrats feeling more empowered but probably less welcome in both parties, there's a reckoning coming soon. At "best" you might get a situation like we saw recently in the New York state house, where a group runs nominally as Democrats but is willing to caucus with whichever party gives them the most. At "worst" the two-party system faces a big challenge. (Really at best, they take their ball and go home, forming a third party that fares about as well as all third parties do in the US, takes millions of culturally conservative votes out of the system, and results in a few decades of unimpeded progress on the social policy front as Dems and Reps suddenly don't have to pander to that demographic anymore.)

The Republicans are more of an unknown. I'm inclined to say that the GOP did a better job keeping its factions in line during this period, but the truth is they were really only ever like 75% of a party from the Depression until the 1990s, capable of winning the presidency but rarely controlling even one chamber of congress. Being in the minority has a way of muting factionalism, outside of key moments at least.

My inclination is to assume that Calcaterra is onto something with that One Nation Conservatism idea. The African American community is as ideologically diverse as any segment of the population. Historically, the Democrats emerged with a narrative of social liberalism and economic moderation, and so the African American politicians of the party tended to follow that line, though the communities they represented were (and are) not totally unified around those principles. African American politicians of an alt-GOP would likely do something similar: tacking to the broadest point in the party's platform and staking out ground there, though the communities they represent will not be totally unified around those principles. But at the same time the conservative factions will have to give some ground in the name of electoral pragmatism. (Of course I say that and the evidence is all around me that it isn't so- the new Republican is "supposedly" a poor working class white man, and yet conservative think-tanks and chief policy architects aren't really making policy concessions for them. But the idea is that movement conservatism would've been more pliable before it totally took the reigns of power in the party in 1980.)

A GOP that hovers over the middle ground could really break the Democrats. My feeling is that it pushes the country to the left because it keeps working class farmer/labor whites from turning into Reagan voters and we get more generations of left-leaning politicians emerging from a broader set of congressional districts, while the emerging service economy unavoidably pushes college education, which naturally pushes more leftist behavior in major metros.
 

Thomas1195

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Republicans don’t lose the black vote, stay the Party of Lincoln (at least to a certain degree), and Nixon could be looked at as one of the best Presidents. If this does happen, I may need the rest of President Nixon 1960’s record and accomplishments in his Presidency other than this to truly look at it clearly. On top of this, we may see an American version of One Nation Consetvatism.
Or classical liberal? If GOP's social positions are the same as OTL Dem.
 
Democrats have been winning the black vote since 1936:

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There's the question of what sort of CRA we're talking here.
 
What about the possibility of the "Dixiecrats" becoming their own separate party, folks?

That would sacrifice a lot of influence within both the Democratic and Republican parties. Seems risky, and would probably force them to make coalitions with one or the other party as circumstances change. Probably an inferior plan to simply entering one of the parties and taking it over like OTL.
 
The GOP is probably still going to be gaining ground in the south, thanks to the growth of the suburbs in the area (as well as in the southwest) that was also where much of the Goldwater-Reagan wing of the party was at its strongest.

Although how the GOP coalition evolves in this timeline is probably going to different than in ours.
 
So GOP here gains the "New South" and maintains its share of the black vote.

Wallace's coalition in 1968 included a lot of midwestern hardhat voters. At one point the AFL-CIO found that 44% of white workers in Chicago were for Wallace.
Wallace in 1972 managed to win the majority of the primary vote in Michigan, get 41% of the vote in Indiana, etc. Had he not been shot, I don't think it's unreasonable to think he'd have taken the plurality of the 1972 primary vote (he got 23.5% of the primary vote to McGovern's 25.3% and Humphrey's 25.8%).

The Wallace coalition of southern whites and northern hardhats looks like a coherent force either in the Democratic Party or in the form of Wallace's American Independent Party.

Maybe conservatives split between the AIP and GOP and the rump Democrats are a middle-class liberal party?
 
So GOP here gains the "New South" and maintains its share of the black vote.

Wallace's coalition in 1968 included a lot of midwestern hardhat voters. At one point the AFL-CIO found that 44% of white workers in Chicago were for Wallace.
Wallace in 1972 managed to win the majority of the primary vote in Michigan, get 41% of the vote in Indiana, etc. Had he not been shot, I don't think it's unreasonable to think he'd have taken the plurality of the 1972 primary vote (he got 23.5% of the primary vote to McGovern's 25.3% and Humphrey's 25.8%).

The Wallace coalition of southern whites and northern hardhats looks like a coherent force either in the Democratic Party or in the form of Wallace's American Independent Party.

Maybe conservatives split between the AIP and GOP and the rump Democrats are a middle-class liberal party?

Can't believe I'm saying it, but it's really unlikely for the Democrats to die. If nothing else, there's a truckload of institutional barriers to entry written into American election laws to favor the two main parties, and that would be a big hurdle for the AIP or other interlopers to clear. Hell, it's possible Wallace himself could be the guy to revive Democratic fortunes, by making peace with civil rights and trying to appeal to the white working class in the Midwest. If not him, then somebody else who appeals to that constituency. GOP fortunes would run out sooner or later; they always do.
 
Can't believe I'm saying it, but it's really unlikely for the Democrats to die. If nothing else, there's a truckload of institutional barriers to entry written into American election laws to favor the two main parties, and that would be a big hurdle for the AIP or other interlopers to clear. Hell, it's possible Wallace himself could be the guy to revive Democratic fortunes, by making peace with civil rights and trying to appeal to the white working class in the Midwest. If not him, then somebody else who appeals to that constituency. GOP fortunes would run out sooner or later; they always do.

Considering how well Wallace did in 1972 despite having been shot and the party having a lot more black and liberal voters, I could see him coming and seizing the nomination TTL at some point.
 
Why would Northern "Hardhats" even vote for Wallace in this TL (assuming that Wallace even runs).

The reason why they flocked to Wallace was they felt that they traditional party (Democrats) had allowed the country to fall apart with all the protestors and riots that we're going on at the time. ITL they are probably going to blame the Republican Party (again assuming that these clashes do happen), and will vote for the Democrats, as long as the Democrats don't nominate a New Left McGovern type. Which they won't.

Coming to think of it if the GOP is being blamed for the turmoil of the 60s why would Wallace even run third party in 68? He regarded himself as a loyal Democrat.
 
Why would Northern "Hardhats" even vote for Wallace in this TL (assuming that Wallace even runs).

The reason why they flocked to Wallace was they felt that they traditional party (Democrats) had allowed the country to fall apart with all the protestors and riots that we're going on at the time. ITL they are probably going to blame the Republican Party (again assuming that these clashes do happen), and will vote for the Democrats, as long as the Democrats don't nominate a New Left McGovern type. Which they won't.

Coming to think of it if the GOP is being blamed for the turmoil of the 60s why would Wallace even run third party in 68? He regarded himself as a loyal Democrat.

Well, there's plenty of possible ways for this to go, but at least one possibility is that Hardhats would go for Wallace because he becomes the Democratic nominee at some point ITTL.
 
Well, there's plenty of possible ways for this to go, but at least one possibility is that Hardhats would go for Wallace because he becomes the Democratic nominee at some point ITTL.

Well I would imagine the 1968 Democrat nominee is likely to be Humphrey or LBJ who I would guess would almost certainly win. After that it probably depends how well LBJ/HH does as president and whether the he can avoid receiving any assassination attempts.
 
I don’t think Johnson would be on the ticket at all. He would be a southerner, and without the Civil Rights Act, the Democrats would have that vote locked. Possibly Humphrey, they would need to win back the North, and he was a rising star from Minnesota. In 1964, I see Nixon running against Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, Senator Henry M. Jackson, or Governor Terry Sanford, although a two man ticket made up of any of these men would be a very good one. Either way, I can't really see Nixon losing this, especially if he instituted some reforms early, like a larger system of government healthcare, greater unemployment benefits and other popular ideas that LBJ either planned or did put through. There is, of course, the question of Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. still being on the ticket, and I believe there is a real chance that Representative Gerald Ford, Senator Thurston B. Morton, or even then-Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen could be picked to replace Lodge.
 
I’d expect the GOP to develop into a center-right party with libertarian leanings. It’d be overall socially liberal and fiscally conservative, but not radically so (low-tax liberalism might be an accurate label and there would still be room for pro-life and immigration restrictionist figures).

Dems I could see evolve into a Christian Left/populist party that is strongest in the South and Midwest. Probably will be anti-abortion, anti-same sex marriage and split on immigration (might want the Latino votes) but will be in favor of the welfare state, environmentalism, etc.
 
I can buy the US *today* looking like Europe though: where the center-left Democrats have collapsed except among their rusted-on urban base, the AIP is a collection of political disaffecteds and the far-right and the GOP has largely stayed the same.
 
Labor unions are too strong until the late 1970s for hard hats to go AIP until then.

Depends on the nominee. IOTL Ford was acceptable and Carter already feeling like a loser. Put a non-acceptable Republican (Reagan, back then) in there with Wallace looming as a threat—the unions will go hard for an acceptable Dem like Humphrey. Of course you could easily flip that for some real crazy fun. Black and union vote going Republican because Southern Dems refuse to repeal Taft-Hartley (aka the 14B issue that bedeviled the ‘76 primaries) and Republican Big Business is willing to cut the deal of the century…
 
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