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Amran Gowani's avatar

Thanks for sharing this piece, Ramona.

I was born in 1980, so one thing I wonder about is how people viewed Reagan then vis-a-vis Trump in 2016. Was the sense of unease the same? Worse for one vs. the other? How did the world feel in 1980 vs. 2016? Safer? More dangerous? More uncertain?

I'd be fascinated by any thoughts you'd be willing to share.

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Annette Laing's avatar

I was only in my mid-teens, still living in the UK, and remember thinking it very weird, which likely owes as much to skeptical BBC coverage as it does to precocious critical thinking skills. Fast forward to the mid -80s when, even though I had only seen Cronkite after he was resigned, I wore an "I miss Walter" button to the Society of Professional Journalists conference in Phoenix, where I was repping our campus chapter. He was very pleased, I got a hug, and I've been dining out on that story ever since. I knew a political journalist in the early 80s who was pushed out of his job, and a cartoonist who was fired, and it's hard not to think there are other stories waiting to be told from that time. Thanks for this, Ramona.

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