A year ago, on Nov. 6, Americans woke up to find Donald Trump had been elected our 47th president. Since then, we have to revisit the ultimate question first asked by a fellow Republican and great Illinoisan, Ronald Reagan.
It was at the final presidential debate between President Jimmy Carter and former California governor Reagan on Oct. 28, 1980, in Cleveland. Reagan had the final say in the debate.
“Are you better off than you were four years ago?” he challenged voters. The answer came a week later in a landslide victory for Reagan, and began what eventually would become eight years in the White House.
Since Trump’s election and inauguration, the question needs to be posed once again: Are we better off than a year ago?
Ponder that for a while, while we refresh what happened on Nov. 5, 2024. Trump and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance received 312 electoral votes, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic standard-bearer, 226, leading to the president’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
Trump barely bested Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in the national popular vote, garnering 49.8% to her 48.3%. This, after Harris got a late start in the race and ran a mediocre campaign compared to Trump’s slick messaging.
Illinois was a Midwest outlier in 2024, a lone blue state surrounded by a vast red wall of Trumpian states, delivering our 19 presidential electoral votes to Harris. Harris polled 54.8% to Trump’s 43.8% in Illinois, with a smattering of votes for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now U.S. secretary of health and human services.
In Lake County, Trump fared worse than across the wide political spectrum, which is the Land of Lincoln. The Harris/Walz ticket received 184,642 votes, according to the county clerk’s office, 59.7% to 120,402 votes, 38.9%, for Trump and Vance. All of Chicago’s collar counties, except McHenry County, voted overwhelmingly for the Democratic ticket.
With time to mull the Reagan query, are we better off today than before Trump’s second term? Surely, the answer depends on one’s political leanings. Voters in Virginia, New Jersey and New York City gave their answer this week.
Yet, are those who voted for the president happy with what’s evolved since the 2024 election and since he took office? Do they care if a wing of the White House has been wrecked to make way for a posh ballroom?
Are farm-state Trumpers happy with the president’s tariff conflicts raising costs and straining family farms? Are those in cattle-producing states giddy over Trump’s plans to import beef from Argentina and float the Land of Tango a $40 billion loan?
Do Trump supporters in Kentucky care if exports of American spirits, due to the tariff turf war, have fallen 9% and 85% in Canadian markets, according to The Associated Press?
Are Republicans worried over economic uncertainty going into the holiday season, and possible looming layoffs? Are workers upset over the continuing federal government shutdown, now the longest in U.S. history?
Are they apprehensive over the administration’s mixed messages on vaccines, and preventing outbreaks of once-conquered childhood diseases? Are they bothered that tax money is being spent on lawyers in various blue states, including Illinois, to battle Trump administration edicts?
Are Trump supporters cheerful over a Department of War seemingly more concerned with domestic security than global commitments? Do Republicans find the indiscriminate use of tear gas and pepper spray in neighborhoods while scouring the city and suburbs for undocumented immigrants?
Are they cool with National Guard troops being dispatched to U.S. cities for community policing missions? Are they disappointed that the Trump administration has turned once-respected lawmen with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol into unfeeling stormtroopers?
Are Trump supporters crazy over the enormous tax breaks for American billionaires that the president’s “one big beautiful tax bill” granted them? Are they alarmed over the loss of food and health benefits for millions of Americans?
Are they unconcerned with rising food costs, which nearly three in five Americans believe are due in part to continued high inflation? Do they worry that, because of high prices, household debt is surging, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York?
That is, if they put much stock in economic data coming from the government. The president certainly doesn’t.
Which should distress them as much as Trump’s pronouncements to make Canada our 51st state, or annex Greenland. Are they copacetic with sending a Navy task force to blast professed drug boats off the coast of Venezuela in an undeclared war?
Do they agree with the president threatening Nigeria with military action over the alleged mistreatment of Christians in the African nation? Are they excited over the new and fancy Air Force One, a gift from the people of Qatar?
Or perhaps Trump supporters just agree with songster Bobby McFerrin and his Reagan-era ditty: “Don’t worry, be happy.”
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.
X @sellenews
