WI: Goldwater won in 1964

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Any scandal severe enuf to cause LBJ to even be in danger of losing in 1964 would've seem him either stepping aside for HHH or being booted from the ticket. There is no credible way to have Goldwater win with just a single point of departure from the events of our timeline.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Let's say some scandal sinks Lyndon and Goldwater wins as a result. What do the rest of the 1960s look like?

Then RFK, would have won CA in 1968, and certainly been elected president and MLK would have survived.  The Vietnam protests sparked anarchy and caused the useless deaths of those politicans.  Against Lyndon Baines Johnson.

The country would have turned against Goldwater and the religious right and RFK and MLK would have been heros, of course.

> Goldwater
> Religious Right

Pick one.

Goldwater was instrumental in bringing the religious right into the GOP coalition. Of course, he realized his mistake once the tail started wagging the dog, but that was at least another decade down the line.

How? I thought it was Nixon in 1968 and 1972 and Reagan in 1976 and 1980 who brought the religious right into the GOP.

To a large extent, the "religious right" was a successful rebranding of what social conservatism meant away from being about the defense of white power. Social conservatism had traditionally been part of the Democratic coalition. By being willing to accept social conservatives into the fold before they had managed to shed their segregationist image, Goldwater a part of helping to bring the social conservatives into the GOP. But that wasn't just because of Goldwater, Nixon, and Reagan pulling them into the GOP, but LBJ, McGovern, and Mondale helping to push them out. If Carter had managed to have a successful presidency, I think that rather than being solidly part of the GOP, the religious right would have ended up being a swing constituency. But for many reasons that wasn't to be.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

He would have abolished Medicare & Medicaid
No war on poverty
He would have switched to a Flat Tax
No Immigration Act 1965
He would have balanced the Budget


Barry Goldwater would have been one of the greatest Presidents in US History.

Leaving aside the doubtfulness of any President having a balanced budget while intensifying our involvement in Vietnam, the first four points are grounds to conclude he would've been one of our worst.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

To a large extent, the "religious right" was a successful rebranding of what social conservatism meant away from being about the defense of white power. Social conservatism had traditionally been part of the Democratic coalition. By being willing to accept social conservatives into the fold before they had managed to shed their segregationist image, Goldwater a part of helping to bring the social conservatives into the GOP. But that wasn't just because of Goldwater, Nixon, and Reagan pulling them into the GOP, but LBJ, McGovern, and Mondale helping to push them out. If Carter had managed to have a successful presidency, I think that rather than being solidly part of the GOP, the religious right would have ended up being a swing constituency. But for many reasons that wasn't to be.

1. What do you mean by "social conservatism had traditionally been part of the Democratic coalition?" You seem to consider social conservatism as coincident with Jim Crow, which is very wrong.

2. I have a hard time imagining an organized Christian right (a group composed mainly of White evangelical Protestants) buying in large numbers into a party that sells liberal economics. And even if it had happened, I believe that in contemporary times the pull of social issues* would have pushed many of these religious conservatives in the Republican Party sooner or later.

*expression I am using very broadly here

I'm using the term "social conservative" in its literal sense, not as part of some political spectrum.  A social conservative in the literal sense is someone who wants to retain the traditional social order.  In the 1950s and 1960s, that included "defending white power".

The Christian right didn't particularly become politically organized until the 1970s.  Indeed, until them it would be very wrong to equate "social conservatism" as equivalent to the "Christian right".

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

He would have abolished Medicare & Medicaid
No war on poverty
He would have switched to a Flat Tax
No Immigration Act 1965
He would have balanced the Budget


Barry Goldwater would have been one of the greatest Presidents in US History.

Leaving aside the doubtfulness of any President having a balanced budget while intensifying our involvement in Vietnam, the first four points are grounds to conclude he would've been one of our worst.

I don't agree with you on the Vietnam war.
Most disastrous wars happened under Democrats or Neocon Republicans.
Barry Goldwater was a true Conservative!

I told Johnson and old colleagues on Capitol Hill that we had two clear choices. Either win the [Vietnam] war in a relatively short time, say within a year, or pull out all our troops and come home.

Barry M. Goldwater with Jack Casserly, Goldwater (Doubleday, 1988), p. 222

Do you seriously think LBJ intended to have Vietnam drag on? About the only military options LBJ didn't pursue were the use of nuclear weapons as Goldwater himself suggested he'd be willing to consider and an invasion of North Vietnam. I don't see either working as desired, and as we've repeatedly seen the past few decades, it's easier to say we'll pull out than to pull out.  Bellus interruptus has proven to be even less effective a method of war control than coitus interruptus has as birth control.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Let's say some scandal sinks Lyndon and Goldwater wins as a result. What do the rest of the 1960s look like?

Then RFK, would have won CA in 1968, and certainly been elected president and MLK would have survived.  The Vietnam protests sparked anarchy and caused the useless deaths of those politicans.  Against Lyndon Baines Johnson.

The country would have turned against Goldwater and the religious right and RFK and MLK would have been heros, of course.

> Goldwater
> Religious Right

Pick one.

Goldwater was instrumental in bringing the religious right into the GOP coalition. Of course, he realized his mistake once the tail started wagging the dog, but that was at least another decade down the line.

How? I thought it was Nixon in 1968 and 1972 and Reagan in 1976 and 1980 who brought the religious right into the GOP.

To a large extent, the "religious right" was a successful rebranding of what social conservatism meant away from being about the defense of white power. Social conservatism had traditionally been part of the Democratic coalition. By being willing to accept social conservatives into the fold before they had managed to shed their segregationist image, Goldwater a part of helping to bring the social conservatives into the GOP. But that wasn't just because of Goldwater, Nixon, and Reagan pulling them into the GOP, but LBJ, McGovern, and Mondale helping to push them out. If Carter had managed to have a successful presidency, I think that rather than being solidly part of the GOP, the religious right would have ended up being a swing constituency. But for many reasons that wasn't to be.

One could argue that the Religious Right have always been linked with white supremacy, and instead were an attempt to present it more subtilely in a post-Jim Crow world. Jerry Falwell’s first political campaign was an unsuccessful attempt to stop desegregation of private Christian academies in the South.

To say that social conservatism had traditionally been a part of the Democratic coalition before the Religious Right is misleading. At any rate outside of the South the Democrats had overall been somewhat more socially liberal than the Republicans for a while before, to the extent that social conservatism even mattered much.

There really wasn't a Religious Right before Falwell et al. In the period before him, that segment of the populace generally wasn't trying to cloak their politics in religion.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Let's say some scandal sinks Lyndon and Goldwater wins as a result. What do the rest of the 1960s look like?

Then RFK, would have won CA in 1968, and certainly been elected president and MLK would have survived.  The Vietnam protests sparked anarchy and caused the useless deaths of those politicans.  Against Lyndon Baines Johnson.

The country would have turned against Goldwater and the religious right and RFK and MLK would have been heros, of course.

> Goldwater
> Religious Right

Pick one.

Goldwater was instrumental in bringing the religious right into the GOP coalition. Of course, he realized his mistake once the tail started wagging the dog, but that was at least another decade down the line.

How? I thought it was Nixon in 1968 and 1972 and Reagan in 1976 and 1980 who brought the religious right into the GOP.

To a large extent, the "religious right" was a successful rebranding of what social conservatism meant away from being about the defense of white power. Social conservatism had traditionally been part of the Democratic coalition. By being willing to accept social conservatives into the fold before they had managed to shed their segregationist image, Goldwater a part of helping to bring the social conservatives into the GOP. But that wasn't just because of Goldwater, Nixon, and Reagan pulling them into the GOP, but LBJ, McGovern, and Mondale helping to push them out. If Carter had managed to have a successful presidency, I think that rather than being solidly part of the GOP, the religious right would have ended up being a swing constituency. But for many reasons that wasn't to be.

One could argue that the Religious Right have always been linked with white supremacy, and instead were an attempt to present it more subtilely in a post-Jim Crow world. Jerry Falwell’s first political campaign was an unsuccessful attempt to stop desegregation of private Christian academies in the South.

To say that social conservatism had traditionally been a part of the Democratic coalition before the Religious Right is misleading. At any rate outside of the South the Democrats had overall been somewhat more socially liberal than the Republicans for a while before, to the extent that social conservatism even mattered much.

There is a reason if Comstock laws took their name from a Republican and the Volstead Act took its name from a Republican.

And those were both considered progressive pieces of legislation at the time.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

To a large extent, the "religious right" was a successful rebranding of what social conservatism meant away from being about the defense of white power. Social conservatism had traditionally been part of the Democratic coalition. By being willing to accept social conservatives into the fold before they had managed to shed their segregationist image, Goldwater a part of helping to bring the social conservatives into the GOP. But that wasn't just because of Goldwater, Nixon, and Reagan pulling them into the GOP, but LBJ, McGovern, and Mondale helping to push them out. If Carter had managed to have a successful presidency, I think that rather than being solidly part of the GOP, the religious right would have ended up being a swing constituency. But for many reasons that wasn't to be.

One could argue that the Religious Right have always been linked with white supremacy, and instead were an attempt to present it more subtilely in a post-Jim Crow world. Jerry Falwell’s first political campaign was an unsuccessful attempt to stop desegregation of private Christian academies in the South.

To say that social conservatism had traditionally been a part of the Democratic coalition before the Religious Right is misleading. At any rate outside of the South the Democrats had overall been somewhat more socially liberal than the Republicans for a while before, to the extent that social conservatism even mattered much.

There is a reason if Comstock laws took their name from a Republican and the Volstead Act took its name from a Republican.

And those were both considered progressive pieces of legislation at the time.

Prohibition, yes. I don't think that Comstock laws were ever considered progressive.
Anyway, this should be an example of how "progressive" and "liberal" are not always the same thing.

Agreed. Indeed much of what in the U.S. is considered liberal today once would not have been, and still is not in much of the world.