I've recently been reading Rick Perlstein's excellent book Before the Storm about the conservative fringe movement of the 1950s and early 1960s, and how it basically managed to steal the Republican Party in 1964 to nominate Barry Goldwater for President. Now, the more I read about Goldwater, the more interesting a figure I find him, and the more interesting I imagine his presidency would be (though to be honest I'm very glad that it did't happen in OTL).
So, the first step is obviously to get Goldwater in the White House. I don't have a concrete timeline in my head to do so, but I do have a couple of scattered ideas that I think could help Barry do better:
1) Get rid of the 1961 Berlin Crisis, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Test Ban Treaty. Of all Goldwater's...unique ideas, none hurt him so much in the election as much as his ideas on nuclear weapons (for those who don't know, he believed that the US was losing the Cold War due to a corrosive fear of war, and that the US should liberally use tactical nukes in warfare). Unfortunately for him, all of the events mentioned had made much of the American population more willing to believe that nuclear war was imminent and plausible, and Johnson was able to paint Goldwater as a warmonger who was pretty much guaranteed to start WW3. If that can be avoided, and Barry can be convinced to tone down his remarks a bit, this would mostly neutralize one of Goldwater's major problems in OTL.
2) Get rid of the Kennedy assassination. Not only would this remove the sympathy factor that helped Johnson in 1964, but it would also remove much of OTL's backlash against the far right. In OTL most people assumed that Kennedy had been shot by some wingnut Bircher type, and even after the truth had come out the prevailing view was that the assassination had been the result of a "culture of hate" permeating American politics. If we want to overegg the pudding, maybe have a failed assassination by a really outspoken communist who at his trial goes off about how the communist takeover of the United States is imminent.
3) Have Goldwater Commit Earlier. In OTL Goldwater had grave doubts about running for president, and only really committed in early 1964, despite the fact that F. Clifton White had been running a massive and meticulously organized grassroots campaign for him since 1961. Goldwater spent three years telling people that he wasn't running and that White wasn't affiliated with him, and then when he did run he set up his own campaign committee composed of his loyal but incompetent friends from Arizona. If Goldwater is somehow converted to running in 1961, and is willing to let White run his campaign, I think that Goldwater would have a much better chance.
4) Start a race war. Goldwater wasn't bigoted, but opposed most civil rights legislation due to his skepticism about the federal government's right to "coerce" states and private businesses. As such, much of the support he got in OTL was from the then-new phenomenon of white backlash-five of the six states he won were in the deep south, and he was the first Republican candidate to make inroads in working-class northern whites. The main cause of that backlash was the rising rate of crime and racial violence, and even in OTL NAACP and CORE were vigorously calling Goldwater a segregationist and comparing him to Hitler. So the key is to make racial violence much worse. Say, Kennedy has a major falling out with the civil rights movement and was even more recalcitrant than in OTL, and MLK was assassinated in 1962, and the whole movement was radicalized much earlier than OTL with the accompanying unrest and riots-and the end result is a Detroit 1967-level riot in 1964.
Now, here's a broad outline of how I see Goldwater acting on a couple of major issues:
Vietnam: This is a big one. Goldwater IOTL called Kennedy and Johnson out for their half measures and for refusing to call Vietnam a war, so escalation will if anything be faster than OTL. OTOH, Barry isn't going to be as inhibited as Johnson IOTL: that thing about tactical nukes wasn't a gaffe or a one-off idea, but one of his deeply held beliefs. North Vietnam is in for a bad time, and quite possibly Barry would go through with his plan of anti-guerilla warfare via nuclear defoliation. IIRC the Soviet Union never cared that much about North Vietnam, so I see them going for a propaganda victory rather than starting a war. Would China get involved? I'm not sure. In 1965 China had only 5 nuclear weapons, and I doubt even Mao would be willing to get in a fight with a nation that had 30,000 nukes and was willing to use them. What do you guys thing will happen?
Civil Rights: Also very interesting. In TTL there probably hasn't been a Civil Rights Act of 1964*, or if there has it was probably watered down to the point of meaninglessness. IIRC Goldwater in OTL was actually willing to vote for all of the Civil Rights Act except for the clauses that forced private businesses to not show racial preferences; on the other hand, our Goldwater here was probably elected largely to stop civil rights, and IOTL he wasn't above giving a state's rights speech in Charleston. I'd imagine it largely hinges on the makeup of Congress; with a mostly friendly President in the White House, there might be an anti-civil rights coalition of Dixiecrats and newly-elected rightist Republicans. I could even see the Dixiecrats intentionally passing the harshest versions of civil rights bills and sending them to Goldwater knowing that the would veto them. In any case I doubt that civil rights would do that well under a Goldwater administration; blacks are in for...an interesting time.
The Welfare State: Now this is something Barry never had any doubts about; there is no way on heaven or earth he would approve of any new programs or departments, which will have massive effects. No Great Society, no War on Poverty, no Head Start Program, no Medicare, no Medicaid, no Public Broadcasting Act (and thus no PBS or NPR), likely no introduction of cigarette warning labels, likely some degree of reform to Social Security (again, it depends on Congress). Some environmental legislation might pass, though.
But I'm just a dilettante; I know relatively little about all this. What do you guys think? Any experts out there?
So, the first step is obviously to get Goldwater in the White House. I don't have a concrete timeline in my head to do so, but I do have a couple of scattered ideas that I think could help Barry do better:
1) Get rid of the 1961 Berlin Crisis, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Test Ban Treaty. Of all Goldwater's...unique ideas, none hurt him so much in the election as much as his ideas on nuclear weapons (for those who don't know, he believed that the US was losing the Cold War due to a corrosive fear of war, and that the US should liberally use tactical nukes in warfare). Unfortunately for him, all of the events mentioned had made much of the American population more willing to believe that nuclear war was imminent and plausible, and Johnson was able to paint Goldwater as a warmonger who was pretty much guaranteed to start WW3. If that can be avoided, and Barry can be convinced to tone down his remarks a bit, this would mostly neutralize one of Goldwater's major problems in OTL.
2) Get rid of the Kennedy assassination. Not only would this remove the sympathy factor that helped Johnson in 1964, but it would also remove much of OTL's backlash against the far right. In OTL most people assumed that Kennedy had been shot by some wingnut Bircher type, and even after the truth had come out the prevailing view was that the assassination had been the result of a "culture of hate" permeating American politics. If we want to overegg the pudding, maybe have a failed assassination by a really outspoken communist who at his trial goes off about how the communist takeover of the United States is imminent.
3) Have Goldwater Commit Earlier. In OTL Goldwater had grave doubts about running for president, and only really committed in early 1964, despite the fact that F. Clifton White had been running a massive and meticulously organized grassroots campaign for him since 1961. Goldwater spent three years telling people that he wasn't running and that White wasn't affiliated with him, and then when he did run he set up his own campaign committee composed of his loyal but incompetent friends from Arizona. If Goldwater is somehow converted to running in 1961, and is willing to let White run his campaign, I think that Goldwater would have a much better chance.
4) Start a race war. Goldwater wasn't bigoted, but opposed most civil rights legislation due to his skepticism about the federal government's right to "coerce" states and private businesses. As such, much of the support he got in OTL was from the then-new phenomenon of white backlash-five of the six states he won were in the deep south, and he was the first Republican candidate to make inroads in working-class northern whites. The main cause of that backlash was the rising rate of crime and racial violence, and even in OTL NAACP and CORE were vigorously calling Goldwater a segregationist and comparing him to Hitler. So the key is to make racial violence much worse. Say, Kennedy has a major falling out with the civil rights movement and was even more recalcitrant than in OTL, and MLK was assassinated in 1962, and the whole movement was radicalized much earlier than OTL with the accompanying unrest and riots-and the end result is a Detroit 1967-level riot in 1964.
Now, here's a broad outline of how I see Goldwater acting on a couple of major issues:
Vietnam: This is a big one. Goldwater IOTL called Kennedy and Johnson out for their half measures and for refusing to call Vietnam a war, so escalation will if anything be faster than OTL. OTOH, Barry isn't going to be as inhibited as Johnson IOTL: that thing about tactical nukes wasn't a gaffe or a one-off idea, but one of his deeply held beliefs. North Vietnam is in for a bad time, and quite possibly Barry would go through with his plan of anti-guerilla warfare via nuclear defoliation. IIRC the Soviet Union never cared that much about North Vietnam, so I see them going for a propaganda victory rather than starting a war. Would China get involved? I'm not sure. In 1965 China had only 5 nuclear weapons, and I doubt even Mao would be willing to get in a fight with a nation that had 30,000 nukes and was willing to use them. What do you guys thing will happen?
Civil Rights: Also very interesting. In TTL there probably hasn't been a Civil Rights Act of 1964*, or if there has it was probably watered down to the point of meaninglessness. IIRC Goldwater in OTL was actually willing to vote for all of the Civil Rights Act except for the clauses that forced private businesses to not show racial preferences; on the other hand, our Goldwater here was probably elected largely to stop civil rights, and IOTL he wasn't above giving a state's rights speech in Charleston. I'd imagine it largely hinges on the makeup of Congress; with a mostly friendly President in the White House, there might be an anti-civil rights coalition of Dixiecrats and newly-elected rightist Republicans. I could even see the Dixiecrats intentionally passing the harshest versions of civil rights bills and sending them to Goldwater knowing that the would veto them. In any case I doubt that civil rights would do that well under a Goldwater administration; blacks are in for...an interesting time.
The Welfare State: Now this is something Barry never had any doubts about; there is no way on heaven or earth he would approve of any new programs or departments, which will have massive effects. No Great Society, no War on Poverty, no Head Start Program, no Medicare, no Medicaid, no Public Broadcasting Act (and thus no PBS or NPR), likely no introduction of cigarette warning labels, likely some degree of reform to Social Security (again, it depends on Congress). Some environmental legislation might pass, though.
But I'm just a dilettante; I know relatively little about all this. What do you guys think? Any experts out there?
The closest the polling got in 1964 itself was twenty-eight points (59-31); the most lopsided was fifty-nine (77-18)-but the actual margin ended up being twenty-three. Fifty-nine or even twenty-eight points behind in a poll is a ritual slaughter; being sixteen points behind a year before the election, by comparison, is just being badly behind.