DBWI: Ronald Reagan Presidency Between 1969-1997

In OTL, the October Surprise during the US Presidential Election of 1972 were the leaking of a series of phone call recordings then-Governor of California Ronald Reagan made to then-President Richard Nixon, a subsequent call between Nixon and then-Secretary of State William Rogers, and a call between Nixon and Florida banker Bebe Rebozo. Nixon and Reagan held a press conference together in California wherein they offered non-apologies. The Surprise wasn't enough for President Nixon to lose the election to Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, however, the election was closer than expected. Following the leak, the American public demanded more of Nixon's tape recordings be made available to the public, leading to a persisting crisis even before Nixon's term started.

Reagan had considered running for President in 1976, but refrained, hoping the outrage of the 1972 leak died down. When he ran for President in 1980 and was attacked for his record on race, he essentially shrugged it off and asked, "so what?" Former Ambassador George H. W. Bush declined his offer to be his vice presidential nominee, so he selected retiring Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania. He was leading unpopular President Jimmy Carter in the polls until an October Surprise of him and Nixon's racist rantings and against whoever leaked the 1972 tapes surfaced. Reagan offered another non-apology and asked America to "move on" from something he said a long time ago. In a close election, President Jimmy Carter defeated Reagan.

Reagan considered running for President again in 1984 and 1988, but in 1984, his defeat in 1980 was too recent in memory and in 1988, he did not want to primary challenge then-President Bush. He didn't run in 1992 because Vice President Bob Dole was running. In an inconceivable move, Reagan ran for President in 1996, but was defeated in the primary by Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who went on to be defeated by President Clinton. Between his runs as President of the United States, Reagan was elected Governor of California in 1986 and re-elected in 1990.

How would a Ronald Reagan Presidency have looked anytime between 1969 and 1997? Had he been elected in 1996 and re-elected in 2000, he would have died before completing his second term.
 
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OOC: Are we just handwaving Reagan's Alzheimer? If not then just must wonder why Republicans would run with totally senile man.
 
Well, the Republican Party would have probably moved to the right as the modern GOP's ideology nowadays is basically Christian Democracy combined with a hardline foreign policy.
 
Reagan was popularly considered a right-wing provocateur, and only really remained popular with Goldwater Republicans because of his experience as Governor and his pseudo-eloquent rhetoric. The October Surprise blemished his reputation to the point where the National Review washed his hands off him, some argue as early as the 1970s - and that's before Jack Kemp and the libertarian conservatives got on board with Bob Dole and Linda Chavez's "American Toryism".

If Reagan actually got elected, then he would likely empower a generation of similarly provocative, combative right-wingers, to likely detriment of moderates and liberals.
 
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It's known Reagan wasn't a fan of unionised labour - if he'd made President, he might have gone for anti-union legislation. He came down heavily on the side of big business during labour disputes in California, that much is for sure (though that ended up backfiring on him, especially after Bush publicly criticised him).

I mean, look at the Air Traffic Controllers' strike in 1981 - look at how Reagan fulminated publicly against President Carter's decision to grant PATCO's demands for a shorter working week and better retirement benefits. He came out and said he'd have fired all of the strikers - OK, that might have been hyperbole, but he definitely would have tried to break the strike. But Carter negotiated and ultimately agreed to their terms, which set the scene for the continued strength of unionised labour in the US up until the present day. And it pretty much guaranteed businesses were going to negotiate in labour disputes, not try strike-breaking methods.

Though some more Tory-ite economists have argued it wasn't great for business. Alan Greenspan claimed that it made private employers 'even more afraid' to hire and fire at will.
 
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OOC: Are we just handwaving Reagan's Alzheimer? If not then just must wonder why Republicans would run with totally senile man.
Well his Alzheimer's is partially what cost him the nomination in 1996. He was really good at hiding his Alzheimer's on the campaign trail and in public. The worst public moment for him was when on the debate stage, he couldn't recall which 'big government' agencies he sought to eliminate. He tried to spin it and be charming by saying, "Ronnie's youth and inexperience tells him too many need to be cut." When his poll numbers began to drop, he hedged his bets on four states: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.

John Danforth won the Iowa Caucus, Jack Kemp won the New Hampshire Primary, Lamar Alexander won the South Carolina Primary (Phil Gramm won a close second place), and John McCain won the Nevada Caucus (Reagan won a close second place.) Reagan's vice presidential nominee from 1980, Former Senator Richard Schweiker delivered Pennsylvania to him by a miraculous razor-thin margin (Kemp came in a close second.)

I wonder, how would Nancy Reagan have been as First Lady. When her diary was published posthumously, she seemed very self-righteous about her and Ronnie's agenda for America. How would drugs and STDs have gotten as bad as she wrote, when in OTL, they were contained easily? In the 1980s when crack cocaine was an addiction, she criticized Presidents Carter and Bush for not declaring a 'war on drugs.'
 
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I wonder, how would Nancy Reagan have been as First Lady. When her diary was published posthumously, she seemed very self-righteous about her and Ronnie's agenda for America. How would drugs and STDs have gotten as bad as she wrote, when in OTL, they were contained easily? In the 1980s when crack cocaine was an addiction, she criticized Presidents Carter and Bush for not declaring a 'war on drugs.'

Perhaps Nancy Reagan perceived Carter and Bush's approach regarding STDs and cocaine as too weak, as did conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly. It should be noted that it was a rather complex issue, as Ronald Reagan - while accusing Democratic Governor Bradley of unintentionally supporting the flow of crack cocaine into the Golden State - avoided discussing STDs, to the point where Lamar Alexander smacked him on debate over his apparent silence.
 
He was racist, but sadly that was typical for men from his generation. He liberalized California abortion laws and campaigned against the Briggs Initiative.

So a Reagan administration would most likely would have shifted popular culture toward more libertine attitudes about sex and more right wing attitudes on race. The latter would have faded over time but it would be a short term setback. His trickle down economic theory would have benefited Wall Street, big banks, and Big Insurance.

We would end up with the left coast and the DC to Boston corridor being Republican and Middle America being Democrat. The red states would have minimal restrictions on abortion, regressive tax structures, and high incarceration rates especially for minorities. The blue states would have as many restrictions on abortion as they could get by the courts, higher taxes on the rich, less draconian laws for victimless crimes. It would be a Jesus land vs New Babylon divide.
 
Carter and Bush's approach regarding STDs

On the subject of STDs, one thing that occurs to me: how differently would a Reagan administration have handled the AIDS crisis? Carter was a bit slow off the blocks, but he ended up launching the 'IGNORANCE IS DEATH' campaign that copied from the British PSAs of the same era. He caught a fair amount of flak from the religious right for it, but social scientists and doctors are of the opinion that the campaign did indeed lead to a much-reduced infection rate from what it could have been.

From the social POV, many have argued that the advance of LGBT rights was also saved by that. The selling of AIDS as being something that threatened everyone, not just a 'gay disease', plus the fact that many people who might have been infected were not, it's been argued that without those we might have had much more a more conservative situation in that case.
 
If not for the October Surprise of 1972, do you believe Bush would have accepted Reagan's offer for the VP nomination, or would Reagan have still selected Richard Schweiker? Schweiker struggled to defend Reagan's comments.

If Bush accepted, perhaps Reagan would have nominated Schweiker to serve as his Secretary of Labor. Afterall, he did serve on that Senate committee.
 
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On the subject of STDs, one thing that occurs to me: how differently would a Reagan administration have handled the AIDS crisis? Carter was a bit slow off the blocks, but he ended up launching the 'IGNORANCE IS DEATH' campaign that copied from the British PSAs of the same era. He caught a fair amount of flak from the religious right for it, but social scientists and doctors are of the opinion that the campaign did indeed lead to a much-reduced infection rate from what it could have been.

From the social POV, many have argued that the advance of LGBT rights was also saved by that. The selling of AIDS as being something that threatened everyone, not just a 'gay disease', plus the fact that many people who might have been infected were not, it's been argued that without those we might have had much more a more conservative situation in that case.

Reagan was close friends with Rock Hudson. He would have followed whatever advice came from there.

That said, the real turning point was Steve Garvey. Rock Hudson put AIDS on the public radar, but Garvey established AIDS as not just a gay disease.
 
Reagan was close friends with Rock Hudson. He would have followed whatever advice came from there.

That said, the real turning point was Steve Garvey. Rock Hudson put AIDS on the public radar, but Garvey established AIDS as not just a gay disease.

Maybe. I don't know. I'd like to hope so, but we'll see.

And yeah. I'd agree with that entirely about Garvey.

On a different subject...how do we think the end of the Cold War would have gone? I mean, it's been argued that Reagan might have been more aggressive, that the detente that lasted with the USSR from Carter onwards gave Gorbachev the breathing room he needed to reform the Union somewhat. OK, it's shrunk in power, and German Unification etc. saw the Warsaw Pact end, but the Union is still a major power, even if the US 'won on points' and it ended up changing a great deal. Many I've heard argued a Reagan Presidency might have seen no more USSR at all.

Well. Either that or WWIII, depending on who you're talking to.
 
Maybe. I don't know. I'd like to hope so, but we'll see.

And yeah. I'd agree with that entirely about Garvey.

On a different subject...how do we think the end of the Cold War would have gone? I mean, it's been argued that Reagan might have been more aggressive, that the detente that lasted with the USSR from Carter onwards gave Gorbachev the breathing room he needed to reform the Union somewhat. OK, it's shrunk in power, and German Unification etc. saw the Warsaw Pact end, but the Union is still a major power, even if the US 'won on points' and it ended up changing a great deal. Many I've heard argued a Reagan Presidency might have seen no more USSR at all.

Well. Either that or WWIII, depending on who you're talking to.

Reagan was aggressive on foreign policy. Having him as President butterflies Gorbachev altogether, so we don't see glasnost and perestroika. They might have to pull back and let some of their puppet regimes fall in order to shore up control at home.
 
Reagan was aggressive on foreign policy. Having him as President butterflies Gorbachev altogether, so we don't see glasnost and perestroika. They might have to pull back and let some of their puppet regimes fall in order to shore up control at home.

True that...

Interesting to think what might have happened if the Union had gone completely rather than just reducing in power. As one example...while the German military was reduced following reunification, it wasn't by as much as it could have been. Conscription still remains, and the forces are heavily optimised for potential expeditionary warfare outside Germany...like, say, defending Poland if the Union got stroppy.
 
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