DBWI: Reagan becomes a Republican

Today, (former) Senator for California Ronald Reagan is probably best remembered for having led a contingent of conservative democrats in the Senate in the 70s and 80s.

However, for a brief period in the 1950s he seemed to be shifting towards becoming a full blown republican, even endorsing Eisenhower in the 52 election.

What if Reagan had become a republican?

I don't really know what the POD would be here, maybe Reagan forms a closer relationship with the Eisenhower camp, maybe his second-marriage doesn't fall apart, or maybe switches side after his failed governor of california bid as a democrat?

Do you think that Nixon would still face impeachment if the Republicans had someone as charismatic as Reagan on their bench?
 
He'd have less power as a Republican Senator in the perpetual minority, rather than as a Democrat butting heads with the Brown Administration. Could he have ended up somewhere other than the Senate? Well, he tried and failed for the Governorship, and I honestly can't see the Republican Eastern Establishment warming to him as a Presidential candidate.
 
I find it hard to see this, given Reagan's strong support for unions and his background as a union president. While Reagan was a "conservative" in the context of the 60s/70s/80s on the war and civil rights, what he really was was an old pro-union New Dealer and military hawk. It would take a much different Republican Party, one that had a tolerance for unions, for Reagan to jump parties. The GOP regularly called Reagan "George Meany's errand boy", such was their contempt for Reagan's work on behalf of labor. And it's not for nothing that the Ronald Reagan Freeway runs through downtown Detroit, a mark of the esteem in which he was held by labor when he retired in the mid-80s. To this day, one of the surefire applause lines at any union gathering is to make reference to Reagan.
 
Are we talking about Ronald "Democrat till I die" Reagan? I can really envision him ever joining the Republican party. Even if the party shifted massively to the right, you've got to get past Reagan's ties to the union movement, and then have the GOP's already crippled conservative wing decide he wasn't a lost cause.

Borderline ASB imo
 
This is asb, there's no way a conservative bible thumper like Reagan would ever join the Republicans.

Lets not forget the Republicans are and have always been the radical party of liberalism, from ending slavery to our first black president, and lets not forget about gay marriage, and ending the prohibition on marijuana.

Reagan, the man who launched the war on drugs, a Republican.

Only in some crazy parallel universe were they somehow became conservative. And for that too, you'd need to figure out how to get southerners to vote for Abraham Lincoln's party.

This is asb, this is as asb as if Donald Trump ran for president and won.

Which I read the other day he's actually considering doing in 2020.
 
This is asb, there's no way a conservative bible thumper like Reagan would ever join the Republicans.

Lets not forget the Republicans are and have always been the radical party of liberalism, from ending slavery to our first black president, and lets not forget about gay marriage, and ending the prohibition on marijuana.
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OOC: We're talking a POD in the 1950s here, long after the demise of radical progressive Republicans, and where the most you're going to get are of the Rockefeller/Eisenhower variety.
 

Anchises

Banned
Today, (former) Senator for California Ronald Reagan is probably best remembered for having led a contingent of conservative democrats in the Senate in the 70s and 80s.

However, for a brief period in the 1950s he seemed to be shifting towards becoming a full blown republican, even endorsing Eisenhower in the 52 election.

What if Reagan had become a republican?

I don't really know what the POD would be here, maybe Reagan forms a closer relationship with the Eisenhower camp, maybe his second-marriage doesn't fall apart, or maybe switches side after his failed governor of california bid as a democrat?

Do you think that Nixon would still face impeachment if the Republicans had someone as charismatic as Reagan on their bench?

I just don't see it happening. Sure Reagan often spearheaded bipartisan efforts to make sure that his more hawkish projects would succed, *cough, cough Afghanistan and Bin Laden*. However domestic policies matter. As others said, Reagan was a pro-Union and big government Senator.

As the leader of the small hawkish right of the Dems he worked perfectly. As a Republican he would have been one of many with a bunch of unpopular opinions. The Conservatives would have never accepted him and for the Moderates he was to hawkish. Reagan just realized early that he could have the biggest impact as leader of the Right Wing Dema, where his charisma allowed him exceptional bipartisan work.
 
I always liked Reagan, Always have. His political philosphy of goverment working to give everyone a decent shot and protecting American Morality and Values always struck home for me and his primary campagin aganst President Brown was bloody awesome, Even though he lost it did set the tone for how the party would go into the future.
 
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