USP Challenge: Dem/GOP Ideology Swap

Here's a chart of mine.

Republican circa 1985

Social:

Gay Marriage: Support/Oppose/Civil Union
Affirmative Action: Support/Oppose
Legalize Certain Drugs: Yes/No
Censorship: Stricter/Looser
Environmentalism: (very slight)Environmentalist/Nonenvironmentalist/Super Environmentalist
Abortion: Allow/Prohibit
Stem Cell Research: Allow/Prohibit/Alternative Methods (not using human embryos)
Death Penalty: (very rarely)Yes/No
Illegal Immigration: Increase Border Patrol/Make Citizenship Easier/Both

Economic:
Taxes: Raise/Lower
Military: Cut Funding/Increase Funding/Keep Funding at the same level(increase during war)
Economy: Conserve as much money as possible/Spend on what you want/ Go on a spending trip
Aid to other nations: Whenever asked/Only during disasters/Never

Democratic circa 1985

Social:

Gay Marriage: Support/Oppose/Civil Union
Affirmative Action:Support/Oppose
Legalize Certain Drugs: Yes/No
Censorship: Stricter/Looser
Environmentalism: (very slight)Environmentalist/Nonenvironmentalist/Super Environmentalist
Abortion: Allow/Prohibit
Stem Cell Research: Allow/Prohibit/Alternative Methods (not using human embryos)
Death Penalty: (very rarely)Yes/No
Illegal Immigration: Increase Border Patrol/Make Citizenship Easier/Both

Economic:
Taxes: Raise/Lower
Military: Cut Funding/Increase Funding/Keep Funding at the same level(increase during war)
Economy: Conserve as much money as possible/Spend on what you want/ Go on a spending trip
Aid to other nations: Whenever asked/Only during disasters/Never
 
Perhaps if the Republicans abandoned Hoover and nominated FDR...though that would predate the PoD. (Hey, Henry Agard Wallace was a Republican for a time...and his father was a Republican Cabinet Secretary!)
 
Perhaps if the Republicans abandoned Hoover and nominated FDR...though that would predate the PoD. (Hey, Henry Agard Wallace was a Republican for a time...and his father was a Republican Cabinet Secretary!)

Thank you Orville, you just gave me a thread idea.;)
 
Most plausible POD is the Great Depression. Prior to that, both parties had progressive and conservative wings. Several leading New Dealers, including Henry Wallace and Harold Ickes, were Republicans, for example. Al Smith and Hoover were virtually indistinguishable ideologically, except for prohibition, and in 1924, John W. Davis was arguably to Calvin Coolidge's right.

You need a POD that ensures Democratic rule during the 1920s, to ensure that a Democrat is in charge if/when the '29 Crash occurs. Then have that person lose to a progressive Republican in 1932.

Maybe Harding doesn't die. Instead, his administration gets embroiled in the Teapot Dome scandal, and he loses in 1924 to a stronger Democratic nominee like William Gibbs McAdoo. McAdoo runs a very conservative administration, wins reelection in 1928, but is then hit by the Depression. A progressive Republican - Alf Landon, William Borah, Robert LaFollette, Jr. - wins in 1932 and implements something fairly similar to the New Deal.

By the Postwar period, the Republicans have grown relatively friendly to unions and are firmly on the reformist, progressive, mainstream left, with Democrats a primarily Southern, conservative party.
 

Xen

Banned
Most plausible POD is the Great Depression. Prior to that, both parties had progressive and conservative wings. Several leading New Dealers, including Henry Wallace and Harold Ickes, were Republicans, for example. Al Smith and Hoover were virtually indistinguishable ideologically, except for prohibition, and in 1924, John W. Davis was arguably to Calvin Coolidge's right.

You need a POD that ensures Democratic rule during the 1920s, to ensure that a Democrat is in charge if/when the '29 Crash occurs. Then have that person lose to a progressive Republican in 1932.

Maybe Harding doesn't die. Instead, his administration gets embroiled in the Teapot Dome scandal, and he loses in 1924 to a stronger Democratic nominee like William Gibbs McAdoo. McAdoo runs a very conservative administration, wins reelection in 1928, but is then hit by the Depression. A progressive Republican - Alf Landon, William Borah, Robert LaFollette, Jr. - wins in 1932 and implements something fairly similar to the New Deal.

By the Postwar period, the Republicans have grown relatively friendly to unions and are firmly on the reformist, progressive, mainstream left, with Democrats a primarily Southern, conservative party.

Interesting! So say LaFollette wins in 1932 and is POTUS until 1941, at which time his VP Charles McNary becomes POTUS and sees the country through the Second World War until his sudden death in early 1944. Vice President Alf Landon is able to win his the White House in his own right using the sympathy card (maybe Stassen as his VP) but loses in the election in 1948 to Richard Russell whose conservative administration is largely viewed as a disaster and in spite of winning reelection in 1952, he is ran out of DC in favor of say Earl Warren....
 
Most plausible POD is the Great Depression. Prior to that, both parties had progressive and conservative wings. Several leading New Dealers, including Henry Wallace and Harold Ickes, were Republicans, for example. Al Smith and Hoover were virtually indistinguishable ideologically, except for prohibition, and in 1924, John W. Davis was arguably to Calvin Coolidge's right.

You need a POD that ensures Democratic rule during the 1920s, to ensure that a Democrat is in charge if/when the '29 Crash occurs. Then have that person lose to a progressive Republican in 1932.

Maybe Harding doesn't die. Instead, his administration gets embroiled in the Teapot Dome scandal, and he loses in 1924 to a stronger Democratic nominee like William Gibbs McAdoo. McAdoo runs a very conservative administration, wins reelection in 1928, but is then hit by the Depression. A progressive Republican - Alf Landon, William Borah, Robert LaFollette, Jr. - wins in 1932 and implements something fairly similar to the New Deal.

By the Postwar period, the Republicans have grown relatively friendly to unions and are firmly on the reformist, progressive, mainstream left, with Democrats a primarily Southern, conservative party.

Actually, that's fair enough. The only thing I'd add is that you'd need a much stronger blowup over Al Smith, the KKK, and Prohibition to push the Northern Democrats in a timely fashion.
 
the Bushs are politically smart, I doubt they'd be so right-wing in this TL

I never meant to imply otherwise, although if the younger Bush lives as rocky a lifestyle as he did for much of his life, his politics could be interesting, nonetheless.
 
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

Reagan became a Republican much earlier though, IIRC.
 
Another possibility: the civil rights movement causes about the same split in the Democratic Party as in OTL, only the white southerners win the power struggle and keep control of the party. In the 1968 election, Nixon uses a "Black strategy" instead of the OTL Southern strategy.
 
That would require a much earlier POD than '68. Running against Hubert Humphrey, a red-hot civil rights liberal, or Robert Kennedy, whose black support was equalled only by Obama's, that strategy is doomed to EPIC FAILURE.
 
Yeah. DCC's scenario would need a much earlier POD than 1968 - you'd have to go before 1948, and definitely before 1936. After FDR's first term, the South doesn't have the numbers to dictate the national party's choice any more - they can set terms for their support (i.e, no action on civil rights), but that's it. By 1948, a majority of Democrats are willing to sustain a southern bolt in order to pass a civil rights plank and win the election despite a Dixiecrat third party.

At that point, the South can't win control of the Party. Defecting to the GOP is their only move, and even that takes a long time to happen.
 
Reagan switched because of the Warner Bros. wildcat strike in 1946, where there was violence, the police and private strikebreakers took care of it, and threats were made on Reagan's life. Second was working for GE in the 1950s: Reagan made speeches for Nixon in 1960 and told Nixon in a letter that "under the tousled boyish haircut, it's still the same old Karl Marx" referring to JFK.
 

wormyguy

Banned
If the Great Depression could be averted, the OTL ideology swap (what with FDR's "modern liberalism") could be as well. Perhaps as the 20th century continues, the Republicans would migrate further to the left.
 
Interesting! So say LaFollette wins in 1932 and is POTUS until 1941, at which time his VP Charles McNary becomes POTUS and sees the country through the Second World War until his sudden death in early 1944. Vice President Alf Landon is able to win his the White House in his own right using the sympathy card (maybe Stassen as his VP) but loses in the election in 1948 to Richard Russell whose conservative administration is largely viewed as a disaster and in spite of winning reelection in 1952, he is ran out of DC in favor of say Earl Warren....

Yup. I could also see something like this...

McAdoo is defeated for reelection in 1932 by Gov. Hiram Johnson of California, who leads a radically progressive presidency, putting in place a system of Social Security, income assistance, a minimum wage, public works, and strict regulations of banking and business. Many conservative business leaders defect to support the Democratic candidate, John Nance Garner, who loses in a landslide to Johnson.

However, by 1940, Johnson is politically wounded by a renewed recession and the war in Europe. An isolationist, Johnson is repudiated when his favored candidate for the nomination, William Borah, is instead defeated by Wendell Wilkie, a utility exec and former progressive Democrat who joined the Republicans in support of Johnson's "Neo-Progressivism."

Democrats, desperate to win, nominate the relatively progressive governor of New York, Franklin D. Roosevelt. With his running mate, James Byrnes of South Carolina, they narrowly defeat Wilkie. Roosevelt leads the country through the Second World War and largely leaves intact Hiram Johnson's Neo-progressive "New Square Deal." When a stroke fells Roosevelt in 1946, he is succeeded by James Byrnes, who is able to win a narrow reelection in 1948 against a lackadaisical campaign by Tom Dewey.

In 1952, Earl Warren of California easily defeats Robert Taft of the dwindling conservative Republicans for the nomination. Warren goes onto defeat Byrnes, and under Warren, the welfare state established by Johnson is extended and civil rights legislation passed.

Warren is succeeded by Nelson Rockefeller, while the Wilson/FDR faction of progressive Democrats gradually dwindles. Its leaders, the Kennedy clan from Massachusetts, despite glowing national press, fight a losing battle over the 1960s and 1970s to move the Democrats to the left. Instead, by the early 1970s, conservative Democrats of the James Byrnes vein have firmly reestablished control, and they benefit from a backlash against federal power and civil rights.

By modern day, the Democrats are a party of free trade, low taxation, and a strong military, with a stronghold in the South. They have absorbed most of the old conservative Republican demographic from the Midwest and Plains, and are the party of the white working and middle class. Republicans are the party of the coasts and the Midwest's major cities and are a coalition of liberal professionals, soft libertarians, and immigrants.

Compared to OTL, the party of the right, the Democrats, are somewhat more economically populist. The party of the left, the Republicans, include a larger (soft-)libertarian contingent and have historically been more divided on the issue of trade. Still, by and large, the parties' ideological and demographic bases are reverses of where they are in OTL.
 
Top