Triumph of the Reagan Democrats

Author says: what if Charlton Heston had quit acting to run for the Senate in 1969? Please note that the opinions expressed in this satirical post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s).

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to Digg our site.the fortieth US President Ronald Reagan welcomed the dawn of a new era of responsible Federal Government by receiving Senator Charlton Heston and other leading members of the Conservative Democrat caucus for round table discussions at the White House.

The Democrat Party had drifted leftwards and embraced liberalism after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. And naturally, both of the former Union leaders were increasingly disillusioned with the party during the sixties and seventies.

Due to their lower middle class origins, neither family had directly benefitted from the welfare dollars of the New Deal during the thirties. And from their shared position of initial skepticism, they had nurtured a common conviction that the "Great Society" of Lyndon Johnson had mistakenly created a ballooning bureacracy which had delivered disappointing results for the "Average American".

Of course due to their own celebrity status neither would consider themselves a part of that group of people. Nor were they intellectuals who could bond easily with their fellow writers and academics amongst the neoconservatives who were led by the Editor of Public Interest, Irving Kristol.

Instead, Reagan was understandably keen to exploit Heston's public image which had lent authority to his political activitism. In fact Heston had struggled with the deeply personal decision to quit acting and run for the Senate in 1969. Reagan on the other hand, had experienced less of a dilemma. In his final role for the 1964 movie "The Killers", he been miscast as the villain. A lacklustre performance had finally brought the curtain down on his acting career.

Author says to view guest historian's comments on this post please visit the Today in Alternate History web site. Except from his obituary on the New York Times Web site - He [Charleton Heston] served as president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1966 to 1971, following in the footsteps of his friend and role model Ronald Reagan. A registered Democrat for many years, he was nevertheless selective in the candidates he chose to support and often campaigned for conservatives. In 1981, President Reagan appointed him co-chairman of the President’s Task Force on the Arts and Humanities, a group formed to devise ways to obtain financing for arts organizations. Although he had reservations about some projects supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, Mr. Heston wound up defending the agency against charges of elitism. Again and again, he proved himself a cogent and effective speaker, but he rejected suggestions that he run for office. “I’d rather play a senator than be one,” he said.

Imagine what would be, if history had occurred a bit differently. Who says it didn't, somewhere? These fictional news items explore that possibility. Possibilities such as America becoming a Marxist superpower, aliens influencing human history in the 18th century and Teddy Roosevelt winning his 3rd term as president abound in this interesting fictional blog.