The date: Nov. 13, 1979.
Almost full 45 years ago.
Americans — including my younger self — tuned into their televisions at 7:30 that night to see an announcement from former California Gov. Ronald Reagan. Typically, Reagan got to his point in the very first sentence. He said:
Good evening. I am here tonight to announce my intention to seek the Republican nomination for president of the United States.
A hat tip here to radio host Jake Smith of WGMD 92.7.
The other day on his show (where, full disclosure, I was a guest), Jake recalled Reagan’s now long-ago announcement for president in 1979, noting how relevant Reagan’s words still are today.
As America heads into another presidential election, every bit as important as would be the 1980 election with then-President Jimmy Carter — the Kamala Harris of the day — it is decidedly worth looking again at Reagan’s words.
Among other things, the then-new presidential candidate said this that night, with bold print for emphasis supplied today:
There are those in our land today, however, who would have us believe that the United States, like other great civilizations of the past, has reached the zenith of its power; that we are weak and fearful, reduced to bickering with each other and no longer possessed of the will to cope with our problems.
Much of this talk has come from leaders who claim that our problems are too difficult to handle. We are supposed to meekly accept their failures as the most which humanly can be done. They tell us we must learn to live with less, and teach our children that their lives will be less full and prosperous than ours have been; that the America of the coming years will be a place where because of our past excesses it will be impossible to dream and make those dreams come true.
I don’t believe that. And, I don’t believe you do either. That is why I am seeking the presidency. I cannot and will not stand by and see this great country destroy itself. Our leaders attempt to blame their failures on circumstances beyond their control, on false estimates by unknown, unidentifiable experts who rewrite modern history in an attempt to convince us our high standard of living, the result of thrift and hard work, is somehow selfish extravagance which we must renounce as we join in sharing scarcity. I don’t agree that our nation must resign itself to inevitable decline, yielding its proud position to other hands. I am totally unwilling to see this country fail in its obligation to itself and to the other free peoples of the world.
The crisis we face is not the result of any failure of the American spirit; it is a failure of our leaders to establish rational goals and give our people something to order their lives by. If I am elected, I shall regard my election as proof that the people of the United States have decided to set a new agenda and have recognized that the human spirit thrives best when goals are set and progress can be measured in their achievement.
…The people have not created this disaster in our economy; the federal government has. It has overspent, overestimated, and over regulated. It has failed to deliver services within the revenues it should be allowed to raise from taxes. …The key to restoring the health of the economy lies in cutting taxes.
…We must put an end to the arrogance of a federal establishment which accepts no blame for our condition, cannot be relied upon to give us a fair estimate of our situation and utterly refuses to live within its means. I will not accept the supposed wisdom which has it that the federal bureaucracy has become so powerful that it can no longer be changed or controlled by any administration.
….We need more energy and that means diversifying our sources of supply away from the OPEC countries. Yes, it means more efficient automobiles. But it also means more exploration and development of oil and natural gas here in our own country. The only way to free ourselves from the monopoly pricing power of OPEC is to be less dependent on outside sources of fuel.
…I believe this nation hungers for a spiritual revival; hungers to once again see honor placed above political expediency; to see government once again the protector of our liberties, not the distributor of gifts and privilege. Government should uphold and not undermine those institutions which are custodians of the very values upon which civilization is founded: religion, education and, above all, family. Government cannot be clergyman, teacher and parent. It is our servant, beholden to us.
We who are privileged to be Americans have had a rendezvous with destiny since the moment in 1630 when John Winthrop, standing on the deck of the tiny Arbella off the coast of Massachusetts, told the little band of pilgrims, We shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world.
A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, andabove allresponsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.
I believe that you and I together can keep this rendezvous with destiny.
It takes no imagination to realize that what Reagan said that long ago night applies perhaps even more to America today. Watching the socialist, Marxist campaign of the Democrats latest successor to 1979’s President Jimmy Carter – Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, the equally socialist Minnesota Governor Tim Walz- there is no imagination in realizing that the failures of the Biden-Harris Administration are because they have made a point of following the policies of 1970’s Democrats. Policies which Reagan would go on to illustrate with their dismal results in every step of the 1980 campaign.
“You don’t have to imagine what a Kamala Harris presidency would be,” former President Donald Trump said during his press conference at his Bedminster, New Jersey, club on Thursday.
Indeed you don’t. A Harris–Walz presidency would double down on the seriously bad results of the Biden–Harris administration.
With a little over two months to go until the November election, Americans have now reached the point where the summer vacations are winding down and the kids will soon be back in school. They will be forced by reality to understand the seriously bad results that are coming from the policies of the Biden-Harris administration.
Just as Americans in 1980 had to come to grips with the results of President Jimmy Carter’s administration.
That November night of 1979, Ronald Reagan laid out the policy reasons for the abundant failures and misery of the Carter administration.
All these years later, Kamala Harris is campaigning for exactly the same Jimmy Carter policies that were failing Americans in 1979.
To say the least, Reagan’s question from his later debate with Carter in October of 1980 is more than relevant coming from former President Donald Trump.
That famous question: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”
As in 1980, in 2024 the same question is still more than relevant.
That answer: A resounding NO!
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