![]() ![]() Inflation felt out of control, wages were flat, gas lines were long and the new Islamic Republic of Iran was holding 52 Americans hostage. Yet if they had to look closer, they couldn’t help but admit that things had been rocky. The party that had saved the world from the Nazis, built the modern welfare state, gone to the moon and overseen the longest stretch of economic prosperity in human history was being routed by an actor. It came just two years after the rise of the New Right, the class of ’78 right-wingers led by firebrands like Gingrich, and it felt like the country was repudiating everything the party stood for, which was - which was what, exactly?Īnd Democrats hadn’t just been rejected for a moderate Republican like a Gerald Ford, but the nation had said it would rather be led by a radical like Reagan. It’s hard to overstate just how politically traumatizing that election was for Democrats. ![]() A net loss of 12 senators - many of whom had been liberal heroes for decades - from the Democratic caucus flipped the chamber to Republicans. That year saw not just Jimmy Carter’s surprise loss but a generation of liberal lions wiped out in the Senate. The Democratic Party’s approach to winning elections is rooted in decisions party leaders made in the immediate aftermath of Ronald Reagan’s White House win in 1980. ![]()
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