How could the Socialist Party have remained a force in US politics?

[Phony Moderate]

On a national scale it died out slowly after the death of Eugene Debs and the final nail in its coffin was the New Deal (which is somewhat ironic, as the purpose of the New Deal was to uphold the capitalist system).

So, what would have needed to happen differently in the first half of the 20th century for it to remain a force to be reckoned with?

[H. Ross Peron]

The same path as the European social democratic parties-have one of the two major US parties die out (reducing the Democrats to its Southern base seems the likeliest bet), with the Socialists replacing the.

[The Mikado]

The SPUSA couldn't remain a force in a world where the Bolshevik Revolution was a reality, something that put every self-proclaimed socialist in the USA under suspicion of working for a foreign power to suborn the US government (fair or not).  The "puppets of Moscow" stigma was the death knell of American socialism.

[Orser67]

The Great Depression was probably socialism's best chance, but Roosevelt's popular tenure and moderate reforms headed off a more extreme move towards socialism. Before that, the power of the progressive movement in both parties similarly helped prevent the rise of a popular socialist party.

I think the other problem socialism faced is that America has relatively strong party loyalties, thanks to first past the post and the national coalition needed to win the presidency. Three major parties have died in the US: one thanks to slavery (Whigs), one due to a lack of competition (Democratic-Republicans), and one for various reasons, but perhaps most prominently due to a limited appeal outside of one region (Federalists). So perhaps the best case scenario for socialists would be if the Democrats slowly died out as a national party, similar to the Federalists.

[The Mikado]

Again, though, the Socialist Party had the same twin fundamental problems the social-democratic parties in interwar Europe faced: external distrust due to fears of Soviet puppet strings over their heads and internal divisions with the factions that actually did have Soviet puppet strings over their heads.  In America like in the European countries, this led to a very acrimonious and bitter split between the SPUSA and the CPUSA, but unlike in other countries, the SPUSA wasn't yet big enough to survive on its own in the far more hostile climate of the 1920s, when, unlike the 1900s or early 1910s, they were now seen as the potential vanguard of a foreign enemy to the American lifestyle rather than an internal improvement movement.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It also had difficulties with a small and geographically very concentrated membership (mostly in NYC - and mostly in the secular Jewish community in NYC at that - and random places elsewhere, notably Milwaukee) which meant that there were large parts of the country where they had a lot of voters and more potential voters, but little in the way of an activist base to solidify this into longterm support. They could not get around this serious problem via the 'Labour Party' route as relations with the AFL were not fantastic. There was then the problem of factionalism, which was bad even for a socialist party.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

For anyone with a serious interest in the subject, Irving Howe's writings on it are worth seeking out.

[beaver2.0]

Maybe no WW1.

[justfollowingtheelections]

It's hard for third parties to remain a force in a two party system.

[politicus]

It's hard for third parties to remain a force in a two party system.

Unless you replace one of the two parties. So the question could be rephrased as: Why did the Socialist party fail to replace the Democratic party? (which has been partly answered earlier in this thread).