Chapter I
The Solution to Our Problem
By Ishan Sharma
“Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.”
-Ronald Reagan
Chapter I
From: “Revolutionary: The Reagan Presidency” by Robert Smith (2001) –
No one – Democratic or Republican – can deny that Ronald Reagan was the most revolutionary president since FDR, and this is something that all Americans of all political persuasions can agree on; the only difference is whether this change, this Reagan Revolution, was a good thing. Ending the consensus that existed since the New Deal, Reagan created a new ideology in his political career. His economic program, or Reaganomics, was nothing short of revolutionary. The fundamentals of government were changed forever and his followers believe his various reforms. Even if Reaganomics didn’t work, at the very least, the economy was prosperous during most of his presidency, and millions of Americans could say that their lives were better under him than under his predecessor, and he revived his party after its dismal failure the last time it was in power. For good reason, many of his more revolutionary policies such as student vouchers, the end of traditional welfare, and the total and utter reform of the tax structure remain very popular and it seems that for the foreseeable future they shall remain in place
An avowed hawk in foreign policy, he fought hard with the USSR and, despite the perhaps better judgement of many in his cabinet, Reagan increased tensions with them to, as has been well documented, come close to breaking point several times. This attracted the ire of many doves and a fair share of foreign policy moderates, who felt that he would start nuclear war; indeed, as the record has shown, it almost did at multiple points throughout his presidency. However, his supporters have consistently stated that it was this very increase of tensions that weakened the USSR substantially; indeed, the USSR was weakened by quite a substantial extent. Doves, of course, disagree with this view and state that cooling would have averted the possibility of nuclear war while at the same time allowing for the signing of various treaties. However, it is quite obvious that, with the various treaties the two signed, the US negotiated at a position of immense strength. And doves can admire the many treaties that were signed that reduced the number of nuclear bombs between the two states.
And, of course, there is his charisma. Everyone, on all sides of the political spectrum, and of all political persuasions, can agree he had a charisma greater than any other president since time immemorial. His campaigning style was slick, and even his political opponents found the various jokes he cracked on the campaign trail quite funny even if they found his stances quite detestable[i]
. His charisma helped him to achieve what he did during his presidency and to push his platform through Congress as President, and he took the extra effort to come across as in touch with voters throughout his career. It is no wonder he won two huge landslides, the second even bigger than the first.
Reagan’s policies changed the face of his party, and of the nation, forever. He ended the Old Liberal consensus and replaced it with something new. He introduced an innovative way at looking at government. He made welfare more efficient and he simplified the bureaucracy substantially. He began the Sixth Party System. It is for good reason that after a very long political career he was elected president. His New Liberalism defines the Democratic Party, and indeed the nation, today.
From: “The 1952 Election” by Bill Jones (1997) –
In hindsight, one of the most important local elections in this year was a congressional election to California-3, a liberal district in Los Angeles. At first glance, this seems to be minor and irrelevant as, after all, the only people it would send to Congress would be liberal Democrats, and so, even in this Republican year, it would more likely than not elect a mundane liberal Democrat. The district’s congressman likely would have been so if it wasn’t Ronald Reagan.
Reagan, of course, was an actor well-known throughout the country for his various roles in a variety of popular movies. He was also a liberal Democrat and he was a staunch New Dealer ever since FDR pledged “a New Deal for the American people”, and an outspoken one at that. For instance, in 1948, Reagan actively campaigned for the Democratic Party against both the “Do-Nothing” Republican Congress and against Tom Dewey. He attacked it for pocketing an exorbitant amount of profits while not letting workers’ wages increase, for not allowing welfare programs to increase with inflation, and other parts of the standard Democratic line. He was so liberal he endorsed then-Minnesota Senate candidate Hubert Humphrey, pointing him out as a good person who ought to win, as being one of “the new Democratic faces” that ought to be in Congress[ii]. Humphrey, of course, was perceived by many conservatives as a social radical after he successfully pushed a civil rights plank at the 1948 Democratic National Convention, a move that caused the Southern delegates to bolt and form their own ticket; as it turned out, Reagan knew Humphrey after co-founding the liberal anti-communist group Americans for Democratic Action together. Both Truman and Humphrey would triumph that year, Truman in a narrow upset and Humphrey in an unsurprising landslide.
Later, in 1950, Reagan worked for the Democratic campaign for Congresswoman (and actress) Helen Gahagan Douglas for one of California’s Senate seats against the young Congressman Richard Nixon. Nixon ran an extremely dirty campaign against Douglas, accusing her of being a closet communist; this dirty campaign would earn Nixon the nickname Tricky Dick from Douglas. To add to this, Douglas was a woman; in the socially conservative year of 1950, there were not many willing to vote for a woman. The result was Nixon winning in a huge nineteen-point landslide. The dirty nature of Nixon’s campaign soured Reagan to the Republican Party as he knew for a fact that Douglas was no communist and it perhaps played a role in how partisan he was as President[iii].
Come 1952, Reagan was well-known by many Democratic officials as being more than just an actor. This led to the the Los Angeles County Democratic Central Committee to consider endorsing him for a newly created district, California-3. Reagan was considered too liberal for this district; however, they also felt his ferocious anti-communism made up for his liberalism, the result being that they endorsed him[iv]. With party selection being little more than a smoke-filled room choosing a candidate, this endorsement made him the Democratic nominee for the seat if he wanted it to be his. He did, and he was announced the nominee. As it turned out, he was a much better choice than anyone thought he was. In terms of charisma, he wasn’t quite at A Time for Choosing levels yet, but he was far more charismatic than most House members. Despite the best efforts of his Republican counterpart Leslie Woods, along with several attacks on Reagan’s recent divorce and remarriage, the district was just too liberal and Reagan was just too charismatic. The result was Reagan winning by a very large margin in his race despite the Republicans taking the House.
House Election to California-3, 1952:
Ronald W. Reagan (Democratic): 54.6%
Leslie E. Woods (Republican): 44.2%
[v]
With this great victory, Reagan was ready to redefine politics at its core. In his first few years, Congressman Reagan, or Representative Reagan as he preferred to call himself, was rather quiet, but of course, he’d later make his name more widely known.
From: “Revolutionary: The Reagan Presidency” by Robert Smith (2001) –
In reaction to Reagan’s victory, Vice President-Elect Richard Nixon apocryphally stated, “Representative Ronald Ree-gan? What’s next, Senator Bonzo[vi]?”. Indeed, Reagan was the butt of many monkey-related jokes in his early career which made it hard for many to take things seriously. However, it is wrong to say he was helpless as others have said; indeed, Senator Humphrey contacted him a few days after Congress went into session. The two discussed politics and the like, and with identical views towards domestic affairs and fairly similar views towards foreign affairs, the two cultivated a friendship. Reagan proved to be a rather good politician; his charisma earned the following of many and he proved to be telegenic in an era in which television was still rising. Reagan also had his fair share of gaffes. These congressional years would help substantially in reducing his gaffes; however, even as President, he made a large number of them[vii].
In the early 50s, Reagan was a typical politician. Despite being quite charismatic, he was little more than a representative. He was a standard hawkish Old Liberal who argued for the expansion of welfare and for other Old Liberal planks. However, one attribute of Reagan’s tenure in politics was his incorruptibility. In this era, special interests could easily “donate” to any mainstream Senator or Congressman and this corruption, indeed, was one of the “three Cs” along with Korea and communism that Eisenhower campaigned against in his 1952 campaign. Reagan refused to accept the majority of these bribes, a rarity in this time[viii]. Also to note was that Reagan was widely considered a liberal, but at the same time was very bipartisan and reacted well to Eisenhower’s own bipartisan attitude. Reagan’s own records show that Eisenhower was a great influence on his own views and Reagan supported various laws pushed and signed by Eisenhower, such as the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 which allowed the US to accept refugees fleeing communism, and even after the two grew to hold differing opinions over the Suez Crisis, Reagan supported the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 which created the Interstate highway system. Perhaps the latter is strange considering what he endorsed with president, but this can easily be explained as being the result of difference between the availability of oil in the Eisenhower and Reagan presidencies.
Another major part of Reagan’s tenure as Representative was his relationship with his wife Nancy. She was a prominent conservative actress with views strongly held to the point that, as one observer stated, “the two held quite a few heated political discussions”. At the end of the day, of course, this didn’t shake their love of one another. Mr. and Mrs. Reagan, of course, held identical views on foreign policy owing to the commonality of. The two, of course, differed on domestic policy. Nancy believed that unions needed to be restricted, welfare needed to be cut, and various other conservative proposals. Indeed, rumours that Barry Goldwater, an arch-conservative Senator from Arizona[ix], and Nancy Reagan had an affair persist to this day. They are almost certainly false, as the record shows that Reagan had felt Nancy’s conservatism was endearing, not to mention they were pushed around by tabloids in the 60s, but these rumours do show the kilometres of difference in political opinion between Nancy and Ronald.
Reagan’s status as an American backbencher, of course, would end with the Suez Crisis.
[i] For instance, in one of the 1984 debates between him and his Democratic opponent Walter Mondale, Reagan stated that he would not attack his opponent’s age. Mondale was a good sport about it and laughed.
[ii] This is all from OTL, surprisingly. Reagan only became an arch-conservative during the 1950s while he worked for General Electric and came to believe in what he did during his career. Though Reagan stated “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me”, this is patently false as during his presidency, he worked to destroy the New Deal, something he worked hard to protect as a Democrat.
[iii] These doubts all happened in OTL, but of course, if they every existed, his doubts were eventually overridden.
[iv] IOTL, the Committee declined endorsing Reagan as they felt he was too liberal. This is the POD.
[v] IOTL, the victor of this seat was John Emerson Moss. He chaired various subcommittees and was one of the authors of the Freedom of Information Act.
[vi] Reagan was in a movie in 1951 starring him a chimp Bonzo. This turned out to be very popular, but acting with a chimp was a source of constant embarrassment throughout his career in politics.
[vii] IOTL, one of his more egregious gaffes as president was stating that “trees cause pollution”.
[viii] In case you haven’t noticed, the author of this excerpt is very pro-Reagan, so take this incorruptibility with a grain of salt.
[ix] IOTL, Ronald Reagan was Goldwater’s protégé.
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