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It never really occurred to me that Reagan could win. I was hoping for a miracle, that John Anderson would come out of nowhere and become the first independent candidate elected President (remember, polling was still pretty primitive back then, so I really had no idea of the state of the race), but figured that, if not, we'd probably be stuck with Carter for another four years and, while I was not happy about it, I figured we could survive it.
Still, as I went about my graduate-school day in the San Fernando Valley, I had the sense that something was happening, like a premonition that an earthquake would strike soon. I couldn't explain it, but sensed that everything was about to change.
It was still late afternoon, before sundown, when I flipped on the car radio and heard, to my shock, that not only was Reagan leading, but that he'd already won outright, and Carter had given his concession speech, hours before the polls were to close where I lived. As the evening drew on, the news kept coming in, all of it bad...great Democratic senators like McGovern, Bayh, Church, Magnuson, all swept out of office; Republicans like Al d'Amato being elected in Democratic strongholds like New York, and, finally, the unthinkable...the Senate as a whole switching to Republican control. The late results, such as my long-time Democratic congressman being defeated by a Republican "little-league mom" who ran entirely on an anti-busing platform, were the final, bitter grace-notes to an apocalyptic symphony.
The next morning, it was clear that my premonition had been dead-on, and that my country had been transformed into something unthinkable. Yet, even then, I took for granted that "we'd be back" soon. I figured that one of two things could happen: either the "Reagan Revolution" would fail utterly, and voters would restore Democratic normalcy, or (far more unlikely) it would succeed and, ironically, the restoration of prosperity would bring about an optimism that would turn us away from bitter selfishness and toward social liberalism that would return the Democratic vision once again. (Little did I realize how adept Republicans were in keeping the average American on the knife's edge, where things were just barely good enough to prevent a "throw the bums out" reaction, but bad enough that one's gaze remained fixed firmly inward, driven by a fear of losing what little one still has.) But I knew we'd be back one day. I figured it would probably be four years, or at worst eight.
Never in my life did I dream that it would take twenty-eight years. But I'll take it when (and if...I'm not getting complacent yet!) it happens. And I think it a blessing, even if a cold one, that such a restoration would take place at the juncture of two forces: an economic collapse that won't allow an incoming president to take the cautious, "things are running good enough as is" approach (and, conversely, won't allow the American voter to retreat behind the "stay the course so that things don't get worse" mindset that has been the last refuge of the powers that be), and a young, transformational leader, who won't be able to afford a "do-little" approach.
Still, it may be much later than I anticipated, and it isn't a sure thing yet, but I'm beginning to get the same premonitions of a tectonic shift coming up that I did twenty-eight autumns ago. I'm hoping that November 5th will dawn on a mirror-image of that November morning of 1980, with a sense that we are finally back on the right track, after a nearly three-decade-long detour into the wilderness.
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