WI: The GOP Became Defunct

Deleted member 180541

  • Hoover decides to not seek re-election, and the Republican primary is hotly contested. The candidate who wins is controversial, resulting in FDR winning all 48 states in 1932. The Democrats gain another 30 House seats in 1932, making the House composition 343-87-5.
  • No 1937-1938 recession, so the GOP never recovers and continues to fade into obscurity.
  • Following a mild heart attack in 1940, FDR decides to stop drinking and smoking, which extends his life by another decade.
  • Thomas Dewey, and not Wendell Willkie, becomes the Republican nominee in 1940 and suffers the same crushing defeat in the election.
  • FDR manages to keep Henry Wallace on the ticket in 1944 instead of being forced to replace him with Harry Truman, and they once again defeat Thomas Dewey come election time.
  • With the GOP essentially being dead, Eisenhower decides to give into the 'Draft Eisenhower' movement in 1948 and becomes the Democrat compromise candidate, as support was split between Henry Wallace and Strom Thurmond. He chooses W. Averell Harriman as his running mate.
  • The Dixiecrats split off in the 1948 election and create a new party, with Strom Thurmond as their presidential candidate.
  • Nelson Rockefeller goes on to win the 1954 New York state election as a Democrat, symbolically ending the Republican party.
 

EWHM

If one party becomes defunct, generally in US politics another one will erupt from the ether to fill the political vacuum. It's unlikely that a stable coalition exists that could command an electoral supermajority.
 

Deleted member 180541

gladiator8085 said:
Some version of the Republican Party would still exist. I don't think the USA was ready to be a one party state after WW2:
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EWHM said:
If one party becomes defunct, generally in US politics another one will erupt from the ether to fill the political vacuum. It's unlikely that a stable coalition exists that could command an electoral supermajority.
Click to expand...
In 1948 I wrote that a Dixiecrat party is created with Strom Thurmond. Before the 1937 recession, it was common belief that the GOP would fizzle out and that the conservative southern Democrats would eventually split off and found a new party. In this timeline, this new southern party would probably take a chunk of the midwest and western Republican vote and form the new opposition against the ‘Party of FDR’. During the fourth term of FDR and following Eisenhower administration they would be building this coalition to eventually make a bid at the presidency in 1956.

Basically the New Deal coalition falls apart during the Eisenhower administration and you get an earlier party realignment and heavily partisan political landscape.
 

D-Day 1944

Abbé Faria said:
Hoover decides to not seek re-election, and the Republican primary is hotly contested. The candidate who wins is controversial, resulting in FDR winning all 48 states in 1932.
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What candidate could be so controversial that Roosevelt wins all 48 states? Hoover was deeply unpopular across America but he still won 6 states.
 

Deleted member 180541

D-Day 1944 said:
What candidate could be so controversial that Roosevelt wins all 48 states? Hoover was deeply unpopular across America but he still won 6 states.
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No idea, that’s why I kept it ambiguous. Regardless, pick any candidate in 1932 and FDR will still win all 48 states. Hoover was unpopular, certainly, but he had the full backing and support of the GOP establishment and electorate which allowed them to focus fully on winning the election. If the GOP performance in 1932 is them at their best imagine what the result will look like with a hotly contested and fiery primary and a subsequent flustered and disorganised campaign.
 

orser

Banned
EWHM said:
If one party becomes defunct, generally in US politics another one will erupt from the ether to fill the political vacuum. It's unlikely that a stable coalition exists that could command an electoral supermajority.
Click to expand...
'Liberal Democracy' in Japan?
 
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