WI: George McGovern was a Republican?

His parents were firmly Republican, and he was in a blood red state, so it makes sense for him to become a Republican. How would his political career go? Does his views remain the same? Butterflies?
 
McGovern was on the left from very early in his career. He was influenced by the Social Gospel movement, he attended the Progressive Party national convention in 1948, he wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Ludlow massacre. For him to become a Republican, he would have to have very different political views.
 
McGovern was on the left from very early in his career. He was influenced by the Social Gospel movement, he attended the Progressive Party national convention in 1948, he wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Ludlow massacre. For him to become a Republican, he would have to have very different political views.

Maybe his parents talk more about politics around him?
 
HST described him as, and I'm paraphrasing, "essentially conservative". Maybe the Roosevelt/LaFollette/Johnson wing of the party has more influence?
 
His parents were firmly Republican, and he was in a blood red state, so it makes sense for him to become a Republican. How would his political career go? Does his views remain the same? Butterflies?

It would be a very different path for him. McGovern was a New Deal convert, supported Henry Wallace in 1948 and went back to the Democrats, serving as Executive Director of the South Dakota Democratic Party in 1953; he built the Democratic Party in the state before running for Congress and winning in 1956. The fact that he backed Wallace in 1948 makes it unlikely, without a major POD, that he'd be a Republican. Still, though, he did have a reputation for sticking to home state agricultural issues in the House and Senate and he was a formidable politician, managing to beat Joe Foss (a Medal of Honor winner) in his 1958 reelection bid. If he were to run as a Republican, he'd most likely be allied with the GOP's internationalist wing on foreign policy with a decided tilt toward the party's more liberal Eastern wing on social issues. In the 50s and 60s, that wouldn't be a particularly difficult place to be as long as he stuck to home state issues as he did in OTL. By the end of his Senate career, of course, he'd be out of touch with the Reagan wing of the GOP, but one could see him hanging on into the 1990s in the Senate. If he retired in 1998, he would have been 76 and perhaps one of the last great GOP liberals unless a primary took him out earlier.
 
. . . If he were to run as a Republican, he'd most likely be allied with the GOP's internationalist wing on foreign policy . . .
And when reports started coming out about Cambodia in the late '70s, George was in favor of effective intervention.

Don't know whether this was because he was thinking along the lines of you break it, you buy it. Or maybe he just took the attitude toward genocide, not just going to sit on the sidelines and watch. Will take either one, but hope a good chunk is the later.
 
And when reports started coming out about Cambodia in the late '70s, George was in favor of effective intervention.

Don't know whether this was because he was thinking along the lines of you break it, you buy it. Or maybe he just took the attitude toward genocide, not just going to sit on the sidelines and watch. Will take either one, but hope a good chunk is the later.

Judging from his autobiography, I think it was the latter. He was profoundly shaken by the extent of Nazi atrocities in Europe and he would not be the first World War II veteran to react strongly to genocide. And he may have felt some connection to the Holocaust; he mentions in that autobiography a bombing raid he was on involving targets at "Oswiecim, Poland." That would have been the IG Farben Buna Works complex at Monowitz, a sub-camp of Auschwitz. He mentions this only in passing, but I imagine anyone who bombed a death camp might wonder how many of those killed in the bombing were themselves victims.
 
. . . He was profoundly shaken by the extent of Nazi atrocities in Europe and he would not be the first World War II veteran to react strongly to genocide. . .
I wish this had carried over to governments. I used to believe Western governments had made a commitment of, never again.

But not my United States, not Sweden or Norway or what we might think of other progressive governments. I'm guessing not even among the most stable, democratic governments in Asia, etc.
 
Last edited:
Top