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These midterm elections aren’t about the price of gas, or data centers, or even $5000 checks in the mail from the federal government.
They will be about which political party offers a hopeful view of the future, one that inspires and motivates, and which is mired in bitterness about the past, and hatred of what’s next.
The RNC convention showed once and for all that it’s the GOP that represents that hopeful future. Speakers, including President Trump, J.D. Vance, and Robert Kennedy Jr, told America about the good news from Trump policies, from the boom in manufacturing and construction jobs; the investment boom thanks to the Trump tax cuts; and the stock market boom; to the sealing of the border and the decline in crime across the country.
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They also drew a sharp contrast with the rise of the DSA, and with what the Democrat party has become: the party that despises America and all it represents.
Now it’s up to Republican candidates to translate that message into votes, by speaking to voters’ hearts, not just their heads.
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And here they need to take a page from the Ronald Reagan playbook. Reagan was able to dominate the political landscape for nearly a decade by projecting a hopeful picture of the future for the greatest and strongest nation on earth, what Reagan called “the shining city on the hill.”
As Reagan himself put it, “I believe we, the Americans of today, are ready to act worthy of ourselves, ready to do what must be done to ensure happiness and liberty for ourselves, our children, and our children’s children.”
It’s worth remembering what Reagan had to overcome to convey this hopeful message.
When he took office as president in January 1981, the prime interest rate was near 20 percent. The annual real GDP growth rate for the previous full year (1980) was a negative number, at -0.3%3. During his first year as president, the need to tighten interest rates led to a deeper recession in 1982, while unemployment spiked at 10%. Gas prices spiked upward, as well.
Yet Reagan’s optimism and confidence in America never wavered.
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He said, “If we look to the answer as to why, for so many years, we achieved so much, prospered as no other people on Earth, it was because here in this land we unleashed the energy and individual genius of man to a greater extent than has ever been done before.”
By rejecting predictions of decline; by embracing individual enterprise; by securing peace through strength to push back against our enemies, Reagan told America in his first inaugural address that America’s future couldn’t be brighter.
He was right. Four years later, it was “Morning Again in America.” GDP shot up to 6.8% as tax cuts took effect. Unemployment tumbled, followed by interest rates. The Soviet Union reeled as America’s military came back stronger than ever, with the fall of the Iron Curtain just five years away.
Imagine if Reagan had had the positive numbers the GOP has now, to celebrate and project a boundless, limitless future for America and Americans.
As Donald Trump repeats Reagan’s economic and foreign policy success in terms of policy, here are three ways the GOP can repeat and spread Reagan’s message of optimism and hope—state by state, district by district.
First, show how economic growth in their state and district has already made lives better, with real individuals — construction and machine tool workers, waitresses, small business owners—telling how they have benefited from better-paying jobs, higher wages, no tax on tips, and one hundred-percent expensing for their growing economic enterprise.
All this will put a temporary up-blip in gas prices look a lot less menacing.
Second, bring the gospel of optimism home to small business owners, who are the backbone of hiring and the economy. They are key beneficiaries of Trump tax cuts, and also of the expansion of data centers to power their businesses. They are also the driving force behind real economic growth, thanks to their founding energy and risk-taking.
There are 36.2 million of them. All or most are potential GOP voters in November, once they understand which political party has their back and celebrates their virtues, and which does not.
Third, just calling DSA-backed candidates “socialists” and “communists” won’t cut it. Instead, bring on board the personal testimony of those in your district who have had to live under socialist regimes, from Cuba, Venezuela and Vietnam to the former USSR and North Korea—those who came to America to build better lives for themselves under a free enterprise system. They can show those who think socialism has the answers, that socialism is a dead end for human hopes and dreams, as well as economic and political freedom.
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The Democrats today can offer only hate and fear, and a discredited and disastrous past, whether it’s the Biden years or life in Castro’s Cuba.
The Republicans are now the party of the future, including the human future. They only have to say it out loud. To quote Reagan again:
“Together with God’s help we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us. And after all, why shouldn’t we believe that? We are Americans.”