WI: Republicans Don't Tap the South

The political story of the South in the 20th century is one of disillusion and anger and transformation. Since the Civil War, the South had voted solidly Democratic out of an absolute revulsion to the Republican party. Regardless of the circumstances, so long as the person running for president was not a Southerner, that was generally enough. The South also had it's own faction in the big tent of the Democrats: Conservative Democrats, usually Racists and undoubtedly Segregationists willing to play race politics, increasingly at odds with the Democratic party beyond the South.

This faction became increasingly in conflict with the Democratic party as the 20th century progressed and as Civil Rights became an issue. There was the faithless elector bandwagon in 1960, and the Deep South universally voted for Barry Goldwater in 1964. 1968 is the strongest changing point, and the South had two candidates that played to it specifically: segregationist George Wallace of Alabama, and former vice president Richard Nixon, who coated his message to not alienate the rest of the nation but put forth one which captured the support of the region by playing into conservative Southern white bigotries and fears with a wink and nod to white racism. That was the Southern Strategy, and what that did was win the South, bring Conservatives and the Dixiecrats into the Republican party and make the Solid South Republican, slowly but surely kick out the moderates and liberals of the Rockefeller establishment, and do this at the expense of Black Americans who still voted for the Republicans as the party of Lincoln. Those remaining blacks went to the Democrats, along with various other alienated ethnic groups. It should be noted the change of the South to the GOP didn't happen overnight as, though the South increasingly became Solid for the GOP in Presidential politics, the Democrats were still strong on the local level for decades.

Something that has interested me is what would or could have occurred in the South had everything happened as it did, with the Dixiecrats being as alienated from the Democratic party over Civil Rights and the transformations of the 60s as they were, but with the Republican party never going with the Southern Strategy and playing into Southern bigotries. It doesn't seem like the South in such a situation could remain with the Democratic party, though there is always the possibility that the New South trend of leaving behind all those Old South things could properly bloom. At the same time, the transformation to a Republican South also has to do with the increasing White collar status of the South, so perhaps even then it would go solidly to the GOP, just with different ideas and for different reason (economics rather than social issues).
And if not invited into the Republican party, then the South would be a political orphan which could work towards a third party or the American Independent party, or could potentially force one of the major parties to change from the ground up rather than the OTL situation where they were invited in by Nixon and hence it was ground up by via the management of the top down.

I'm curious as to your opinions on this.
 
Excellent question, if I'm interpreting it correctly anyway.

I think if they feel alienated from the Democrats and don't become Republican, they'd most likely go along with Wallace's third Dixiecrat/Independent party. That's the simple answer, anyhow.
 
Excellent question, if I'm interpreting it correctly anyway.

I think if they feel alienated from the Democrats and don't become Republican, they'd most likely go along with Wallace's third Dixiecrat/Independent party. That's the simple answer, anyhow.

I have a similar thought process, but my criticism of that is that while they could have that direction, and could actively do that for some time, it seems like eventually it'd get to the point where the South would give that up because a third party based in the South for Southern interests will not win, and what it will essentially do is make the South a non-player in presidential politics. It's essentially a perpetual protest vote for a losing candidate. There's also the problem that to have any greater presidential influence, they'd need to bring in the blue collar and working class vote rather than just the Southern vote, which puts the South in the same spot it was when it joined Nixon's Conservative coalition.
Though there is the flip side that, because there is a definite majority of votes needed, the South could act as a ruiner for presidential elections, and have kingmaker status by having their ticket drop and throw its support behind whoever pleases it the most.

I do wonder at the prospect of that, though. I don't think it would be out of plausibility for the Southerners to seep into the Democrats and/or Republicans, changing things from the ground up if need be.
 
I think the South was starting to trend Republican well before the adoption of the Southern strategy, if very slowly. While Civil Rights did indeed speed up the process, economic and cultural issues were starting to isolate many Southerners from the national Democratic Party by the middle of the 20th century.
 
The south has always been very conservative and did not like change. Its a natural they would eventually go with the conservative republicans and form a new Republican party that came about with Reagan in 80. Just like you saw a lot of liberal republicans around the same time go with the democratic party. FDR saw this coming back in the 40's and wanted to speed up the process after WW2 but he died before he got the opportunity.
 
I think you'd have to go back to the New Deal to change the Democrats losing the South. The New Deal really benefited northern cities (New York City got more money from the New Deal than some states did) and New Deal zoning laws pretty much made ghettos a thing, making racism a whole hell of a lot easier now that you wouldn't have black neighbors.

A Democratic South means you need a Southerner to stand in for FDR.
 
I have a similar thought process, but my criticism of that is that while they could have that direction, and could actively do that for some time, it seems like eventually it'd get to the point where the South would give that up because a third party based in the South for Southern interests will not win, and what it will essentially do is make the South a non-player in presidential politics. It's essentially a perpetual protest vote for a losing candidate. There's also the problem that to have any greater presidential influence, they'd need to bring in the blue collar and working class vote rather than just the Southern vote, which puts the South in the same spot it was when it joined Nixon's Conservative coalition.
Though there is the flip side that, because there is a definite majority of votes needed, the South could act as a ruiner for presidential elections, and have kingmaker status by having their ticket drop and throw its support behind whoever pleases it the most.

I do wonder at the prospect of that, though. I don't think it would be out of plausibility for the Southerners to seep into the Democrats and/or Republicans, changing things from the ground up if need be.

A lot of it bases on how one interprets the question. OP seems to indicate, you know, they have to leave the Democrats, but rules out them joining the Republicans. That doesn't leave a lot of options.
 
A lot of it bases on how one interprets the question. OP seems to indicate, you know, they have to leave the Democrats, but rules out them joining the Republicans. That doesn't leave a lot of options.

The thing I was trying to get across is keeping the history that forced them from the Democratic party, so it's not "well, the Democrats could just not pass Civil rights". No, the Democrats have, and there's the Vietnam war and Hippies, and we go from that point onward with this discussion. But, unlike the OTL, the idea here is that the Republicans don't, with Nixon or anyone like Nixon, pull the Southern Strategy and actively encourage the South into the GOP by exploitatively playing to the racial and assorted cultural conservative beliefs in the Nixonian way.
 
The thing I was trying to get across is keeping the history that forced them from the Democratic party, so it's not "well, the Democrats could just not pass Civil rights". No, the Democrats have, and there's the Vietnam war and Hippies, and we go from that point onward with this discussion. But, unlike the OTL, the idea here is that the Republicans don't, with Nixon or anyone like Nixon, pull the Southern Strategy and actively encourage the South into the GOP by playing to the racial and assorted cultural conservative issues in the Nixonian way.
I had a serious idiot moment and didn't realize you were the OP of the thread when I posted. My genuine apologies.

I see what you were trying to get at, I just interpreted the post too literally, I think.
 
because a third party based in the South for Southern interests will not win,
Voting for Wallace does have that problem, but does segregation have to remain only a Southern interest?

What were race relations like in the rest of the country, and could the South do anything to intentionally make them worse to get more Dixiecrat voters?
 
I think we also have to consider things from the GOP point of view.

In order to win elections you need to get votes (obviously).

During the 50's there was a serious effort in the GOP to attract black votes but to a large degree they were rejected. The big city machines tended to keep their voters locked in line.

So to a degree they were faced with a Hobsons choice.
 
The political story of the South in the 20th century is one of disillusion and anger and transformation. Since the Civil War, the South had voted solidly Democratic out of an absolute revulsion to the Republican party.

Not actually true. There were substantial Republican parties in Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Especially Tennessee, which elected Republican governors in 1910, 1912, and 1920. There is an area of east Tennessee that has never sent a Democrat to Congress (since the Civil War).

The Deep South states were more monolithically Democrat, in large part because the large black populations of those threatened to dominate there.

Incidentally, while black voters were aggressively disfranchised in the South, that did not happen instantly with the end of Reconstruction in 1877. Blacks voted in substantial numbers (and nearly all Republican) into the 1890s. The last black Republican Representative from the South (until Tim Scott in 2010) was George White of North Carolina (1896-1900).

Regardless of the circumstances, so long as the person running for president was not a Southerner, that was generally enough.

The South also had its own faction in the big tent of the Democrats: Conservative Democrats, usually Racists and undoubtedly Segregationists willing to play race politics, increasingly at odds with the Democratic party beyond the South.

Many "Dixiecrats" were conservatives. Some were liberals. All were racists and white supremacists. Some of the most flagrant racists were also liberals on economic issues. Woodrow Wilson was a stone racist Southerner (originally from Virginia); the New Deal was very popular in the South.

This faction became increasingly in conflict with the Democratic party as the 20th century progressed and as Civil Rights became an issue.

The breach came in 1948, when the national Democratic Party adopted a civil rights plank. Up to then, there was no conflict to speak of.

However, the unnaturally extreme attachment of southerners to the Democratic Party had begun to crack a bit in the 1920s. The trend was stalled by the eclipse of the Republicans during the Depression, but resumed in the 1950s.

The shift was due to simple reversion to the mean, and to demographic changes in Texas and Florida, which became much less "Southern". For instance, Texas elected a Republican Senator in 1961, and Republicans have held the seat ever since.

There was the faithless elector bandwagon in 1960,

What is this about? There were only 1 "faithless elector" in 1960. There was an "uncommitted" elector slate in Mississippi, and a fusion slate of 6 "uncommitted" and 5 Kennedy electors in Alabama.

and the Deep South universally voted for Barry Goldwater in 1964.

Goldwater carried five Deep South states, but only Mississippi and Alabama were strongly for him.

1968 is the strongest changing point, and the South had two candidates that played to it specifically: segregationist George Wallace of Alabama, and former vice president Richard Nixon, who coated his message to not alienate the rest of the nation but put forth one which captured the support of the region by playing into conservative Southern white bigotries and fears with a wink and nod to white racism.

Republicans had been gaining in the South since 1952. Eisenhower carried Florida, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia twice; Nixon in 1960 carried all but Texas, which went narrowly Democrat. In 1966, southern Republicans picked up a Senate seat and two governorships.

This was not due to racist pandering, but to offering an alternative to the local Democrat monopoly, and a conservative alternative to national Democrat liberalism.

That was the Southern Strategy, and what that did was win the South, bring Conservatives and the Dixiecrats into the Republican party and make the Solid South Republican, slowly but surely kick out the moderates and liberals of the Rockefeller establishment

The switch of conservative Southerners to the Republicans did represent a national realignment. The presence of conservative Southerners in the liberal Democratic party was an anomaly which was bound to end.

... and do this at the expense of Black Americans who still voted for the Republicans as the party of Lincoln.

By 1968, black voters had long since switched to the Democrats. All the new black voters in the South were Democrats; urban blacks in the North were Democrats.

But at no time did any Republican President relax enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.


It should be noted the change of the South to the GOP didn't happen overnight as, though the South increasingly became Solid for the GOP in Presidential politics, the Democrats were still strong on the local level for decades.

Republicans did not gain control of Southern state legislatures till the 1990s. Texas first elected more Republicans than Democrats to the U.S. House in 2004.



At the same time, the transformation to a Republican South also has to do with the increasing White collar status of the South, so perhaps even then it would go solidly to the GOP, just with different ideas and for different reason (economics rather than social issues).

Your belief that it was otherwise is mistaken. Republicans succeeded in the South because the Dixiecrats did not effectively represent the New South of urban and suburban voters, and because neither Democrats nor Republicans would protect white supremacy, leaving Southern conservatives no reason to prefer the Democrats. Many older voters continued to vote Democrat, especially at the state level, out of habit or tradition; but as these voters were replaced, Republicans steadily gained.

Likewise your notion that it was some kind of mystic spell worked by Nixon at the national level.
 
Top