Better off? No!

That Speech of September 1 has drawn mixed reviews. Regular readers have seen ours, and theirs – meaning those of the legacy media. But in addition, Mr. Dick Morris, who once worked for the Last Moderate Democrat, thinks That Speech is a distraction. He could be right, actually. That Speech has its cheerleaders even among ordinary voters – and after all, some great number of voters, however many one thinks they came to, did vote for Joe Biden and would vote for him again today. So perhaps it’s time to tell people why no one should vote for Joe Biden, or anyone allied with him. To make that clear, we turn to a Presidential candidate who asked an important question: “Are you better off?”

Ronald Reagan asks, are you better off?

Ronald W. Reagan won the 1980 Republican nomination for President, in his third try. He had two Presidential debates, one with John Anderson, the other with the incumbent, James Earl “Jimmy” Carter, Jr. And in closing that debate, Ronald Reagan made the speech that carried him to victory.

Next Tuesday is election day. Next Tuesday all of you will go to the polls; you’ll stand there in the polling place and make a decision. I think when you make that decision, it might be well if you would ask yourself.

Are you better off than you were four years ago? Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago? Is America as respected throughout the world as it was? Do you feel that our security is as safe, that we’re as strong as we were four years ago?

And if you answer all of those questions yes, why then, I think your choice is very obvious as to who you’ll vote for. If you don’t agree, if you don’t think that this course that we’ve been on for the last four years is what you would like to see us follow for the next four, then I could suggest another choice that you have.

The country was very badly off and Reagan knew it

This country doesn’t have to be in the shape that it is in. We do not have to go on sharing in scarcity, with the country getting worse off, with unemployment growing. We talk about the unemployment lines. If all of the unemployed today were in a single line allowing two feet for each one of them, that line would reach from New York City to Los Angeles, California. All of this can be cured, and all of it can be solved.

I have not had the experience the President has had in holding that office, but I think in being Governor of California, the most populous State in the Union if it were a nation, it would be the seventh-ranking economic power in the world. I, too, had some lonely moments and decisions to make. I know that the economic program that I have proposed for this Nation in the next few years can resolve many of the problems that trouble us today. I know because we did it there. We cut the cost — the increased cost of government-the increase in half over the 8 years. We returned $5.7 billion in tax rebates, credits, and cuts to our people. We, as I’ve said earlier, fell below the national average in inflation when we did that. And I know that we did give back authority and autonomy to the people.

A crusade for limited government

I would like to have a crusade today, and I would like to lead that crusade with your help. And it would be one to take government off the backs of the great people of this country and turn you loose again to do those things that I know you can do so well, because you did them and made this country great.

Well, are we better off?

Ronald Reagan asked a very instructive question indeed. And we can – and must – ask it again, forty-two years later.

Are we better off than we were four years ago? No! Ask any of your neighbors, you who live in the United States. Except in the rarest of cases, they’ll tell you they’re worse off.

Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? The answer would be funny were it not so sad. In point of brutal fact, you can’t even count on finding things in the stores today! Walk down any store aisle, and what do you see? I’ll tell you what you don’t see. You don’t see the abundance and rich choices of food you saw four years ago. In fact you see shelf after empty shelf. And if the shelf is not empty, the manager has placed a sign limiting you to one or two items per customer or some such thing. Dare anyone call this better off? Or even well off by any reasonable standard whatsoever?

Is their more or less unemployment in the United States today than four years ago? More. Barack Obama all but suggested that people give up and go home. Donald Trump said, “Come on! Let’s get to work!” And we did. Now Joe Biden – or his handlers – have said, “Go home. Wait for the Great Reset.”

The world laughs at America

Does America command the respect it commanded four years ago? Can one justly say that our security is as safe, and that we are as strong as four years ago? No, no, and no. Again, that would be funny were it not so sad – or so dire.

Donald Trump brokered the most significant treaties the Middle East has ever seen. Joe Biden unilaterally withdrew our troops from Afghanistan, leaving behind millions of dollars of sophisticated equipment. (And condemning many to lose their lives.) We see war in Ukraine that need never have broken out. War could break out in Taiwan at any moment. And when it does, the United States semiconductor industry all but shuts down.

Don’t say it! “But COVID!” “But COVID,” fiddlesticks! Lay aside for a moment Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., funding gain-of-function research. The government overreacted to the virus, and if you doubt that, compare the Florida and New York experiences. Furthermore, this President did everything possible to disrupt supply chains. It was as if he were cutting the supply lines of an enemy. And that would be in perfect keeping with That Speech, in which he declared all who oppose him, an enemy of the State.

How Donald Trump could end that speech

So here we are – admittedly in Midterms, not a Presidential election, but still under a President who made us worse off as a country and as people living in it. So Donald Trump could and should make the same speech – except with this difference:

For four years I had the same lonely moments and decisions to make that Joe Biden now claims. I know that the economic program that I have proposed for this Nation in the next four years can resolve many of the problems that trouble us today. I know because I’ve done it already. My team and I cut the rate of cost increase of government, did away with burdensome regulations, and returned billions of dollars in tax rebates, credits, and cuts to the people of America. I didn’t inflate the currency, as Joe Biden has done – but I intend to stop this ruinous inflation. And I will do it by giving back authority and autonomy to the people.

I now call you to a crusade, which I will lead once again with your help. A crusade to take government off the backs of the great people of this country and turn you loose again to do those things that I know you can do so well, because you did them and made this country great. Together we will Make America Great Again – and indeed a third time.