Reagan *kind of* remains New Deal Democrat, combines best of both worlds in his view?

Let's say he still takes the line, he didn't leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left him.

But to his stories of people ripping off the welfare system, which he loved to tell and some or most may have been apocryphal, let's say he adds skepticism to big corporations.

And it may be enough of a POD that he doesn't fall in love with this one particular conservative newsletter like he did in original timeline (much smaller circulation than National Review).

So, you have a Ronnie Reagan who posits himself the champion of the average man and the average women, who wants the economic system to work for ordinary working people, and who is skeptical of both big government and big business.

How might this play off both within the Republican Party and in overall American politics, and do things fall in place so Ronnie becomes president a second time?
 
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Let's say he still takes the line, he didn't leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left him.

But to his stories of people ripping off the welfare system, which he loved to tell and some or most may have been apocryphal, let's say he adds skepticism to big corporations.

And it may be enough of a POD that he doesn't fall in love with this one particular conservative newsletter like he did in original timeline (much smaller circulation than National Review).

So, you have a Ronnie Reagan who posits himself the champion of the average man and the average women, who wants the economic system to work for ordinary working people, and who is skeptical of both big government and big business.

How might this play off both within the Republican Party and in overall American politics, and do things fall in place so Ronnie becomes president a second time?

You might be able to do that by having Ike sit '52 out and get Taft elected over Stevenson. If the Taft wing of the Party gets control of the GOP, Reagan may stay a Democrat, although a hawkish one who's moderate domestically.
 
As I understand it, as member and later president of the Screen Actors Guild, Reagan participated and led purges against known and suspected communists. Some communists made threats against him, which didn't exactly help matters. Reagan then got a California license to carry a handgun.

Ronnie Reagan seemed to spend a lot of intellectual energy on the question of how good people could get sucked into believing in communism. He tried to disprove the theory, which for most cases even for crummy theories I tend to think is a waste of time and an intellectual cul-de-sac.
 

Sabot Cat

Banned
I'd suggest him reading old novels wherein robber barons are evil villains that swindle good, working class heroes. It seems like most of his worldview derived from his childhood literature experiences, so yeah.
 
Reagan wasn't that unsophisticated!

And as I've heard the story / narrative approach is one of the major intellectual styles for people in general.
 
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