AHC-Regan a disaster

This is a good way of doing it, but the question is, how are you going to get a more right wing, less polished, Reagan in 1976 to beat Carter in such an anti Republican year, 1976? Yes Carter almost lost to Ford, but I doubt Carter would take Reagan for granted the way he did Ford, plus it's a lot easier to attack Reagan than Ford, as you only had the pardon to use against Ford, with Reagan, you have calling Medicare socialized medicine, IRC, he said Social Security should be voluntary (more people would oppose an optional SS in 76 than they do now), his hawkishness, and you could even use Watergate against Reagan, as Reagan believed Nixon was innocent until the Smoking Gun came out.

You can have the guard not discover Watergate, and Nixon goes off scot-free. He leaves office as a popular president, and Reagan wins the Republican nomination and beats some other Democrat (Scoop Jackson, maybe?) in 1976 by a comfortable landslide.
 
He tripled US Federal debt in 8 years, that doesn't count as worse shape in your book?

Reagan was flawed, but plenty of Presidents from both parties(Obama, Bush, FDR) have used deficit spending of some form to stimulate the economy. Though maybe tax cuts weren't the best way to do it...
 
Reagan was flawed, but plenty of Presidents from both parties(Obama, Bush, FDR) have used deficit spending of some form to stimulate the economy. Though maybe tax cuts weren't the best way to do it...

Of course, but they used that deficit money to pay for their relief programs. Reagan just used them to pay for tax cuts, of all things.
 
In 1976 Reagan defeats carter. by 1980 there is 12 years of republican rule. that may make all the diffence in the world.

This is a good way of doing it, but the question is, how are you going to get a more right wing, less polished, Reagan in 1976 to beat Carter in such an anti Republican year, 1976? Yes Carter almost lost to Ford, but I doubt Carter would take Reagan for granted the way he did Ford, plus it's a lot easier to attack Reagan than Ford, as you only had the pardon to use against Ford, with Reagan, you have calling Medicare socialized medicine, IRC, he said Social Security should be voluntary (more people would oppose an optional SS in 76 than they do now), his hawkishness, and you could even use Watergate against Reagan, as Reagan believed Nixon was innocent until the Smoking Gun came out.

Could Reagan accept the VP slot in 76???? The President dies and Reagan ascends to the Presidency, but somehow clusterfucks it up?
 
Could Reagan accept the VP slot in 76???? The President dies and Reagan ascends to the Presidency, but somehow clusterfucks it up?

He could, but I don't think he would, as he would have his eye on the nomination in 1980. Reagan, to me, seemed like a Presidency or nothing kind of guy in 1976.

In the timeline I've been working on, he wins the nomination in 1976 and loses pretty badly to Carter in the general, then declines to run in 1980 after the loss and for fear that he can't beat Ford in the primaries. After Ford wins the General election with Jack Kemp as his running mate, Kemp, not the President, gets assassinated by John Hinckley, and Ford picks Reagan to replace Kemp and Reagan accepts due to having nothing better to do and for the good of the party and country. A scenario like that is the only way I see Reagan taking the Vice Presidency.
 
Have Nixon choose him to replace Agnew as VP instead of Ford. Then, when Nixon resigns, Reagan has to deal with the same issues Ford faced IOTL.
 
Have Nixon choose him to replace Agnew as VP instead of Ford. Then, when Nixon resigns, Reagan has to deal with the same issues Ford faced IOTL.

Would the Democratic Senate confirm Reagan though? Would Nixon have the political capitol to pick him, and would Reagan decline to finish his last term as governor for the Vice Presidency?
 
At the risk of being repetitive being impeached for Iran Contra is all that would be necessary for him to be seen as a disaster. To summarize what I'm talking about this is a political scandal where:

1) The White House instructed the CIA to run guns to the Contras of Nicaragua

2) In spite of the fact that Congress explicitly forbade providing any sort of material support or aid to the Contras because they were a bunch of murderous sadists

3) And further sold weapons to Iran, who were much further up on the US shit list in 1985 than they are now, to fund all of this

4) When the proceeds of these highly illegal arms sales, facilitated originally by Israel of all people, were insufficient to meet the needs of propping up the Contras the CIA decided it would be a gas to dabble in trafficking crack cocaine at the same time as when Reagan was ramping up the Drug War and specifically targeting, you guessed it, crack cocaine.

5) Oh and as a cherry on the shit sundae said Contras were not, as Reagan liked to argue, heroic anti communist freedom fighters but a bunch of death squads who murdered nuns for fun and were fighting against the legally elected, but a touch too PINK, government of Nicaragua

We're talking a political scandal where the President of the United States signed off on selling weapons to an enemy of the United States to fund a bunch of death squads behind Congress' back barely a decade after Watergate and funded said weapons sales with illegal drug trafficking during the height of a crackdown on illegal drug trafficking all supervised by the CIA.

Because Congress told the White House it was not ok to prop up a bunch of murderers to bring down a legally elected government they didn't like.

That, in my opinion, makes Watergate look like a kid who got caught snooping on his neighbor's wife by comparison. At least Nixon's abuses of power were for an understandable, if unjustifiable, reason. Reagan's shenanigans in Iran Contra were purely to serve an ideological end regardless of the actual human cost or long term consequences with far reaching consequences on a domestic and global scale.
 
At the risk of being repetitive being impeached for Iran Contra is all that would be necessary for him to be seen as a disaster. To summarize what I'm talking about this is a political scandal where:

1) The White House instructed the CIA to run guns to the Contras of Nicaragua

2) In spite of the fact that Congress explicitly forbade providing any sort of material support or aid to the Contras because they were a bunch of murderous sadists

3) And further sold weapons to Iran, who were much further up on the US shit list in 1985 than they are now, to fund all of this

4) When the proceeds of these highly illegal arms sales, facilitated originally by Israel of all people, were insufficient to meet the needs of propping up the Contras the CIA decided it would be a gas to dabble in trafficking crack cocaine at the same time as when Reagan was ramping up the Drug War and specifically targeting, you guessed it, crack cocaine.

5) Oh and as a cherry on the shit sundae said Contras were not, as Reagan liked to argue, heroic anti communist freedom fighters but a bunch of death squads who murdered nuns for fun and were fighting against the legally elected, but a touch too PINK, government of Nicaragua

We're talking a political scandal where the President of the United States signed off on selling weapons to an enemy of the United States to fund a bunch of death squads behind Congress' back barely a decade after Watergate and funded said weapons sales with illegal drug trafficking during the height of a crackdown on illegal drug trafficking all supervised by the CIA.

Because Congress told the White House it was not ok to prop up a bunch of murderers to bring down a legally elected government they didn't like.

That, in my opinion, makes Watergate look like a kid who got caught snooping on his neighbor's wife by comparison. At least Nixon's abuses of power were for an understandable, if unjustifiable, reason. Reagan's shenanigans in Iran Contra were purely to serve an ideological end regardless of the actual human cost or long term consequences with far reaching consequences on a domestic and global scale.

You would need someone other than Tip O'Neil as the Democratic Speaker of the House to bring the articles of impeachment to the floor of the house, and even then someone else would fear bringing up the memories of Watergate. You need a smoking gun to come out as well, and unfortunately, there really wasn't one, and you also need Reagan to go the route of Nixon and illegally try to cover it up, instead of admitting that there was a weapons sale. Impeaching Reagan is possible, but the Democratic Party of the 1980s is not the GOP of the mid-late 1990s or the GOP of today.
 
Have Nixon choose him to replace Agnew as VP instead of Ford. Then, when Nixon resigns, Reagan has to deal with the same issues Ford faced IOTL.

Easier. Just have him beat Ford for the nomination and be elected in '76. He then faces all the challenges Carter did, and is robbed of some of the actually' competent people on his staff (Volcker, Bush).

He'd certainly fuck up the Iran crisis.
 
It should be pointed out that government revenues did not go down that much from his tax cuts, but we are getting off topic here. Assuming he is elected, what would it take for it to be a disaster for the country, not a problem for equality or long term problems, but a stronger soviet union, a worse off GDP, and loss of US prestige at home and abroad. Not about social issues, but from geopolitical and economic devastation.
 
I think Reagan somehow winning in '76 and presiding over the mess that Carter presided over (which is likely), or have Carter appoint someone less competent than Volker to the fed in 1979 and have Reagan still win in 1980 and have inflation still be high and the economy be weak going into 1984. These are the two most plausible ways to get a disaster of a Reagan Presidency.
 
I think Reagan somehow winning in '76 and presiding over the mess that Carter presided over (which is likely), or have Carter appoint someone less competent than Volker to the fed in 1979 and have Reagan still win in 1980 and have inflation still be high and the economy be weak going into 1984. These are the two most plausible ways to get a disaster of a Reagan Presidency.

If Nixon does not get caught, can Reagan win the 1976 nomination, or is Nixon going to handpick a more moderate guy?
 
If Nixon does not get caught, can Reagan win the 1976 nomination, or is Nixon going to handpick a more moderate guy?

I think Reagan winning is plausible even if Nixon tries to push a more moderate candidate, scratch that Reagan winning the nomination in a 1976 without Watergate is pretty likely considering, according to many sources, Nixon wanted former Democrat turned Republican John Connolly to succeed him, if not Connolly, he begrudgingly wanted Rockefeller, who would be too liberal for the GOP of the 1970s. As for the general, it all depends on who the Democrats nominate (It won't be Carter, he owes his nomination and Presidency to Watergate), if Reagan can keep his more fringe positions hush, hush (or at least spin them the right way), and the economy, which while weak, was beginning to recover in 1976.
 
This is a good way of doing it, but the question is, how are you going to get a more right wing, less polished, Reagan in 1976 to beat Carter in such an anti Republican year, 1976?
Get a weaker Democrat nominated than Carter; get some northern liberal who will lose the South to Reagan without being able to make up for it in the North or West. Ted Kennedy decides to run maybe?
 
Get a weaker Democrat nominated than Carter; get some northern liberal who will lose the South to Reagan without being able to make up for it in the North or West. Ted Kennedy decides to run maybe?

I didn't think of that, and it would be the best way to get Reagan in, but what would get Ted to run? It was his disappointment in Carter that got him to run in 1980 and even then, he couldn't say why he wanted to be President and what he would do.
 
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