DBWI: John Hinckley fails, 20 year curse broken...

One of the most well known 'curses' (although still not as well known as the Curse of the Bambino) is the Presidential curse that every president elected on a 20 year schedule starting with 1840 and William Henry Harrison has died in office through both natural and 'man made' causes.

IMO the easiest of these deaths to butterfly is Ronald Regan's on March 30 1981 since Hinckley only hit him with a ricochet through bad luck, that ricochet then having the monumentally bad luck of piercing Regan's heart, one inch one way or another and the president possibly has a chance of making it to the hospital before bleeding out, or not getting hit at all.

Regan was quite conservative, both fiscally and socially, and probably would be a major contrast to Bush's 8 years of the 'steady hand of moderate governance' (aka the blandocracy).

Of course the second easiest to butterfly is President Elect Dick Gephardt's plane surviving or avoiding the flock of geese on December 7, 2000 and probably averting the disaster that was the James McGreevy presidency...
 
One of the most well known 'curses' (although still not as well known as the Curse of the Bambino) is the Presidential curse that every president elected on a 20 year schedule starting with 1840 and William Henry Harrison has died in office through both natural and 'man made' causes.

IMO the easiest of these deaths to butterfly is Ronald Regan's on March 30 1981 since Hinckley only hit him with a ricochet through bad luck, that ricochet then having the monumentally bad luck of piercing Regan's heart, one inch one way or another and the president possibly has a chance of making it to the hospital before bleeding out, or not getting hit at all.

Regan was quite conservative, both fiscally and socially, and probably would be a major contrast to Bush's 8 years of the 'steady hand of moderate governance' (aka the blandocracy).

Of course the second easiest to butterfly is President Elect Dick Gephardt's plane surviving or avoiding the flock of geese on December 7, 2000 and probably averting the disaster that was the James McGreevy presidency...

I don't think so. Consider that not hiking the payroll tax likes Bush ultimately did would have been political suicide (angry seniors), plus the reality that Reagan did have a prior history of tax hikes for example. Also consider Reagan had a pro-choice past, was divorced, and was close friends with gay rights activist and future American Atheists spokesman (!!) Rock Hudson. Can you see him allying with the Religious Right? On the other hand given his past opposition to Civil Rights legislation, 1980 speech in Neshoba County and close associations (e.g. Atwater, Ailes, Helms, etc.) it seems very likely Reagan would continue to antagonize the black community to a greater extent than Bush.

I could see a few divergences there. I'd imagine that Reagan would probably have maintained relations with South Africa much longer than Bush did. Can you imagine him calling South Africa "morally repugnant to all who believe in human liberty" or that "we cannot rest until apartheid is eliminated from South Africa"? And I don't see Reagan intervening in Somalia either given how unpopular that was with whites. And somehow something like his famous master stroke of appointing Chief Justice Clarence Thomas seems unlikely to me. Bizarrely, we could see a US where race tensions are worse than OTL but the American Right is less prone to appealing to fundamentalism under a hypothetical Reagan administration...
 
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This has been done to death on here (1), but here's what I think.

I can see Reagan being quite different from the Bush OTL presidency, for reasons outlined earlier. I imagine Reagan runs for a second term? He's 73 by 1984, but if the economy is booming like it did during that year OTL, Reagan beats Mondale, with a simelar margin to Bush's victory.

In 1988, does Bush run? and if he does, could he beat Cuomo?


Imho, Reagan living will probably mean the US today will be a bit less conservative than it is today, ironically. Think about how the religious right have used Reagan's image as an assasinated president to boost their popularity. Reagan living probably means he's moderately popular like Bush is OTL, but he won't be the beloved figure of conservativism he is seen as in riality.

(1) Ooc sorry, nothing personal-I can just see this cropping up a lot in a TL where Reagan is killed, so just saying it to be realistic.
 
For the most part I see a more conservative tack. It's possible the conservative faction takes over the Republicans in the North too.

I could see Reagan being more gung-ho, and he might actually be impeached for *Iran-Contra, unlike Bush who narrowly avoided it but popularity never really recovered until the 1990s. I could also see him getting intro trouble with his base if he tacks to the center like Bush did after the massive landslides to the Dems in 1982. Their lack of turnout in 1984 gave Gary Hart a much better chance of becoming President than he should have, given the economic recovery.
Can you see him allying with the Religious Right?

Reagan had ties to the emerging Religious Right since the early 1960s. There's a reason they're the only group that really remembers the William H. Harrison of the 20th Century.

Imho, Reagan living will probably mean the US today will be a bit less conservative than it is today, ironically. Think about how the religious right have used Reagan's image as an assasinated president to boost their popularity. Reagan living probably means he's moderately popular like Bush is OTL, but he won't be the beloved figure of conservativism he is seen as in riality.

But what does that really mean? After all, Johnson is the beloved figure of civil rights, but most people just see Vietnam. The Republicans aren't really ideological; they're the Party of Bush if anything.
 
Gun control if Reagan lived

Without the weight of President Reagan's death, the omnibus gun control law [OGC] would never have passed. A living Reagan = some new handgun control law, but no major new restrictions.
Without the OGC and doubling of the ATF, maybe American could have avoided that Waco Wackoo, the Ridge guy out West and those others. Without the OGC laws, what would have been item number one on Ok City bomber Tim McV's manifesto for his murderous actions.

Given Reagan's acting past, I agree with speechwriter Peggy N. that the ole Gip would have delivered a better Challenger Legacy speech than Bush.

Do any of you guys think Reagan could have come up with the Missile Defense Initiative? Did he even see the movie "Star Wars" whose name got tagged onto the MDI?
 
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