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Ken Scott Baron PodcastActivist and media outreach NABWMT, commenting on racial and cultural barriers and human equality. I use educational, political, cultural, and social activities to fight racism, sexism, homophobia, and other inequities in our communities and in our lives. Author: Ken Scott Baron
Activist and media outreach NABWMT, commenting on racial and cultural barriers and human equality. I use educational, political, cultural, and social activities to fight racism, sexism, homophobia, and other inequities in our communities and in our lives. nabwmt.substack.com Language: en Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Anxiety, Democrats, and Reagan
Friday, 17 April, 2026
The moment we are living through is looking ever more like the 1970s — in the depth of the crises we face, and in its potential to create a genuine rupture with what came before. I remember Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in Britain.Iran has reoccupied center stage and fears of stagflation looms again. In the late 1970s, Americans sensed that their country was growing weaker in the world, (Vietnam, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian hostage crisis.Today there is a war and an economy without a coherent strategy or clear objectives.The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment hit its lowest point in more than 70 years, and the International Monetary Fund warned on Tuesday that war in the Middle East could slow growth and fuel inflation, risking a global recession.Voter discontent is a normal part of a democracy. But what we saw in the 1970s and what we are seeing now is distinctive: a comprehensive loss of faith in the future, a collapse of respect for our governing institutions and alarm that American influence in the world is doomed to diminish.The Democrats are called upon to make the leap past our problems. Perhaps they need to ask themselves: What would Reagan do? Anyone seeking to change our trajectory can learn a lot from his understanding of the political imperatives and possibilities of his moment.Democrats can’t win by just opposing the president.Specific proposals grow out of what needs fixing. A place to start: commitments to end corruption of the current administration, its favoritism toward a select group of very wealthy people. The success of the opposition to Viktor Orban in Hungary’s election on Sunday suggests the power of these issues when they’re linked to economic discontent.Reagan was shrewd about turning a specific problem that was on voters’ minds into a rationale for policies he wanted to pursue anyway. He made the gas lines Americans hated into a case for deregulating the fossil fuel industry. While this may not work now it should be a winning point.Like now Reagan used stagflation to argue for tax cuts tilted toward the wealthy. Neither policy was necessarily popular then and now , the way inflation was driving people into higher tax brackets and rising property taxes helped make his supply-side approach sound positively populist.Reagan noted that in a time of crisis, the public is inclined to say: Above all, try something.In Democratic campaigns last year, they used public concerns about higher prices to make a case for government action in areas such as health care, child care, housing and electricity prices.Voters don’t usually make foreign policy a priority, but they do sense when the country is in trouble in the world. That’s how they felt in 1980, and it’s how they feel now.American should vote after asking: Is the United States stronger and more respected now than it was three and a half years ago? Is the world today a safer place in which we live?” Then ask: are you spending more on essentials than before? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nabwmt.substack.com
