Alternate History Ideas and Discussion

[Circle of Willis]

'Charles Dickinson Kills Andrew Jackson In Their Duel Instead'.

See here for context. Even IOTL, Dickinson still shot Jackson in the chest before he could retaliate, so not hard to imagine some ATL where Jackson actually does die from his wounds.

A blunted Jacksonian Democracy movement (and it certainly wouldn't be called that since Jackson isn't alive to lead it) to be sure. He wasn't critical to it I'd say - Martin Van Buren, Thomas Benton, etc. all contributed significantly in their own ways and some of the trends we associate with Jackson (like the populist sentiment driving the expansion of universal male suffrage & erosion of property/wealth limitations on the franchise, opposition to the 2nd Bank of the United States & support for free trade), predated and existed independently of him.

But without such a forceful and popular character to serve as their leader, the Jackson-less *Jacksonians will probably be less effective at ramming their agenda through. There's not much chance of holding back the surging tide of universal male suffrage (which was decided on the state level anyway, like even if Jackson wasn't around you would probably still have events like the Dorr Rebellion - and it's notable that while the populists were militarily defeated in that case, they won in the end anyway, since they scared the Rhode Island establishment into greatly relaxing the state's franchise restrictions). But the 2nd BUS might survive without Jackson's rabid fixation and dedication to killing it, for example.

'US South Remains Solidly Democratic'.

Ideally you'd somehow avoid the Great Depression and FDR's administration. That's where the black vote shifted dramatically away from the GOP toward the Dems (FDR received some 77% of the black vote in 1936, IIRC) and conflict between the Solid South & the Democratic establishment became increasingly likely (partly due to the latter starting to see value in locking down the black vote, but also partly due to economics - quite a few Southern Democrats, such as Harry Byrd Sr., Carter Glass & John Nance Garner, allied with the Republicans against FDR's economic hyper-interventionism).

The latest possible POD I can think of is the 1948 Democratic convention, maybe have Hubert Humphrey catch the flu before he can deliver the speech that persuaded a slim majority of delegates to vote in favor of the civil rights plank. This should be followed by the Republicans still passing civil rights legislation under Eisenhower, plus Nixon should win in 1960 (and preferably also 1964) and continue this course. Even if their civil rights acts aren't as dramatic & sweeping as LBJ's this should let the Republicans remain the 'party of civil rights' in popular perception, in particular African-Americans' perception, while the Democrats remain shackled to their Dixiecrat wing for much longer. Either way, IMO the likely end result: a more libertarian (fiscally conservative, socially moderate-to-liberal) GOP with broader minority support squaring off vs. a much more socially conservative and economically populistic Democratic Party whose electoral victories still depend on the Solid South + labor unions & 'white ethnics' (working-class Irish, Italians, Poles, etc.) in the north.

 

[Buba]

(FDR received some 77% of the black vote in 1936, IIRC)

And how much of that vote was from the South, and how much from the Democrat controlled northern cities?

 

[Circle of Willis]

And how much of that vote was from the South, and how much from the Democrat controlled northern cities?

Doesn't matter in the end. Southern blacks were also already gravitating en masse toward the Democrats due to the decline of the 'black and tan' Republicans who were in favor of civil rights; the ascendancy of the rival 'lily whites' who shat on the concept of civil rights because at best they had written off the black vote as a lost cause after Redemption, in order to appeal to Southern white voters; and Herbert Hoover personally backstabbing Booker T. Washington's (probably the single most important black Republican since Frederick Douglass) successor at Tuskegee, Robert Moton, by promising him great influence in a then-hypothetical Hoover administration in exchange for covering up a scandal that could've tanked black support for the GOP in 1928 (Southern blacks were screwed over by the handling of relief efforts after the Great Mississippi Flood of '27, which Hoover oversaw) only to then not actually deliver, causing him to defect to the Democrats.

In any case, Northern blacks' defections to the Democrats created pressure for the adoption of a pro-civil rights stance in the party, not only because they obviously faced discrimination in the North too but also because a lot of those Northern blacks were born in the South and moved up north in the Great Migration of the 20th century (and presumably did not generally approve of their relatives & friends back down there remaining under the yoke of Jim Crow). As to the relatives & friends who stayed home, by the time the civil rights movement was really starting to pop off they didn't bother trying to vote or organize for the GOP but instead formed their own rival factions to challenge the white supremacist Dixiecrats under the Democratic umbrella, so yeah.

 

[Zyobot]

*Big ol' snip.*

*Another big ol' snip.*

So, basically... A Brief History of Democratic Infighting? 'Cuz this kinda' confirms it for me, LOL.

 

[Zyobot]

'William McKinley Is Never Assassinated'.