In 1984, the Reagan-Bush campaign aired a political commercial that helped seal their landslide re-election, winning 49 states and 525 electoral votes. “Morning in America“ is an iconic piece of political history — a video that is fondly nostalgic for the Boomer generation because the Reagan years were a golden time of peace and prosperity. As a generation, the Boomers truly came of age, put the Cold War behind them, lived without crime and discord, and saw the beginnings of the greatest stock market boom in history. It was that special time that comes once in the life of every generation.
Now it’s time for morning once again — not just for the Boomers, but for Millennials and Gen Z as well. They too are looking for that miracle of economic growth, national security, and social cohesion that characterized the Reagan years. They too need and deserve that special moment when everything comes together and life shines with optimism and faith.
As the Reagan video implied, prosperity is a necessary component of that happiness. The Biden years have been demoralizing in part because, after inflation, wages have declined by an average of 3% since Biden took office. This may not sound like much, but combined with loss of the historical nominal wage gain of 6.8%, or 3.7% after inflation, that could have been expected, American workers have lost more than 14% in real wages and real living standards.
America is not moving ahead under Biden — we are falling behind, and that decline is permanent. Because of Bidenomics, we are living smaller lives with fewer opportunities. The economy will improve if Trump is elected in November, but we will never really recover that 14%. As a nation, we are drifting lower just as postwar Britain did under socialist Clement Attlee, and for the same reasons: excessive government spending and regulation.
But the Biden years are not just a period of lost wages. They are also a time of moral and spiritual drift, and of mental vacuity. (One only has to listen to an hour with Biden’s press secretary, KJP, to see what I mean by “vacuity.”)
Time and again, Biden issues policy directives that are disgustingly immoral.
Have we really reached the point where we are not allowed to say what is a man and what a woman? Are we required, on penalty of loss of employment or expulsion from school, to refer to “non-binary” individuals as “they” and “them” instead of he/she and him/her? Do we really wish to allow repeated shoplifting if it falls below $900 per occurrence? Do we want open borders with tens of millions of unvetted individuals entering our country? Do we want to see our living standard cut by 6% or more annually as a result of inflation, driven largely by out-of-control government spending?
As an insomniac, I know what it’s like to sit in the dark, and America itself is sitting in the dark under Biden. Its citizens are kept in the dark as government agencies carry out illegal and immoral assaults on our own people. It’s not just Trump and a few of his circle who have been prosecuted on bogus charges: millions of American patriots have been investigated, blacklisted, and persecuted for no other reason than that they love their country and wish it to survive.
One of my neighbors has begun flying a Fort Moultrie Liberty Flag every day, and I admire him for doing so. The fact that he flies it shows his determination to defend liberty. It is also a daily warning for the rest of us that our basic freedoms are at risk.
It is disgusting to have our own government employing our tax dollars to bring false charges against conservatives or to threaten Christians who treat Sunday as a day of rest or to prosecute those who cannot bring themselves to bake a cake for a gay ceremony. It is horrific to see a young nursing student bludgeoned to death by an illegal alien with a criminal past. It is chilling to see Biden selling our country to China and other countries in return for an estimated $20 million in highly questionable payments.
We live in an era of historic corruption and immorality — a time when millions of those in charge of schools, businesses, and government offices don’t even recognize the wrong of pornography, pedophilia, prostitution, sex-trafficking, and worse. Think of the $683,000 Hunter Biden is said to have spent on “various women” and the additional hundreds of thousands allegedly spent on drugs, pornography, and sex clubs. Does Hunter Biden, and the father who unfailingly supports him, recognize that pornography and prostitution (and the sex-trafficking associated with them) are horribly wrong?
And not a word from the president condemning this behavior. Instead, the evidence is that Biden has participated in the corruption and lavish spending. In the four years from 2017 through 2020, Joe and Jill Biden earned $27.3 million, according to Forbes. During these four years, Forbes calculates, Biden spent $2,000 per day or $730,000 per year. Yet his net worth today is only $10 million. Even assuming that $27.3 million investment earned nothing and that the Bidens themselves earned nothing since 2020, which is actually impossible, what happened to the remaining $14 million in unaccounted-for spending?
It’s time for morning again, and that day is coming in November. It’s unlikely that Trump will win 49 states, but he may win enough to claim a mandate for border control, lower taxes, less regulation, and the rest that he has promised. And if he wins convincingly, Republicans may carry the House and Senate on his coattails.
A convincing Trump victory could usher in the golden years that Millennials and Gen Z have been lacking. Perhaps, as depicted in Reagan’s “Morning in America” commercial, more Americans will go to work, get married, purchase a home, and regain faith in the American Dream. If this happens, it will be far more than a political sea change. It will be the salvation of America.
That salvation could begin in just eight months. There are indications that Millennials have begun to realize what is missing: new polling shows younger voters turning against Biden, with 49% of voters age 18 to 29 supporting Trump and 43% supporting Biden.
It’s time for morning again, again, and maybe for another of those touching campaign videos, aimed this time at younger voters.
Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture including Heartland of the Imagination (2011).
Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.
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