Maybe Scorsese does a more straightforward, pious version of the life of Christ than "Last Temptation." After that I think his career would pretty much be the same. Though Cape Fear not getting made would have important ripple effects because it was a deal between Scorsese and Spielberg that got Schindler's List made: Scorsese gave Spielberg the rights to Schindler's List, while in exchange Scorsese got to make Cape Fear. And it was the financial success of that film which allowed Scorsese to get the funding to make The Age of Innocence, and it was the financial disappointment of that film which contributed to Scorsese's desire to return to making mob movies with Casino.
AHC: Mondale wins in 1984
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Maybe Scorsese does a more straightforward, pious version of the life of Christ than "Last Temptation." After that I think his career would pretty much be the same. Though Cape Fear not getting made would have important ripple effects because it was a deal between Scorsese and Spielberg that got Schindler's List made: Scorsese gave Spielberg the rights to Schindler's List, while in exchange Scorsese got to make Cape Fear. And it was the financial success of that film which allowed Scorsese to get the funding to make The Age of Innocence, and it was the financial disappointment of that film which contributed to Scorsese's desire to return to making mob movies with Casino.
@Amadeus
Just to clarify, do you mean that Spielberg was originally planning to make Cape Fear? If so, wow, I think he would do a pretty different version than what Scorsese did. No pedophiliac scenes, for one. Probably closer to what I assume is the tamer original film.
And yeah, Scorsese might do a less combustible but still innovative Jesus movie. I could actually envision a version of TLTOC where Christ is still tempted on the cross, but maybe in the form of an argument with Satan, possibly including hallucinations, but it is made clear throughout that he never leaves the cross.
Just to clarify, do you mean that Spielberg was originally planning to make Cape Fear? If so, wow, I think he would do a pretty different version than what Scorsese did. No pedophiliac scenes, for one. Probably closer to what I assume is the tamer original film.
And yeah, Scorsese might do a less combustible but still innovative Jesus movie. I could actually envision a version of TLTOC where Christ is still tempted on the cross, but maybe in the form of an argument with Satan, possibly including hallucinations, but it is made clear throughout that he never leaves the cross.
I don't remember if Spielberg was seriously planning on making Cape Fear but by the early 1990s he badly wanted to make Schindler's List, and at the same Scorsese held the film rights to the book by Thomas Keneally. Scorsese, IIRC, wanted to make a mainstream hit that would be a box office success so he traded Schindler's List for Cape Fear when Spielberg approached him. However, I do remember that when Spielberg was attached to direct Cape Fear he considered Bill Murray for Max Cady.
Even by election time in ‘84, unemployment still wasn’t great.
Sept. ‘84: 7.3% unemployment
Oct. ‘84: 7.4%
Nov. ‘84: 7.2%
First off, I think people in general don’t like things which smack of socialism.
But going a different route, Gary Hart gained a lot of traction basically talking about his own version of German industrial policy.
Plus, I think beating the drums on trade wars might also gain traction politically, but I’m much less sure whether it’s good public policy.
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POD: John Hinckley has a friend. He still struggles with schizophrenia, but he stays just a little more connected to reality and does not attempt to assassinate President Reagan.
—> Pres. Reagan showed a lot of grace under pressure and endeared himself to the American public following the assassination attempt.
As I understand, the average person with mental illness is less likely to commit a crime than the average member of the general public. And is actually more likely to be victimized themselves.
—> Pres. Reagan showed a lot of grace under pressure and endeared himself to the American public following the assassination attempt.
As I understand, the average person with mental illness is less likely to commit a crime than the average member of the general public. And is actually more likely to be victimized themselves.
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Not great, but falling quickly along with inflation. Reagan got reelected by a landslide for a reason.
That is not enough, certainly not with Mondale running. Frankly anyone short of Khomeini or Brezhnev would have beaten Carter's VP.
I think at best that would lead to Mondale carrying MA and RI while losing 47 out of 50 states.
And he certainly did make such a blunder.
On Sunday morning, Oct. 23, 1983, there was a suicide bombing at the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. This explosion and building collapse killed 220 marines, 3 Army soldiers, and 18 Navy sailors.
And also simultaneously, there was a suicide bombing at the French barracks which killed 58 French military personnel.
We had been slow on improving security from what had been a previous serious bombing in Beirut.
Then Reagan made at least two mistakes —
1. Reagan said we would not be intimidated and would stay the course. But in Feb. ‘84, we left Lebanon. Reagan used the term “redeployment.” It would be better if he had just said he had changed his mind or that circumstances changed too much. People see through a weasel word like “redeployment” 100 miles away.
2. Also in Feb., Reagan explained the slowness in beefing up security by comparing it to a kitchen remodeling taking longer than expected ? ! ?
Mondale also made a mistake saying that the Marines had died in vain. Ouch. It would have been so much better if he had said, they died keeping the peace, but maybe it didn’t have to be that way. And our POD might be that in one of the many, many conversations he held with advisors and fellow politicos, this topic had come up, and they go over different ways in which they can very much respect the 241 marines, soldiers, and sailors killed, but at the same time go after Reagan’s policy.
This came up during the Bush-Ferraro Vice-Presudential debate in which Bush claimed that Mondale had said the Marines died in shame.
And post-debate, Bush defended this saying that in vain and in shame are the same thing. They certainly are not.
Mondale demanded an apology, and said if he didn’t get it, he would bring up the topic at his one remaining debate with Reagan. But I’m remembering that Mondale didn’t really follow through in a super strong way, even though he was generally a damn good debater.
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This did not seem to have an impact on the election, probably because few people make their decision based upon the VP candidate and the VP debates don't command the same attention as presidential debates.
Now had President Bush said that in 1984, that would be a very different story. Bush 41 was a very good policymaker but a political bumbler.
Reagan is not magical, even if he was called the Teflon President.
I think a lot of it came from his grace under pressure following the assassination attempt. For example, it was reported in the news that he had said to Nancy, “Honey, I forgot to duck.”
It really shows that he has a good heart, that he’s brave in all the best ways.
In fact, I’d say the 1970s politically (blah period) ended on Monday, March 30, 1981 plus about two days for all this to be reported and for people to think it over. And then, we entered the more optimistic 1980s. And plus, I’d say political “decades” typically start late.
Yes, in the 1984 election, Reagan won all states except Minnesota and the District of Columbia. It was a huge Electoral College landslide. The popular vote was a much more modest 60 to 40 percent.
And we probably have plenty of things from our everyday lives and our locales which are 60-40. And enough experience to know that neither side is overwhelming.
I agree that very few people cast their vote based on who the VP nominee is.
I'm not so sure Reagan's assassination attempt was a major reason people voted for him-- if it was, I doubt high-profile Democrats like Mondale would jump in the race. To take a look at his approval numbers:
We can see that it spikes to ~70% in 1981, both because of the honeymoon period first-year Presidents enjoy and then the assassination attempt. But from there we can observe a near-straight decline, and by early 1983 Reagan's approval rating was in the high 30s. It was the economy that was really on everyone's mind, and as the economy recovered so did Reagan's approval rating. In fact, the trends are nearly identical:
(Compare recovery from the third quarter of 1982 to Reagan's approval rating; they largely grew, in spite of Beirut)
I'm actually surprised Reagan didn't win by a bigger margin, as unorthodox as that might be. He got a larger share of the electoral vote than Nixon in 1972, but failed to breach the 60% popular vote barrier despite being an overall more charismatic President-- and 1984 was actually less of a blowout than 1972, where McGovern failed to win a single county in nearly 20 states. I think he certainly could have done that if not for the screwups he made in foreign policy, the gaffes, and the (frankly) incompetent ship he ran in his first term.
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I've sometimes wondered to what extent the political impact of the barracks bombing was muted because it took place in Beirut, a city that was already a de facto war zone, and most people just lumped it in with all the other violence that was taking place there.
I'm a Canadian who follows US politics fairly closely, but I honestly don't know if the Beirut bombing existed as a discrete event in my mind, until Dan Rather grilling GHW Bush about it four or five years later(which did little to dampen Bush's electoral prospects, obviously).
Was it really one of those "I remember exactly where I was when I heard about..." sort of events? I know people will say that anything involving martyred soldiers will be scorched onto the public consciousness forever, but I think that might be more of a rhetorical trope than anything else.
I'm a Canadian who follows US politics fairly closely, but I honestly don't know if the Beirut bombing existed as a discrete event in my mind, until Dan Rather grilling GHW Bush about it four or five years later(which did little to dampen Bush's electoral prospects, obviously).
Was it really one of those "I remember exactly where I was when I heard about..." sort of events? I know people will say that anything involving martyred soldiers will be scorched onto the public consciousness forever, but I think that might be more of a rhetorical trope than anything else.
I don’t like this graph. It shows, “Percent Change from Proceeding Period,”
which means it’s blurring short-term changes such as if we’re in the Christmas upswing or not with longer-term baseline issues such as if we’re in recession or not.
It’s like ocean waves are being combined from different sources, sometimes amplifying and sometimes muting.
Meaning, it shows the situation as more, or less, dramatic than it really is.
I know it’s in Wikipedia and probably elsewhere as well:
Early 1980s recession - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
It’s just not my favorite.
————-
And, I really encourage people to take what I call ‘The Wiki Test.’
Test your tool every 6 months or so by looking up a topic you already know very well, and seeing how Wikipedia does.
I’ve been a Wikipedia contributor, and so I’ve seen how the sausage is made!
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Though in the past 76 years since Roosevelt dumped Wallace in favor of Truman, the VP pick has become increasingly important from Nixon, LBJ, Ford, Bush 41, Cheney, etc. (Cheney didn't become President but he exercised more policy influence than any other VP in history). So you would think that the VP pick would weigh more heavily on voters' minds.
This is a great point. Perhaps a Democratic Congress that held months of hearings, dragged it out, etc. and was far more politically motivated than it was IOTL could have elevated the issue to what it needed to be to damage Reagan. Also, IIRC, the first arm sales of Iran-Contra started shortly after the inauguration. Perhaps both of these foreign policy mistakes would be enough to make the race competitive. For Reagan to win, though, you have to do something about the economy. I actually think you need a POD that doesn't have Carter appoint Volker but instead having Reagan make the appointment. Then, Reagan would fall victim to his "shock" plan.
U.S. GDP growth rate
This graph is seasonally adjusted. Each quarter is compared to the same quarter a year previously.
And looking ahead to the 4% growth rate for the 1st quarter of 1986 — for a mature, advanced economy — this is about right and what we should be targeting.
You can go to this site and touch the graph and get read outs for particular quarters.
For example, at the depth of the recession, the negative growth for the 3rd quarter 1982 was “only” -2.6
This graph is seasonally adjusted. Each quarter is compared to the same quarter a year previously.
And looking ahead to the 4% growth rate for the 1st quarter of 1986 — for a mature, advanced economy — this is about right and what we should be targeting.
Real Gross Domestic Product
View the annual rate of economic output, or the inflation-adjusted value of all new goods and services produced by labor and property located in the U.S.
fred.stlouisfed.org
You can go to this site and touch the graph and get read outs for particular quarters.
For example, at the depth of the recession, the negative growth for the 3rd quarter 1982 was “only” -2.6
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In 1983, I was age 20 and a large university.
The only person I remember talking about the bombing of the Marine barracks was a woman several years older than me who was a right-winger involving in the Moonie organization CARP (Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles).
And then several years later with Iran-Contra, the only people I remember talking about it were my parents.
And years before, when I was 16 and our neighborhood got flooded, no one walked the neighborhood with a clipboard. I later decided people without insurance were embarrassed, and people with insurance didn’t want to brag and we’re also embarrassed in their own way. Talking with one dad, he was proud of how much work he was doing on his house himself. That was not the route my parents were going.
The end result was that people generally suffered privately.
And politically, it’s amazing how passive and un-informed people are. And the early predictions that the Internet would make us smarter haven’t exactly worked out!