Jimmy Carter is dead. He was an interesting character – Annapolis graduate, naval officer in WWII and one of the first naval officers on a nuclear submarine – and he made a fortune as a peanut farmer. He then entered politics: one term as governor of Georgia and then the US presidency.
Unfortunately for Carter he inherited several problems – none of which were his fault – and seemed to have little idea how to deal with them. High inflation, high unemployment, urban decay, the Panama Canal Treaty, the SALT II treaty and the energy crisis; he was in no way responsible for any of those matters but all he handled very badly. Several of those matters, such as the Panama Canal Treaty, Carter admitted to having absolutely no interest in anyway and, due to having lived in small-town America, found it difficult to see ‘urban decay’ (for lack of a better term) as a serious problem.
Carter also had contempt for the ‘Washington Establishment’ and treated congress with a disdain that he made no attempt to conceal. We may well agree with him about members of Congress but, here in the real world, it doesn’t quite work like that: the US president is sort of required to work with Congress.
His biggest blunder was Iran. He also – understandably – personally disliked the Shah, his lifestyle and his imperious behaviour, and did nothing to prevent the Shah’s overthrow, perhaps thinking ‘good riddance’. Unfortunately Iran ended up with something considerably worse that resulted in several dozen people at the US Embassy being held hostage for 444 days.
Carter started an oddball Democrat tradition – Clinton and, most notably Obama, did the same – of pretending they ‘weren’t really politicians’ but decent, idealistic men wanting to do their duty for their local community and country. It is all utter twaddle, of course, but it meant Carter would play up to such nonsense by, for instance, carrying his own luggage, cooking his own meals, making his own telephone calls and pretending he didn’t have a large staff to do these things for him because he was just a regular fellow. Ugh. It didn’t really fool anybody (any more than it did with lifelong professional politicians Clinton or Obama) but it made Carter seem ‘un-presidential’.
Carter also did some weird stuff, including prayer meetings and unnecessarily micromanaging the White House (famously drawing up a roster of when people could use the tennis court), hosting various strange people and (supposedly) banning alcohol on the premises. Except it wasn’t true…His staff – right-hand men Jody Powell (press secretary) and the odious Hamilton Jordan (chief of staff) – were almost constantly drinking at work in typical ‘good ole boy’ style.
In 1980 with interest rates at 20 per cent, long lines at gas stations, hostages in Iran, high and rising unemployment and economic stagnation, Carter was swept out of the White House, winning just 41 per cent of the popular votes and 49 out of 538 electoral votes. It almost seems astonishing 35 million people voted for him.
Post-presidency, Carter, once again setting a precedent followed by such people as Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Helen Clark and now Jacinda Ardern, started doing lots of unnecessary virtue signalling nonsense: building silly houses in Africa and championing various causes all in an attempt to say ‘Look what you’re missing! Aren’t you disgusted with yourself that you elected that guy Reagan and cast aside this big-hearted, virtuous paragon – God’s gift to mankind?’ The response of most people for 44 years has been...‘umm, no’.
