This captures the feeling about Carter that led to Reagan

[Craig234]

I had some discussions here in recent weeks about the Carter presidency and election of Reagan. I made a lot of points about why I think Carter is the most underrated president since, and Reagan a disaster. But this clip of Archie Bunker shows how I think a lot of the country felt at the time, which was not positive about Carter, that opened the door for Reagan, better than just describing it.

We didn't know what we were doing. But Reagan's background as a corporate spokesman, who could put a 'sunny light' on things, like trump tried to do with the 'almost cured' Coronovirus he's done amazing on, putting our country on the road of corruption and debt, worked very well politically - his blather about a 'shining city on a hill', a long forgotten campaign slogan to 'Make America Great'.

Carter's failing was in making the country 'feel bad', in a time of inflation crisis, of cutbacks, of new words like 'stagflation', demanding people learn the metric system, symbolized by watching our hostages in Iran, powerless.

This clip captures the mood of much of the country.

For what it's worth, trump has that same issue now, except he really deserves it - a country very, very ready for change.

Archie Bunker on Democrats - YouTube

 

[swing_voter]

Carter didn't handle the OPEC crisis well.


People couldn't afford to buy gas, if they could find gas to buy. In a country like America where people need to drive to get to work or a grocery store, gas is important.

 

[Craig234]

So, one thing Reagan did wrong, is starting the country on massive deficits to 'buy' economic positives. Hey, things look better - if you ignore that it's on the national credit card. You might think, why didn't voters care about the debt?

Reagan did something very politically effective, and very dishonest. He ATTACKED the debt loudly and often, and came across as an anti-debt maniac - so that few would think he was CAUSING such massive debt. When Democrats pointed out his huge debt, people didn't listen, because they were viewing him as against the big debt since he said so. He got a 'free pass' mostly with the lie.

 

[Lord Tammerlain]

Carter didn't handle the OPEC crisis well.


People couldn't afford to buy gas, if they could find gas to buy. In a country like America where people need to drive to get to work or a grocery store, gas is important.

The OPEC Crisis was before Carter,

Carter was the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis. Which Reagan is suspected of talking with Iran to ensure it was not resolved until after the election

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Carter tried launching the SynFuels program to address OPEC, even while simultaneously bathing Texas in subsidies to kickstart increased oil exploration and drilling. But that wasn't good enough for the Texas oil lobby, which launched a million dollar campaign to discredit the SynFuels program, when they really could have helped develop it for a piece of the pie.
Only four SMALL oil companies participated.

And Reagan finally killed it off entirely, whereas if we'd stayed the course, we probably would have come up with a suitable alternative a couple of decades ago.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

You know, I REMEMBER his malaise speech - or speeches, because it was actually a subject that was a collection of points of view on several large issues spread over a handful of speeches.
Sorry, I do not remember any of those speeches being a downer.
Carter sounded like the adult urging everyone to DO some adulting, that we might kick in a patriotic spirit of cooperation.
1976 was both a celebration of America's bicentennial and also a sober look at whether we had the guts, the stomach, the SACK to take on some big issues and whoop them the way we whooped ass on the Moon shot.
Carter's specialty was energy. If ever there was a POTUS with some practical real world experience about energy, it was Carter.

Right now I just heard Trump repeating a conspiracy theory about vaccines and autism.
Right now! August 12, 2020...President Trump scaring the crap out of people with bullcrap about autism!

Carter was a former Navy nuclear engineer aboard a submarine, and his teacher was Admiral Hyman Rickover, so anyone who wants to call that seagoing Georgia peanut farmer a wussy libtard should get a reality check about life on board subs, studying under Rickover and farming before they make an even bigger idiot of themselves.

The people who did the whining were the REPUBLICANS, FRESH OFF the BIGGEST political crime scandal in our history, in which they and the entire Nixon administration were implicated.
I guarantee you we can expect a steroid enhanced version of that upon the Trump exit, bigger, longer and uncut, unless we move preemptively to cut it down like a garden weed infestation. We better have the jugs of RoundUp and DDT ready now. And yes, it WILL be necessary this time to punish these criminals. This must never be allowed to achieve critical mass again.

Again: The people who did the whining were the REPUBLICANS
They even spent the equivalent of the bottom line of a half dozen Fortune 500 corporations to sell a reaction tape style whinging-fest that was presented as a pain letter to Americans, many of whom were sons and daughters of men and women who a generation earlier had sacrificed heavily on gasoline, rubber, copper, steel, almost everything imaginable and did not complain.

Lordy how the GOP taught folks how to complain! :shock:

Would I have done things a little differently? Sure, on a couple of things, yes.

For instance I would have done the 55 MPH National Speed Limit as a carrot and stick program, namely that the more fleet efficiency the carmakers chalk up, the sooner the 55 limit gets lifted, first to 60, then 65, etc.
At the time, the US fleet average fuel efficiency was about 12 miles per gallon, and we're talking about passenger cars!

By the way, the 55 mph limit stuck with us until well into Reagan's second term.
Why didn't he do anything about it?

Average national fuel savings was one percent, far short of the rosy 5-10% predicted, partly due to non-compliance and even downright refusenik protest actions. Also partly due to lackluster response from the automakers.

Had we invested a lot of that energy in overall car efficiency we'd have earned the right to go faster. We see now that it is possible to have a car with 400 HP that can achieve 25 and even 30 miles per gallon (fwy).
We now have competitive electric vehicles, we now have hybrids, we now have plain old high efficiency cars that are still fun to drive and a hundred times safer, even the ones with half that four hundred horses or less.
A thirty year head start on that would have kept us as the undisputed champs of the automotive world or at least near the top.
Carter's favorite teacher, by the way, had a lot to say about energy efficiency way back in 1957.
Stanford University - "Energy Resources and Our Future" remarks by Admiral Rickover PDF

Instead we diverted our time, money and energy into slurping up Republican sniveling and put an actor in the White House.



An actor who sold us on the soft soap, soft serve and soft smarm that any spoiled brat reaches when Mummy isn't looking.
And he pulled the softest con ever to hit the pike.

Imagine if we had put some of Rickover's advice to work way back then or at least way back in the Carter years?
Not only patriotic but rewarding, and it would have also been a good time to revisit thorium.
Might have been a shorter path to it back in the 1970's because despite being nixed by Congress to placate The Pentagon, thorium was still on a research path at Oak Ridge.

Oh well, let's see if the adults can get a chance to be heard this time around.
A small investment or a large one, anything invested in constructive ideas is going to pay off because most of our present day infrastructure dates back to the New Deal, so it's clear that we have the capability.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Do we have the stomach?
Do we have the stomach to defeat Trump and Trumpism?
Do we have the stomach for investment instead of insurgency?
Carter was not a downer, I think he was incredibly serious, but also incredibly intelligent, and earnest.

 

[Dayton3]

So, one thing Reagan did wrong, is starting the country on massive deficits to 'buy' economic positives. Hey, things look better - if you ignore that it's on the national credit card. You might think, why didn't voters care about the debt?

Reagan did something very politically effective, and very dishonest. He ATTACKED the debt loudly and often, and came across as an anti-debt maniac - so that few would think he was CAUSING such massive debt. When Democrats pointed out his huge debt, people didn't listen, because they were viewing him as against the big debt since he said so. He got a 'free pass' mostly with the lie.

Most of the Reagan deficit was due to funding committed to the military which had been really hit hard budget wise since the end of the Vietnam War.

Reagan's big conflict with his OMB Director David Stockman was when he told Stockman that as far as he was concerned military spending was "not a budget issue". That is the U.S. would spend what it had to on the military deficits or not.

 

[Hamish Howl]

Carter sounded like the adult urging everyone to DO some adulting,

Failure point identified.

 

[Craig234]

You know, I REMEMBER his malaise speech - or speeches, because it was actually a subject that was a collection of points of view on several large issues spread over a handful of speeches.

Funny fact: the one speech most known as the 'malaise speech' does not have the word malaise. Any I demand anyone who criticizes it for being too down on America to read trump's campaign speech in which he trashed the country - he declared "the American dream is dead". Under Obama.

 

[post]

Most of the Reagan deficit was due to funding committed to the military which had been really hit hard budget wise since the end of the Vietnam War.

Reagan's big conflict with his OMB Director David Stockman was when he told Stockman that as far as he was concerned military spending was "not a budget issue". That is the U.S. would spend what it had to on the military deficits or not.

LOL, where did you "learn" those so far unsupported excuses?

The debt tripled from 09/30/81 to 09/30/89, $998 billion to $2,857, rising more than an additional 50 Percent on top of that, to $4,411, in just 4 years, as GHW Bush and Mr. Quayle were shown the door, ending 12 years of republican control of the executive branch.

The letter, C, R, B, next to key fiscal year debt totals represent the last budget year of an outgoing Admin., back when their terms ended per the Constitution, with the USPS and the Constitution itself, unscathed.

The fiscal year beginning on 10/01/80 was the last of the Carter Admin. When it ended on 09/30/81,
The total national debt was $998 billion.

12 years later, the fiscal year beginning on 10/01/92 was the last of the GHW Bush Admin. When it ended on 09/30/93,
The total national debt was $4,411 billion.

Pesky l'il thing described as "tax reform", unaccompanied by adequate spending offsets sent the national debt accumulation out of control.
IOW, anyone can stimulate the economy by borrowing and spending nearly $284 billion, on average annually for 12 years and declare their era in power, a golden age.

Republicans found religion on fiscal austerity, coinciding with the 8 fiscal years of the Clinton presidency. When the last fiscal year of the Clinton presidency ended on 09/30/01, the national debt was $5,807 billion, a $1,400 billion increase, or $175 billion, "1992 dollars" per year, average debt increase.





The current admin. has altered the source website, making the images above much more difficult, or impossible to retrieve quickly.:
Government - The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It