The long and the short of it. Oil crisis and Reagan's hostage sabotage in Iran. It's really not that much different to anything today. Listen to any conservative complaint about contemporary Democrats and you will hear clear inane echoes.

He told Americans that we just need to tighten our belts and we will get through it. As he had personally done as a young member of the silent generation during the depression. Reagan told them all they were special little sausages. And should cater to their every greedy Indulgence. I'm sure you can guess which message they liked better. The same message they got this time.

Americans have not and will never learn their lesson as long as the wealthy own the media. Telling people what they want to hear. And turning them against those that would help them in any way.

Their generation ate the paint chips we were warned about.

A lot of it had to do with the Iran hostage crisis (1979-81). There was a failed rescue attempt by US military in 1980 that cost the lives of 8 servicement (chopper crash) that really put the nail in the coffin for Carter.

The final death knell was the October surprise theory (supported by "several individuals—most notably, former Iranian President Abulhassan Banisadr, former Lieutenant Governor of Texas Ben Barnes, former naval intelligence officer and U.S. National Security Council member Gary Sick, and Barbara Honegger, a former campaign staffer and White House analyst for Reagan and his successor, George H. W. Bush—have stood by the allegation." source). While the theory does have its detractors it has a lot of support by those in the know.

I was around back then and remember watching Carter almost wither away under the onslaught from Reagan and the Moral Majority.

It is exactly like today. What Carter did, just like what Biden has done more recently , was drowned out by hate fueled character assassination. Yes Carter was a genuine nice human being wanting the best for everyone but at the same time Reagan was genuinely likable, believable. He was “the great communicator”. So like today, only a much nicer person getting his character assassinated but by somberly influential rather than todays centrism, racism, hatred and spite.

Carter also told people things they didn’t want to hear but had to. He was the genuine “telling it like it is”.

I was alive at the time e and thought Carter was a great president. I may have been biased by even then preferring engineers. However I also got swept up in the wave of Reaganism along with everyone else. Yes, I believed cities were hellish gang ridden dystopias, the countryside filled with “welfare queens” collecting generational wealth by pumping out babies, and college elite using abortion at will as just casual contraception. I still believe Reagan hastened the fall of the Soviet Union by outspending them in an arms race. I was surely naive at the time but also Reagan was that good to make you believe anything