I love reading the what if? threads on alternate histories, but haven’t found one on this topic.
So, what if Hinkley had better luck? Who would Bush have selected as VP? How would the Russians react? Would the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War changed much?
GHWB did not have the personal charisma RWR had. The “Reagan Revolution” probably would have been blunted somewhat, at least in domestic economic policy.
Pretty much what BrainGlutton said. The far right makes fewer inroads. As for the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR, that happens anyway; we did not win, so much as they failed. If anything there’s less risk of the USSR lashing out with their nukes, without someone with Reagan’s close ties to the Armageddon-loving Christian fundies.
I think alot of Reagan’s early in office appeal was how bravely he acted when he was shot. “Honey I forgot to duck”, “I hope all you [Doctors] are Republicans.” etc. There is a Family Guy episode where Taxi Driver is never made, Hinckley never shoots Reagan and Mondale wins in '84. I don’t know about that, but I do think politically the assassination attempt was a big political help to Regan for a while. I don’t know that Bush would have had the same bump - in fact I can see conservatives – always suspicious of him - looking to replace him in 84
I think that probably the most likely difference is that Bush would not have let the deficit get as out of hand as Reagan did. That would probably have involved some level of Military spending cut backs and/or tax raises (both of which would have cost Bush some level of far right support re the above).
There certainly was *some *Soviet feeling (and to avoid that debate I’ll be vague and not try to quantify it) that Reagan’s Military Build-up and Star Wars could not be matched. The extent that helped lead to the end game in the USSR will be a debate that will go on forever I think. WAG-ing now - but if you think that the USSR might have survived into President Quayle’s term in 92-93 I wouldn’t say that was crazy.
Of course, the Reagan Revolution was not a one-man show, it was the culmination of a decade and more of conservative grass-roots organizing with lavish corporate funding (the history of which is very thoroughly recounted in Right Nation, by Adrian Wooldridge and John Micklethwaite, and The World Turned Right Side Up, by Godfrey Hodgson). It would have not been entirely crippled by the loss of a single leader.
True as that might be, Reagan’s success in 1980 wouldn’t have come about without several decades of liberal overreaching and the spectacular incompetence of the Carter administration.
There is no way that conservatives could have won without our opponents screwing up so badly, and had Reagan been shot and killed, that wouldn’t have kept Mondale and Dukakis and Ted Kennedy from being totally unelectable.
The real question is whether conservatives would have continued to succeed so well in the Republican Party. I think they probably could have, since Reagan indeed was elected with his platform, and since liberalism in its 1960s-1970s incarnation had been so thoroughly discredited.
Bush might have been put into the same position Lyndon Johnson was - forced to try to out-Reagan Reagan.
A couple of things that might not have happened:
Without Reagan’s illegal funding of weapons to Iran, and his aid to Afghani Mujahadeen, there’s a good chance Osama bin Laden never ends up creating al Qaeda. We don’t know what would have happened with the US - Israel - Saudi triangle without that.
There’s also a good chance that Papa Bush’s career would have been shorter (it certainly would have been different), and it’s not clear the impact this has on George the second and his career, which possibly impacts Supreme Court justice selections and subsequent decisions. This gets complicated very quickly.
I think there’s also a good chance that Bill Clinton doesn’t hit his stride at the right time, taking out a weak Bush in 1992, and so we never get Monica, Hillary, etc.
Hmmmm:
The Soviet Union survives a bit longer without the stress of trying to keep up with the Reagan military buildup. I still don’t see them making it beyond the 1990s, though.
Bush the Elder is driven, somewhat against his will, to try to carry out the Reagan agenda, but doesn’t have the political savvy to get as much of it through as Reagan did. This basically translates into lower deficits, somewhat higher taxes and spending, and a bit less economic growth. This probably has some effect on the late-90s tech bubble, but darned if I can figure out exactly what.
Bush gets elected in 1984. The tea leaves for 1998 are unclear; much depends on who was appointed/confirmed as replacement VP after the assassination.
Bill Clinton might have been elected in 1984 and served till 1992. Then I don’t know if Dubya would have been elected, or if Gore would have gotten in.
The “year ending in a 0” conspiracy believers would have been very very happy.
Presuming that Hinkley’s bullet was the cause, Bush would likely have been re-elected in '84, which means the '88 election would have been Dukakis vs. ??
We can’t say that Dukakis’ fortunes wouldn’t have been also altered by Hinkley’s bullet. We really can’t extrapolate that far in the future from the point of divergence.
Why? He was something of a fluke in 1992, and had even less political standing in 1984.
I doubt that many people outside Arkansas would have heard of him in this alternate history.
Not a chance. A 37 year old political neophyte from Arkansas who had served just over one term as governor? Sole other political experience as State Attorney General. It was already a bit of an upset that he got elected when he did, mainly because Mondale and Dukakis before him failed so spectacularly, making room for his “third way”.
Maybe Gary Hart gets his chance v. Bush in 1984 or Bush’s veep in 1988, assuming he could keep it in his pants.
Still no speculation on Bush’s Veep. Bob Dole maybe? Which would set him up for a run in '88, when he would’ve been a better candidate than in '96 (what was the GOP thinking?).
Would Bush carry out the trickle down, supply side “voodoo” economic policies that Reagan had started? I’m not so sure that he would feel compelled to do so, given his contempt during the primary campaign.
I think Bush would have done much the same as Reagan, after all, he has been somewhat implicated in the Iran-contra affair, although I’m not sure we’ll ever know the whole story there.
Maybe, but I read recently that Reagan turned down an offer from Gorbachev to withdraw from Afghanistan. Instead, the Soviets increased their pressure on Afghanistan, which indirectly lead to making bin Laden a hero of later battles. I believe Bush would have been more likely to accept a Soviet withdrawl and extend the status quo.
I’m sure Bush’s hand was in Iran-Contra, just don’t think he was as tied in to showing up Gorbachev.
Jack Kemp maybe. He had been pushed strongly as a choice for Reagan’s VP but apparently they decided to go for balance rather than have two conservatives on the ticket. But with Reagan dead and an open spot, conservatives might have wanted Kemp back in so they could be represented. This would have made Kemp a strong contender for a Presidential run in 1988.
I think a conservative movement with Reagan’s charisma at its front would have run into more conflict. Some of the big Democrats who stayed out of the running because they didn’t think it was their time might have stepped forward against Bush or Kemp. I’ll throw Mario Cuomo in as a name who might have run in 1988.
Well, if Reagan had been assassinated, people would still be going on about the every-20-years death curse on American presidents – and predicting that Bush would keel over any day now.
How was it discredited? The gains of the Civil Rights movement were never discredited, with the arguable exception of affirmative action, which remains controversial to this day. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society was never discredited – mainly because it was never fully implemented, thanks to the costs of the Vietnam War. You really can’t credibly attribute the inflation of the '70s to Keynesian economics. Carter’s detente approach to the USSR was never discredited, merely reversed by the subsequent administration. The Iranian Revolution discredited nothing but the CIA’s actions in overthrowing democracy in Iran in 1953. “Free Love” was discredited only to the extent that it became apparent the woman always gets stuck with the lovechild after the man has moved on; we still haven’t gone back to the idea that brides should be wedding-night virgins, except in a few cultural enclaves where that idea was never abandoned in the first place. The social liberation of women and gays was reacted against, certainly, but never discredited in any sense. And so on.