WI the Ronald Reagan assassination attempt succeeded?

Nothing happens to the religious right. The religious right is the large number of Americans who are social conservatives. George W Bush is the one who faces changes. If he appoints a social liberal to be a heart beat away, he anger many of his core supporters.
 
Frankly, I think the Soviets fall sooner. Reagan scared the shit out of him, with his Evil Empire speeches and space laser plans and talk about alien invasions. His actions lent a lot of credibility to his hardliner counterparts in the USSR. I think Bush would handle foreign policy better, and I assume he still supports the anti-Soviets in Afghanistan.
now here is a question for you guys... can a past president get a VP nomination? If they have two terms, then get the nod for VP and the POTUS dies, isn't that a third term?
The internet will debate about it forever, and there are plenty of compelling arguments. The real answer is we'd only know once the Supreme Court ruled on it.
 
Bush would aid the Afghan rebels like IOTL and be a bit more passive aggressive with the Soviets, rather than full on aggressive as Reagan was. Nevertheless, Bush still increases defense spending greatly as a cold war warrior. I still think the Soviets would fall a bit later without that added pressure from the US, but not too much later because Gorbachev was slowly giving freedom back to the people, so Eastern Europe still catches that whiff of freedom and rises up against the dictatorship with or without aggressive pressure on USSR.

Bush fills Reagan's term and does one of his own. I expect the economy would be a bit shakier under a less charismatic president, as Reagan was only able to push a few of his Reaganomics bills through because of his charisma and his good public approval over all. Bush is able to push a bit of the Reaganomics inspired bills through, but the deficit becomes more of a factor in the '88 election.

So the economy never completely boomed like it did under Reaganomics in OTL(but isn't bad either), similar but not as radical defense spending under Bush leaves the deficit growing mightily, and so the Repubs are in a hole for the '88 election. 1988 and 1992 are toss up elections, with whoever wins in '88 wins in '92, but if a Dem wins in '88 and a Republican wins in '92 then a Dem will win in '96 and probably '00.

Just my theory.
 
Frankly, I think the Soviets fall sooner. Reagan scared the shit out of him, with his Evil Empire speeches and space laser plans and talk about alien invasions. His actions lent a lot of credibility to his hardliner counterparts in the USSR. I think Bush would handle foreign policy better, and I assume he still supports the anti-Soviets in Afghanistan.
The internet will debate about it forever, and there are plenty of compelling arguments. The real answer is we'd only know once the Supreme Court ruled on it.

How would the Soviets not dumping funds they really don't have into national defense hasten a Soviet demise?:confused:
 
A little bit of a bump, based on a though generated by Chat discussion on the Reagan/GHWB legacy...

We know GHWB didn't think much of Reagan's voodoo. But I think that, in the wake of the assassination, he would have little choice but to pass Reagan's tax cuts- the congress and Republican base wouldn't have tolerated anything else.

Now OTL Reagan ended up walking back those tax cuts somewhat with several tax increases before the 1984 election, because his original tax cuts left too high a deficit. He had the political capital among rightwingers to get away with this(indeed the Libertarians received far less support in 1984 then they did in 1980).

I don't think GHWB would have the political capital to enact such tax increases however. So, if he does implement them, we very possibly see a successful primary challenge in 1984 from GHWB's right. Alternatively he refrains from implementing tax increases to plug the deficit, in which case we see an America mired in even higher debt by 1988 then in OTL.
 
Well, the Republican Party will not stray as far right as they have in OTL.

Another interesting note, are we assuming that the Curse of Tippecanoe (Also know as the 20 Year Curse) remains unbroken? A lot of people believe that Reagan broke it. :p
 
My list:
George H.W Bush-1981-1989 (R)
Micheal Dukakis 1989-1997 (D)
Paul Wellstone 1997-2005 (D)
Jeb Bush 2005-2009 (R)
Bill Clinton 2009-) (D)
 
Had Ronald Reagan been killed on March 30, 1981 when John Hinckley Jr. shot him, what would the effects be on America politically, culturally, and economically, then and today? Would Republicans be stronger or weaker in the present times?
GHW Bush would either be unable or unwilling to achieve Reagan's deregulation and huge tax cuts for the rich. As a result, the U.S. economy would be much stronger, the national debt would be paid off, and the former Soviet Union would be dominated by American investors. The U.S. would be plagued with communists instead of teabaggers.

Heavy metal would still rule the Eighties, though. Heavy Metal is unstoppable.
 
GHWB would pursue monetarism instead of voodoo, with all the attendant butterflies. Still have tax cuts, but with spending cuts to accompany them and not as much of a defense buildup. Bush is a realist, not a neocon.
 
Reagan becomes like the Republicans' equivalent of Kennedy, for one thing.

Without Bush i dont think Dukakis would be the Democratic nominee. Wasnt he basically choosen because he was the best looser since the Democrats knew that Bush would win no matter who they choosed?
You're thinking of Mondale in 1984 against Reagan. Bush won in 1988, but he fought hard and he fought dirty. If it had been a foregone conclusion as you say then the Republicans wouldn't have resorted to race-baiting with the Willie Horton scare campaigns and suchlike.
 
You're thinking of Mondale in 1984 against Reagan. Bush won in 1988, but he fought hard and he fought dirty. If it had been a foregone conclusion as you say then the Republicans wouldn't have resorted to race-baiting with the Willie Horton scare campaigns and suchlike.
Why wouldn't they have? There's no such thing as too large a margin of victory.

Dukakis was a throwaway candidate. His only chance of winning was if Bush publicly admitted to a gay affair with an underaged drug addict. And then, the Democrats would have thrown their hands up and said, "what the hell, he can't do us any worse than Carter."
 
I'd like to see what happens to the religious Right in such a scenario.


I was just about to comment on this. HW Bush was not much of a social conservative and had few connections to the religious right. He'll still get their support in 1984 as they are unlikely to vote for any likely Democratic nominee. I believe their influence will be greatly reduced. Koop is already Surgeon General, so we might get a quicker response to AIDS.

The religions right was on the ropes and was still quite shaky in the early and mid eighties. There was nothing like the influence today

What would really be interesting is the international butterflies. I still see Soviet weakness and the Berlin Wall coming down by 1991. It might even come down sooner. But what will change in the Soviet Union. Will Andropov still be promoted? Will they go for an earlier Gorbachev? Who else might be in the running.

I agree that the hands off the fed policy that started with Carter will continue and the economy will get better. I wouldn't say it really got that much better in the 80s. It mostly just got better for rich people through deficit spending. But there was still more of a safety net and programs that promoted social mobility like generous Pell grants that are almost unheard of today.

Bush will win reelection, but I think the Democrats may have a good shot if they bring out a strong candidate in 88 and if the social conservative movement isn't getting any traction.

Big butterfly, the religious right becomes frustrated with lack of influence and runs a third party candidate in 88 or 92. This would guarantee the Dems win in '88.
 
I guess there would also wouldn't have been an SDI programme that lives on today as missile defence saving billions of dollars. Would Bush have carried out some of Reagan's gunboat diplomacy such as the confrontations with Libya (Mad Dog of the Middle East etc) Grenada and Lebanon? Also would Iran-Contra have happened?
 
I think that in this scenario, Reagan becomes a latter-day version of WH Harrison; a footnote in the history books as a President who had an extremely brief tenure. Bush was essentially a moderate, establishment Republican; I think a Bush presidency that early into the Reagan term winds up pushing much of the movement conservatives aside and looks a lot like the Ford administration in terms of tone and policy. Assuming that the same general course of events occurs with economic recovery and the demise of the USSR, it doesn't seem out of the question that we would see a more moderate GOP with the more conservative elements marginalized with that pattern carrying forward to the present day.
 
Bush likely will govern as a true fiscal conservative, rather than this Reganomics nonsense. Not that that will be significantly better for the economy as a whole (it will likely make it worse, with cuts and tax increases going into effect before the 1982 midterm elections), and the most likely result, I think, is a 2010-esque Democratic wave in the House, with the Democrats nabbing 60 some odd seats and a gain of 5 or so seats in the Senate, rendering the chamber back unto Democratic control.

The result is going to be a thoroughly emasculated President Bush. Like Eisenhower after losing the 1954 midterm elections, he'll likely tack to the center and try to focus again on reducing the deficit in a more liberal fashion. Unemployment, of course, should still be high, and the 1984 Presidential Election will probably be a lot closer than it was IOTL. Regardless, Bush's foreign policy credentials and image as a compromising centrist will probably help him out here, and he'll likely win re-election by a much smaller margin than did Reagan in 1980 over Walter Mondale.

If Iran-Contra goes ahead, don't expect Bush to go unscathed. He doesn't have the 'Teflon' qualities of Reagan, and he likely will face some sort of censure from the Democratic Congress prior to the 1986 midterms, which will look like 1958. The Democrats have themselves solid control of Congress going into the 1988 Presidential Election, which will feature Republican Vice President Bob Dole against Senator Ted Kennedy and Senator Dale Bumpers.

With the economy still not having fully revived at that point, Kennedy wins a close victory over Dole. The GOP makes gains in Congress, but in the end, the country votes for Kennedy and rejects the fiscal restraint of the GOP in favor of heedy fiscal stimulus. . .

Presidents of the United States
1981: Ronald Reagan (Republican) [1]
1981-1989: George Bush (Republican)
1989-1997: Edward Kennedy (Democrat) [2]
1997-2005: Robert Dole (Republican)
2005-2009: Matt Fong (Republican) [3]
2009-2017: Margaret Anderson Kelliher [4]

[1] Assassinated.
[2] First brother of a former President elected President.
[3] First Asian-American (Chinese-American) elected President.
[4] First woman elected President.


Vice Presidents of the United States
1981: George Bush (Republican) [1]
1981-1989: Bob Dole (Republican)
1989-1997: Dale Bumpers (Democrat)
1997-2005: Jack Kemp (Republican)
2005-2009: Mike Rounds (Republican)
2009-2017: Joe Manchin (Democrat)

[1] Became President upon the death of Ronald Reagan.
 
If I remember it right, after the DNC 1988 Dukatis lay 13 points ahead of Bush. I think a democratic victory was possible and widley expected in 1988. Dukatis wasn´t nominated as a sacifical lamb, he just blew it. But I think whoever wins in 1988 will be a one-term president, because of the recession in 1991/92. Especially a democratic president, because the Republicans would proclaim: "Look, a Democrat in the WH and the economy is in the tank again!"
Could this lead to some kind of perfect storm, were the Republicans take the WH and Congress in 1992?
 
If I remember it right, after the DNC 1988 Dukatis lay 13 points ahead of Bush. I think a democratic victory was possible and widley expected in 1988. Dukatis wasn´t nominated as a sacifical lamb, he just blew it. But I think whoever wins in 1988 will be a one-term president, because of the recession in 1991/92. Especially a democratic president, because the Republicans would proclaim: "Look, a Democrat in the WH and the economy is in the tank again!"
Could this lead to some kind of perfect storm, were the Republicans take the WH and Congress in 1992?


Depending on who the GOP nominee is (Dole or Kemp perhaps) and how they run their campaign, it very well might be. There will be no Perot spoiler or Clinton charisma in TTL's '92 race.
 
I can almost guarantee Robert Bork won't get nominated.
I just thought of something in regards to Koop. He was a member of the Religious Right- his nomination as SG was in part due to his role in a prominent anti-abortion film, "What Ever Happened to the Human Race?". However, he quickly became out of favor with the Religious Right after his report on AIDS. (Even more ironically, the Religious Right favored documents on AIDS from Education Secretary William Bennett over the Surgeon General's reports.) If this took place earlier, this could divide or diminish the role of the Religious Right.
 
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