Given the obvious similarities between the recent events and Watergate, but a very different political climate, it is fair to ask what would have happened if Nixon had enjoyed the support of Fox News and the rest of today’s right-wing media. How would American history have been different if Nixon had succeeded in retaining the support of his base, and had consequently survived the impeachment process?
Carter would still have been the Democratic nominee in 1976. On the Republican side, Gerald Ford would have run, not as the incumbent president, but as Nixon’s unelected sidekick. Reagan undoubtedly would have run against him and promised a new, cleaner, and much more conservative version of the GOP. It is likely, under these changed circumstances, that he would have prevailed.
And so, the Carter/Reagan race would have occurred in 1976, not 1980. Instead of being a discredited incumbent, Carter would have looked fresh and new, while Reagan would have been saddled with the ugly legacy of the Nixon years, and a public looking for change. My guess is that Carter would have won fairly easily, and there never would have been a Reagan Revolution. George H.W. Bush would have been elected in 1980, and the GOP and the country would look very different today.