History’s Ebb and Flow: The Presidential Election of 1980

There you go again!

The presidential election of 1980 (Reagan v. Carter) was a turning point.  The election was preceded by years of intense social change:  Vietnam, civil rights, Watergate, terrorism, assassinations, rising drug use, environmental degradation, and fear of the twin specters of communism and nuclear annihilation.  With Vietnam and Watergate finally behind us, the sixties-era “flower children” were finally reaching maturity.  Their causes were losing momentum.  Even the important civil rights cause had advanced to the point where the formal barriers to blacks accessing the American Dream were falling away.

However, we now faced disgrace in Iran, gas lines, double-digit interest rates, and high unemployment.  As noted by President Carter in his infamous “malaise” speech, all of this weighed heavily on our national psyche.  Ironically, pollster Richard Wirthlin would later comment that the speech was “the exact moment I knew Ronald Reagan could beat Jimmy Carter.”

Madmen, Woodstock and Man on the Moon

It’s been forty years since Woodstock and the first manned lunar landing.  As the Woodstock anniversary and the season premier of AMC’s “Madmen” landed on my birthday weekend, I felt compelled to comment…