Posted on 08/19/2024 7:58:17 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
Now that former President Donald Trump has started to lean into the policy differences between himself and Vice President Kamala Harris — as he did last week in his speech in Asheville, North Carolina, in interviews with Breitbart and X owner Elon Musk and in his news conference on Thursday — the 2024 presidential campaign is starting to look like the 1980 presidential campaign.
In that campaign, a fading and clearly outmatched incumbent was opposed by a rival who inspired fervor in some and anxiety in others. The mainstream media still placed considerable weight behind the incumbent, and the campaign’s context was international turmoil and a desiccated domestic economy characterized by damaging inflation. The response from the incumbent party — then and now — was an offer to manage a graceful decline for these once-great United States.
What made Ronald Reagan a great candidate in 1980 was that he rejected the siren song of decline and decay and communicated optimism, hopefulness and the promise of the future to an American populace that had, in the previous 12 years, endured defeat in Vietnam, economic deterioration (especially in the steel and automobile sectors), rising crime and the assassinations of three of their political leaders.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
He wears a hat everywhere that literally says “make America great again.” His whole message is one of optimism.
What..in...the...hell, does anyone with any lick of sense think he has been doing?
Can anybody be so dam stupid?
Good point. I think optimism. humor, belittling your opponent's incompetence - goes a long way. Fear also works, and the suburban moms should understand they should worry more about their little girl getting attacked by an illegal and less about getting an abortion.
Different time and early in race.
Trump knows (I think) Big Mike and Hillary will emerge from the convention as the nominees.
I'm, not against criticism of Trump that may be legit. But this op-ed is clueless.
Trump talks about what is bad now, and he talks about how great things will be if elected.
What on earth is wrong with that??
Everybody has advice for Trump on campaigning. Trump doesn’t take advice about how to run his campaign, he’s made that obvious for years. Trump gets votes based on expected outcomes , not sweet talk that makes everybody happy.
This is tiring. Trump is Trump. He’s going to do what he wants and for the most part it works for him. He got this far without following conventional wisdom. He’s showing Republicans how to campaign against Democrats. It means getting your hands dirty and going straight into their faces. We’ve been far too nice to the other side for much too long and the country is at stake. No more Mr. Nice Guy.
This is more of that crap that Reagan was just a cheerleader and made everyone feel happy, and then it worked because everything felt happy. The morning in America conventual commercials were his 84 campaign as we were finally emerging from the carter malaise.
The swamp is desperate to stop Trump from highlighting their destruction.
“He wears a hat everywhere that literally says “make America great again.” His whole message is one of optimism.”
Anyone who wants Trump to change anything is denying that the Dems vmcheatsd their asses off in 2020 and is also not paying attention now.
Kamala will absolutely sink after the conventions. Joe Biden is a memory. You’ll never see him again. Kamala has herself only and she is a dud. She is many things by far mostly negative. However she is a dud. She will have nothing more than a used-to-be cat bounce.
President Reagan’s charm and optimism would not be effective against today’s Democrats.
The Democrat leaders running the show are shameless liars with no honor at all. They literally seek to destroy the Republic in order to further their globalist Marxist agenda.
Today’s Democrat voter constituency is no longer made up of naive idealists who place too much faith in big government collectivism. Today’s Democrat voter base is anyone foolish enough to let themselves be brainwashed.
President Trump needs to be blunt and brutally honest if he is going to shock these people out of their zombie state. Reagan-type charm will not work.
Exactly. The author clearly hasn’t spent much time actually watching and listening to Trump.
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