User:Mister Sheen/Political Parties

A plan for an ATL, with the POD being the establishment of two other national-level political parties in the US in the early 20th Century – Theodore Roosevelt and Robert La Follette's Progressive Party; and Huey Long's Share Our Wealth Party. Remember that the GOP and the Dems had very different ideologies back then than they do now.

The Progressives split from the Republican Party, appealing to the left-wing faction of the GOP. They dominate in the Midwest, particularly Great Lake States such as Wisconsin, Minnesota (where they merged with the Farmer-Labor Party to form the PFL), and Illinois; as well as Washington State, Oregon, Hawaii and Washington DC. They also gained ground in major cities outside of their 'safe states', such as NYC, Boston, Miami and Las Vegas. The Progressive Party has historically been the most supportive of Civil Rights, especially for African Americans, non-Catholic minorities and Homosexuals.

The SOWP (colloquially "Soap") began with ideals of being a more radical, less conservative version of the Democratic Party. It was mostly responsible for the creation of Social Security, unemployment benefits, the pension system, and minimum wage increases. The Soaps have tended to focus on economic issues and avoid social issues (especially Racial, Religious and Homosexual Rights) due to vast splits in the views of the party membership. Founder Huey Long was welcoming of all races and religions, and vocally denounced Adolf Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan; while his co-founders included a White Supremacist and a strongly anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi Catholic Priest.

Following a split with the SOWP and a loss of liberal members to the Progressives, the Democratic Party has effectively ceased to exist outside of the Southern States. However, other than SOWP strongholds of Louisiana and West Virginia, the Democrats enjoy an almost unchallenged rule in the South, except for occasional Republican wins in Virginia and North Carolina; Progressive wins in Oklahoma; and SOWP wins in West Texas. Support for a strong federal government, workers' rights and anti-Corporatism has made the party popular among working class people across the country, but as they contend with the Progressives and SOWPs for the "poor vote" (and the Democrats' support is almost entirely comprised of WASPs), they rarely gain a significant foothold outside of the South.

Being the only fiscally conservative major party has been both a blessing and a curse to the GOP. On the one hand, they receive the entire fiscal conservative vote, while the fiscally liberal voters are split between three different parties. On the other, any attempt to pass fiscal legislature is faced with opposition from all sides. They also won many moderate votes during the Civil Rights era, as they were the least volatile of the major parties (though Republican President Eisenhower did deploy troops against White Supremacists in the 1950s).

Tables of common Racial and Religious party alignment
An asterisk (*) indicates that the party is particularly emphatic of this response.