LBJ doesn't win the Texas Democratic US Senate primary in 1948

WolfBear

Well-known member
What if future US President LBJ (Lyndon Baines Johnson) doesn't win the Texas Democratic US Senate primary in 1948? He only extremely narrowly won it in real life, and possibly only due to fraud:


This means that LBJ will never become a US Senator from Texas (rather, Coke Stevenson will get his seat instead), never become US Senate Majority and Minority Leader (he was both depending on whether the Democrats were a majority or a minority in the US Senate at a particular point in time), never become US Vice President, and never become US President either.

How exactly would all of this subsequently change things? @Skallagrim @History Learner @Zyobot @sillygoose @stevep @raharris1973
 

Atarlost

Well-known member
You don't view US politics without LBJ as an interesting scenario to discuss?
You post more of these one line what ifs in a month than anyone else posts new threads in a year. Maybe more than everyone else posts in a year.

If you don't have some of your own insights or at least insights from people not on the forum these don't need to be their own threads.
 

Agent23

Ни шагу назад!
LBJ was one of the most corrupt and disgusting creatures to inhabit a government office.
He had behind him some moronic FDR progressives that thought he was part of their group but he was mainly out for his own self-aggrandizement.

He pioneered much of the gifting and corruption the US congress is known for, had an extremely close relationship with the newborn MIC and used the FCC and other organs of the US government to build a media empire which he utilized to gain more political power.

He was a disgusting slimebag and I am sure that if he was around he'd find more ways to profit and climb up the greasy poll in his desperate bid for more power.

He was kinda obsessed with becoming president.

He also had a long family history of heart disease, to which he succumbed eventually, hopefully this makes him go into such a rage and such despair that nature, god or whatever other higher power you choose removes him from the realm of the living.

Things that will likely go better without the slimebag:

Slower politicization of US institutions.

Far less entanglements in foreign wars and MIC graft.

Less/no US involvement in Vietnam.

While he was in the US senate he blocked a number of civil rights and voting legislations to please some of the more conservative southerners, then he made a heel face turn and remarked that "I will have those N*****s voting Democrat for 200 years."

No bloated welfare state subsidizing a white professional class of Karen welfare bureaucrats and destroying the black family, maybe a postponed/smaller drug epidemic.

No/less massive inflation in the 1970s.

Less immigration from the 3rd world.

Hell, maybe even a better US space industry, since he was involved in forcing NASA to pay his buddies in the MIC more money for Apollo.

If there is one promoter of leftist big government and massive corruption to be erased from history it is him.

I think he is the reason we do not have Mars colonies and flying cars, and haven't cured cancer.

You post more of these one line what ifs in a month than anyone else posts new threads in a year. Maybe more than everyone else posts in a year.

If you don't have some of your own insights or at least insights from people not on the forum these don't need to be their own threads.
I think he is treating this place as the VS. forum.
 
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WolfBear

Well-known member
If you don't have some of your own insights or at least insights from people not on the forum these don't need to be their own threads.

Well, the reason that I hesitate to post them in the general Alternate History Discussion thread is that few people appear to view it there. Or at least much fewer than here. I could provide some commentary of my own in some of these scenarios, of course.

Here are JFK's other potential VP picks in 1960:


Out of the finalists, Stuart Symington seems like the best bet due to him being a Southerner. But out of the non-finalists, Leroy Collins and Ralph Yarborough were pretty good since the former was a Southern moderate whereas the latter was a Southern liberal.

JFK needed a Southerner to help him carry a lot of the South in 1960.
 

Agent23

Ни шагу назад!
Well, the reason that I hesitate to post them in the general Alternate History Discussion thread is that few people appear to view it there. Or at least much fewer than here. I could provide some commentary of my own in some of these scenarios, of course.

Here are JFK's other potential VP picks in 1960:


Out of the finalists, Stuart Symington seems like the best bet due to him being a Southerner. But out of the non-finalists, Leroy Collins and Ralph Yarborough were pretty good since the former was a Southern moderate whereas the latter was a Southern liberal.

JFK needed a Southerner to help him carry a lot of the South in 1960.
Without LBJ do you think that the Dixiecrats will be less strong and that Ike can push through more reforms?

If Ike gets to be the civil rights legislation president the Republicans will keep the black vote.They will also continue to hold the professional classes and a lot of the people who wanted much of the new deal nonsense removed, so on the strength of all that we might see Nixon, not JFK win.

A Nixon that was not massively embittered and jaded by some of the Kennedy brothers shenanigans might do a lot better.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
Without LBJ do you think that the Dixiecrats will be less strong and that Ike can push through more reforms?

If Ike gets to be the civil rights legislation president the Republicans will keep the black vote.They will also continue to hold the professional classes and a lot of the people who wanted much of the new deal nonsense removed, so on the strength of all that we might see Nixon, not JFK win.

A Nixon that was not massively embittered and jaded by some of the Kennedy brothers shenanigans might do a lot better.

I don't think that the lack of LBJ will have any bearing on the Dixiecrats since AFAIK LBJ wasn't one of them. He was one of the few Southern US Senators who refused to sign the Southern Manifesto, for instance:

 

Agent23

Ни шагу назад!
I don't think that the lack of LBJ will have any bearing on the Dixiecrats since AFAIK LBJ wasn't one of them. He was one of the few Southern US Senators who refused to sign the Southern Manifesto, for instance:

His grift was very much linked to pork barrel spending though, without it the Democrats should have considerably less power and that should cut into their support base.

He was also the Senate wip for a very long time, and that meant keeping his party in line and happy.
 

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