DBWI: Successful Reagen presidency

JoeMulk

Banned
In 1984 four years into the great recession with unemployment nearing 15% Walter Mondale cruised to an easy victory. Trickle Down economics was reduced to the ash bin of history and Ronald Reagen has since been remembered as an even worse president then actor. What if Reagen had been reelected and his presidency was regarded as a success?
 
If alien space bats somehow prevented the economic meltdown in spite of trickle-down poverty policies, and his insanely aggressive foreign policy hadn't led to our military defeat in Iran with the resultant resumption of the OPEC oil embargo, he might have made some decent accomplishments.

First of all, he was widely considered to be highly charismatic. A successful Reagan presidency might have been able to reduce the damage done to American self-esteem by Watergate. At the very least, he might have forestalled the implosion of the Republican Party. Maybe some Republican might have been elected in 1992 and we'd've been spared the humiliation of President Hart's impeachment.

Reagan was a lot better disposed to the space program than Mondale was, and with a better economy he probably would have moved forward with space station Freedom in the mid '80s. Even if the Challenger disaster in '86 wasn't butterflied, he might have been able to prevent cancellation of the Space Shuttle. Who knows, we might have been able to make a return to the Moon before the Soviets planted their station in 1998.

Without the persistent recession of the '80s and '90s, we might have been able to avoid the general strikes that led to Communist governments ruling over Germany, Europe and Italy.

Al Qaeda might have flown a plane into some European capital instead of the White House in 2001.

Between the economic realities of the time and the environment of distrust for the government following the Nixon administration, I don't see how the '80s could have been anything less than a disaster even if Carter had been reelected in 1980. We might have avoided the worse of Euro-Communism, and the threat of Soviet orbital battlestations overhead... maybe.
 
In 1984 four years into the great recession with unemployment nearing 15% Walter Mondale cruised to an easy victory. Trickle Down economics was reduced to the ash bin of history and Ronald Reagen has since been remembered as an even worse president then actor. What if Reagen had been reelected and his presidency was regarded as a success?

My main question is, how would he have handled the Iranian Missile Crisis in November '88 or the Berlin Incident in September '85? As far as I recall, the former actually ended up forcing the U.S. elections to be postponed for a couple of weeks(this was greatly controversial but it didn't harm Mondale's reputation except amongst conservatives.)? Both times, we came awfully close to WWIII, and it was bad enough that President Hart almost royally screwed up when Cuba fell apart in July, 1990(though Castro got back into power and ruled until '01).
Not to mention that I also wonder if maybe we'd have had two terms of President Perot as well.....and the disastrous Ron Paul term that came after that.

@SuLiam: Uh.....we didn't invade Iran until 1998 and that was only after the Civil War began over there. And the Commies never came to power in West Germany(and certainly not all of Europe for that matter! Have you been listening to John Moore[1]?), though some on the right here in America would consider the Social Democrats as such, and they did rule for about 10 years.
Also, I don't know which ASB TL you're referring to, but there are no Soviet orbital battle-stations despite the mad ramblings of the 'Mad Yankee', aka Daryl Bradford Smith[1], up there at RBS in Boston; the USSR collapsed in November 1990 and only Tajikistan and Siberia are Communist today.

OOC: [1] Both real-life conspiracy nuts, btw. Google them......but beware, the latter is particularly screwy. Read at your own risk. :(
 
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I remember the Ron Paul Presidency very well (so did Saturday Night Live) along with the return to the gold standard; the elimination of the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Education, HUD, HEW, and Veterans Affairs; 70 percent cut in the Defense Budget; repeal of the Glass Steagal Act; and the Tax Reform Act of 2001 which replaced the tax code with a 20 percent flat tax and cut funding of the IRS by 85 percent. Then, those terrorists crashed TWA Flight 85 into the White House on October 1, 2001. Luckily President Paul visited a school in Omaha on that day.

Al-Qaeda also sent planes into Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower and St. Peter's Basilica. The British, Italians and French joined NATO (which Paul took the USA out of) to declare war on Afghanistan which harbored the terrorists.

Everyone demanded that Paul avenge this attack and take out al-Qaeda. He refused.

The Democrats had the wind at their backs and won back Congress (including a net gain of 102 seats in the House). The Republicans were nearly wiped out in the South. The rest is history.
 

JoeMulk

Banned
I'm glad that Ron Pual legalized marijuana though. It led to a decrease in drug violence in Mexico. Which reminds me, i'm fresh out of Marlboro Greens. I need to go buy another cartoon at CVS.
 
Without the persistent recession of the '80s and '90s, we might have been able to avoid the general strikes that led to Communist governments ruling over Germany, Europe and Italy.


Excuse me but Britain certainly never went communist, and the so called European Democratic Peoples Federation lasted less than 3 months. It was falling apart even before they attempted to takeover Scandanavia. Those were tense times the firs time since the WWII all Britains reserves were mobilised. I spent a year bored out of my mind patroling the borders of RAF Kinloss because of the aftershocks of that winter.

Still it paid for my time at University after I was demobed and made the Government start rebuilding the Armed Forces.
 
Sorry, I meant to write France, not Europe. They don't seem to know the difference, but I usually do...
 
OOC: Why does every DBWI thread have more more space travel than OTL?

OOC: Because of Teddy Roosevelt.

I remember the Ron Paul Presidency very well (so did Saturday Night Live) along with the return to the gold standard; the elimination of the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Education, HUD, HEW, and Veterans Affairs; 70 percent cut in the Defense Budget; repeal of the Glass Steagal Act; and the Tax Reform Act of 2001 which replaced the tax code with a 20 percent flat tax and cut funding of the IRS by 85 percent. Then, those terrorists crashed TWA Flight 85 into the White House on October 1, 2001. Luckily President Paul visited a school in Omaha on that day.

Al-Qaeda also sent planes into Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower and St. Peter's Basilica. The British, Italians and French joined NATO (which Paul took the USA out of) to declare war on Afghanistan which harbored the terrorists.

Everyone demanded that Paul avenge this attack and take out al-Qaeda. He refused.

The Democrats had the wind at their backs and won back Congress (including a net gain of 102 seats in the House). The Republicans were nearly wiped out in the South. The rest is history.

And this is why Paul is the person that I hate on this Earth the most. He literally destroyed everything good in the US. It is interesting to note that mercenary groups like Blackwater surged in group numbers during his presidency though. It's honestly weird that a stateless army had more members than the state it was founded in.
 
I'm glad that Ron Pual legalized marijuana though. It led to a decrease in drug violence in Mexico. Which reminds me, i'm fresh out of Marlboro Greens. I need to go buy another cartoon at CVS.

That was only thanks to a massive push by the Democrats, and the fact that RP was desperate to salvage his reputation. That bill, btw, was written by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Both Dems........

@glenn67: Yep. The gold standard sent us into a depression back in '02 and if it wasn't for the Gore Adminstration's acting to fix it we might still be in one today.

@su_liam: The FCP didn't last that long, though, and were replaced by the Socialists, whom, by the way, did a remarkable job of governing their country. I certainly can't say the same for Jean-marie Le Pen, though. The National Front ruined every gain the Socialists had ever made.
 
My main question is, how would he have handled the Iranian Missile Crisis in November '88 or the Berlin Incident in September '85? As far as I recall, the former actually ended up forcing the U.S. elections to be postponed for a couple of weeks(this was greatly controversial but it didn't harm Mondale's reputation except amongst conservatives.)? Both times, we came awfully close to WWIII, and it was bad enough that President Hart almost royally screwed up when Cuba fell apart in July, 1990(though Castro got back into power and ruled until '01).

Not to mention that I also wonder if maybe we'd have had two terms of President Perot as well.....and the disastrous Ron Paul term that came after that.

US forces were deeply involved in fighting along-side Saddam's regime (what a great idea that turned out to be:rolleyes:) during the Iran-Iraq War.

Also Cuba didnt really fall apart Fidel did however. it's still pretty murky how had suddenly fell into a coma, given the number of times the CIA tried to kill him. Still he rocovered enougth to re-assume power before the power-struggle between Raul and other would-be dictator's turned bloody.


@SuLiam: Uh.....we didn't invade Iran until 1998 and that was only after the Civil War began over there. And the Commies never came to power in West Germany(and certainly not all of Europe for that matter! Have you been listening to John Moore[1]?), though some on the right here in America would consider the Social Democrats as such, and they did rule for about 10 years.

Well to be fair the ''Popular-Front'' goverments did have their fair share of Communists in them.


Also, I don't know which ASB TL you're referring to, but there are no Soviet orbital battle-stations despite the mad ramblings of the 'Mad Yankee', aka Daryl Bradford Smith[1], up there at RBS in Boston; the USSR collapsed in November 1990 and only Tajikistan and Siberia are Communist today.

The orbital battle stations were a bit of a madcap idea, the Russians put out there to cover the fact they were mounting nukes on satellites.

The U.S.S.R is indeed a thing of the past however the C.S.S.R is very much intact. After all 15 SSR's signed the new union treaty in 1992.

The lifting of Lenin's ban on factions in the Bolshevik Party & competitive elections multi-candidate produced some odd outcomes but out-and-out old school Communsts are in power in more than just Tajikistan and Siberia. I dont know where you get your info from.:p


Excuse me but Britain certainly never went communist, and the so called European Democratic Peoples Federation lasted less than 3 months. It was falling apart even before they attempted to takeover Scandanavia. Those were tense times the firs time since the WWII all Britains reserves were mobilised. I spent a year bored out of my mind patroling the borders of RAF Kinloss because of the aftershocks of that winter.

Still it paid for my time at University after I was demobed and made the Government start rebuilding the Armed Forces.

Oh come on, I just dont understand why everyone was so bothered about the fact that the EC renamed itself for a few weeks due to a power-play by several member states. Also take over Scandanavia WTF! Only Sweden was a member state.
 
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