This is PoD generated by Jim McAuley over at SHWI. I was the only who ran with a lengthy response: Jim McCauley Dec 6 2005, 1:52 pm show options Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if From: "Jim McCauley" - Find messages by this author Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 11:52:50 -0700 Local...
www.alternatehistory.com
Bringing back an OLD one.
We don't see "what if LBJ dies in 1965" often. This one was quite interesting with Vietnam avoided and a quieter 1960s to 1970s in some ways. There's RFK, but he's portrayed as essentially a FDR/JFK/LBJ/HHH type democrat and not the more commonly seen new lefter in establishment clothes people think he was in many timelines. You even have Reagan running and losing twice in 72/76 -- I imagine the ATL implications of failing with "backlash" candidates 4x -- Goldwater, Nixon and Reagan's two failures mean a more divergent GOP than implied. You also have no McGovern commission in TTL without primary-related riots which means the two parties realign differently 1968-80 than OTL.
Paging
@raharris1973 to see if his opinion's changed on this. it has been 14+ years, or if he remembers more of his thoughts on the ATL's 1980s.
Thanks for bringing this up. This one was fun.
All things being equal, I think now I would say it's more likely than not that the Republicans would win at least one of the Presidential elections 68, 72 or 76. A 20 single-party White House monopoly, while not unprecedented, is rare (1932-1952, 1860-1884, 1800-1824). I'll admit the scenario was one of wish-fulfillment.
The wishes I was fulfilling were avoiding the Vietnam War, avoiding other Cold War deterioration or wars counted as "lost", and Democrats being more successful domestically.
While contrived and a stretch, I think the excuses I came up with for having the "backlash" Republican candidates lose weren't half bad. I also don't think I pegged RFK wrongly in terms of policy instincts. The 1970s were an evolving time and there may have been less binary opposition between FDR/JFK/LBJ/HHH type Democrats and a "new lefter in establishment clothes" than meets the eye.
First of all, being in establishment clothes helps bridge the gap. And what it took to be "New Left" in the late 60s/early 70s was different from what it took in later times. The way Bobby would have a different look and feel would be his fuller-throated endorsement of this being the time to give non-whites a fair shake. But abortion and gay rights and gun control were not yet party polarizing issues. I think he'd early on have a Cuomo-esque, personally-opposed, but it's the law attitude towards abortion following Roe v. Wade. I also see foreign policy hawkishness being a consistent bipartisan thing without the Vietnam War to expend America's appetite for intervention.
I still think in that period of the Cold War the US could have gotten 2 or 3 low-medium interventions or brushfire wars that could be called "wins" by some definition for less than the price of one Vietnam War.
I really didn't do any more imagination on the 1980s or the GOP over the long-haul than what I posted in the original. Picking out George HW Bush was, to a degree, my lack of imagination talking. Having the GOP win in 1980 was just it being their turn. I saw Bush as also being somebody considered more moderate than recently defeated candidates.
So, long story short, I didn't predict specific partisan realignments into later decades. I can't say they'd be the same, but I couldn't guarantee that they would not be convergent with the evolution of the parties' demographic bases of support in OTL.
Going back to even prior discussions, the fella I referenced, Jim McAuley on SHWI, anticipated a cause of GOP victory by '72 or '76 at the very latest would be backlash against Humphrey's more liberal Supreme Court picks and that court's decisions. He didn't get into the specific decisions, but he assumed they would be out of step with public opinion. I would nickname that the "Dirty Harry Callahan" theory of politics.
