As I look back on 2021, I’m reminded of another time in U.S. history when the country was distressed and a sense of hopelessness prevailed.
The cost of living was soaring, with rising fuel and food prices triggering inflation. Domestically, there was a sense of malaise, a feeling that our country’s best days were behind us and we couldn’t do anything about it.
Internationally, we suffered the embarrassment of our embassy in Iran being taken over, with its occupants held hostage for over a year. Even though those events called for drastic action, the highest levels of our political leadership were unwilling and unable to do anything in response. Our national prestige and standing both suffered as a result.
The time was the late 1970s, heading into the early 1980s. Jimmy Carter was the president, and many millions of Americans were disappointed by the way crises were handled under his watch.
It’s pretty easy to draw parallels between that period and the present. Inflation is back with a vengeance, eating into household budgets and causing strife and struggle. The fall of Afghanistan is still fresh in many of our minds as the world’s most recent foreign policy debacle. And much like during Carter’s stint in office, I don’t have much confidence that President Biden is up to facing the myriad complex challenges in front of him.
However, there is always cause for optimism. Carter’s stumbles as president paved the way for Ronald Reagan’s candidacy. Immediately upon his taking office, the hostages in Iran were released, because his threats of serious action and retaliation were taken seriously. The economy eventually rebounded from its morass and stagflation, and the feeling was that there was a New Morning in America.
I think that the time is right for a similar revival in 2022. We have the opportunity to change the nation’s course once again and get it back on the right track.
The November 2022 election will prove absolutely pivotal to our future. I want to be a part of it, and that is one of the reasons I’m running for Congress in Oregon’s brand new sixth district.
As the founding fathers of this country intended, Congress is a check and balance on the executive branch represented by the presidency. Right now, the Congress is complicit in carrying out the policies that are actively harming our citizens.
What our nation needs now is new leadership in Congress, to hold the line on wasteful government spending and carrying out a foreign policy from a position of strength, instead of weakness and capitulation.
With your support, I can be among a class of freshmen members of Congress sworn in at the beginning of 2023, ready to hit the ground running and help keep this country from going further in the wrong direction.
President Reagan was able to restore the U.S. to a new, glorious era after the dark and dreary years of the Carter administration. I think that starting in 2023, we can do the same all over again and reverse the troubling decline of the past year.