I am a left Liberal. Obviously at least into the 1880s the Democrats were so much the party of racism I would have voted for a Republican or a third party.
There was for a long tim a progressive element of the Republican party.
Could it have taken over the Republican Party.
My ideal fantasy sees FDR as a Republican, having defeated a conservative democrat in 1932, with no reason to be nice to the racist establishments in the South east.
How hard is this to imagine. Could shifting a few votes in 1916 have done it.
Alternatively had TR won in 1912 as a prog could the conservative Republican party have collapsed?