The Damage Done by the Current President

When I look at the damage done by the current President, it seems more likely that the nation is locked in a downward death spiral with no bottom in sight.
And even worse, the number of Americans who remain complacent, and willing to accept the 'new normal' is shocking.

But, as our pals at the NYSun note, we've been in difficult straits before, and all it takes are the right, the 'Right', policies to regain our former greatness.

1. " The thing to remember about the cataract of woe that has befallen our country is how fast things can be turned around. We may be in retreat overseas, with riots simmering in Missouri and the economy stuck in second gear. With the right policies, the right leadership, all that can be overcome.
2. But none of the GOP contenders is capturing this simple point .... It can be turned around, and fast....
3. .... making of that point .... was the valedictory speech given by the editor most associated with the Reagan Revolution, Robert Bartley of the Wall Street Journal.
4. .... he didn’t want to hear about the good old days — since our troubles were nothing compared to what we faced in the 1970s. He was referring to defeat in Vietnam, Soviet expansionism, the collapse of the gold-based monetary system, the rise of world inflation, economic stagnation, the Arab oil embargo, war in the Middle East, soaring unemployment.
5. ..... Henry Kissinger conceded that Bartley had been right to take a harder line than Nixon on the Soviet Union. Jack Kemp toasted Bartley’s leadership of the tax-cutting movement. Theodore Olson, who had won the Bush v. Gore lawsuit that cleared the way for George W. Bush to claim the White House, spoke of Bartley’s commitment to the Constitution.
6. Optimism, [Bartley] said, pays. “In human affairs, nothing is ever solved completely,” he said. He was for the steady application of sound policies, confident that economic and political freedom would triumph..... the president he backed, Ronald Reagan, who ran on the slogan “morning in America.”
7. This is the missing element in today’s politics. In 2008, President Obama promised hope and change. But he lacked the policy chops. The GOP today has the policy chops, but nailing the optimism is key.

8. Bartley stood for two big things. One was a military buildup to meet the Soviets. The other was economic growth.

9. Reagan took office in the wake of a recession (in 1980.... once the tax cuts came in, wow did the economy respond. At the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker choked off inflation by pushing up interest rates above 20 percent. And the value of the dollar on Reagan’s watch soared. (Measured in gold, it rose 38% to one-405th of an ounce of gold.)

a. Within nine years of when Reagan was sworn in, the Soviet Union was gone — voosh.
10. Under President Obama, the dollar has lost a third of its value (it’s up from its low but still down to barely more than a 1,300th of an ounce of gold). ... people feel poor. Unemployment is still above 6%, higher if you count people who’ve given up looking for work. ....the point Bartley stressed — how fast things changed once the right policies were brought to bear. Find the candidate who can give voice to that optimism, and that is the candidate with the winning formula."