SoCon + Fiscally Progressive America: Possible PODs

Nightingale

Nightingale

Man, I'm note entertained if there are only conserva-wanks and liberal-wanks out there.

Time for some hybrid wanks :)D), so...

After searching and asking possibilities on threads on this site about a socially conservative and economically liberal (with some caveats in some areas) America, and my own observations and opinions, I see some PODs, which are interconnected, that have been formed are:

1.) EARLY AIDS

AIDS hits earlier, say the late 1960s, to enact sexual conservatism in abortion, sex, and enact skepticism towards homosexuality.

Note: And some have told me that while a 1960s start for AIDS does those things, if a heterosexual male gets publicly known to have AIDS first, then people would treat the disease as anyone's disease and push for prevention instead of fear-mongering that happened IOTL...

2.) SUPREME COURT CHANGES

Have Thomas Dewey or Frank Minis Johnson be in the SCOTUS by 1962 so that public school prayer is still allowed in the USA. However, have retirements ensue during a liberal Democratic president, who appoints liberal SCOTUS Justices, which liberalizes other areas in economics.

Sexually liberal rulings on birth control use allow married and unmarried couples to use such things. However, the coming of AIDS changes things, and will be discussed in #3.

The Supreme Court bans all anti-abortion laws in the USA, which will be discussed in #3.

3.) CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS

The coming of AIDS discredits sex outside of marriage, homosexuality. Therefore, a Family Values Amendment passes discouraging homosexuality (not really banning it though, liberals like the Kennedys and Humphrey won't really call for homosexuality to be banned), heavily restricting divorce (except for sexual immorality and assault), calling for birth control for married couples only (IMO that's much more acceptable in culturally conservative circles), banning same sex marriage.

The SCOTUS ruling completely legalizing all forms of abortion results in a Human Life Amendment banning all types of abortion to pass and become part of the US Constitution.

However, some people still say that the Equal Rights Amendment can still pass by having feminists detach themselves from sexual liberalism and then abortion.


4.) DRUG DECRIMINALIZATION

Conceivably like Portugal's program. Easy.

5.) CIVIL RIGHTS +++

Have more Civil Rights rulings pass. However, forced desegregated busing, in the event of a liberal Supreme Court expanding, may just be banned by law later on.

5.) NO WEDGE SOCIAL ISSUES = LESS POLARIZATION = MORE COOPERATION

Without the culture wars to polarize American society, American politics are more bipartisan. Thus, more progress is achieved for the American economy. Both parties have the same platforms on social isues with some Christian democratic values. The New Deal consensus remains.

6.) NO NEW LEFT = STRONG OLD LEFT

Butterfly away the New Left to make sure sexual liberalism doesn't rise. Maybe have the New and Fair Deals truly achieve what they want to achieve, avoid China's, North Korea's fall to the communists and avoid the Vietnam War to keep the New Left types such as George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy content and just stay silent, thus the Old Left types of LBJ, Scoop Jackson, 1970s Jimmy Carter and Hubert Humphrey that is more capable of accepting the cultural conservatism of many working class voters is still dominant.

7. DEMOCRATS CAN LOSE THE SOUTH IN THIS SCENARIO, OR NOT

Just because the Democrats lose the South if they pass Civil Rights, doesn't mean they become liberal. Since social issues are not really issues, Democrats can be the party of big cities but still be socially conservative. That's possible, and the Philippines is an example of that with big cities such as Metro Manila cities hosting some pretty conservative folks. A "Dixie Out, Labor In" scenario.

Or, Democrats can still retain the South, after all. Or...

Democrats can become the party of the South and big cities, while Republicans host the Midwest, Montain West, suburbs, California and New England...

Or Democrats can become the big city party, while the Republicans become the rural party.

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So, what do you, my fellow Althists, think about these?
 

CountDVB

The problem with things like social conservatism is that culture always changing per the next generation and what was considered liberal for that generation would most likely be considered the norm or even conservative by the next. While economically liberal policies could be worked in, society changes is going to be much more difficult, especially if things like the Cold War or such and exist. People will question the status-quo.

1- The AIDS thing will heavily depend on who gets it first as previously mentioned though given the social conservative, it won't be considered a societal issue unless it would be yoru standard straight white guy.

2&3- Banning abortion would not make society more conservative, it just means more people will die from performing illegal abortions being done on them and mroe people would go to more progressive nations as a result.

4- Given the social conservative stance on drugs, especially how some drugs are accepted over others for historical reasons (i.e. tobacco and alchohol over say marijuana and shrooms), not sure if that will work at all.

5- The Culture wars were inevitable given the clusterf@ck that was the Cold War, especially with the parties turning on one another without big bad USSR looming over them. Avoiding the culture wars would mean avoiding the Cold War which means avoiding WW2 and you'd have to go back to WW1 for a reasonable chance of this.

The US is already socially conservative compared to other nations and you have to take account that conservatism doesn't become reactionaryism. Conservatism tends to be prominent in eras of properity, which is why so many boomers and such are in lvoe with the 50s, being this mytholgoied ideal America time from Leave It To Beaver despite the present casual sexism and racism still prominent in those times.
 

Don Corleone

Best POD if you want a hybrid outcome is having Huey Long survive and primary FDR in 1936. Here's a scenario that would produce a socon + fiscally liberal US:

He pushes a more populist economic agenda than FDR. He also sets up a deal in the late 1930s for the Win Or Lose Oil Company to sell oil to Japan. This butterflies away Pearl Harbor and keeps us out of WW2. We spend the first part of the 1940s selling to both sides, and without American reinforcements the WAllies have a much more difficult time pushing back against the Germans. The Germans can focus on the eastern front, but that still becomes a war of attrition. The war drags on 3-4 extra years. The full extent of the Holocaust isn't known, and the Nazis and Communists point the finger at each other for the atrocities that are known. For the US, this means eugenics/master race ideology isn't discredited as it was in OTL. It also delays the civil rights movement, which began in part because black soldiers fought overseas for the freedom they were denied at home.

We still have the postwar economic boom due having an unscathed home front and manufacturing base while Europe is rebuilding, and Share The Wealth is ingrained into the political culture.
 

Raferty

Social conservatism and fiscal progressivism are much easier in homogenous countries demographically wise.

The US became a much more economically liberal and socially liberal country after the 1965 Immigration act.
 
Wallet

Wallet

Banned
This describes OTL 1950s. Just have the 50s never end.

Nixon wins in 1960. He passes a couple milder civil rights act that please the movement and doesn't cause huge disturbances. You'll also need no Vietnam or Space race. Let's say Eisenhower works out an agreement with Ho Chi Minh and the French. And the Soviets have trouble with their rockets. And the Beatles never come over.

1968 is a vastly different then OTL. It's more similar to 1955. Hubert Humphrey wins in 1968 and continues with New Deal economic programs and some civil rights stuff, but America is still the suburban nuclear family village
 
Nightingale

Nightingale

How does the Cold War incite the Culture Wars in your opinion, @CountDVB ?

@Raferty, but many Latinos are also socially conservative given their Catholic heritage...

@Wallet, how can Space Travel progress in such a scenario? And how do the Beatles factor into that?
 
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Anacostia Pol

How do y'all avoid events like Watts, Detroit, or even the riots following Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination? I would think either Kennedy and LBJ would had to have tamped down on events like Freedom Summer (that's where a lot of Boomers were "radicalized"), the voting registration drives, and the March on Washington. The Civil Rights Movement would have to be tamped down because it was the inspiration for every social movement thereafter, at least in my opinion.
 

Don Corleone

Wallet said:
This describes OTL 1950s. Just have the 50s never end.

Nixon wins in 1960. He passes a couple milder civil rights act that please the movement and doesn't cause huge disturbances. You'll also need no Vietnam or Space race. Let's say Eisenhower works out an agreement with Ho Chi Minh and the French. And the Soviets have trouble with their rockets. And the Beatles never come over.

1968 is a vastly different then OTL. It's more similar to 1955. Hubert Humphrey wins in 1968 and continues with New Deal economic programs and some civil rights stuff, but America is still the suburban nuclear family village
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That sounds plausible. A lot of people forget that we had a federal civil rights act in 1957.

The Vietnam War is a very good POD. Without it we might not see the counterculture, and the counterculture largely occurred after the major civil rights victories were achieved.

Another interesting question: Without the sexual revolution, would you still see the rise of the religious right backlash? Sexual libertinism is what caused the schism between Christianity and social liberalism.
 

Galba Otho Vitelius

An interesting POD, though I don't know how to frame it as a WI (plus it would be a very controversial topic) is no civil rights act at all, not in the 1950s or 1960s AND the Supreme Court doesn't do deseg either.

IOTL the American elites at the national level were actually pretty favorable to civil rights and desegregation, with really only the regional elites in the Deep South (not even the South overall) determined to keep the status quo. But a situation where pretty much there is a consensus among both the national elites and the public to keep segregation in place could happen. In Israel right now there is pretty much a consensus to keep the occupied territories occupied. White South Africans were pretty united in support of apartheid until the sanctions really began to hurt in the late 1980s.

With such a situation you don't have corporate interests using white resentment as a wedge issue to get their way on economic policy. Of course you also get a much weaker US diplomatic position and probably a more violent civil rights movement. It would be an interesting timeline.
 
Wallet

Wallet

Banned
Landmass Wave said:
That sounds plausible. A lot of people forget that we had a federal civil rights act in 1957.

The Vietnam War is a very good POD. Without it we might not see the counterculture, and the counterculture largely occurred after the major civil rights victories were achieved.

Another interesting question: Without the sexual revolution, would you still see the rise of the religious right backlash? Sexual libertinism is what caused the schism between Christianity and social liberalism.
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That's an effy one I can't answer. Officially the religious right came about because of sexual libertinism. But there were more to it. It was so big and powerful with larger donors, I think it would have still appeared
 

GeographyDude

Gone Fishin'
I think the Catholic Pro-Life movement has long included being against the death penalty, and skepticism about war.

And regarding abortion, maybe more Catholics could have been of the view, keeping abortion illegal is not a great answer, because people do get illegal abortions. Maybe they hit upon earlier and in a much bigger way that a better way is to make available to pregnant women tangible financial help and support so that carrying the pregnancy forward is a realistic choice.

And this might dovetail nicely with a concern with a social safety net and a working class focus on more good jobs. That is, a more financially progressive society.
 

Galba Otho Vitelius

Things look very differently in American culture and ultimately politics if you could just flip the Catholic and Protestant percentages of the population, but that requires a pre-1900 POD. Even a more determined attempt by the British government to put American churches under the control of Anglican bishops (IOTL pretty much no attempt was made to do this) would work, though again pre 1900 and with massive amounts of butterflies.
 

CountDVB

Nightingale said:
How does the Cold War incite the Culture Wars in your opinion, @CountDVB ?

While culture wars are admittingly nothing new (see Yankee vs Dixie stuff), the Cold War dominated the world political landscape for 50ish years. Culture and politics mixed in and to where anyone who was deemed "too left" would be scrutinized and potentiall villified by the government. In fact, we had something called the House Un-American Activities Committee, pretty much designed to look into this sort of stuff which was deemed "anti-american."

With an external foe, the old bastion had something to compare it to and so on. However, with all sorts of pragmatic or bad decisions, especially in a race of trying to differentiate from them or be better, comes a large paradigm in change. The Vietnam War, the Korean War... with that came the disagreements and so on.
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