USP Challenge: Dem/GOP Ideology Swap

With a POD of 1945, have the Democratic Party become economically conservative (neoliberal by 1980) and socially conservative, while the GOP, true to its roots, remains economically liberal and socially progressive.
 
I personally think it's going to be tougher to make the Republicans economic liberals that it will be to make the Democrats economic conservatives. While the Republicans had a relatively strong progressive wing, they were nowhere near as numerous within the GOP to the degree that Southern conservatives were within the Democratic Party.

Also, you have to take into account that 'conservatism' and 'liberalism' as they stood have very different meanings in both parties. Conservative Democrats were racial conservatives, while by-and-large, conservative Republicans, prior to the migration of the Dixiecrats into the party, were racial liberals. In that same vein, Republican 'liberals' were less likely to favor unions and generally more corporatist than Democratic liberals, who tended to favor unionism in toto because of the influence of the populist movement.

I think your best shot for this is a POD in 1948. Let's say that Hubert Humphrey's amendment to the Democratic platform to emphasize Civil Rights goes down. Thurmond's Dixiecrats stay in the party fold, but as a result, let's say butterflies turn African-American votes to Dewey, giving him the White House in 1948.

Dewey's Presidency is pretty much an earlier Eisenhower Presidency, complete with Brown v. Board or some equivalent. Dewey, along with northern Democrats and liberal Republicans push for civil rights, while the South solidifies further behind it's own 'Southern Manifesto'.

In 1956, the Democrats take back control of the White House with President Adlai Stevenson, who himself stays ambivalent on civil rights to avoid inflaming southern Democrats. Two terms of Stevenson further the boiling over point, while southern Democrats become even more powerful in the party structure. John Kennedy is nominated for President in 1964, though he will go down in defeat to liberal Nelson Rockefeller for the Presidency in this year.

Rockefeller pushes civil rights as Dewey did, inflaming the nation, especially the South. Southern Democrats and Conservative Republicans begin blurring, as the latter switch parties. Likewise, Northern Democrats slowly begin to join the Party of Lincoln, as have African-Americans en masse, ending a small blip in favor of the Roosevelt-Truman-Stevenson programs of the welfare state.

In 1968, Democrats nominate George Wallace for the White House, who himself will go down in defeat to a triumphant Rockefeller, though in a decidedly close election--closer than Rockefeller will have wished. His second term is plagued by stagflation and a rowdy American left, protesting against environmental degradation and in favor of women's liberation.

By the time Rockefeller leaves the White House in 1973, the parties are decidedly different in nature and scope. George Wallace is the de facto leader of the Democratic Party, despite being paralyzed as a result of an assassination attempt while on the campaign trail in 1972, and actor Ronald Reagan is Wallace's designated, electable-outside-of-the-south successor.

The Republican Party, under the leadership of President George Romney, has like-wised moved leftward on economic policy in response to it's growing African-American and minority base.
 
Nixon wins in 1960, Dick pushes for civil rights, the Dems fall back to their southern base and fight Nixon's Civil rights bills, runs a southern Conservative in 1964 and 1968, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. becomes President beating George Wallace, northern Progressives largely leave the party for the GOP over the 60s and 70s, Reagan never became a Republican and runs and wins in 1976, in 1984 long time Republican Senator Edward Brooke becomes the first Black President
 
With a POD of 1945, have the Democratic Party become economically conservative (neoliberal by 1980) and socially conservative, while the GOP, true to its roots, remains economically liberal and socially progressive.

I don't think you can have that work out with a POD of 1945 (I'm assuming economically liberal doesn't mean classically liberal but rather progressive) - the legacy of Wilson and FDR are too strong and too entrenched within major constituencies in the Democratic Party. Likewise, the construction of modern anti-New Deal conservativism within the GOP is going to be really hard to stop. You'd have to engineer a much more dramatic break within the Democratic Party and have the GOP ready to welcome the Northern wing of the Democratic Party.

The thing that people need to keep in mind is that you have to account for the actions of all relevant factions at all times. I.E, how do conservative Republicans react to incoming liberal Democrats, what are Northern Democrats doing during an indecisive Stevenson presidency, etc. I'd also point out that you can't collapse everything to either race or economics, the challenge calls for both. So for example, in The New Freedom's case, how do we square the very different economic policies of the migrating and migrated-to factions of the Republican Party?

However, I do think you can do it easily with a POD of 1912 or earlier. If TR wins the GOP nomination in 1912 and transforms the Republican Party into a Progressive Party at the same time that Wilson loses the Democratic nomination to a conservative, and then the South really starts to throw its weight around in ways that alienate Northern Democrats (as historically happened in the 1920s, but to a lesser extent), I think you could see a progressive/conservative realignment as Dixiecrats and Northern business interests unite against the rise of an activist Federal government, while the northern working class follows the unions into the Progressive Party.
 
Ed Brooke getting past the GOP primaries is quite difficult. Not necessarily because of the race issue but because he's a Rocky Republican.
 
Libertarians would splinter: the social libertarians to the GOP, the economic libertarians to the Democrats.

Rocky Republicans ITTL would probably have a better shot than OTL, being on the GOP's right wing rather than its left wing.
 
Well in this ATL all the Democratic presidents post-Truman except for LBJ and many of the OTL postwar Democratic presidentiables will still be Democrats. Democratic President Ronald Reagan. Democratic President George W. Bush. :cool:
 
Well in this ATL all the Democratic presidents post-Truman except for LBJ and many of the OTL postwar Democratic presidentiables will still be Democrats. Democratic President Ronald Reagan. Democratic President George W. Bush. :cool:

I actually think that Bush would be of his father's party even if some of the of the former's views could be out of the mainstream of his party.
 
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