The one-year anniversary of American hostages being held by Middle East terrorists should force a political reckoning. The president and vice president whose administration has been unable to free innocent Americans held abroad ought to be rejected by voters.
I’m speaking, of course, about the election. The 1980 election.
In that contest, things looked rather familiar to modern eyes. The incumbent Democrat, Jimmy Carter, presided over a frail economy replete with worrisome inflation, energy prices, and interest rates. Prominent Democrats -- led by a Kennedy -- tried to force him off the ticket. Carter’s challenger, Republican Ronald Reagan, was routinely derided by a national press corps that seemed uniquely interested in stopping Reagan from winning.
A Newsweek poll taken October 29-30, 1980 showed the race at a statistical tie: Reagan held 44% of the electorate compared to Carter’s 43%, and independent John Anderson at 7%.
And then the reckoning began.
The nation was angry about Islamic radicals in Iran who – the year before – had attacked the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and taken 52 Americans hostage. Americans followed the catastrophe closely, so much so that ABC News started a 11:30pm nightly newscast entitled “The Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage” -- later renamed as “Nightline.”
Carter and his equally ineffectual vice president, Walter Mondale, had been unable to obtain the release of the hostages and had even presided over a botched rescue attempt that resulted in eight U.S. servicemen being killed.
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Using the longer format of weekend news, major papers and nightly news noted with gusto the anniversary of Iran’s act of war, which would fall on election day itself. The lengthy news and editorial accounts served as a pre-election reminder of the Carter-Mondale failures.
In his book, Carter White House Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan recalls that the tied race was shaken up when polling conducted Sunday night and Monday showed a sudden avalanche of support for Reagan. Jordan broke the news to President Carter on Election eve – before regular voting had even begun – that Carter was poised to lose by a landslide. Reagan went on to defeat Carter by nearly ten percentage points.
It was quite an electoral reckoning.
It's been said that history repeats itself because no one was listening the first time. Which brings us to October 7.
In addition to the dozens of Israelis taken hostage one year ago this week by Hamas -- a group our State Department labeled as terrorists decades ago -- seven Americans were also captured. Most are likely alive. Yet Joe Biden and Kamala Harris – like their counterparts Carter and Mondale – have failed in their responsibility to bring them home.
Former President Trump promises a “peace through strength” approach that echoes the ideals of President Reagan. Not surprisingly, after Reagan’s resounding victory, negotiations about releasing the hostages sped up. Carter was in earnest to resuscitate his tattered legacy and the Iranian terrorists were in a rush because they knew their best opportunity was with Carter, not Reagan, who had made clear he would deal with them much more harshly.
Joe Biden held himself accountable for his failed presidency by stepping aside when, in a political coup not unlike the Kennedy effort in 1980, fellow Democrats strong-armed him off the ticket. But Kamala Harris – who, according to Biden, had equal authority to act in both domestic and foreign affairs – is similarly culpable for the failure to bring our people home.
This is not to suggest that getting hostages back from hate-driven killers is easy. It’s not. Yet both Harris and Trump have records that will help voters predict what their respective administrations might look like with respect to the Middle East cauldron. Trump helped bring about the Abraham Accords, which might’ve led the way to a peace agreement between Israel and Palestinians. Harris has no similar accomplishment, and her administration’s support for Iran’s effort to become a nuclear nation and their naïve delisting of the Houthis as a terror group has exposed her policy as feckless, given the aggression of these entities against Israeli civilians and American warships.
Coupled with the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal that saw refugees hanging on the outside of airplanes as the best means of survival and 13 U.S. military heroes killed, this administration might even surpass the “crisis of confidence” Carter once lamented.
Given the increased atomization of news consumption, it’s hard to imagine that the voters of 2024 will coalesce around the anniversary of the heinous attacks of October 7 as did the voters of 1980 with the Iranian hostage-taking.
Nonetheless, once again, America is at a crossroads. The failures of the Biden-Harris administration are as undeniable as those of Carter and Mondale. Will we repeat the mistakes of the past or embrace change? Like the voters of 1980, we too must decide if it's time for a reckoning.
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