American Thinker: For many of us, the summer of 1979 was a tough one. It certainly appeared as if President Jimmy Carter was in over his head and radio was saturating us with disco music.
It was no coincidence that two of the most famous days of that summer came 39 years ago this week.
On the political front, we had “the malaise speech” or the speech that left most people dumbfounded.
On July 15, 1979, a frustrated President Carter gave that famous “malaise” speech that probably sank his presidency:
“The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our Nation.
The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.
The confidence that we have always had as a people is not simply some romantic dream or a proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the Fourth of July. It is the idea which founded our Nation and has guided our development as a people. Confidence in the future has supported everything else–public institutions and private enterprise, our own families, and the very Constitution of the United States. Confidence has defined our course and has served as a link between generations. We’ve always believed in something called progress. We’ve always had a faith that the days of our children would be better than our own.”
Fair or unfair, the speech and the word he didn’t use, defined President Carter. He spoke of a “new age of limits” and that just exposed him to attacks from Ronald Reagan, the ultimate optimist about the U.S. The U.S. is not a country of “limits”. MORE
Just turned 16…and Bought a sweeeeeeeeet 1973 Torino Gran Brougham
Girl Scout Cookie Thin Mint Green….$300 …Had a slew of new
technological advances..Horn Rim Steering Wheel…Front Brake Lights
(Had the pamphlet in the glove box) And of course I installed
Jensen 6×9″s with one of those new fangled Cassette Players…
Mag Wheels in back…Hubcaps on the front…
I just realized that I was a loser…Sonofab*tch….
All I remember ( I was 8 ) is my grandfather, who never cursed around me, explaining to me what a piece of shit Jimmy was.
Remember chasing interest rates right after Carter left office when buying my first house. Watched them drop from 18% to 13% and felt lucky because the “news” kept saying rates had to go back to 18% because Reagan sucked.
His speech would have been a lot shorter if he had just said “Everything I’ve tried has been a failure, but next year you can vote me out if you want”.
Disco has and always will suck. And our malaise ended (till barry came along) when Jimma Carta got his ass kicked by Ronald Reagan in 1980. My brother and some of his friends destroyed an LP record of Disco Maidens From Outer Space by shooting it full of holes with a pellet gun till there was nothing left of it. It was the best skeet shooting they ever did.
Bcattin
Pics for icing on the cone of 73 realities you have spun or is it spanned? Spinning tires go round and round.
This Green:
http://carinpicture.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Ford-Gran-Torino-1973-Photo-02.jpg
Disco Demolition:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAJfOcnYYEQ
Many do not realize that the Bee Gees were a British FOLK group!
Many rock bands ‘experimented’ with the disco beat at the time including the Rolling Stones, The Grateful Dead and Queen.
One of my favorite scenes from Airplane!:
https://youtu.be/vtsQI2IeM5U
Poor Jimmie, at least now he has another bitter, disgruntled ex president to join the weekly card game. Clinton has been cheating him blind and he may stand a chance with Obozo joining.
No Gran Torino….Mint Green…and that was a 72 4 door…Mine was
uglier than that…Glaspaks though..
1979 was Punk Rock. I remember that. It was exciting. 1980 was right around the corner. It was like this goal post everyone was straining to cross. F the 70’s, let’s get into the 80’s was the general feeling of desperation.
Carter…. fug. That guy…. you couldn’t even look at him. Every day it was DAY 174 OF THE HOSTAGE SITUATION DAY 200 OF THE HOSTAGE SITUATION. I can’t even remember Carter at that point. It was like he quit before his term was up.
But I remember those douchebag students from Georgetown in white paper masks supporting the Iranians.
And then of course, Punk Rock.
I was a Dadof1 and I already knew, long before then, I made a mistake voting for him.
I was so disgusted by his attempts at dismantling America.
Gave away the Panama canal.
Tried to get the metric system installed here.
The world walked all over him, and America. We became despised for our weakness he caused. It was no coincidence the Iranian hostages were released when Reagan took office.
He was anti-Israel before it was a Marxist-campus requirement.
He was the first globalist I plainly recognized as obvious. Before I even knew it was an intended thing.
F**k Carter and the whole globalist cadre entrenched in so many positions of power.
A Red Dawn seemed so possible with that jackass at the helm. If the Chief Wussy couldn’t fight off a rabbit chasing him in his CANOE, what would a world power do?
He wanted America to disappear. He and O are no different.
@ VietVet – I laughed out loud…twice.
GREAT movie, 1980, one year after the Disco Demolition.
SNF Soundtrack – 1977
My parents actually learned how to disco dance and they were in their 60’s at the time!
Cheers.
MAGA2016
KAG2020
I was a 22yo square by that time. I had a Datsun B210+ that got 33 city and 45 hwy. It was an awesome car. The only one I ever bought new.
I told people it made gas.
I truly thought we’d be driving 50-100 mpg cars by now. Especially when all the MustangIIs and Chevette’s were replacing the muscle cars.
That made me sad. Very sad.
Then muscle cars made a comeback with Reagan in the house.
Hm. Maybe that one had more influence in my belief Reagan was da man than I realized at the time.
73 Gran Torino, white with blue landau roof. Nice car. I voted Reagan in my first election as even at 18 I could see what a miserable job Carter had done. That and my mom’s bitching about the 17% interest rate on her house.
Is he dead yet?
I was working at a machine shop back in 79 when a New York transplant walked in and applied for a programing job. He was wearing clear platform shoes with gold fish in them. I shit you not. So yea disco was alive and dying.
I was a wet behind the ears two striper in tech school at Lowry AFB then, which doesn’t exist anymore because of another anti American president. (Bubba) When RR became president, we rejoiced.