What if John Hinckley, Jr., succeeds?
- Thread starter Kalki
- Start date
Through no fault of her own, there is a much darker "aura" surrounding Jodie Foster, and her career basically comes to an end. The movie Taxi Driver also falls into considerable disrepute, even if most people agree that a deranged person like Hinckley could have been influenced by anything.
Counterpoint: Catcher In The Rye managed to survive the John Lennon killing with its reputation more or less intact. But Taxi Driver was already carrying quite a bit of cultural and emotional baggage(political assassination, pedophilia) so a successful 3/30/81 might just be the final nail on the cross.
Counterpoint: Catcher In The Rye managed to survive the John Lennon killing with its reputation more or less intact. But Taxi Driver was already carrying quite a bit of cultural and emotional baggage(political assassination, pedophilia) so a successful 3/30/81 might just be the final nail on the cross.
Could this mean even declining of Martin Scorsese's career? Leastly big studios hardly are very willingful to make cooperation with him. So no Goodfellas nor Casino. And what this will mean for Robert de Niro's career?
In politics George H.W. Bush might not go so far with Soviets than Reagan would have. Bush might even let as one term president. Perhaps there not be GWB's presidency.
Could this mean even declining of Martin Scorsese's career. Leastly big studios hardly are very willingful to make cooperation with him. So no Goodfellas nor Casino. And what this will mean for Robert de Niro's career?
I think Scorsese might be able to survive, because there tends to be less public focus on directors than on actors, AND he wasn't the person directly mentioned by Hinckley as the reason for shooting Reagan.
Not sure about De Niro. Logically, he should share whatever besmirchment accrues to Foster, possibly moreso, since Hickley was basically acting out the De Niro role. But logic doesn't always dictate how things play out. Even IOTL, Jodie Foster is much more closely associated with the Reagan shooting than is De Niro.
I think Scorsese might be able to survive, because there tends to be less public focus on directors than on actors, AND he wasn't the person directly mentioned by Hinckley as the reason for shooting Reagan.
Not sure about De Niro. Logically, he should share whatever besmirchment accrues to Foster, possibly moreso, since Hickley was basically acting out the De Niro role. But logic doesn't always dictate how things play out. Even IOTL, Jodie Foster is much more closely associated with the Reagan shooting than is De Niro.
shiftygiant
Gone Fishin'
Bush was never good with Domestic Policy, and he won't go through with Reagan's economic ideas (He called it "voodoo economics" during the 1980 election). He could get re-elected in 1984, unless Teddy decides it was his time to shine.
From 1981 to 1984, Bush might actually be more conservative than Reagan was in OTL. That is because he would be more vulnerable to cries from the Right that he was "betraying Reagan's legacy" if for example he went along with TEFRA as Reagan did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Equity_and_Fiscal_Responsibility_Act_of_1982
Assuming he wins in 1984, Bush would be a little bit more free to be his own man in his second term. He might be a bit less conservative in domestic affairs, but he was also more skeptical than Reagan of Gorbachev.
Who would his vice-president be? Maybe Laxalt or Kemp to satisfy the Reaganites? Of course Dole would be a safe choice, satisfactory to all wings of the GOP. Howard Baker would be another possibility, but in the first place, some Reaganites were still upset with him over things like the Panama Canal Treaty, and in the second place, Bush would probably want to keep him as Majority Leader in the Senate.
Assuming he wins in 1984, Bush would be a little bit more free to be his own man in his second term. He might be a bit less conservative in domestic affairs, but he was also more skeptical than Reagan of Gorbachev.
Who would his vice-president be? Maybe Laxalt or Kemp to satisfy the Reaganites? Of course Dole would be a safe choice, satisfactory to all wings of the GOP. Howard Baker would be another possibility, but in the first place, some Reaganites were still upset with him over things like the Panama Canal Treaty, and in the second place, Bush would probably want to keep him as Majority Leader in the Senate.
John Hinckley, Jr. will be convicted for Murder on Ronald Reagan and he will be executed, on Electric chair in Washington D.C.
George H.W. Bush become President, take new Vice President
Bush will push for new Space Flight program, either Space Station or return to Moon
He must face Walter Mondale in 1984 election the chance that Bush win the election is High
Mostly do Walter Mondale weak performance during the Election campaign.
George H.W. Bush become President, take new Vice President
Bush will push for new Space Flight program, either Space Station or return to Moon
He must face Walter Mondale in 1984 election the chance that Bush win the election is High
Mostly do Walter Mondale weak performance during the Election campaign.
By March 1981 Bush had long since repudiated his opposition to Reagan's "voodoo economics." Having backed Reagan's economic program in the early months of Reagan's administration he would have no choice but to continue to do so (and it would if anything pass more easily than in OTL because of Reagan's "martyrdom"). He would have to safeguard himself against the possibility of a conservative primary challenger in 1984, and to do this he would have to be if anything more "Reaganite" than Reagan himself was. (It would for example be harder for Bush to back TEFRA than it was for Reagan.)
I don't understand why you think Teddy could beat Bush in 1984. 1980 showed that Chappaquiddick and the "character" issue were very much alive, and Kennedy was also vulnerable for being seen as too liberal. And in any event any Democratic candidate would have a hard time if the US was prosperous in 1984, as it probably would be whoever was president. (The key is that Volcker, having squeezed inflation out of the economy by engineering the 1981-2 recession, was now easing off.)
usertron2020
Donor
Catcher in the Rye was a BOOK separated by Lennon's assassination by 29 years. Taxi Driver was a film separated by only five years. That said, I don't see anyone associated with the film suffering should Reagan have been successfully murdered. Besides, consider: Scorsese, de Niro, and Foster are GIANTS. They aren't going to be ruined by this, even this early in their careers.
1) Jodie Foster is so far the only actor (including even Mickey Rooney!) to have had a completely successful career her entire professional life going all the way back to her earliest days as a child star/model for commercials. Every other child star living and dead has always wanted to be "the next Jodie Foster". AFAIK, no child star has ever enjoyed a career like she has, save for Natalie Wood, who didn't live a full life. Even for child stars who HAVE made it as actors when they grow up, it always involves long years of lack of acting work until they can basically "start their careers over again."
Her own reaction to the assassination attempt (and she was studying at the Yale School of Drama at the time) was so professional as to put off any crank comments made against her. And IIRC she was all of 13 years old when "Taxi Driver" was made.
Between her talent and lack of culpability plus Hollywood's not wanting to be seen as blaming a child actress for the crimes of a deranged adult? If anything this actually helped her (just a little) during her university years, a time when normally someone with her history might well have been mostly forgotten.
Among other parts she drew in during her time at Yale she co-starred in a film with Peter O'Toole, a tale of a "reverse-Svengali" in which a much older Yale music professor is mesmerized by his young musical protege. She insists on dragging him along on her rock concert tours, which for a man of his age serving as a "roady" leaves him totally miserable.
But like the female victim in the original Svengali, he can't say no to Jodie Foster. And they never have an intimate relationship either. But at least (with much begging on his part), Foster was eventually able to bring herself to let O'Toole go back to Yale.
Now repeat after me: Teddy Kennedy could never have been POTUS in any TL even remotely resembling OTL. Besides, his performance in 1980 against Carter burned his brodges with the Democratic Party on a national level forever. You can make a serious argument that NO incumbent could ever be re-elected in 1980 (true). But politics is about perception, not logic.
I'm pretty sure they were already using lethal injection, and failing that the gas chamber. The evolution of executions in the USA has developed from firing squads/hangings to the electric chair to gas chambers to the Needle.
Why do you think Bush I was a space enthusiast? Was he? And wouldn't he be distracted by Iran, Afghanistan, economics (like the subject or not, Reagan OTL inherited a mess), and rearmament?
Fixed it for you.
To be fair? Consider the following:
1) The economic bounce-back of 1983-84
2) Reagan's "Morning in America" campaign
3) The Iran-Iraq War (a schadenfreude level of payback for the Hostage Crisis)
4) Reagan's supporting Iraq with priceless satellite intel
5) Standing up to the Soviet's blatant attempts at influencing European public opinion into accepting Unilateral Disarmament. Which the NATO governments never took seriously but Reagan did with Soviet diplomats bragging that "When Moscow decides that 50000 people in Holland are going to march, 50000 people are going to march". Funny, considering that, considering that frex the term "The Women of Greenham Common" in the end became in the British lexicon a synonym for "gang of crackpots"
6) Reagan's "Zero-Zero GLCM/Pershing 2 Proposal" in the face of the Soviet Gerontocracy's inability to rein in their own wildly out of control military industrial complex
7) His rearmament helping to improvement the economy by providing jobs (though while engaging in budget busting with his tax cuts).
8) If Bush I is running in 1984, he's likely to abandon the tax cuts in favor of a more balanced budget, while keeping most of Reagan's military buildup, making for the best of both worlds.
As to 1-7, I really don't see Bush I as POTUS doing anything different, except that he won't be the leader Reagan was, nor as eloquent. But he sure as hell will have a better diplomatic face before the world. Reagan wasn't a tenth as bad as Bush II, but then hardly anyone could have been worse. Just as hardly anyone this side of FDR could have been better than Bush I.
With all this, Mondale as a choice for the nomination clearly indicated to any independent mind that he was a sacrificial goat, whatever he may have thought himself.
EDIT: Ninja'd by David T. Again.
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usertron2020
Donor
Brilliant analysis.
Kudos.BTW, just saying: Teddy wasn't in or anywhere near his car when it went in the water. He left Mary Jo to drive the car home herself after they were sighted by a deputy (he assumed wrongly that he'd been recognized).
This is not a conspiracy theory! It is a solid analysis based on what we know and Teddy's totally ridiculous fake alibi based on his trying to cover up his original fake alibi created to prove that he and Mary Jo had never been in the car together at all. The original fake alibi becoming a nightmare after Mary Jo's accident. Oh what a tangled web we weave...
Bush becomes president and botches it up without Reagan's ability to sweep things under the rug. Reaganomics dies quickly and Bush looses election in 1984. Walter Mondale becomes the president of the collapsing USSR, and social liberalism bounces back.
I'm in a hurry so naturally I'm writing the abridged rubbish version lol
I'm in a hurry so naturally I'm writing the abridged rubbish version lol
Thanks for info my data was from 1943 were germans spy ere executed
Ever hear of Space Exploration Initiative ?
Bush pet project for exploration of Moon and Mars as he was President in 1989
a 30 years program with $480 billion price tag.
the Program dies slowly because end Of Cold War, lack of Interest of NASA Administrator Richard Harrison Truly ! and Congress and Senat were not willing to finance it
usertron2020
Donor
Iran-Contra simply wasn't the OMG issue at the time that people think it was today. I was filled with outrage. But the US had a working Republican Senate majority at the time, and no where near the Democratic majority needed to both impeach AND convict a Republican POTUS in a Senate trial post-1986. Plus "Good Times" were still happening in the US economy.
Embarrassing, a lot of Republican underlings going down, but Bush I rides it out. US Presidents are not Prime Ministers, with lots of rivals in the US Congress looking to depose and replace them with (unconstitutional) Votes of No Confidence.
Consider: Nixon didn't resign until the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee was voting on Articles of Impeachment, which IIRC is somewhat similar to what in Britain is called Proving A Question Of Privilege.
At that point, with support collapsing within his own party and desiring to save his pension ($$$ was always a huge concern for Nixon, a man raised in the most severe state of poverty), Nixon resigned.Bush I could never have come close to anything like that with Iran-Contra. The American People could get the illegality of bugging the national headquarters of the opposition party (and in an election year!
) like in Watergate. The sordid details of Iran-Contra, other than the giving of arms to the ayatollah, seemed too opaque for John Q. Public Dumbass. And there were more than a few Americans who supported helping the Contras. At the time, people believed the dominoes were falling in Central America, between Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Only Costa Rica, Belize, and Panama seemed "safe". At the time nobody imagined that the Sandinistas would actually give up power in a negotiated deal that left them still in control of the army. It was unprecedented for a Communist regime, especially one so closely aligned to Castro, to hand over power to a capitalist regime.
Besides, by 1987 Bush I would have been seen as "running out the clock". But President Dukakis 1988? Why not? OTOH, if the economy keeps humming, President Dole?
How does Mondale take over the Presidency of the USSR?
BTW, that office in the Soviet Union has always been powerless. But I can agree that its more likely that Mondale becomes president of the USSR than that he could ever become president of the USA.How can anyone believe that Jimmy Carter's VP is going to be elected four years later? And because of Iran-Contra? And Iran-Contra STARTED AFTER THE 1984 ELECTION (1985-1987).
I'm more interested in seeing 2-3 additional democratic SCOTUS appointments post-1988.
Other than space probes (pretty pictures!) the American People have been anti-space since Apollo 11. Its amazing they didn't cancel Apollo 12-17 as they did 18-20.
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I doubt that Bush would have had the same working relationship with Tip O'Neill that Reagan had.
Movement conservatives in the GOP wouldn't have trusted Bush, and someone would have come forward to challenge him in the 1984 primaries. Perhaps Pat Robertson would have run, figuring that he would have another chance in 1988 in an open-seat election or against a Democratic incumbent. (Possible analogy: Jesse Jackson, who ran in 1984 and won about 15 percent of the convention delegates; four years later, he won nearly one-third.)
We would have heard no end of the "zero curse" before, during, and after the 2000 election.
Movement conservatives in the GOP wouldn't have trusted Bush, and someone would have come forward to challenge him in the 1984 primaries. Perhaps Pat Robertson would have run, figuring that he would have another chance in 1988 in an open-seat election or against a Democratic incumbent. (Possible analogy: Jesse Jackson, who ran in 1984 and won about 15 percent of the convention delegates; four years later, he won nearly one-third.)
We would have heard no end of the "zero curse" before, during, and after the 2000 election.
usertron2020
Donor
Hey, Reagan came within 15 minutes of drowning in his own blood by the time the surgical team got to work on him. If the Secret Service had been less on the ball the "Zero Curse" would have lasted another 20 years. Reagan thought he'd only damaged a rib from the way his Secret Serviceman threw himself on top of Reagan as he pushed him into the limo.
Then again, Bush II was the healthiest POTUS to be elected in a Zero year since at least the Era of Good Feelings, the time when it was considered that the curse had begun.
Whoever Bush's VP would be would be on track to win the nomination, not Dole. I don't know who Bush would have ran with in 1984 though. Probably not Quayle.
Vahktang
Donor
The national debt would not triple, becoming over a trillion dollars. Without this start, the trend does continue nor accelerate under subsequent administrations.
And Seth Green is another child star that went on to adult star without pause, going from 1986 to present without a break.
I am certain that Jodie Foster is not singular. Tbough she is, argueably, the most continously sucessful.
And Seth Green is another child star that went on to adult star without pause, going from 1986 to present without a break.
I am certain that Jodie Foster is not singular. Tbough she is, argueably, the most continously sucessful.
usertron2020
Donor
Seth Does Dallas
1) Seth Green is an adult film star? I know that most male sex workers are pretty grungy, but AFAIK Seth Green lacks the 25+ number of tattoos required to work in that field. Oh wait, you meant...
Good point about Seth Green, except that he was never as successful as a child star as Jodie Foster was, nor did his career start as early as her's did. She was practically just finishing learning how to walk and talk by the time she started as a child model.
Seth Green has had a GOOD career as an adult, but mostly as a fourth-billing and below character actor. Jodie Foster has been the STAR of every film she's ever been in (MANY ROLES too) going call the way back to her role in "Freaky Friday" (the original), where she shined over the grown mother actress she was "inter-changed" with. The Oscar helps too.
Try to imagine a member of "The Little Rascals" who went on to fame and fortune and never lacked for successful top billing work for the rest of their lives. So far, that's Jodie Foster in a nutshell. Oh, and not going "child star survivor syndrome crazy" while she was at it.
1) Seth Green is an adult film star?
I know that most male sex workers are pretty grungy, but AFAIK Seth Green lacks the 25+ number of tattoos required to work in that field. Oh wait, you meant...Good point about Seth Green, except that he was never as successful as a child star as Jodie Foster was, nor did his career start as early as her's did. She was practically just finishing learning how to walk and talk by the time she started as a child model.
Seth Green has had a GOOD career as an adult, but mostly as a fourth-billing and below character actor. Jodie Foster has been the STAR of every film she's ever been in (MANY ROLES too) going call the way back to her role in "Freaky Friday" (the original), where she shined over the grown mother actress she was "inter-changed" with. The Oscar helps too.
Try to imagine a member of "The Little Rascals" who went on to fame and fortune and never lacked for successful top billing work for the rest of their lives. So far, that's Jodie Foster in a nutshell. Oh, and not going "child star survivor syndrome crazy" while she was at it.
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Paul V McNutt
Banned
Bush goes ahead with the tax and budget cuts. The party expects it. He engages the Soviets more. There may be and earlier IMF Treaty. He is reelected in the good economic times of 1984. If his Vice President, like his OTL one, does not become popular, Bob Dole is elected in 1988.