Romney wouldn't really have the momentum to even win the Nom with no Vietnam War. A major selling point of Romney was his ability to pick up dissafected Democrats, angered by the War, and Independents due to his general perception as an honest politician, and a moderate republican to boot. Remove the Vietnam War, though, and you get a generally popular LBJ, one who'd likely do well in all the polls against Romney.
1968 US Presidential Election Without the Vietnam War
- Thread starter Amadeus
- Start date
Without vietnam to make it look like a winnable election, Nixon stays out. LBJ handily beats reagan-rockefeller that year with HHH winning against a second attempt at Reagan in 1972. HHH's terms are a bit rockier what with an energy crisis to contend with but he's remembered as a good president thanks to legacies such as national healthcare, a basic income, guaranteed income/workfare and generally making the US be closer if not yet at full on social democratic levels.
HHH's successor Muskie loses to a tanned, fit and rested Nixon in 1980. Nixon's goatee is often cited as what helped propel him to the top. You get a Gaullist/tory type GOP with Nixon and whatever literally who tier in OTL GOP representative/senator succeeds him in 1989. Probably another moderate if obviously left-leaning dem and not OTL's rockefeller republican in democrat clothes clintonites in 1996. Odds are the GOP wins again in 2000 thanks to a stronger coalition -- no religious right, more of a working class vote, bigger nonwhite presence in GOP due to differences in coalition
My guess is various things like timing of recessions means you'd likely see democrats in office 2009-2017 and the republicans winning in 2016. Maybe a poorly timed recession means they lose in 2020 idk. Regardless they'd either be different spins/versions of OTL figures or people who are deeply obscure in OTL.
Democrats: More economically left, more "populist", less "respectable" white collar/yuppie, split on guns. More union presence an less Activists thanks to nothing like the Mcgovern commision reforms.
Republicans: More socially big tent, significantly to the economic "left" of our GOP, less blatantly RELIGIOUS even if still overall conservatives, gained a right-populist wing after the 70s and 80s thanks to former wallacites[1], less southern foxused.
Less polarized, more swing states than OTL.
[1] No attempted assasination or ending up in the wheelchair means the AIP sticks around longer as a party.
HHH's successor Muskie loses to a tanned, fit and rested Nixon in 1980. Nixon's goatee is often cited as what helped propel him to the top. You get a Gaullist/tory type GOP with Nixon and whatever literally who tier in OTL GOP representative/senator succeeds him in 1989. Probably another moderate if obviously left-leaning dem and not OTL's rockefeller republican in democrat clothes clintonites in 1996. Odds are the GOP wins again in 2000 thanks to a stronger coalition -- no religious right, more of a working class vote, bigger nonwhite presence in GOP due to differences in coalition
My guess is various things like timing of recessions means you'd likely see democrats in office 2009-2017 and the republicans winning in 2016. Maybe a poorly timed recession means they lose in 2020 idk. Regardless they'd either be different spins/versions of OTL figures or people who are deeply obscure in OTL.
Democrats: More economically left, more "populist", less "respectable" white collar/yuppie, split on guns. More union presence an less Activists thanks to nothing like the Mcgovern commision reforms.
Republicans: More socially big tent, significantly to the economic "left" of our GOP, less blatantly RELIGIOUS even if still overall conservatives, gained a right-populist wing after the 70s and 80s thanks to former wallacites[1], less southern foxused.
Less polarized, more swing states than OTL.
[1] No attempted assasination or ending up in the wheelchair means the AIP sticks around longer as a party.
I agree with this. I go back and forth on Nixon being the nominee in 1968 without the Vietnam War, but have leaned in recent years towards him still being the nominee. I'm not sure if RFK takes on an incumbent President, unless they are as weak as otl Gerald Ford. I'm skeptical he runs in 1972, after twelve years of the Democrats in the White House. In 1970, the Democrats could actually come within striking distance of losing Congress, which might help them over the medium and long term on the Congressional and State level. No Vietnam, No Watergate, and likely a better economy in the mid 1970's prevents the 1974 Wave.
With Reagan succeeding Johnson in ATL, it fulfills Johnson's real life early premonitions in 1966 that Reagan, or someone would like him, was primed to lead a Conservative backlash. But an earlier Reagan Presidency eliminates his demigod status. Another major change, if there's no Vietnam War, the New Left doesn't gain the traction it did, or at least as swiftly. Think a kinder gentler new left without the dark turn in the late 1960's. But there's still a backlash regardless.
If the momentum of the New Left is blunted, that would make the Democrats more viable nationally.
To my understanding RFK was originally planning to run for President in 1972, but Vietnam convinced him to run in 1968.
Without Vietnam, I think Nixon may see an opening after the fall of Saigon and the rioting of the later 1960s helps to fuel a backlash against Johnson. If Nixon does decide to wait for 1972, then Reagan may emerge as the 1968 nominee. LBJ would paint him as Goldwater 2.0 and beat him.
Humphrey died of cancer in 1978. Was LBJ really that keen on running again in 1968?
He made it as far as the New Hampshire primary, and only withdrew after his relatively weak showing there. I am not sure why he would have entered the primaries if he had not intended to run again.
Without the war, I do not see a man as power-hungry and egotistical as LBJ giving up the Presidency. He seemed to thrive in the Presidency before Vietnam became a US ground war, and I imagine that he continues to be a popular President sans Vietnam.
I wonder if Nixon, thinking that 1972 would be a better year than 1968, sits out another race and allows Reagan to take the fall against LBJ. I do not think that Nixon would have won in 1968 had there been no Vietnam War. Humphrey was actually leading Nixon in most polls prior to the Democratic Convention in August.
I know y'all switched tracks to South Vietnam being sacrified *during* the Johnson Administration (circa 1967), but what if it is in the first Eisenhower Administration, like stated in the OP?
Without stress from vietnam+experiencing OTL's 70s HHH doesn't get cancer. Well that and an Eisenhower-era butterfly prolly prvents it.
Law and order was a big issue in the 1968 Presidential election because of widespread and damaging race riots that had taken place across the USA in the two preceding years. Even without Vietnam, this might have been enough to ensure that Richard Nixon won, if only with a smaller majority.
Had Lyndon Johnson managed to hold on, it would have been with a narrow majority and his authority to govern would have been damaged.
Had Lyndon Johnson managed to hold on, it would have been with a narrow majority and his authority to govern would have been damaged.
He hadn't so much entered them as not withdrawn. His vote in NH was entirely write-in
I think that tension is going to be lessoned with a stronger war on poverty since the US wouldnt have to pay for the war in vietnam
My bad. (I made this thread 4 years ago).
If it happens under Ike, hardly anyone would care. Some hawkish Democrats and conservative Republicans would complain, but the US was only involved in Vietnam to the point of sending a small number of advisors and bankrolling the French war effort. If Vietnam goes completely communist under Eisenhower, he can easily blame that on the French while asking his critics if they would like to take France's place as an imperial power in Vietnam. A man with Eisenhower's prestige would certainly have been able to do so, especially after he ended the Korean War. He is re-elected easily and Vietnam is no more than a footnote in the history of American foreign policy.
Not a problem. Also sounds like the perfect quit point for the USA. Doesn't have any cost in relations with France, but doesn't sink much extra US prestige in the endeavor.
If the pull-out is done in compliance with the Geneva Accords, involving two regroupment zones, free movement between them, and national elections, there will probably still be a lot of anti-communist and noncommunist refugees. Compared with OTL, many more of them would likely seek asylum in the French Empire and France (in addition to areas in Asia) rather than the USA.
I feel like people here are really underestimating how much more flexible LBJ would be with no Vietnam war to badger him down. vietnam BROKE LBJ psychologically and very quickly became LBJ’s main obsession rather than building on his great society programs? Here his sole existence would be to making sure his Great Poverty programs were to his full liking and securing a second term to make sure of it.
Also Nixon without Vietnam won’t have the luxury of running an Ideologically vague campaign about law and order and “peace with honor”. Here if he ran he’d be forced to take much more specific policy takes which would give his opponents from both his right (Reagan) and left (Rockefeller) in the Republican primary can hit him about. So even if he wins the primary he will probably have to pick a VP that’s too liberal for the Republican bases liking or pick a VP who’s too conservative for the working class vote’s liking. Either way he will be seen in a much more partisan way and not seen as the great unifer of the Republican Party that he was IRL.
LBJ would definitely bait Nixon into either having to praise LBJ’s most popular great society programs or criticizing them and pissing off the working class vote. Nixon will also probably be held to the fire to say more about what specific plans he has vote enforcing peace and plans on how to decrease black poverty which will no matter how he approaches these question be subject to ideological scrutiny from either side.
Reagan’s social conservatism will do well but his economic conservatism will allow LBJ to exploit it and make him seem too extreme to trust with the economically stable time of 1968.
And Rockefeller would have simply too academic of a campaign message on urban violence and wouldn’t be to capitalize on conservative backlash on things like the great society or urban chaos. LBJ I think would easily out-campaign him and lean into populism to attack Rockefeller’s privileged up-bringing compared to LBJ’s humble one.
So LBJ has a very good chance of repeating as president without Vietnam even if things aren’t perfect.
Also Nixon without Vietnam won’t have the luxury of running an Ideologically vague campaign about law and order and “peace with honor”. Here if he ran he’d be forced to take much more specific policy takes which would give his opponents from both his right (Reagan) and left (Rockefeller) in the Republican primary can hit him about. So even if he wins the primary he will probably have to pick a VP that’s too liberal for the Republican bases liking or pick a VP who’s too conservative for the working class vote’s liking. Either way he will be seen in a much more partisan way and not seen as the great unifer of the Republican Party that he was IRL.
LBJ would definitely bait Nixon into either having to praise LBJ’s most popular great society programs or criticizing them and pissing off the working class vote. Nixon will also probably be held to the fire to say more about what specific plans he has vote enforcing peace and plans on how to decrease black poverty which will no matter how he approaches these question be subject to ideological scrutiny from either side.
Reagan’s social conservatism will do well but his economic conservatism will allow LBJ to exploit it and make him seem too extreme to trust with the economically stable time of 1968.
And Rockefeller would have simply too academic of a campaign message on urban violence and wouldn’t be to capitalize on conservative backlash on things like the great society or urban chaos. LBJ I think would easily out-campaign him and lean into populism to attack Rockefeller’s privileged up-bringing compared to LBJ’s humble one.
So LBJ has a very good chance of repeating as president without Vietnam even if things aren’t perfect.
An alternate LBJ who oversees a more successful Great Society and wins a second term likely leaves office as a popular President. Without the four years of Vietnam followed by four years of self-destructive smoking and binge drinking, I could also see him living another 8-10 years.
A second Johnson term would be interesting. How much further could he push the Great Society? He would have the distinction of being in office during the moon landing. Nixon's more liberal programs (the EPA, the Clean Air Act, the Philadelphia Plan, etc) would be passed. Perhaps LBJ takes up the cause of universal health care? Nixon tried and failed to pass a universal basic income, I imagine that LBJ would have been successful had he tried. Moreover, being the second-longest serving President in US history (1963-1973, almost as long as FDR's 12 years) would be a huge ego boost to Johnson.
I think the 1972 election would be close either way. The economy was starting to become shaky from 1969-1970, and by then you had a public backlash against forced busing. Inflation would still be a problem if the money spent on Vietnam IOTL is spent on the Great Society. Humphrey would be able to run on the overall strong economy and the successes of the JFK/LBJ years, but the Republicans would have advantages like party fatigue and the increasingly conservative mood of the country in the 1970s.