I was born in 1966, which perfectly lined me up for the Reagan years. Graduated high school 1984, college 1988. When Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were installed on the Supreme Court, I felt like I knew them because they reminded me of people in my cohort-- anti-60s Reagan Youth that fancied themselves edgy rebels challenging liberal orthodoxy. Fascism forever and all that.
This summer I was reading Rick Perlstein’s The Invisible Bridge, which is ostensibly about how we got from Nixonland to Reaganland, but is really about how Jimmy Carter captured the post-Watergate bicentennial zeitgeist and rode it to the White House. Much Like Obama would do in 2008, Carter embodied the national mood. So I started to joke with people that I have decided to live in the alternative timeline where Jimmy Carter wins re-election in 1980. No Reagan presidency, no Reagan Youth running the country now. Ta-da!
Then I went on a “ebay therapy” jag and bought a bunch of Re-elect Carter memorabilia. I’m not kidding, the sympathetic magic of these items helped get me through the stress of this election season. Then I came up with a little theory to give me solace and it goes a little something like this:
The New Deal Era ended with Carter’s loss in 1980. The Reagan Era would end with Trump’s loss in 2020. If anyone is the anti-Carter, It’s Donny. US History books in a hundred years would define the Reagan Era as 1980-2020. The symmetry of this theory greatly supported my mental health. The Reagan Era even has a momentous election steal right smack dab in its center, the 2000 recount mess that Donny is trying and failing to emulate right now from a landscaping company’s parking lot in north Philly. Further, this era begins with a California celebrity movie actor and devolves to a NYC celebrity game show host. Pretty ironic for a party that has gained much traction railing against Hollywood and New York media elites.
Now of course this election isn’t the utter repudiation of Reaganism that we’d hoped. Large swaths of the country still buy into the anti-tax, anti-regulation, anti-choice supply side ideology that Reagan promulgated.
So now we have to do in the 20s what the Right did in the 70s— find new voters and go on the offense. The Right set out to awaken white evangelicals who were previously apolitical, and capture the media and judiciary. Mission accomplished. They think and plan in decades, which we have to start doing, instead of pinning all our hopes on one magical election. Thanks Obama.
The 2020 election gives us the foundation to work hard this decade to shift our nation. In some ways, the 2020 election can really be seen as the last election of the 20th century (again nice symmetry) with men past retirement age representing the old political configuration: Bernie, Biden, Trump, McConnell. The old age is dead and the new is not yet born.
Can we find new voters? The incredible organizing of black and latino communities saved this country from full on fascism and I have complete faith they will continue to expand the electorate. As a white person though I have to ask myself can we peel off whites still swayed by Reaganism? Can we extend a new explanatory framework that reaches white people trapped in right wing media deserts? As many POC organizers have pointed out in the face of false narratives emerging about POC not doing enough, look at the numbers, they did their job. The problem is reactionary white voters, so Mr. white liberal, speak to your own. Jimmy Carter was adept at connecting with white evangelicals and his rhetoric may offer clues. That would effect a shift in the electoral map dramatically, and give us breathing room for sustained policy pursuits.
The perfect test case is less than two months away in of all places Jimmy Carter’s Georgia. I dont know how many white Georgians consider white Democrats to be race traitors, but I worry. Georgia can leave Reaganism behind and tap into that Jimmy Carter energy. I’ve always gotten the sense that Georgians are embarrassed of Jimmy Carter. I hope they reassess, find the pride in their native son and end the Reagan era once and for all.
I am so grateful Jimmy Carter lived to see this day.
Here’s Athens GA’s REM, from their album Reckoning, which helped me get through the Reagan years. Curious about people’s magical thinking and superstitions that helped them get through this election season. Never did I dream that my Jimmy Carter obsession would morph into Georgia on my mind everyday all the time!