As the present melts down in the midst of the worst economic debacle in modern American history, I am thinking back to what it felt like during the nightmare that was Jimmy Carter\u2019s \u201cmalaise.\u201d\u00a0 At the time I was a recent college graduate working at a large old-fashioned corporation that was known for its tight-fisted employee pay policy.\u00a0 But in 1980 this company gave all of its employees an unheard-of thing, a bonus!\u00a0 And it was an eight percent bonus of all things.\u00a0 Along with the check was a letter that explained that this one-time largesse was provided because the company was aware that inflation would hammer all of us with much more than that percentage of our salaries.<\/p>\n
Being young and naively optimistic I wasn\u2019t worried about the economy.\u00a0 But at the same time as the economic crisis, the Iran Hostage Crisis was occurring.\u00a0 And at about the same time as that bonus we heard about the failed rescue attempt that Carter\u2019s military team botched.\u00a0 Helicopters collided in the desert outside of Tehran and dead American soldiers were left there to be pawed at by the Ayatollah\u2019s henchmen when they reached the site of the crash.\u00a0 That was the lowest day I had experienced as an American in my short life.\u00a0 And I remembered thinking, \u201cThis can\u2019t go on.\u00a0 Someone has to fix this.\u201d\u00a0 And later that year that man appeared, Ronald Reagan and over the course of his presidency it appeared that he fixed a lot of what seemed to be wrong with America under Jimmy Carter.<\/p>\n
So here we are more than forty years later and damned if we aren\u2019t in much the same situation we were in back then.\u00a0 But now it\u2019s so much worse.\u00a0 The changes we have to make are not incremental.\u00a0 They\u2019re gargantuan. \u00a0Our opponents aren\u2019t misguided but loyal Americans.\u00a0 They\u2019re traitors and criminals.\u00a0 And we\u2019re no longer a unified dynamic powerhouse of innovation.\u00a0 Our industrial base is in ruins.\u00a0 Our people are at each other\u2019s throats.\u00a0 And just to top it all off, millions of illegal immigrants are pouring over our borders every year.\u00a0 It sounds like a lost cause.<\/p>\n
But by the same token, it\u2019s only because things are so dire, so dark.\u00a0 It\u2019s only because people are so desperate that there is the chance to make a radical change.\u00a0 If a visionary thinker emerges who has thought of a path out of this nightmare we\u2019re trapped in, I believe people will roll the dice and try to save themselves by trying something radical.<\/p>\n
What it requires is someone who can communicate simply and convincingly how we get ourselves out of this trap.\u00a0 Reagan was called the \u201cGreat Communicator\u201d because he could help common people visualize the economic and monetary problems we faced with simple images.\u00a0 This is what the next man who comes along to fix this broken country will have to do.\u00a0 He will have to communicate to this country what needs to be done and how and why.<\/p>\n
So far, I don\u2019t think anyone has come forward with a clear explanation of how we fix things.\u00a0 We have so many problems that instead of a simple solution it seems like mission impossible.\u00a0 We have to balance the budget, end illegal immigration, safeguard the elections, defang the Deep State and return the industrial base back to the United States.<\/p>\n
But as I said, because things are so bad, I believe this is precisely the time that people will be willing to allow drastic measures to be used in drastic circumstances.\u00a0 But where is Superman?\u00a0 Who will step forward and be the hero?\u00a0 Honestly, I\u2019m not sure there is a hero.\u00a0 We\u2019re looking for an Augustus.\u00a0 Someone very smart and very brave and very tough.<\/p>\n
But things are so bad that I\u2019ll have to add one other quality that our hero will need.\u00a0 He\u2019ll need to be very lucky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the present melts down in the midst of the worst economic debacle in modern American history, I am thinking back to what it felt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3658,622],"class_list":["post-19241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","tag-fixing-the-country","tag-ronald-reagan"],"yoast_head":"\n