I wonder if there was any possible means of preventing a conservative uprising from having occurred in the 1980s and the right-wing branch of the Republican party fizzling out, with the moderate branch remaining prominent.
Any Conceivable Way to Prevent Reagan Revolution in the 1980s?
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Reagan defeats Ford in '76, wins the election, and takes the fall for the economy and issues in Iran leading to a Democrat in '80.
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problem is, the American people really wanted a change back then... if Reagan dies, the things that led to his election won't die with him, and we would get someone else with a similar bent (although without Reagan's charisma perhaps). To avoid the whole 'lurch to the right', we really need to look at things other than what's happening in America... the world had seemed like a really ugly place to us back then... Russians in Afghanistan, hostages in Iran, etc. Add to that a struggling economy and Carter's seemingly weak leadership, and it's hardly surprising that we got what we got. I think it would take a better situation overseas as well as at home to avoid Reagan. Carter would have to be seen to be more competent, the economy would have to be better, and we can't have those disasters in the Middle East as well. Basically, it would take a lot...
What if you sent the PoD back further, such that Roe was decided differently? Would this have torpedoed the alliance between the economic conservatives and the "Moral Majority"?
That's why the "Reagan wins '76" approach is the best. Now all of those problems that dragged down Carter are now dragging down Reagan. His policies led to a violent revolution in Iran and an oil price spike, a recession at home and tons of people losing their jobs and livelihoods, nuclear tensions with the Soviets worse than anything seen since '62...sure, he has charisma and all that, but in the face of those headwinds, I suspect he ends up doing a squeaker of a race but loses to the Democratic candidate in 1980. At best a very narrow win for him. So the Reagan Revolution gets aborted because it doesn't seem to be working, and everything goes back to "normal" for a time.
In the end, though, I suspect the Revolution is only delayed, not prevented, by this outcome. The Republicans had, over the past decade and a half or so, gradually been moving towards Reagan's positions, and IOTL continued moving that way. This kind of movement continued when they won (1994, 2000) and lost (2008, 1996). It continued when times were good (2000) and bad (2008). Some Republican is going to be elected President eventually, and that Republican is probably going to be pushed into having similar policies of deregulation, tax cuts, and so on. And it's unlikely that there'll be two Republican Presidents in a row who end up elected into a big mess beyond their control that makes them look ineffectual, so when they implement their policies they're going to look successful. And then you have the Reagan Revolution--except maybe it'll be the Dole Revolution, or the Bush Revolution, or the Romney Revolution, or something like that. You can prevent it striking in the 1980s, probably, but not forever.
Ancien Regime
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To stop the Reagan Revolution you have to have the Civil Rights Movement go a LOT better than OTL. Probably butterfly both MLK's death and Vietnam at a minimum, which minimizes the backlash among white working class voters. The Reagan Revolution was first and foremost about repealing the 60s.
For this to work, you really need to discredit the whole conservative movement, which attained critical mass back in 1964 with Goldwater. Reagan was the culmination of a long project to remake American politics that continued to gain momentum despite the massive Goldwater loss, Watergate and Reagan's 1976 primary defeat. Reagan winning in 1976 works rather well; whomever won that election was pretty much doomed to be perceived as a failure. The flip side of the conservative revolution was that New Deal liberalism was pretty much a spent force by 1980 and the 1960s "New Left" never really caught on with the public at large. Another way to approach the issue would be to revitalize liberalism, which still had a large reservoir of goodwill among the WW2 generation that was still alive and voting in 1980. It is generally underappreciated that Reagan was for many a very reluctant vote by people who were not ideological conservatives, but people frustrated by the economy and the pace of social change since the 1960s. Reagan himself, it should be remembered, was a former New Deal Democrat. A liberalism that managed to complete the RFK project of uniting minorities and blue collar voters would have been far more formidable than what existed in 1980.
Or, you could just have Reagan break his hip after being thrown from a horse on his ranch sometime in 1979 and be unable to run. There really wasn't another candidate with Reagan's appeal who could carry the conservative torch in 1980. You'd likely get a nominee from the more moderate wing and a GOP presidency not all that out of line with Eisenhower, Nixon or Ford.
Or, you could just have Reagan break his hip after being thrown from a horse on his ranch sometime in 1979 and be unable to run. There really wasn't another candidate with Reagan's appeal who could carry the conservative torch in 1980. You'd likely get a nominee from the more moderate wing and a GOP presidency not all that out of line with Eisenhower, Nixon or Ford.
California passed Prop 13, which limited property tax increases, in 1978. I think this gives you a sense of the national mood and how difficult this would be.
True, biut as mentioning above by Apollo, this could at least be a way to discredit the rise of that form of conservatism and if someone sharp enough on the Democrats ran on the liberalism of the WW2 time along with greater progressive policies tapped into that amongst the 80s, I imagine it would be a good decade for the Democrats.
That timeline didn't get far from what I saw. Though Ted Kennedy in the 1980s would be quite fasicnating, especially after a Reagan '76. Carter could still be seen as Secretary of State
The Titan II missile accident on September 19th 1980 leads to a full-yield 9 MT explosion (which should have been impossible, is probably some sort of fundamental flaw in the arming circuits, and means ALL our W-53 and B-53 warheads need to be taken offline immediately). Thousands dead (including Walter Mondale whose plane was leaving Little Rock that night), millions homeless as groundburst fallout leaves huge exclusion zone across Arkansas/Oklahoma/Kansas. Carter and Reagan both agree to suspend campaigning; Reagan wins but it's a very hollow victory. Severe economic downturn, Pershing II missiles in Europe are right out, and the U.S. is basically headed for another full decade of even worse malaise.
Then on February 20th, 1981, due to heavy fog and pilot error Argentine Airlines flight 342 hits the North Tower of the World Trade Center, leading to a fiery collapse. The South Tower remains standing but is so badly damaged it'll have to be brought down ... somehow (civil engineers have no idea). Until then, Lower Manhattan remains cordoned off.
Then on March 30th, Reagan is shot and killed by John Hinckley (who had some sort of batshit insane plan to marry Jodie Foster and flee the collapse of America together).
God help Acting President George Bush... Meanwhile, absolutely nobody gives a crap about the culture wars at this point. They're worried whether they'll have jobs tomorrow, or get gunned down by a crazy person, or get some sort of radiation poisoning ten years down the road.
Then on February 20th, 1981, due to heavy fog and pilot error Argentine Airlines flight 342 hits the North Tower of the World Trade Center, leading to a fiery collapse. The South Tower remains standing but is so badly damaged it'll have to be brought down ... somehow (civil engineers have no idea). Until then, Lower Manhattan remains cordoned off.
Then on March 30th, Reagan is shot and killed by John Hinckley (who had some sort of batshit insane plan to marry Jodie Foster and flee the collapse of America together).
God help Acting President George Bush... Meanwhile, absolutely nobody gives a crap about the culture wars at this point. They're worried whether they'll have jobs tomorrow, or get gunned down by a crazy person, or get some sort of radiation poisoning ten years down the road.
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Jesus, that's dark. And you can throw in the advent of HIV/AIDS into the mix as well; the first story on it appeared in the NY Times in the summer of 1981, as I recall. With all this going on, it would seem as though the world was coming unglued.
This sounds like the prelude to a cyberpunk future in the 90s. Maybe instead of Bush, Reagan took on Rumsfeld for VP?
The Reagan in 1976 idea runs into one major problem - how are you going to have him win 1976? Ford nearly pulled off a minor miracle by running as an acceptable moderate. Reagan would have been targeted as the second coming of Goldwater, and unlike OTL 1980, he wouldn't be able to deflect it with the weakness of a Democratic incumbent.
Mind you, if Reagan had won the Republican nomination in 1976, and lost, he wouldn't have been the nominee in 1980. The party might well steer clear of conservatives after that.
Mind you, if Reagan had won the Republican nomination in 1976, and lost, he wouldn't have been the nominee in 1980. The party might well steer clear of conservatives after that.
Prop 13 was on a primary ballot with a democratic governor running for reelection without a primary challenge.
That might have skewed turnout a bit.
But also, this is prior to BRAC, peace dividend, and Prop 187 turning California into the liberal stronghold it's seen as today.
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