Ellis MacVey
Donor
OOC Disclaimer: My Double-Blind scenarios have a history of confusing people, so I'll just put this here in case you don't know what's going on. This is a Double-Blind scenario (in this case a Double-Blind What If), a scenario from the perspective of a timeline where things went a different way asking what if things went the way they did in our timeline. I am aware that the Democratic Party, in our timeline, is the left wing US political party (well, at least if we're being generous) while the Republicans are the right wing political party. Now, with that out of the way, let's get on to the actual DBWI.
Okay, so I know it seems unlikely, as the Republican party is the party of Lincoln, the president who freed the slaves and received a letter of congratulations from Karl fucking Marx; and Roosevelt, the man famous for creating national parks, doing insane amounts of trust busting, being the only president to win three terms, and giving women the vote; but until about the mid-20th century the parties were divided mostly along regional and (where black people could get through the insane amount of voter suppression) racial lines, with the democrats being the party not only of wealthy southern aristocrats and religious fundamentalists but also of poor, rural working class southerners (Huey Long comes to mind), while the Republicans, though they were unquestionably the party of feminists, progressives, and anti-segregationists, were also the party of wealthy northern industrialists and big business.
Though admittedly a bit of a stretch, I could see a scenario where populists like the aforementioned Huey Long come to power in the south and try to form some unholy coalition with northern progressives based on an agreement to kick the whole "racial justice" can down the road a few decades, while once the progressive elements of this populist coalition start actually implementing racial justice, the big business republican types try to use the opportunity to try and snatch up the votes of disillusioned white southerners. This wouldn't happen all at once, it'd be more of a ship of Theseus type deal, but we saw something similar (albeit to a lesser extent) with the more big-business Republican types gradually leaving the Republican party as the progressives became more and more influential, while the less reactionary economically-populist democrats joined the Republican party (though admittedly this was less impactful than the big business types leaving the Republicans).
So, what do you think would happen if the Republicans became the Liberal/Right party while the Democrats became the Progressive/Social Democratic party? How would this incredibly cursed world be different from ours? How do you think this change would occur?
Okay, so I know it seems unlikely, as the Republican party is the party of Lincoln, the president who freed the slaves and received a letter of congratulations from Karl fucking Marx; and Roosevelt, the man famous for creating national parks, doing insane amounts of trust busting, being the only president to win three terms, and giving women the vote; but until about the mid-20th century the parties were divided mostly along regional and (where black people could get through the insane amount of voter suppression) racial lines, with the democrats being the party not only of wealthy southern aristocrats and religious fundamentalists but also of poor, rural working class southerners (Huey Long comes to mind), while the Republicans, though they were unquestionably the party of feminists, progressives, and anti-segregationists, were also the party of wealthy northern industrialists and big business.
Though admittedly a bit of a stretch, I could see a scenario where populists like the aforementioned Huey Long come to power in the south and try to form some unholy coalition with northern progressives based on an agreement to kick the whole "racial justice" can down the road a few decades, while once the progressive elements of this populist coalition start actually implementing racial justice, the big business republican types try to use the opportunity to try and snatch up the votes of disillusioned white southerners. This wouldn't happen all at once, it'd be more of a ship of Theseus type deal, but we saw something similar (albeit to a lesser extent) with the more big-business Republican types gradually leaving the Republican party as the progressives became more and more influential, while the less reactionary economically-populist democrats joined the Republican party (though admittedly this was less impactful than the big business types leaving the Republicans).
So, what do you think would happen if the Republicans became the Liberal/Right party while the Democrats became the Progressive/Social Democratic party? How would this incredibly cursed world be different from ours? How do you think this change would occur?
