By Leon Hadar.
IT has become one of the classic political television commercials of all time, known for its opening line, “Morning Again in America”.
The commercial was part of the 1984 re-election campaign of Republican President Ronald Reagan and was aimed at marketing to American voters the message that following years of economic downturn the American economy was back and kicking, thanks to the policies pursued by the incumbent president, and that America was – as the ad put it – “Prouder, Stronger, Better”.
Featuring a montage of cheerful Americans going to work on a sunny morning, the narrator compared the sense of optimism about America and its expanding economy to the depressing mood of the American people on the eve of the 1980 presidential election that led to the defeat of Democratic President Jimmy Carter and the electoral triumph of the ex-Hollywood actor and former Republican Governor of California.
The main point of the commercial was clear: Why would you want to elect the then Democratic challenger Walter Mondale and return to the disastrous policies of President Carter that ended up producing a deadly combination of high unemployment and rising inflation?
Despite the steep recession in 1982, that was a consequence of tight monetary policies aimed at squeezing out the historic inflation level of the late 1970s, the Reagan policies of reducing taxes, spending, regulation and inflation were in place in 1983. They created the conditions for unprecedented and sustained economic growth, the longest during peace times, with economic growth averaging 3.5 per cent.
So it was not surprising that President Reagan ended up getting re-elected in an electoral landslide, winning 49 states, with his opponent carrying only his state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia. The outcome of the 1984 presidential election helped to support once again a familiar political axiom: Electoral victories tend to be correlated with economic growth. A White House occupant who presides over a period of economic expansion, including falling unemployment and inflation rates , will be by definition a political winner. And vice versa: A president running for re-election in bad times will be in for a tough – and probably losing – fight.
In fact, a long period of economic growth under one president could have a positive impact on his successor. Which explains why President Reagan’s Vice-President George HW Bush – who ran for president in 1988 pledging to continue his predecessor’s economic policies – won the presidential race that year.
So, perhaps you could imagine how President Barack Obama and the Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton who wants to succeed him in office, felt last week. According to the media, Americans have been telling pollsters that they are depressed and angry, and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has clearly been exploiting those sentiments.
But then last Tuesday, the Federal government’s Census Bureau issued a report on the American economy that basically told the nation that, very much contrary to what the Republican presidential contender has been saying, it was, well, morning again in America.
Or at least that was what the unexpected economic numbers were saying. After seven years of stagnant and declining earnings, the economic recovery pursued by the Democratic White House occupant and which resulted in a fall in the unemployment rate, were finally delivering concrete results that almost every American could put in the bank. Hence, in what was the largest annual gain recorded since the government started taking surveys of yearly incomes in 1967, the income of median American households rose 5.2 per cent – or US$2,798 to US$56,516 – from a year earlier. These eye-popping numbers seemed to push against what has been the conventional wisdom during the last seven years and which goes something like this:
Yes, the Obama Administration, working together with the US Federal Reserve, succeeded in ensuring that the Great Downturn didn’t turn into another Great Recession. It pursued policies that brought about slow but steady economic growth a reduced unemployment rate.
But, the main beneficiaries of this economic recovery were the big corporations and investors in Wall Street. The wages of members of the middle class remained stagnant while blue-collar workers continued to see their wages falling and many of them lost their jobs.
The bottom line was that as long as they won’t see their incomes starting to rise, most Americans will be experiencing a gainless economic recovery of sorts. It may be morning for America for those in the top one per cent of the wealthiest America, but for most Americans, it still seems dark and dreary .
These sentiments fed into the angry mood in the country with a large majority of Americans telling pollsters that they believed that America was moving in the wrong direction. During the recent Democratic nomination convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, both President Obama and Mrs Clinton pointed to statistics that showed that things were improving in the job and housing markets and insisting that despite all the problems, the American economy has been growing faster than the economies of the European Union (EU). It may not be morning in America but here were the first rays of sun. But this somewhat bullish narrative apparently failed to make an impression on half of American voters who have been attracted to the less uplifting and more populist messages of former Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders, and the Republican presidential nominee. In fact, if you’ve listened to their campaign rhetoric, you would conclude that America was on the road to economic bankruptcy and national decline. It was a minute or two before midnight in America, according to Mr Trump.
In Mr Trump’s political narrative, the collapsing American economy was only one part of an American nightmare – that included a flood of illegal immigrants from Mexico; rising street violence; and the growing threat of Islamic terrorism. Forget morning in America. According to the former television reality show host, America now resembled a “divided crime scene”.
“Surge in US incomes defies dark rhetoric of presidential contest”, screamed the headline in the Financial Times on Sept 14. Hey, Mr and Mrs American Voter. Why don’t you take a look at the Census Bureau figures! The strong numbers indicate that the economic policies pursued by President Obama – and which a future President Clinton has promised to continue – were finally starting to pay dividends to everyone.
Indeed, according to the Census Bureau, the number of people in poverty dropped 3.5 million in 2015 and the growth in income was strong among all social demographic groups – whites, African Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans, men and women, those who work full-time and those who hold part-time jobs. Wake up! The country was moving in the right direction. But if anything, in the same week that the Census Bureau issued its upbeat reports, public opinion polls were indicating that Mrs Clinton’s lead over Mr Trump was shrinking, and that the Republican presidential nominee was gaining momentum in all the major battleground states, including Ohio, Florida, and Michigan, where he was leading, according to some polls, and was even acquiring strength in states that until now have been considered to be in the Democratic column: Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, Nevada and the really Big One – Pennsylvania. Census Bureau report or no Census Bureau report.
There is no doubt that presidents running for re-election during a period of economic boom – like President Reagan in 1984 and President Bill Clinton in 1996 – are bound to win. Voters – especially those who cast their ballot to elect the American president – see him (or her) as the Leader of the Nation, a cross between a father (or mother) figure, a tribal chief and what could be described as one’s political heartthrob in the coming four years. President Reagan’s electoral victory in 1984 and the notion that ‘It was Morning Again in America’ had, in part, to do with the improving economy, but also with the confidence that voters felt in the charismatic leadership of the President Reagan, whom they perceived could stand up to the threats posed by the then Soviet Union and its international satellites.
It’s true that President Obama has helped America avert a devastating economic recession and that unemployment is down, the inflation rate is close to zero, and incomes may be a bit higher. But that doesn’t seem to be changing the mood in the country that reflects insecurity about the future and rising fears about domestic and global threats.
In a way, if Mr Trump ends up winning in November, the 2016 presidential election would probably remind political observers of the 1980 race to the White House. Many Americans blamed President Carter for their economic problems and for the weakness that the United States was projecting then around the world.
But then President Carter was already taking major steps to end inflation and grow the economy and to build up the depleted US military forces. Yet, those policies were only starting to bear fruit at the end of his term and ended up benefiting President Reagan when he took office in 1981. In the same way, President Bill Clinton presided over a period of economic growth that had actually started at the end of is Republican predecessor’s term.
So it’s quite possible that President Obama and Mrs Clinton were considering the possibility that Americans would be celebrating next year a period of economic boom that began under the current Democratic President. And that the main beneficiary would be President Trump, running for re-election in 2020 under the slogan ‘It’s Morning Again in America’.
