Challenge: Make Reagan's Presidency Libertarian

The thought hit me last night but I wasn't near a computer. Let's assume that Reagan wins in 1980 as a Republican but includes a vast majority of the tenets of the Libertarian philosophy into his governance. Many Goldwater types hoped for this. Let's even assume Ron Paul is the Vice-President. Yes this is a long shot, but let's have some fun with this. Reagan gives the political middle finger to the neo-cons and doesn't engage in a war on drugs, doesn't get involved with the contras, doesn't send troops to Lebanon. What other things would happen differently? How would this transform the Republican Party? Would it transform it at all or would he just alienate the Nixon types who want to wage the war on drugs and get the U.S. involved as a global police force? What would need to happen during the terms prior to Reagan's first term to cause him to go Libertarian but keep the Republican name? Would he get a second term? Butterfly this however you like. Have fun. Be creative.
 

GarethC

Donor
The thought hit me last night but I wasn't near a computer. Let's assume that Reagan wins in 1980 as a Republican but includes a vast majority of the tenets of the Libertarian philosophy into his governance. Many Goldwater types hoped for this. Let's even assume Ron Paul is the Vice-President. Yes this is a long shot, but let's have some fun with this. Reagan gives the political middle finger to the neo-cons and doesn't engage in a war on drugs, doesn't get involved with the contras, doesn't send troops to Lebanon. What other things would happen differently? How would this transform the Republican Party? Would it transform it at all or would he just alienate the Nixon types who want to wage the war on drugs and get the U.S. involved as a global police force? What would need to happen during the terms prior to Reagan's first term to cause him to go Libertarian but keep the Republican name? Would he get a second term? Butterfly this however you like. Have fun. Be creative.

Random thoughts -

El Salvador - the leftist FMLN wins the civil war.
Nicaraugua - the Sandinistas stay in power.
Honduras has a horrible civil war.
Pinochet is ousted in another civil war in Chile.

The US does not deploy Pershing or Tomahawk nuclear missiles to Europe; Green/antiwar movements do not enjoy the success they received OTL in a backlash to that. Particularly West Germany sees this but I have to go and research any butterflies.

Also in Britain the Labour Party may not embrace unilateral disarmament; although the Thatcher government is unassailable after the Falklands conflict, the Conservatives may not see a victory under Major later.

Reagan does not run for a second term, citing ill-health, although it's in no small part because it's pretty clear that the RNC has many many people and donors who are finding the failure of the Monroe doctrine as toxic as they did Carter's disengagement from support of the Shah of Iran.
 
Reagan may mention AIDS sooner...

Well, from a strictly libertarian perspective, the government has no obligation to deal with AIDS. So, if anything, Reagan, if he were a true libertarian, would probably have been even less likely to mention it.

But I suppose that a libertarian president wouldn't pander to the religious-right, so he MIGHT mention it, just sort of as good-advice to the public("AIDS is a problem these days, so you need to be careful"), without it meaning anything in terms of what his government would actually do.

A few other things...

-No raising of the drinking age via highway funds.

-No Meese Commission to menace the pornography industry.

-No support for prayer-in-school. Greater adherence to 1st Amendment purity in general.

-No enforcement by the Justice Department of whatever law was used to keep "dangerous" ideologues from coming to America and giving speeches. I wanna say McCann-Warren, but I don't think that was it.

-Abortion would depend of whether Reagan regarded the fetus, or the woman, as possesing the over-riding individual rights in the equation. Assuming he thought the woman's rights were paramount, no attempt to put Bork on the court.

A caveat to all this would be that, if Reagan were a de-centralizer in addition to being a libertarian(like I think Ron Paul is) his devotion to state or local autonomy might over-ride his devotion to individual rights. For example, if he thought that the First Amendment could not be extended to the local level(since it specifies "congress shall make no"), he'd leave local districts free to implement school prayer or regulate pornography as they saw fit.
 
I doubt Ron Paul would be picked, for various reasons. For your purposes, may I suggest Barry Goldwater, Jr. as Reagan's running mate?

Anyway, perhaps a point of divergence could be that a desperate Carter campaign decides to heavily focus on Reagan's previous support for abortion legislation as his opposition to California's Briggs Initiative (which would have banned gays from being teachers), in order to undercut Reagan's support from working class voters. The GOP still wins, but without much of the South, which Reagan won only my small margins in real life anyway.
 
heavily focus on Reagan's previous support for abortion legislation as his opposition to California's Briggs Initiative (which would have banned gays from being teachers)

Good one. I actually thought about tying in the Briggs initiative myself, as well as the Milk/Moscone murders.

Problem is: Carter also opposed Briggs. However, as I recall from the documentary The Times Of Harvey Milk, his public opposition was neglibile indeed. I think he was getting ready to leave a stage in San Francisco, when an aide reminded him that he had to oppose Briggs, so he said something about how people should vote against it, and that was that.

So maybe...

Carter just innocently forgets to mention Briggs before leaving the stage. Later, his pollsters tell him that in doing so, he had ducked a bullet, because he's now free to court the religious-right by drawing attention to Reagan's opposition to Briggs.
 
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pnyckqx

Banned
The thought hit me last night but I wasn't near a computer. Let's assume that Reagan wins in 1980 as a Republican but includes a vast majority of the tenets of the Libertarian philosophy into his governance. Many Goldwater types hoped for this. Let's even assume Ron Paul is the Vice-President. Yes this is a long shot, but let's have some fun with this. Reagan gives the political middle finger to the neo-cons and doesn't engage in a war on drugs, doesn't get involved with the contras, doesn't send troops to Lebanon. What other things would happen differently? How would this transform the Republican Party? Would it transform it at all or would he just alienate the Nixon types who want to wage the war on drugs and get the U.S. involved as a global police force? What would need to happen during the terms prior to Reagan's first term to cause him to go Libertarian but keep the Republican name? Would he get a second term? Butterfly this however you like. Have fun. Be creative.
i'm probably the token Ron Paul supporter on this board, but the idea of him as Reagan's VP pick borders on ASB.

At this time, Paul had been defeated in a run for congress in 1974, won a 1976 special election, but lost the regular election in 1976. He regained his seat in 78.

He's an unknown, and even at this time was taking positions that alienated both the Republicans and the Democrats. The Republicans at this time still have nightmares about Spiro Agnew. They'd be wary of unknowns.

A better selection would be Barry Goldwater Jr.
 

Spengler

Banned
Random thoughts -

El Salvador - the leftist FMLN wins the civil war.
Nicaraugua - the Sandinistas stay in power.
Honduras has a horrible civil war.
Pinochet is ousted in another civil war in Chile.

The US does not deploy Pershing or Tomahawk nuclear missiles to Europe; Green/antiwar movements do not enjoy the success they received OTL in a backlash to that. Particularly West Germany sees this but I have to go and research any butterflies.

Also in Britain the Labour Party may not embrace unilateral disarmament; although the Thatcher government is unassailable after the Falklands conflict, the Conservatives may not see a victory under Major later.

Reagan does not run for a second term, citing ill-health, although it's in no small part because it's pretty clear that the RNC has many many people and donors who are finding the failure of the Monroe doctrine as toxic as they did Carter's disengagement from support of the Shah of Iran.


This post basically sums up what would really happen.
 
This should be moved to ASB because this is extremely out of character of Ronald Reagan. Really, you need either Goldwater in the White House. Disregarding that Reagan was not a libertarian at all, the religious right made Reagan. He owed his career to them. Guys like Walter Knott and the Christian Anti-Communist League (of which Reagan was a frequent guest speaker) got his "A Time for Choosing" speech on TV.
 

pnyckqx

Banned
Is that a legal requirement or just tradition based on trying to seem more nationally well-rounded?
It's just tradition and politics. The idea is for the parties to provide regional balance to a ticket.

For all involved, good catch, i didn't see it.

If anybody could have pulled that off though, it would have been Reagan.

He could have just as easily pointed out that he grew up in Illinois and Iowa, while Goldwater grew up in Arizona, and that where they live now is not a great matter.

It's always possible in the political realm to polish a turd, no matter what the ideology. (not a comment reflecting on anyone mentioned in this thread.)
 
Is that a legal requirement or just tradition based on trying to seem more nationally well-rounded?
Both, but by 1980 it didn't mean much at all. In 2000, Dick Cheney bought a house in Wyoming after having lived in Texas during his Halliburton years.
 
Is that a legal requirement or just tradition based on trying to seem more nationally well-rounded?
There's a legal requirement that each elector has to vote for at least one candidate (President or Vice-President) not from his state. So, if both Reagan and Goldwater of California run, they can't both get support from California. Neither party wants to risk this, especially with such a large state.
 
Reagan will undoubtedly lose in 1984 in this ATL. Without spending massive amounts on the military (i.e. returning to Keynesianism), the economy will not recover in time and you're looking at President Mondale come January 1985.
 
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