DBWI: Reagan Isn't Assasinated?

On March 30, 1981, a scant few months into his term, President Reagan was shot multiple times by John Hinckley Jr outside of the Washington Hilton Hotel, severely injuring the President among others. Though rushed to emergency surgery, the President died a few hours later and President Bush was sworn into office.

But what if this event did not occur as it did? What if Hinckley failed, whether by missing the President or having the injuried not prove fatal? How would the Reagan administration and the last 30 or so years have gone?

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OOC: Try to avoid "Magic Jesus Superman Reagan".
 
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Perhaps West and East Germany would be united as one Germany. Reagan might have been able to accomplish that.
 
President Reagan and Pope John Paul II being shot to death in the same year was a field day for the USSR.

I imagine with Reagan living we would see a stronger Afghanistan resistance to Soviet forces with more US aid going to the resistance forces.
 
Nah, I think that if we was elected he would have brought peace rather than war. He believed in peace through strength.

Anyway with the USSR's collapse in 1992 it doesn't matter; WWIII never happened anyway.
 
Nah, I think that if we was elected he would have brought peace rather than war. He believed in peace through strength.

Anyway with the USSR's collapse in 1992 it doesn't matter; WWIII never happened anyway.

Yes, but with Reagan in charge, they would have been constantly hammered with the threat of nuclear war. The man was nearly John Birch Society in his beliefs (in fact, the Birchers were some of his earliest supporters). If he had managed to somehow eke out two terms, then I'm seeing even odds that he would have let the nukes fly over some imagined slight or slights.

Also, while Bush was no great shakes, at least he got rid of James Watt under pressure from the moderates. I can see our entire national parks system being sold off as a cost-cutting measure to fund Reagan's dreams of an American Empire.
 
Nah, I think that if we was elected he would have brought peace rather than war. He believed in peace through strength.

Anyway with the USSR's collapse in 1992 it doesn't matter; WWIII never happened anyway.

Trying to win peace through strength can be counter-productive Moscow can easily justify some further arms spending and will act far more aggressively to crush unrest in the Eastern Bloc if faced with a more belligerent US.


Collapse when did that happen dear fellow?

Without a more reformist minded-leadership, there's no possibly of any weaking of the police state apparatus North Korea would collpse before the USSR will

Also with the accession Viktor Grishin and then Yegor Ligachev in 1992 has pushed the radical reformists into the sidelines.Modest reforms first advocated by Andropov before his death in 1984 (My idea here is no pressure on the USSR during Reagan's early years will allow Andropov to live a year longer) have paid some dividends, mostly due to the CPSU allowing an increase in private production in agriculture has solved a lot of the USSR’s food problems.It would seem the worst ofthe USSR's stagnation is overand GDP growth is up.


Bush through called a weakling has handled the situation in Central America far more delicately than Reagan could have due to his background in intelligence services and less-ideologically driven polices.He also had the foresight to see that arming a bunch of wabbiite doomsday cultists could backfire in the long-term. Afghanistan is a backwater and even through the worst of the fighting is over the Soviets have still had to keep large garrisons there, send aid to prop up the goverment in Kabul.
 
An aggressive arms race would have bankrupt the Soviet Union and caused it to collapse earlier than it did. If the US completely and overwhelmingly overshadowed Moscow, we would be in a dominant world position without the communist threat.
 
I can see our entire national parks system being sold off as a cost-cutting measure to fund Reagan's dreams of an American Empire.


"A tree is a tree. How many more do you need to look at?"

-Ronald Reagan, as governor of California.
 
Given that Reagan was devoted to slashing taxes and spending, we might have avoided that 1993 economic recession under Bush's second term.
 
Well, the work of President John Glenn (D-OH) and Vice-President Chalie Wilson (D-TX) proved that Democrats could be strong anti-Communists, contrary to what the Republicans would lead you to believe. The creation of the Ares Space Program, and its Mars landing, did more to restore American pride in the 1990s, after years of the Bush Doctrine. Certainly a Reagan administration would have done more to drag America into economic doldrums....
 
I think Reagan wanted to restore pre-Depression economics. While that may have led to a quick boom in the 80's, it would have led to corruption and worker abuse if it was anything like it was in the 20's, and I think by 1999 you could see a massive recession or depression on par with the Great one.
 
Breaking Tecumseh's curse?

Unlikely, to say the least. Even President Bush's son was assassinated when he took office in 2000.
 
Breaking Tecumseh's curse?

Unlikely, to say the least. Even President Bush's son was assassinated when he took office in 2000.

A tragic day to say the least. And I definitely think he would have done a sight better than President Rumsfeld did when he succeeded him (Jesus Christ, the man never met a country he didn't like to invade nor an economy he couldn't let slip. I doubt Bush would have gone into Iraq like that.)
 
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