AHC: Describe the effects on the U.S. social atmosphere over the past 43 years if President Ronald Reagan had been assassinated.

[Esotariot2002]

What effects on pop culture, economics, and others would there be if President Reagan had been assassinated?


- How would Higher Education, Social Services, and Disability rights (including autistic rights and advocacy) evolve without Reagan’s influence?

- How would American Healthcare and Psychiatry evolve without his gutting and subsequent privatization of it?

- Would Bush Sr. be less influenced by Reagan, considering they didn’t trust each until after the assassination attempt?

- How would the War On Drugs pan out? How would medical research and eventual legalization of marijuana go? What would happen to DARE and to the police force (would there be no COPS or other similar reality shows)? Would there be less punitive “Zero Tolerance” policies?

- What would happen to the Religious evangelicals and social conservatives without Reagan to unite them and push the democrats to the center?

- What would the “Therapeutic” Boarding School industry look like without Nancy Reagan’s promotion of it through the War On Drugs?

- How would moral panics work out without the Reagan Revolution?

- How would corporate culture and lobbying fare without Reaganomics?

- How would the FDA, EPA, and DOE work without his attempts to gut them (Would bans on dangerous food ingredients and pharmaceuticals be more common and effective)?

- How would Hollywood and Television be affected, considering Reagan was a former actor?

- Would Oprah and other Trash TV hosts be popular, considering the promotion of anti-science and quack beliefs stemming from Reagan’s cuts to social welfare and higher education and deregulation of the media? (Yes, there is actually a connection between those things)



These are just a few questions and, yes, Reagan did a number on the US and, by extension, the world (I’m Canadian btw).

 

[Happy Nihilist]

Probably an earlier increase in gun ownership advocacy and conspiracy thinking on the right.

 

[Don Corleone]

How would the War On Drugs pan out?

Largely the same. The draconian laws were known as Rockefeller drug laws and were in place before the 1980s. It isn't like Bush (or even Clinton) advocated for a softer approach.

Would Oprah and other Trash TV hosts be popular, considering the promotion of anti-science and quack beliefs stemming from Reagan’s cuts to social welfare and higher education and deregulation of the media? (Yes, there is actually a connection between those things)

How is Oprah "trash TV"? I could see saying that about Jerry Springer or Maury Povich.

I'm also interested in finding out when exactly Reagan cut higher education. Federal spending on education increased throughout the 1980s:

Federal funds for education and research 1970-2021 | Statista

In 2021, about 174.9 billion U.S.

www.statista.com

It declined slightly as a percentage of GDP in the first half of the decade, but that's hardly gutting. It just means other categories increased even more.

He also expanded the EITC and signed EMTALA into law. There were multiple areas where Medicaid was expanded in the 1980s:

Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 (P.L. 98-369) mandates Medicaid coverage of children born after September 30, 1983, up to age five, in AFDC-eligible families and mandates coverage for AFDC-eligible, first-time pregnant women and pregnant women in two-parent unemployed families.
1985 Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (P.L. 99-272) requires Medicaid coverage for all remaining AFDC-eligible pregnant women. It also requires hospice payments to be in the same amounts and using the same methodology as Medicare, and permits separate room and board payment for hospice patients residing in nursing facilities or ICFs.
1986 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986 (P.L. 99-509) requires states to cover treatment of emergency medical conditions for illegal immigrants otherwise eligible for Medicaid and allows states to cover pregnant women and infants under age one with income up to 100 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) at their option.

Federal Legislative Milestones in Medicaid and CHIP : MACPAC

Year Legislative milestones or key provisions 1965 Medicaid, an individual entitlement with federal-state financing, is enacted as Title XIX of the

www.macpac.gov

The deinstitutionalization movement predates the 1980s by a substantial length of time. It was driven in part by abuse scandals at inpatient mental hospitals and in part by improvements in psychotropic drugs. The https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ame...olition_of_Involuntary_Mental_Hospitalization closed in 1980 because its work was finished. (I know Wiki is a crappy source but at least that page has citations.)

Moral panics existed long before 1980, so they would look about the same as OTL.

 

[Esotariot2002]

I’m looking at the way Reagan escalated things…

 

[C. McKay]

I think that one impact will be on morale. Some will be disgusted that they voted for Reagan and got GWH Bush. Memories were longer then. JFKs assassination (plus MLK, Bobby, Lennon, and Malcolm X) took a toll.

 

[Thomas Jefferson]

What effects on pop culture, economics, and others would there be if President Reagan had been assassinated?

Economically, Bush's instincts would be more moderate than Reagan's, but he would have inherited a staff largely composed of Reagan's appointees and couldn't risk breaking too much with Reagan's policies without being accused of betraying the right flank of the party (and keep in mind Reagan is probably an instant hero if he's assassinated). I think what happens is that Bush initially pursues the same policies Reagan intended to, but somewhat course corrects after the 1982 recession, and doesn't have the appetite for huge deficits that Reagan did, which results in more moderate economic policies down the line.

- How would Higher Education, Social Services, and Disability rights (including autistic rights and advocacy) evolve without Reagan’s influence?

Bush probably cuts social services, but to a less severe extent

- How would American Healthcare and Psychiatry evolve without his gutting and subsequent privatization of it?

Probably funded at higher levels and therefore more effective, especially because if Reagan is assassinated by Hinckley there will be a big push to get the dangerous mentally ill off the streets. The dark side of this is that it's likely you see a return to the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest style asylums that the mental health reforms of the 1960s and 1970s were designed to move away from.

- Would Bush Sr. be less influenced by Reagan, considering they didn’t trust each until after the assassination attempt?

Yes, if for no other reason than that Reagan wouldn't be around to influence him.

- How would the War On Drugs pan out? How would medical research and eventual legalization of marijuana go? What would happen to DARE and to the police force (would there be no COPS or other similar reality shows)? Would there be less punitive “Zero Tolerance” policies?

The War on Drugs would go pretty much the same as IOTL. Bush himself was fairly zealous on that front (notoriously arranging a sting operation to get an unlucky drug dealer to sell crack in front of the White House and then holding it up in an Oval Office address), and it was popular across the political spectrum.

- What would happen to the Religious evangelicals and social conservatives without Reagan to unite them and push the democrats to the center?

Bush would treat them as a potentially dangerous interest group to keep at arm's length but make policy concessions to, rather than as a core element of his base.

- What would the “Therapeutic” Boarding School industry look like without Nancy Reagan’s promotion of it through the War On Drugs?

Probably the same, but with Barbara Bush rather than Nancy Reagan as their White House patron.

- How would moral panics work out without the Reagan Revolution?

There would still be plenty of moral panics, which were driven more by the media than Presidential policies. In fact, the assassination itself would likely lead to a moral panic about violence in media if Hinckley was the assassin.

- How would corporate culture and lobbying fare without Reaganomics?

Probably the same as OTL.

- How would the FDA, EPA, and DOE work without his attempts to gut them (Would bans on dangerous food ingredients and pharmaceuticals be more common and effective)?

This is one area where I think Bush would be more 'liberal' than Reagan. You can probably get a good idea of how that would play out in practice by looking at actual regulations that were enacted during the Clinton administration.

- How would Hollywood and Television be affected, considering Reagan was a former actor?

Like I said above, I think there would be a big moral panic about violent movies. Martin Scorsese in particular would probably find it hard to get work for several years, and movies and television in general would probably face more pressure to remove explicit scenes of violence and promote 'pro-social' messages. Movies and TV shows like Miami Vice, Scarface, or the horror movies of the era would have failed to be greenlit or substantially watered down.

- Would Oprah and other Trash TV hosts be popular, considering the promotion of anti-science and quack beliefs stemming from Reagan’s cuts to social welfare and higher education and deregulation of the media? (Yes, there is actually a connection between those things)

Yes, I think Bush would deregulate the media to the same extent as Reagan, and there was a huge audience in waiting for that type of show.

These are just a few questions and, yes, Reagan did a number on the US and, by extension, the world (I’m Canadian btw).

 

[Ashley Pomeroy]

It would have had a disastrous effect on the career of Jodie Foster. If Hinckley had achieved his goal of sufficiently impressing Foster to spark up a relationship, they would either have had to spend the rest of their lives in hiding, or alternatively Foster would have to carry out the relationship with Hinckley while he was in prison.

My understanding is that circa 1981 assassinating the President of the United States was a Federal crime, and thus potentially subject to the death penalty, even though Washington DC had stopped executions several years before. So it's likely that Foster and Hinckley's marriage might not have lasted very long. But the damage would have been done.

There would be some knock-on effects. Silence of the Lambs wouldn't be quite the same without the interplay between Foster and Hopkins. Without Hannibal Lector as a cultural phenomenon whole swaths of 1990s reference-based comedy would have had to be rewritten. Contact probably wouldn't have been greenlit. The asteroid 17744 Jodiefoster would just be called 17744.

Of course other people would have stepped in, but I like to think the world would be a poorer place.

 

[raharris1973]

It would have had a disastrous effect on the career of Jodie Foster. If Hinckley had achieved his goal of sufficiently impressing Foster to spark up a relationship, they would either have had to spend the rest of their lives in hiding, or alternatively Foster would have to carry out the relationship with Hinckley while he was in prison.

My understanding is that circa 1981 assassinating the President of the United States was a Federal crime, and thus potentially subject to the death penalty, even though Washington DC had stopped executions several years before. So it's likely that Foster and Hinckley's marriage might not have lasted very long. But the damage would have been done.

things.........not........going.........to........happen.........outside........Hinckley's.......dreams

 

[SodaMan1996]

It would have had a disastrous effect on the career of Jodie Foster. If Hinckley had achieved his goal of sufficiently impressing Foster to spark up a relationship, they would either have had to spend the rest of their lives in hiding, or alternatively Foster would have to carry out the relationship with Hinckley while he was in prison.

My understanding is that circa 1981 assassinating the President of the United States was a Federal crime, and thus potentially subject to the death penalty, even though Washington DC had stopped executions several years before. So it's likely that Foster and Hinckley's marriage might not have lasted very long. But the damage would have been done.

There would be some knock-on effects. Silence of the Lambs wouldn't be quite the same without the interplay between Foster and Hopkins. Without Hannibal Lector as a cultural phenomenon whole swaths of 1990s reference-based comedy would have had to be rewritten. Contact probably wouldn't have been greenlit. The asteroid 17744 Jodiefoster would just be called 17744.

Of course other people would have stepped in, but I like to think the world would be a poorer place.

Literally impossible. Foster was known to cancel interviews if the assassination attempt was even mentioned.

Plus, at Hinckley's trial, she refused to even look at him, let alone acknowledge him.

 

[Mynock]

In 1981 Reagan signed the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 which slashed taxes. It was one of the largest tax cuts in US history and was perhaps the centrepiece of Reagan's supply-side program. President Bush, despite his own opposition to "Voodoo Economics" would be forced to support it under enormous political pressure. This tax cut led to a decline in tax revenue and a ballooning deficit.

To counteract this deficit Reagan signed the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 which went back on a lot of the previous cuts. It was one of the largest tax raises in American history. I posit that President Bush would be politically dead if he did this. It would appear to Republicans ITTL like a slap in the face to Reagan's legacy. Imagine if LBJ canned the space program. At minimum it means he deals with a serious right-wing challenger in 1984. But if he doesn't do it, he would be faced with a massive shortfall. This would be the big battle of Bush's first term and I would argue the outcome is what would define the new America of the 1980s.

 

[ramones1986]

I guess the multi-level marketing (MLM) industry, particularly Amway, would still have a presence without Reagan.