Jimmy Carter

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. was the 39th President of the United States.WaPo article on his death He was the last gasp of the New Deal Coalition, which was replaced by Reagan Republicanism. A moderate Democrat who accomplished some now-ignored reforms, Carter's presidency was plagued by events largely outside of his control. He was the Republicans' strawman of the "failed left" and was often used in hostile comparisons to Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Carter interestingly enough voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primaries.Jennifer Calfas, Jimmy Carter Reveals He Voted for Bernie Sanders in the Primary. Time, 9 May 2017. Did we also mention how long the guy kept on going? He had remained quite active even in his latest years and outlived both George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. This made him the oldest individual to have ever been president, with second place going to the elder Bush, who was born four months earlier but who Carter outlived by several years. Having left office in 1981, he was also the president with the longest post-presidency at 43 years, beating Herbert Hoover's record by over a decade(!).
==Civil rights==
Although there were signs that Carter was perhaps not quite as segregationist as typical Southern governors even from the beginning, Carter's early political history did not suggest that civil rights would be a strong concern of his."Op-Ed: How Jimmy Carter championed civil rights and Ronald Reagan didn’t" by Ari Bermanm, 2015 September 3 During his early political years, Carter concealed any thoughts that might be supportive of civil rights in order to protect his business and political prospects."When Jimmy Carter Was Silent on Civil Rights" by Jonathan Alter, Wall Street Journal, 2020 September 18 Carter's successful 1970 campaign for Governor of Georgia was rife with less blatant types of racismSchaub, Michael (September 29, 2020). 'His Very Best' Calls Jimmy Carter 'Perhaps The Most Misunderstood President'. National Public Radio. Retrieved March 10, 2021. such as coded messagesTorpy, Bill (March 27, 2018). The political grudge Carl Sanders takes to his grave. Atlanta News Now. Retrieved March 10, 2021., and was aided by support from white supremacists such as and George Wallace.Bancroft, Colette (October 30, 2020). Jonathan Alter’s portrait of Jimmy Carter shows ‘His Very Best’. Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved March 10, 2021. 
However, in his inaugural speech, signaling a turning point in Carter's stance on race, he shocked Georgians by declaring that "the time for racial discrimination is over". Essentially, since 1970, Carter has tried to make up for what he didn't do regarding civil rights before 1970.Jimmy Carter and a lifetime's response to race by Jonathan Alter, CBS News, 2020 September 27 His accomplishments in office included appointing several minority members to his governor and presidential cabinets and signing an order to strengthen and expand the capacity of historically Black colleges.Executive Order 12232—Historically Black Colleges and Universities, issued by Jimmy Carter on August 8 1980, archived at The American Presidency Project Indeed, he was often seen as part of the "New South" trend alongside the likes of Terry Sanford (North Carolina) and Albert Brewer (Alabama).
==Get Carter==
The South still voted Dixiecrat until '76. Carter ran as born-again Southern Baptist, a centrist, and a "local businessman" who avoided talk of racial issues. As a result, he (barely) won Louisiana and Florida. He wasn't well-liked by his party, and due to ongoing stagflation issues, within a short time he wasn't well-liked in the South either.
While he wasn't a radical, he was way to the left of Reagan, who shifted the Overton window way to the right of where it had been. It's because Carter performed badly in his 1980 bid for reelection, the same way McGovern did. It played into the narrative of a "conservative silent majority", which nearly killed the New Left, way before Clinton and the whole third way movement got to its remains. 
===Separation of Church and Mind===
The Religious Right is why we won't be seeing another Goldwater any time soon. Any Republican nominee will have to at least pretend to like them. That's one genie that's not going back in the bottle for a generation or three, not unless the religious demographics of right-leaning Americans change dramatically.
Ironically, it may have been Carter who uncorked it first. In 1980, he called some kind of conference on the "American family" and invited a variety of groups, ranging from feminists to Southern Baptists. The latter saw it as their chance to make a huge showing, and they mobilized like mad, dwarfing all the other groups. That was their debut, and then along came Reagan.Irwin, Victoria, "Factions seek control of family conference", Christian Science Monitor (1980).
Carter was a rarity in the modern era: a relatively progressive evangelical. This meant that he was far more committed to anti-racism policies (including opposition to segregation) than many evangelicals were comfortable with. (Indeed, as noted above, the Religious Right, which was to a large degree formed by evangelicals to help keep segregation alive, rejected Carter in the 1980 election in favor of the dog-whistlin' Ronald Reagan)."How Jimmy Carter's so-called betrayal of evangelicals led to MAGA" by Amanda Marcotte, Salon, 2025 January 9 On abortion, Carter personally opposed it, but nonetheless did not seek to overturn Roe v. Wade."Jimmy Carter at the Judgment Seat" by Russell Moore, Christianity Today, 2025 January 8"How Jimmy Carter helped the religious right’s rise to power" by Neil J. Young, MSNBC, 2025 Jan 9 Further distancing himself from other evangelicals, Carter was also generally in favor of LGBTQ rights and women equality."Jimmy Carter embodied the ‘road not taken’ by many White evangelical Christians" by John Blake, CNN, 2024 December 31"Carter was the first president to move the needle, albeit slowly, on gay rights" by Matt Lavietes, NBC News, 2024 December 30 
Carter was a member of the Southern Baptist Convention, but later left the denomination because of its treatment of women.Jimmy Carter Leaves Southern Baptists, ABC News Despite the increasingly wide rift between Carter's politics and the reactionary politics of the Religious Right, Carter tried to maintain ties with the evangelical community up to the very end."Jimmy Carter's complicated relationship to the church" by Jason DeRose, NPR, 2024 December 31 Indeed, in spite of the political differences, Jerry Falwell Jr. unexpectedly invited Carter to give the commencement speech at Liberty University in 2018."Jimmy Carter Finds Common Ground, Friendship at Liberty University", press release, Liberty University, 2018 June 8
===Economy===
Carter was to the right of the Democrats in Congress at the time and had a lot of trouble passing legislation because of it. He most notably killed single-payer by trying to negotiate with Ted Kennedy to water it down and make it more moderate, even though the Democrats controlled both houses.
As Carter came into office, the nation was recovering from the 1973–75 recession. Payrolls grew by record numbers in both 1977 and 1978, resulting partially from Carter's fiscal stimulus package, and partly due to record growth in entrants to the workforce. Despite a recession in 1980, Carter's one-term presidency netted 10.5 million new jobs. However, the labor force grew at a nearly equal pace, preventing unemployment from falling by any significant degree, remaining over 6% for most of his presidency. For this reason, as well as the effects of high inflation such as reduced real income and wage stagnation, the public did not gain confidence in the economy.
Thanks to major war debts left by Richard Nixon and the growing effects of the formation of OPEC (namely their oil embargo leading to a sharp uptick in prices), the Carter presidency was marked by an economic downturn. For this reason, he was not reelected in 1980, although the Iran hostage crisis may have contributed hugely. Carter gave a famous speech in July 1979 about a "crisis of confidence" during the height of the 1979 energy crisis and "stagflation", inflation combined with lagging economic growth, which became known as his "malaise" speech (even though he never used the word). This appeal to pessimism may also have contributed to his defeat. Though he is often accused today of having high deficits, in reality, he had a much better record on the debt than his successor.National Debt Graph by President
Despite the seemingly downturn on the economy back then, Carter had various successes in economic policy. For instance, his airline deregulation bills led to lower fares and greater flight frequencies had netted travelers some $6 billion in annual benefits (in 1977 dollars!) from deregulation, while airline earnings increased by $2.5 billion a year. However, the deregulation of the airline industry also led to decreased wages for airline workers.Myers, Jonathan A., "Airline Labor Relations and the Wage Effects of Deregulation" (2005). Economics Graduate Students Plan B Research Projects. 8. The quality of the fights also dropped, though most travallers are seemingly willing to sacrifice comfort for lower fares.
Perhaps Carter's most important economic legacy was appointing Paul Volcker as the chairman of the FED. Volcker, who challenged the Keynesian thought which held that the "high" unemployment of the 1970s demonstrated that inflation arose from costpush and supply shocks. Volcker gave credibility to the FED and raised the interest rates. As a result, the double-digit inflation caused by the OPEC was tackled. Indeed, there was a recession, but as the expectations were high, the economy quickly roared back and was soon growing strongly.
===War===
On foreign policy, he was probably the best recent US president (a shallow bar). Carter notably put a stop to gunboat diplomacy in Latin America, becoming the only U.S. president in the 20th century since Herbert Hoover to do so. He signed the Panama Canal treaties which returned the Canal Zone back to Panama, which was the source of further right-wing angst and demagoguery even though it was the right thing to do. However, gunboat diplomacy was soon revived under Saint Ronnie, and America's reputation on foreign policy has stagnated ever since.
Unfortunately, Carter did, due to the support of the budding neoconservative movement, begin a long trend of meddling in the Middle East. He issued the Carter Doctrine, meaning that the United States would protect its, *ahem* interests around the Persian Gulf. He funded the Mujahideen to undermine the socialist government of Afghanistan. Reagan continued and expanded a hawkish policy for the gulf, and every president since has taken a keen interest in countries surrounding the gulf.
It's pretty clear in hindsight that, if he had one real fuck-up in the Middle East (though he does deserve a shit-ton of credit for pulling off the perhaps it would be that, even if taking the notorious Shah of Iran in for chemotherapy was at least somewhat humanitarian sounding, giving him a huge welcome on international television could have been a little bit of rubbing it in for Iranians who had been forced by the CIA to accept his dictatorship. Whoops, and Argo.
However, the really boneheaded move on the whole Iran mess (at least if one only looks at 1979), namely sending Khomeini into the entire spectacle, was an idea of the French and mostly pushed by them. In one of the many meetings where Iran was discussed, the French side proposed letting Khomeini into Iran under the headline "Let's think the unthinkable." Truer words were never spoken, eh?
===Never forget===
He also had a notorious encounter with a rabbit (or was it a hare?) while president that was well-publicized in the media at the time. Initially, the White House Press Office didn't want the photograph published for fear it would lead to the media portraying him as "even afraid of a rabbit". Instead, the press ended up nicknaming the erstwhile lapine "the Killer Rabbit" in reference to some obscure film by a little-known British comedy troupe.
==Capitol hillbillies==
Two of his eccentric siblings provided some source of public amusement during his tenure as president. His brother Billy had a brand of beer named after him,Billy Carter, Today in Georgia History and his sister Ruth Carter Stapleton was a Christian evangelist promoting "healing of memories".
Jimmy Carter once filed a UFO report,Jimmy Carter reports UFO, Sept. 18, 1973, Andrew Glass, Politico 18 Sepptember 2013 which is frequently quoted in books about the subject. The odd thing about this sighting is that he claimed the object was on the ground.
==Abortion==
As one might expect for a politician proudly influenced by Christianity, Carter was staunchly opposed to abortion, and had wished the Democratic Party would become more anti-abortion, stating this on the issue:
Of course, this ignored the fact that a far greater number of people would then become estranged from the Democratic Party "because of the abortion issue" were it to adopt that policy.
==Legacy==
Carter was the subject of Robert Indiana's silkscreen, An Honest Man Has Been President: A Portrait of Jimmy Carter, in 1980.
Jimmy Carter became something of a freelance diplomat, often going out to trouble spots to negotiate agreements with hostile regimes or get fighting sides to stop. He was pretty good at it. However, this was often done without the United States government's approval and gave policymakers a giant headache.Especially ones that prefer war to peace. Notably, had Carter gotten his way, the US would have been a leader in clean energy around the world and the current gas prices would not be a serious problem.
Due to his preference for peace over war, his Nobel Peace Prize, and his continued humanitarian works since leaving office, Republicans still hated him like poison. Nonetheless, this post-presidential work earned him much greater approval among Americans than he ever held while in office; for this reason, it became popular to call Carter "The Best Ex-President".
==Notes==
==References==
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