Socialist Party replaces Republican Party

So let's say instead of the Republican Party becoming the other dominant Party in American Governance it instead is a Socialist Party. Let's also make some Republicans like Abraham Lincoln prominent Socialist in this timeline.

A little guideline for this Socialist Party, there are a couple of different wings (you got full on socialist, proto-social democrats, syndicalists like Ideologies, a prominent Christian Socialist wing, and some radical authoritarian socialist types and an election reform wing seeking to abolish the electoral college) the platform at large argues for socialist principles, like wealth redistribution, land redistribution, fights for far stronger unions and equal rights for immigrants, woman, etc. They are very pro-civil rights and the rest of the package which socialist parties fight for.

Some guidelines, the Civil War still happens and the Union still wins. Also, you can't abolish democracy and keep the 2 party system intact. The Democrat party still remains and general American election style stays. How does this Socialist Party alter both the democratic party and American politics at large and what effects would we see in the 20th and 21st century and beyond.
 
Aha the "Lincoln is a Socialist" TL 191 twist eh? Honestly I think creating an American Socialist party that early would be difficult given the fact that Marxism OTL considered the Civil War to be the supplanting of the Southern feudal structure with the Northern capitalist one (in keeping with Marxist historiography, obviously I know that's a bit of a stretch). Your best bet would be to have the Socialist party organize in the latter portion of the 19th century. If they can keep together rather than fracturing as the Socialist movement did OTL I could see disattisfaction with the Gilded Age giving them a decent platform to start absorbing constituencies, especially in the wake of a serious economic mishap or truly heinous industrial scandal or other. One important thing is that the political parties in this period contained both liberal and conservative wings as well as regional factions, so expect what would be OTL Populists and Progressives duking it out during the conventions while the Northern industrial worker faction and the Southern sharecropper faction talk all kinds of smack. The only thing that can get them pointed in the same direction is the thought of a Democrat in the White House again!
 
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