It’s always an internal debate with these Morning Dump headlines if I’m going to say Stellantis or Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram because, frankly, the Stellantis brand isn’t strong. You don’t go to a Stellantis dealer, you go to a Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram dealer (or a Ram Fiat Alfa dealer, or whatever combo you like). The company is planning what it calls an “epic comeback” and that’s not going to be because Alfa or Fiat sales improve. It’s all about the four core brands.
Are we here for this? I’m here for this. After a long period of questioning Stellantis’ decision-making, it’s nice to see the automaker at least try to turn it around. How will the company do it? That’s the question, especially as it contends with low-performing brands. Across town at GM, the company is hoping to maintain its momentum, and one key to that is dropping what it says are low-performing employees.
Buyers have been concerned about vehicle affordability and, as the annual dealer conference wraps up in New Orleans, it seems like dealers are also worried about this. And, finally, Kia dealers will get a new recall to deal with this year. They’re used to it by now.
‘2024 Was Just Not Where Any Of Us Needed To Be’ Admits Stellantis Sales Chief
The fall of Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares, not pictured, was predictable, at least to anyone paying attention. This was a message that people didn’t want to hear at the beginning of 2024, with Stellantis celebrating a run of record profits during the pandemic.
This was a success built on lucky timing as much as anything else and one it seemed unlikely to maintain. As I wrote at the time:
I’m not saying or hoping that Stellantis will fail to deliver on its new products. As a car enthusiast, I want them all to be awesome cars and trucks that we can all enjoy. I’m just pointing out what I think is obvious, which is that the company is making a huge bet on its product delivering in a big way over the next 12 months and, outside of RAM, I’m not convinced there are a ton of huge winners.
Looking back, this is basically what happened. The company starved itself of products in an attempt to squeeze out profits from customers and then, when inventory started rising for everyone else, it realized that the products it was building for its most important market were not the products people wanted. Couple that with all the fights the company was picking and, inevitably, this wasn’t going to work.
Tavares is gone and there’s a new energy at the company. A lot of new energy. One of the decisions Tavares made was to shift sales exec Jeff Kommor to a commercial sales role from the top sales job. Once Tavares was gone the company quickly reversed that decision, and so Kommor was out at the National Auto Dealers Association (NADA) show in New Orleans trying to get dealers pumped by telling them they should be ready for “the most epic comeback in automotive history.”
Big talk. What does that mean?
“Keep an eye on us all year long,” Kommor told Automotive News after the meeting. “You’re going to see incremental improvements, you’re going see momentum, you’re going to see sales gains. The dealers got our back, we got their back, and I feel like we’re starting to gain their trust and optimism back. 2024 was just not where any of us needed to be.”
Stellantis plans to ignite its comeback in a number of ways, Kommor said, including increasing spending on regional Tier 2 marketing to 2019 levels.
“We’re exploring powertrain opportunities, getting ourselves back into segments that we had exited, putting our product in competitive positions, improving our quality,” Kommor said. “And then also helping the deals with advertising to make sure we’re supported in the marketplace at Tier 1 and Tier 2 to drive the message that we need, which are tools that we didn’t have over the last couple of years.”
I gotta say, I’m having a little trouble squaring “epic comeback” and “incremental improvements” so let’s break down the individual points here beyond the rah-rah locker room talk of momentum and trust.
That bit about “Tier 2” marketing is important. If you don’t speak marketing, it’s something like this for auto dealers (the automotive industry is more obsessed with tiers than Paul Hollywood):
- Tier 1: Big national marketing, Super Bowl ads, et cetera.
- Tier 2: Regional groups, like your Quad State AMC-Lamborghini Dealers or what have you.
- Tier 3: Local dealer ads.
Putting money into regional dealer groups is a great way to generate leads for sales (hint, please buy ads on The Autopian). Also, dealers were complaining last year about the lack of support in both incentive spend and advertising spend. Making dealers happy seems to be a large part of the company’s strategy.
Powertrain opportunities? That’s hybrids and probably V8s coming back. Segments that they’ve abandoned? Probably mid-sized trucks and entry-level crossover products for Jeep. Quality is… yeah, every brand can do better.
Again, I’m here for it, although it’s going to take the company a while to make it work. Sam reviewed the new Wagoneer S and it seems ok, but not great, and it probably needs to be great. I do appreciate that Stellantis is focusing on what it can fix immediately (keeping dealers happy, resolving issues with the UAW), what it can fix in the medium term (powertrains), and what it needs long-term (better product).
What’s not being said here quite as strongly, I think, is that the non-core brands (Fiat, Alfa Romeo, and Maserati) are probably going to be last in line for product improvements.
Let’s give the Badassadors some backup, boys!
GM Is Starting To Axe Salaried Employees Who Are ‘Underperforming’
GM instituted a new five-point evaluation criteria last year, up from the original three-point evaluation criteria. The company said at the time that it wanted managers to rate 5% of employees as significantly exceeding expectations, 10% as exceeding expectations, 70% as achieving, 10% as under-achieving, and 5% as doing so poorly they’re going to be “exited from the company”
It’s been about a year and, according to the Detroit Free Press, it’s happening now. Is this a good way to do things or are the company’s managers arbitrarily picking 5%?
GM’s emphasis on more stringent performance evaluation and imposing consequences for poor performance reflects what many companies have been doing in recent years to improve productivity and cut costs, said Marick Masters, a labor expert and business professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, who has been closely watching corporate America’s personnel practices.
Masters said the risk of such a program could have mixed effects, but “the devil is in the details.” It depends on how fair the workforce deems GM’s procedures to be and how fair management is perceived to be in implementing the procedures along with what kinds of opportunities employees are given to improve peformance before being cut.
Hmm, let’s check in on Reddit to see how people alleging to be cut employees are taking it:
This is all so sad, considering they said those in the bottom 5% would have some inkling about being in the bottom 5% by mid years. More dishonesty. How can anyone improve or even want to work at this company in this environment? There is always a threat looming. What an awful place to work. I don’t think they care, it is making all of us sick and riddled with anxiety. I figure, if it happens to me, it is meant to be. It’s happened to me before, even at GM, at a few jobs (layoff), never performance based but nonetheless. Each time it’s happened to me, while stressful, my blood pressure goes down, and I am healthier. I’ve always found something that helps boost my career with a new industry and new role and has broadened my horizons. The problem is the market and how long it takes, I didn’t always recover my salary. God will put me where I am supposed to be if it happens to me again. Praying for peace and calm, and greener pastures for those who are hit with this. Praying for peace and calm for those that aren’t.
Obviously, there’s no way to know if the folks on Reddit are actually GM employees and, of course, those cut will not have a positive view of it. Still, mandating that 5% of people have to be below the line is a blunt way of removing salaried employees.
Dealers Also Care About Vehicle Affordability
There are plenty of measures for vehicle affordability, like the above affordability index from Cox/Moody’s. In general, prices are coming down from pandemic highs, so cars do seem more affordable viewed this way. Is “not as terrible as it was” really a good measure of affordability? Conversely, car payments are super high now due in part to interest rates.
It’s a big issue, and dealers are also concerned about this according to a new survey by Automotive News:
More than half of survey respondents — 53 percent — selected vehicle affordability as one of the factors they’re most worried about in 2025. Their two other top concerns are lower new-vehicle profit margins, at 37 percent, and recession and economic uncertainty, at 29 percent.
Higher interest rates — the most-selected concern of dealership management who participated in the 2024 survey — remain a concern for 22 percent of respondents.
Much of the concern is over rates though, in general, dealers feel more optimistic about 2025 in part due to the conclusion of the election.
Kia Recalling Cars Over Manual Seats That Might Disable Airbags
At a hair over 80,000 vehicles, this new Niro EV recall isn’t the biggest out there at the moment. It is newsworthy, however, for how the vehicle might accidentally disable its own airbags.
Here’s how NHTSA describes the problem:
The floor wiring assembly located underneath the front passenger seat contains wires which control certain vehicle restraint systems. Repeated sliding adjustment of the manual front passenger seat may damage one or more of the wires in the floor wiring assembly due to variation in its routing. This may result in 1) the nondeployment of airbag(s) and/or seatbelt pretensioner(s), or 2) the inability to suppress the passenger frontal airbag for a child or small occupant, or 3) inadvertent deployment of the passenger side airbag (SAB).
The nondeployment of the airbag(s) and/or seatbelt pretensioner(s) in a crash sufficient to warrant a deployment, the inability to suppress the passenger frontal airbag for a child or small occupant, or the inadvertent deployment of the passenger side airbag increases the risk of injury.
Yikes, that’s bad.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
The Bills are out of contention, so let’s try to cheer everyone who isn’t a KC fan up with some Eddie Murphy. Did you know that his girl likes to “Party All The Time”? It’s true. I like that the premise of this music video is “Yes, Eddie Murphy is really singing this song. We wrote his name on tape and everything.”
The Big Question
What do you consider the biggest sports comeback of all time? What about the biggest automotive comeback?
Top Photo Credit: MGM/UA Entertainment Co.
I think I’ll file this under “Too Little,Too Late”…..Stellantis has been taking advantage of the consumer over the last 4-5 years and people now have finally gotten “woke” and feel burned….I’ve been buying Chrysler products for the last 35 years…I got the Chrysler itch from my grandfather who only bought Chrysler products dating back to the Airflow of the “30’s……I’ll keep the Chrysler products that I currently own but no more for me…..And Stellantis isn’t going to magically install a V8 in their 1500 series Ram or the new Charger overnight as everyone seems to think will happen…..It’ll take at least 3-4 years as they have all that money invested in the Hurricane platform that it must succeed for them….They will do all they can to see it succeed….And if they do sell then the Hemi will be forgotten about…A footnote in the history books….But if it doesn’t then just wait and see,Stellantis will sell Ram and Jeep to the highest bidder and mothball Chrysler and Dodge altogether.
Incremental could be viewed as the (stupid, I’ll point out in a sec) 1% better every day thing that I keep seeing of late. So assuming no compounding, you’d be 365% better year on year with that theory! That would be a comeback for the ages.
This is obviously stupid, no one is making that sort of improvement day after day. One of the main goals of setting goals is make them achievable, even if it is a stretch. To make them complete BS, you feel bashed by yourself when you are no where near it, and just falling further behind.
1% per week, 52% better in a year. Not as stupid, depending on what you’re doing, even achievable! For Steliantis or whatever we’re calling them today, it is unlikely.
0.1% per day, its 36.5% in a year. This is probably what they need to do to get back to their previous numbers. Still, likely for ’25.
0.1% per week, 5.2%. Steliantis should aim for this. Stretch target of 0.5% per month. If they can do this across the business, they should put themselves in a good spot for ’26. I wish them the best of luck.
Keeping it Automotive, McLaren return to the top is honestly right up there. It isn’t the single match, or race like some of the other worthy mentions. But the turn around is nothing short of amazing.
Triumph motorcycles?
Biggest comeback in sports history must be the Red Sox of 2004 in the ALCS against the Yankees. They overcame a 0-3 deficit in a best of 7 game series, won ALCS and won the MLB World Series for the 1st time since 1918.
It still hurts for some of us Yankees fans.
Biggest automotive comeback would be Lee Iacocca’s Chrysler.
OTOH, I don’t know how much time there’s left for a Stellantis comeback but previously Tavares hinted at a 5 yr or so timeframe for all its brands to become profitable. Now that Tavares is gone I guess that timeframe is irrelevant but that doesn’t solve the lack of a more comprehensive portfolio for Dodge, Jeep and Chrysler. the midsized truck can’t come soon enough.
What do you consider the biggest sports comeback of all time?
No idea, I don’t pay attention to sportsball. Maybe the Bad News Bears?
What about the biggest automotive comeback?
Definitely Ford when they made quality job #1
Oh…right…
5 and 10 % means that the company is looking to cut back regardless, but they are using basic SPC type systems to at least attempt to let the suckerfish of the company go first. I would be curious what level of management this includes.
Honestly this method seems like a better route than just basing salary and tenure on longevity of service. It would honestly be somewhat nice to see on the blue collar side as well, but I do recall new workers coming into many a factory able and willing to work rings around long term union backed workers and then getting told to stop working so hard.
oof imagine having a 1/20 chance of getting the axe so your odds are low but still in your favor. but then being in a smaller team of say 12 people. that shit would stress me tf out!
it certainly would make me do 2 things…1) be sure I was doing my utmost best and 2) Updating my resume and linkedin account.
It would definitely be a bad place to be.
It always sounds like a good idea to let the lowest performing [×]% go, but having been through way too many RIFs in my time, there are two big drawbacks:
1- Keep letting the bottom 5 or 10% go each year for multiple years (which is often the case), without extensive hiring (which never happens at the same time) means you’re eventually cutting mid-level people that are actually pulling their weight, and
2- Inevitably, each time you cut the bottom 5-10%, one or two percent of the top performers (the ones with the most in-demand, essential skills) decide to go and find more stability elsewhere. So, you lose talent (and often institutional knowledge) that you planned to have and you don’t.
the other side of that is it is still often a reflection on popularity vs actual performance….and to an extent I agree. you can put out tons of widgets and fully meet expectations, but if nobody wants to work with you because of your attitude that can be as detrimental as anything. I have seen plenty of people Peter Principal’d up to a higher position just so they can identify them as not cutting the mustard and letting them go completely in 3-6 months.
Besides the NFL comebacks mentioned in other comments, I have to say Iowa’s comeback win against Michigan State two years ago. My rule of thumb with basketball has always been that a 10 point lead with a minute to go is “safe”. MSU had a 10 point lead with only 40 seconds to go and still somehow managed to give it up and then lose in overtime. Iowa basically played a perfect 40 seconds and Michigan State played a disastrously bad 40 seconds.
Stellantis has an opportunity here. In a way they’ve almost followed the Toyota playbook, slowplaying full EVs while quietly flooding the market with their 4xe hybrids. The mistakes Tavares made with their lineup hurt, but if they bring back the Hemi to satisfy the die hards and fix the reliability issues with their hybrid drivetrains I feel like they could have a pretty winning lineup in this unsettled period for the auto industry.
They might be the only ones feeling more optimistic after the election.
Kind of an interesting move to call the Wagoneer S a 4Xe even without a gas motor to power the battery when needed. Wonder if anyone will buy that thinking it is like the other 4Xe versions out there up to now.
How much you wanna bet the bottom 5% will just happen to be almost all women and POC? That’s how these things usually go.
So far, mostly older white men, which probably have both the highest salaries and care about their job the least.
No amount of marketing will overcome sub par products, nonexistent products or bad service. Stellantis also has to contend with an economy where prices and interest rates are high, real wages are stagnant or declining and thus people are putting off new car purchases.
I can say the discounts on 2024 New vehicles is pretty strong and there are even low interest financing terms available on Jeep and Ram products. I doubt it will last, but it certainly is interesting seeing the 2-3 year old trucks on the market still being advertised, both locally and at stealerships for only a few thousand dollars difference over a brand new old stock unit.
One of these days someone at Stellantis will finally take my advice to resurrect Lee Iacocca so they can finally get back on top.
Although I imagine it’s hard to find a good Necromancer in this economy.
“…getting ourselves back into segments that we had exited…”
We’re bringing back the Omni.
As an EV electric crossover!
Well the original Omni wasn’t very good or memorable anyways…
Knowing them, it’ll be a facelift of the Hornet. Then they’ll wonder why it’s STILL not selling.
They did this when the Hornet launched with a GLH concept version. It was supposed to showcase the Direct Connection performance parts they were offering for the car, but I don’t think any of that ever made it’s way to the parts counters.
If you asked me what Stellantis has in the pipeline that could be a hit, I would say the Jeep Recon and the Ram Rev. But, they start by shipping a commodity car. The Wagoneer S has 6 or 7 direct competitors where the Recon and Rev have none. Nice job Stellantis, another home run.
““We’re exploring powertrain opportunities, getting ourselves back into segments that we had exited, putting our product in competitive positions, improving our quality,” Kommor said. “And then also helping the deals with advertising to make sure we’re supported in the marketplace at Tier 1 and Tier 2 to drive the message that we need, which are tools that we didn’t have over the last couple of years.””
Uh huh. I’ll believe it when I see it.
And the issue wasn’t advertising. The issue was arrogant wishful-thinking MSRPs on aged product.
And they’ll need to do more than just get back into segments they previously exited… especially for the Dodge and Chrysler brands
And that also includes undoing stupid shit of the past such as putting Ram back under Dodge.
And they also have to undo stupid things they are doing right now… like saying ‘Wagoneer’ is a separate brand.
It’s not.
It’s a JEEP Wagoneer.
Please lose this idiotic idea that model names are “brands”.
“What about the biggest automotive comeback?”
Chrysler of the 1990s… started out very bad with aged product combined with an overall industry sales drop due to a recession.
By the late 1990s, Chrysler was on top and doing great… until Bob Eaton fucked things up by selling the company out to Mercedes.
Comeback story checks out.
Pacifica plug-in hybrid stands alone in the marketplace – mostly because it fails to run a lot of the time.
Best automotive comeback has to be BMW in the early 60’s. Nothing in the 50s worked, and they were kept alive by the Isetta. Then, off the strength of sales of the 700, Quandt convinced the board not to sell to Mercedes, they launched the Neu Classe, and from there became one of the dominant luxury auto makers in the world
Rating/firing employees is like buying advertising.
50% of ad spend is wasted. You just never know which half.
“Stellantis plans to ignite its comeback in a number of ways, Kommor said, including increasing spending on regional Tier 2 marketing to 2019 levels.”
Spending more money on telling me you have cars I don’t want? That sounds like igniting a dumpster fire… not a comeback.
The biggest under-performers are the “executives”
Tag me as optimistic, but execs who have a 5 year plan should only get basic salary for 5 years, and then based on the success/failure of the 5 year plan, pay them loads, or toss them out without any parachute. I know, unrealistic. From the bottom of the pay rung on up, your benefit to the company per day increases as should your pay. Fail on day one at the bottom, gone. Fail as a someone a couple of rungs up, you have to fail over a longer time period before being tossed. Currently if you fail at the top, you get a golden parachute even if you tank the company.
Great idea, however it only works if everyone does it that way. Currently you won’t get many exec types to take that deal, and maybe that’s a feature not a bug.
I worked at a company that did the ‘bottom 20 cut’ about every year and a half. At least you could predict when it was coming and if you were getting cut. Basically the managers put on you a required Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). It was rare to ever be able to ‘improve’ enough. So at least in that way, you knew what was coming and could start planning.
At my current company, we were told last year that management were not required to distribute people across the 5 point scale. If you had no low performers, then no one had to be in the bottom 15%. Now, well, now it is suddenly required. There is no formal PIP-like precursor. You just have to hope your manager does you a solid and tells you if you are named in the Bottom 5% to 15%. At least it is better than the practically random way it’s been done since 2019. Up to this point HR has always said RIFs had nothing to do with individual performance. This was demoralizing to say the least and everyone knew you could get away with murder if you didn’t want to work very hard.
In a way this change might make life better for those that are higher performers, but it has to be done in a way that it doesn’t seem business as usual arbitrary mode. The company is still a pretty good place to work. Good benefits, some work life balance, solid corp performance and minimal dumb chaos from above.
Lay offs / RIF / reductions in head count / forced attrition / voluntary separations / involuntary separations / headcount realignment strategy, whatever…..are all par for corporate life. Don’t assign morals to it. Don’t make it a basis for your own self worth. With 20+ year in big companies, I’d say 95% of the people that departed involuntarily had very little to do with the decision to let them ‘find other opportunities’ outside the company. Their number simply came up. It sucked, but not to sound cliche, it was just business. Plan for career disruptions, work smart and don’t give up.
“Basically the managers put on you a required Performance Improvement Plan (PIP)”
I had a coworker who was fired for “improvements that are unsustainable” from their PIP. Sometimes a PIP is just a Papertrail with Intent to Punt
Must’ve forgot to put the new cover sheet on a TPS report.
I got laid off from a job at a time when I was doing the best work I ever had, and lest you think I’m just tooting my own horn, I got recognized for it by an external organization shortly after I was laid off. It was a nice F you to my former employer, but it still sucked.
Two good things came out of though:
My wife went through this crap when she joined a larger firm as she was nearing retirement age.
The irony was sales and profits dropped by close to 20% within a year of her being asked to find another job.
The firm asked her to return, (under contract).
With a very substantial 25% pay raise.
She said fuck off…
About a year later they were hiring my position back (which, I might add, I accurately predicted when I left). There was no amount of money that would have made me take it though.
That CEO oversaw a shrinking of annual revenue by about half. I can only imagine what would happen if I were that bad at my job.
The firm my wife worked for declared Chapter 11 within 2 years of her departure.
Carlos Tavares is not pictured? IT STINKS!
What the devil?
Bad Jon Lovitz joke.”It stinks!” was the catchphrase of his character in the animated series “The Critic”.
Oh, and I thought Jon Lovitz was the guy who played a devil character on SNL.
He’s multi-talented!
ACTING!!
The thing about the 5 tier GM ratings change is it feels like more an example of psychological extortion of said employees, as well as a none too veiled message for those more astute ones to be actively considering some possible future career changes.
Must suck. Been there, felt that shit before. Screw them.
I have mixed feelings about this. Most big companies have people on payroll who are useless at best. At worst they routinely forge a trail of fuckups that someone else has to clean up. As someone who has consistently been relied on to clean up after someone else’s trail of fuckups, screw those employees. If you can’t do your job well, consider a career shift into a role that better matches your talents.
The shitty part is 5%. We shouldn’t be making a metric goal of the number of people we fire. Managers should work with underperformers to either develop them, work with them to find a different job where they’d be a better fit, or after exhausting all other options, finally cutting them. If your goal is to lay off 5% of the workforce for cost savings, say that. If your goal is to help underperforming employees (and eventually cut the ones who can’t or won’t be helped), don’t decree that 5% of all employees are underperforming. Focus on who is and isn’t doing their job successfully.
You said what I was thinking. Address the problems as they arise, don’t just plan to cut 5% every year.
Can agree with this to a degree.
Maybe I should have been more clear to my thoughts.
The larger firms I worked for before retirement encouraged mentoring, or assisting those who were less productive than expected or wished for. Some people just do need some guidance and time to achieve what they are capable of.
The many who were given proper help usually ended up surprising both management and their peers. And seemed to actually give a damn
But I was always searching for that sort of mindset in a firm.
Perhaps the size of GM and the deadwood nearing retirement age is a bigger factor than I was used to. TBH, it seems like way too many just DGAF anymore.
But overall, this just feels like corporate bloodletting to my old hippy brain, more than anything.
Sometimes it takes a while to come to terms with the brave new world for me.
Think what’s going on in DC right now at the White House.
Sometimes it’s easier to hack and cut people than to do the right things?
As usual, YMMV, thanks.
That lead image is a missed opportunity for a “pictured here” quip.
Best sporting comeback? The 2011 Canadian Grand Prix.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNaCUh7D9us&list=PLfc_7YoNPyJxF6m1kUtg3M2xLyCjOfrIx
Jensen Button started seventh, crashed with Alonso and Hamilton, got a drive through penalty, ended up in last place on lap 37, and won the race passing Vettel on the last lap. Also there was a two hour rain delay which really tested the commentators.
So far as AbarthAlfaChryslerCitroenDodgeDSFiatJeepLanciaMaseratiOpelPeugeotRamVauxhall is confirmed, the comeback is a Dodge Charger, a Hemi, and a Sawzall.
Frank Lloyd Reich–Bills/Oilers
Personal stake comeback -Iowa Hawks/PItt Panters 9/2011–down 24-3 and beat Todd Graham who left Pitt after the season and told his players by text–All class that guy
Nonsports – The country of Japan? 2 Atomic Bombs and rise up from the ashes to be a global power
Automotive Comeback – Kia/Hyandai–I don’t think they were ever in danger of going out of business, but if you would have told me the company that was giving a car to anyone who bought a minivan would be where they are now, I would have laughed loud and long….
Oooof! You had to bring up that Bills/Oilers game. Growing up in San Antonio, I was always a fan of the Cowboys and Oilers, and we were sooo close to an all-Texas super bowl. All the Oilers had to do was show up for the second half. I broke a damn all-wood (real, not MDF) coffee table watching that game.
As for automotive comebacks, it’s hard to argue with Chrysler’s Iacocca-driven comeback in the 80s, but I’m going to say Lamborghini. Was Lamborghini ever a profitable company prior to the VAG takeover? The cars may have lost some soul, but sometimes even billionaires want the toys to actually function as promised.
Inadvertent deployment of side airbag?
‘Yeah, yeah, I’m comin…lemme slide this seat ba…’
BANG!
Neither sports nor automotive, but let’s time-travel back to 1987, when George Wallace’s last term as Alabama governor – to which he was elected in 1982 as a Democrat with substantial Black support – came to an end and the movie Moonstruck was released, for which Cher receives the Oscar for Best Actress after her 1983 Best Supporting Actress nomination for Silkwood. Then go back to 1979 or so and tell people that will happen, and note the laughter.