DBWI: Democratic/Republican two party system endures?

[King Jasper]

So, as we all know, the Democratic party collapsed in the late 1920s, giving the Republicans a brief period of near-total domination.

That domination was, of course, quickly interrupted by the Great Depression, and the subsequent election of the first Farmer-Labor president, Floyd Oslon.

But what if this never happened? What if the Democrats survived the 1920s and lived on to fight (and win, of course) the 1932 election? Would you have Fresh Hand policies, but targeted explicitly towards white people? Would the assured following political domination by the Democrats lead to a longer lasting Jim crow, and Republican voting African Americans? What do you guys think?

 

[Thomas Jefferson]

Definitely a longer lasting Jim Crow. The last Democratic President, Woodrow Wilson, was terrible on that front, and their 1924 nominee, John W. Davis, spent the last part of his life trying to block the Integration Act in the courts. A political system with the Democrats as one of the major parties probably wouldn't overturn Jim Crow until the 1980s (even with a Republican-controlled Congress, a determined Democratic minority could have blocked the passage of integration legislation in the Senate with a little known procedure called the filibuster where you essentially keep talking to prevent a bill from coming to a vote). Not sure about a Fresh Hand policy, even the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party was substantially to the right of the FLP. You might get a much longer Depression under an alternating series of weak Democratic and Republican presidents.

 

[Johnrankins]

Well, I thought you were talking about the Two-Party system remaining. The new amendments passed during the Great Depression replacing First Past the Fence Post Voting system with a Ranked Choice Voting System shook things up. Now we have five viable parties 1)Republicans 2)Farmer-Labor 3) Social Democrats 4) Libertarians and 5) Socialists. I can't see how the Democrats could survive longer, it was a miracle they survived the ACW.

Also "Fresh Hand" was pretty much targeted to White People, but I guess the Democrats would have been very explicit about it instead of making sure 90% of all African Americans didn't qualify and 90% of Whites did by various guidlines.

 

[Maeglin]

The problem with the Democrats is that they were really two parties - the progressive Northern wing (who ran off to join FL), and the South. The South was always going to win that battle. Hell, if it weren't for the destructive infighting, you could imagine the Democrats surviving as a regional party. Even now, you've still got Independent Democrats in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia.

 

[Johnrankins]

Yeah, but outside the name, they share little with the old Democratic Party anymore. One of them is a female, Afro-American governor of Georgia and one of the women senators from Mississippi. They have Afro-American and Hispanic reps in that area too.

 

[King Jasper]

Also "Fresh Hand" was pretty much targeted to White People, but I guess the Democrats would have been very explicit about it instead of making sure 90% of all African Americans didn't qualify and 90% of Whites did by various guidlines.

Fresh Hand being integrated AT ALL, even with so little black people, was revolutionary at the time. Under the Democrats I don't think black people would be able to apply, much less not be segregated.

 

[Johnrankins]

Fresh Hand being integrated AT ALL, even with so little black people, was revolutionary at the time. Under the Democrats I don't think black people would be able to apply, much less not be segregated.

True enough, I am just pointing out it was hardly color blind.