The result was as predictable as rain on a cloudy day.
The American people, fed up with Iranian policy towards the United States, had headed to their voting booths and defiantly pulled the presidential ballot lever for a decided Outsider. And the Outsider won.
But this election was not in 2016 or 2024. It was 1980. And, of course, that Outsider candidate was Ronald Reagan, not Donald Trump.
Famously, when the then President-elect Reagan paid his first visit to Washington after winning the 1980 election, Democrat Speaker of the House Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, the epitome of the career Washington politician, told the former two-term governor of California that “a governor plays in the minor leagues. You’re in the big leagues now.”
The message was crystal clear. Reagan had not spent decades in elected office like O’Neill. Much less had he spent, like O’Neill at that point, almost three decades holding office in Washington. Which was on top of another 16 years as a member of the Massachusetts state legislature.
No, Reagan was seen and treated as an Outsider by both O’Neill and the larger Washington Establishment because he had not only never set foot in a Washington job, he had — oh the horror! — spent a career working in the private sector. Worse still, Reagan’s private sector career was as — gasp! — an actor! Not to mention that his elective office was as-ewwwww! — a governor — as opposed to being part of the Washington crowd. Sacramento was decidedly not Washington!
And tellingly, the Iranians holding Americans hostage in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran were well aware of Reagan’s Outsider, hardliner reputation.
This history is worth recalling because, yet again, Americans have elected a decided Outsider to the White House. Deliberately. That would be, of course, President Donald Trump. Trump was, famously, a businessman’s businessman in his career. His claim to fame was building a global real estate empire, then writing about how he did it — and massaging that into a hot television show called The Apprentice. A show where he was cast in the role of judging the business astuteness of various contestants. And when the contestants did not measure up to his strict standards, he immortalized his words of dismissal: “You’re fired!”
All of this returns to mind as now-President Trump deals with the hot-button unfolding of war in the Middle East, on top of what has proved to be his sure-footed handling of the economy. In the latter case, he is making his success into what he has justifiably called a “Golden Age.”
The Middle East is, as has been true for most American presidents, a tougher nut to crack. Way back there in November of 1979 — a full 46 years ago — America’s relationship with Iran went off the tracks in the Jimmy Carter era when 66 Americans, a combination of U.S. diplomats and civilian personnel, were taken hostage in the US Embassy in Tehran. (RELATED: Write That Damned Book — Now!)
The hostage situation dragged on for over a year, steadfastly resisting Carter’s efforts to end it by either diplomatic negotiation or even military action. In the latter case, Carter’s attempt at a military rescue literally had the U.S. military helicopters crashing and burning in the Iranian desert.
And here is where the ending of the hostage crisis surely has the attention of another Outsider President — Donald Trump. Reagan’s hardline reputation was so firmly fixed in the mind of the Iranians that literally the moment Reagan’s hand came off the Bible at his January swearing-in, the hostages were quickly released. (RELATED: Trump and Reagan: Two Hostage Crises, Two Inaugurations)
Yes, there was a later hostage problem — with newer hostages traded for dollars that were then delivered to Nicaragua’s “Contra” anti-Communist rebels — the so-called “Iran-Contra scandal.” But the fact remained, there was considerable wariness from America’s adversaries around the globe when it came to dealing with Reagan. It was a central reason that Reagan, allied with the similarly hardline British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the Polish, anti-Communist Pope John Paul II, collectively ended the Cold War.
Today, Israel is pounding away at Iran’s mullahs, but the shadow of the Outsider American President looms over all. He is demanding that Iran not build a nuclear program. As with Reagan, America’s Iranian adversary is being exceptionally careful in dealing with Trump. And that is precisely because the Iranians know that Trump, the Outsider American President, is unafraid to go where a typical Washington career politician would not. Whether they actually build a bomb or not.
So for sure, they should be careful — and they know it.
Stay tuned.
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