DBWI: If Nixon hadn't been shot?

I was just rifling through an old history book of mine out of curiosity, I happened to come across the assassination of Richard Nixon in 1974; this has always struck me as one of the more curious episodes of American history, as his killer, Sara Moore, was a virtual nobody who had no criminal history before that chilly day at the end of February. As a result, his VP, Jerry Ford, became President, and would win his own term in a narrow victory against Jimmy Carter/Lloyd Bentsen in 1976.....although the successor ticket of Ronald Reagan/George Wallace was knocked out in a total landslide, and the Republicans would only get one last President in(Lowell Weicker, from Conn., in 1988, and only for one term at that), before the new millenium started.

But what if Nixon hadn't died? Or if Sara Jane Moore hadn't gone to Chicago at all? Would Nixon have been impeached? And what of Jerry Ford? Would he have even run for President?
 
Nixon would have likely been impeached or resigned because of Watergate, which means Ford becomes President more or less on schedule still, without the sympathy support that he got through; Ford might lose to Carter in 1976 if Watergate is still at the forefront of people's minds.
 
Nixon would have likely been impeached or resigned because of Watergate, which means Ford becomes President more or less on schedule still, without the sympathy support that he got through; Ford might lose to Carter in 1976 if Watergate is still at the forefront of people's minds.

Which might have given us President Reagan, if the economy still bumps down in '77-'79 like it did IOTL.....:eek:

I mean, seriously, Walter Mondale had his faults, but he was a damn good statesman. And even Brezhnev recognized that: Gorbachev sure as hell did. Of course, I don't see the Soviet Union living too much longer under Reagan, if at all: they collapsed in April 1991 IOTL, but still, things might've been a little scarier than they were.

And what of the Religious Right? After Reagan failed to win in 1980, their apparent rise was stunted pretty badly, and they began to fall apart in the '90s. But what if they hadn't? IOTL, gay marriage was recognized by the states of Vermont and Hawa'ii in 1997, and nationwide by June 2009. But how long could this have been delayed? 10, 15 years maybe?
 
Last edited:
Without a Hippie killing the President, the backlash against them might not have been so vocal and immediate. Even now, it's still something of a slur to be called a hippie.

OOC: Why does everyone have Reagan and Wallace buddy up? Reagan hated Wallace and segregation, and I seriously doubt he or the GOP would appoint a Southern Democrat as VP just for laughs.
 
Without a Hippie killing the President, the backlash against them might not have been so vocal and immediate. Even now, it's still something of a slur to be called a hippie.
Of course, it's worth noting that Moore was also an FBI informant.

OOC: She was- though she was passing information on radical groups to the FBI, and vice versa- as well as reporting on both to Hearst.

https://books.google.com/books?id=-...onepage&q=sara jane moore worthington&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=e...pgdU#v=onepage&q=bert worthington fbi&f=false
 
Without a Hippie killing the President, the backlash against them might not have been so vocal and immediate. Even now, it's still something of a slur to be called a hippie.

OOC: Why does everyone have Reagan and Wallace buddy up? Reagan hated Wallace and segregation, and I seriously doubt he or the GOP would appoint a Southern Democrat as VP just for laughs.

OOC: I don't think Reagan was a fan of segregation either(no questions from me on that). With that said, though, 1974 to 1980 is 6 years worth of divergence, and quite a while as far as politics go. Wallace had already begun to back away from Jim Crow rhetoric IOTL, as it was-I was thinking Wallace might instead turn his focus towards something like foreign policy, or economics, while mellowing out socially.

IC: It may still be a slur amongst the more hardline conservatives, but most other folks have moved on by now, including most of my Republican relatives(except for a great uncle on my dad's side who's now gone full blown militia wacko).

OOC: Hey look, another DBWI thread that immediately writes the story to screw over Republicans. How original!

OOC: TBH, though, A Republican does win the 2000 & 2004 elections, and a fairly well liked one at that; and no, he's not a Bush. ;) Also, there's no Tea Party ITTL; Susan Collins is the current President Pro Tem of the Senate and is considered to be a significant front-runner for the 2016 elections.

Of course, it's worth noting that Moore was also an FBI informant.

OOC: She was- though she was passing information on radical groups to the FBI, and vice versa- as well as reporting on both to Hearst.

https://books.google.com/books?id=-...onepage&q=sara jane moore worthington&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=e...pgdU#v=onepage&q=bert worthington fbi&f=false

OOC: Oh, that's interesting-Not sure I ever knew about that, TBH. :eek:

IC: But with that, the revelation that Mrs. Moore was an informant, as quickly as it was hushed up afterwards, did convince President Ford to shoe in significant reforms of the F.B.I. during the latter half of the decade.
 
Nixon would have likely been impeached or resigned because of Watergate, which means Ford becomes President more or less on schedule still, without the sympathy support that he got through; Ford might lose to Carter in 1976 if Watergate is still at the forefront of people's minds.

the election of 76 was a poison pill to what ever party won the vote. Ford got the presidency he also had to deal with Iran's revolution, a crumbling and weak economy stagflation and another war between Egypt and Israel that came very close to going nuclear.

Ford was barely able to get a peace deal and his idea of a Palastinian buffer state ultimently made no one happy.

The Israelis lost the Sinai to the Palastinians, the Egyptions lost most of the Sinai to the new buffer state, and the Palasitians are still miffed about the population transfers.


By the end of it all with his failures both domestic and in the middle east ford lost and the democrats ended up owning the 80s.
 
Top