Background
Through the 1970s, the United States underwent a wrenching period of low economic growth, high inflation and interest rates, and intermittent energy crises. Events such as Richard Nixon's resignation from the presidency in August 1974 and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 contributed to a national sense of malaise and a perception that in both domestic and foreign affairs the nation was headed downward. By the beginning of the election season, the prolonged Iran hostage crisis had sharpened public perceptions of a national crisis.
Jimmy Carter was blamed for the Iran hostage crisis, in which the followers of the Ayatollah Khomeni burned American flags and chanted anti-American slogans, paraded the captured American hostages in public, and burned effigies of Carter. Carter's critics saw him as an inept leader who had failed to solve the worsening economic problems at home. His supporters defended the president as a decent, well-intentioned man being unfairly attacked for problems that had been building for years.
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