Posted on Thursday, December 26, 2024

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by Andrew Shirley

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With the calendar almost set to turn to 2025, Americans are beginning to look forward to a new year and all the opportunities it may bring. Like the landslide victory of President Ronald Reagan a generation ago, President-elect Donald Trump’s historic political comeback is ushering in a new era of hope for the American people. For the first time since Trump’s last go-round in the White House, the country seems optimistic for the future.

According to a CBS News poll out just before Christmas, 57 percent of Americans say they are “hopeful” heading in the new year, a 10 percent jump from the 47 percent who said the same at this time last year. That finding echoes the results from a Fox News poll earlier this month which found that 54 percent of Americans feel hopeful following the 2024 election – with even one in five Democrats saying they feel hopeful, too. Another Ipsos poll found that 70 percent of Americans think 2025 will be a better year for their families and their country than 2024.

As University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds noted in a recent op-ed for The New York Post, Trump’s victory is the obvious source of this bubbling optimism in the national mood.

“The entire energy of the nation, and maybe the world, has changed overnight,” Reynolds writes. “Under Biden, and especially with the prospect of a successor regime under Harris, America’s prospects were grim. Now they’re bright, and all sorts of problems that were thought to be too tough to deal with — immigration, shrinking the deficit, reforming education, the bureaucracy, the military, and more — are suddenly being addressed by competent people.”

The most obvious historical comparison to the buoying confidence now sweeping the nation is the feeling that accompanied Ronald Reagan’s victory in 1980.

Like Trump in 2024, Reagan was running as the cure to the malaise that had gripped the nation under a Democrat president. Though Jimmy Carter avoided the personal scandals that plagued Joe Biden’s tenure, the single terms of Carter and Biden were defined by rampant inflation, social unrest, and major foreign policy debacles. Carter himself in 1979 infamously lamented a “crisis of the American spirit” that had developed under his watch.

Reagan’s determined optimism was a ray of light for a country desperately in need of one. “The era of self-doubt is over,” Reagan declared in response to Carter’s gloomy outlook, seeming to will the country into an era of unprecedented growth and prosperity.

Reagan took over in 1981 facing a daunting list of challenges. The economy was racked by high unemployment, stagnant growth, and exploding inflation, a phenomenon known as “stagflation” that flummoxed economists. In 1979 the country was thrust into an energy crisis, leading to skyrocketing fuel prices and long lines at the pump. The Soviet Union also invaded Afghanistan that year and Iranian revolutionaries seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and kidnapped 52 Americans. Carter’s attempted rescue mission, Operation Eagle Claw, failed disastrously.

Just as they are doing now to Trump, doomsayers in the liberal media predicted that Reagan couldn’t solve the country’s “impossible” problems. But after taking a stronger stance on foreign policy throughout his 1980 campaign, the 52 American hostages were released just minutes after Reagan was sworn in as president, ending their 444 days in captivity.

Stagflation proved a more difficult problem to solve, but Reagan’s targeted program of tax cuts and deregulation soon bolstered the struggling economy. Oil prices declined, and by 1983 inflation had cooled to 3.2 percent from a high of 13.5 percent in 1980.

A Gallup poll in 1979 found that only 12 percent of Americans were satisfied with the direction of their country. By 1981, that number had almost tripled. By 1984, it broke 50 percent. Voters rewarded Reagan with one of the greatest electoral landslides in American history that year, as he carried 49 states.

One of Reagan’s most famous ads from the 1984 cycle was his “Morning in America” spot. After four years of turbulence under Carter, the ad conveyed a message of hope, trust, and renewal, reinforcing Reagan’s image as the leader who revitalized the nation. It captured the spirit of optimism that Reagan brought back to America.

Reagan’s policies were undoubtedly critical to ending the malaise of the Carter years. But perhaps even more important was his unwavering faith in the American people – his belief that, if they were just given the opportunity, if government just got out of the way, they could build a brighter future.

Now the country is coming out of another four years of malaise. Like Reagan, Trump inherits a nation weary from economic struggles, social tensions, and diminished global standing.

Reagan’s faith in the resilience of the American people propelled the country into a new era of growth and optimism. Similarly, Trump’s resurgence, fueled by a renewed national optimism, carries the potential to reframe America’s trajectory, proving that bold leadership and belief in the nation’s spirit can lead to remarkable change.

Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and AMAC Newsline columnist. His commentary can be found on X at @AA_Shirley.