There's a good PBS documentary series on all the modern presidents and it's worth a watch if you haven't seen it already. The Carter episode dug into how he was technically well qualified and capable, but just did not have the connections and support of Congress at the time and that ultimately doomed his administration to failure. None of his ideas were able to get funding or support in Congress so his administration just flailed.
It may seem that way if one knows little about the cutthroat Nixon administration, but those folks played hardball. The kind that prolonged a war (Vietnam), killing multiple thousands to ensure getting elected. Watergate, etc. Naiveté in a nutshell, although will allow that "company culture" may not have been as well-known a thing at the time.
Cancel culture is dangerous, but being tolerant of some behaviours (which of course are much more specific and contextual in this case) was also his downfall
The big problem. Policy is super interesting and fun and touches on so many diverse and stimulating areas. Politics though is awful and puts sociopaths at an advantage.
If you're in US Congress, your vote is incredibly valuable. Yet we want our representatives to vote for what is best for our nation. These two objectives are in obvious conflict. This conflict doesn't trouble me (it has always been so) but rather the loss of awareness that this conflict exists and must constantly be mitigated is what troubles me. Congress is now full of people who are overtly self-interested, and their constituents love it. This is evidence of a major structural breakdown of American society, and it's not clear what caused it or what might heal it.
There's a good argument to be made about the 1970 Legislative Reorganization Act as being one of the first places to look. Up until then, Congress voted on a secret ballot, and the congressional votes were not made public - so lobbying had a much higher hurdle to clear (since the lobbyists could not guarantee a return on their investment by verifying that the Congressperson kept their end of the bargain).
> Politics though is awful and puts sociopaths at an advantage.
That's what the sociopaths want you to think. Look at the most successful people politically, who got the most done - Lincoln, FDR, MLK, etc. They weren't sociopaths. The recent sociopath at the top of the ticket underperformed their own party.
Is it one side of the aisle that hates Carter? Because from what I've seen/read from the outside (Canada) looking in, I saw nothing but praise for his humility and humanity. I saw conflicting opinions on what he did or didn't do during his tenure, but only positive with regards to his person and character.
Well, he DID face a 1980 primary challenge from Edward Kennedy, and barely won his own party's re-nomination with 51.1% of the popular vote as a sitting President. He was pretty well eviscerated by both the left and right a decade or two back, when he published a book labeling Israel's policy toward Palestine as "apartheid".
Speaking as a left-leaning resident of Georgia, it seems obvious to me that Jimmy Carter is not all that well-loved by his own political party:
* Part of this is because he made the mistake of bringing his own people when he went to Washington, instead of populating his administration with more federal insiders.
* Part of it is because he lost, and no one likes a loser (I'd say that Carter's place in the Democratic Part is similar to that of George H.W. Bush, without the legacy of an heir going on to serve two terms).
* And I believe that part of it is because, on the heels of the Civil Rights Act and the re-alignment it ushered in, Democrats were never all that genuinely enthusiastic about having a white Southern leader. It took 12 years of futility for them to embrace Bill Clinton (see point above, about how people more fondly remember Presidents who win re-election). And even Clinton's legacy has picked up a lot of tarnish over the past decade.
Yes. Even to this day, high praise for Nixon and Reagan; and nothing but utter contempt for Carter. More telling of the people laying the condemnation than of the man himself.
Not sure. I was raised by conservatives (albeit somewhat middle of the road) and they and most conservatives I’ve chatted with really admire Carter as a person; just thought he was an incompetent president.
My childhood church group (all Republicans, I’d guess) used to build houses with Habitat. It’s kinda hard to think poorly of Carter when he built something that does so much good.
I wonder if the loud, vitriolic right wingers make it seem like the right thinks as a united, extreme block, when maybe there’s a large, quiet group that is not well represented? Not sure. I may also just be in a bubble of reasonable centrists. My left wing and right wing friends are pretty centrist in my estimation.
> maybe there’s a large, quiet group that is not well represented
Often referred to as the "silent majority".
> My left wing and right wing friends are pretty centrist in my estimation.
I think this is many (?most?) people's experience, whilst media (social/traditional) are geared towards demonizing both "sides", to increase engagement. I say "sides", because most people's opinions skew left/right depending on the issue in question, rather than fitting perfectly into the stereotypical archetypes.
> I wonder if the loud, vitriolic right wingers make it seem like the right thinks as a united, extreme block, when maybe there’s a large, quiet group that is not well represented?
They are all voting for Trump and the Trumpists. How moderate are they?
I'm not really sure, but I do remember my parents *hated* Carter. I remember distinctly sometime in the '90s thinking "Look at all the amazing things Carter has done with himself after being president. I always thought he was an asshole!"
Crediting him with bringing about desegregation is giving him a bit much. He merely stopped pissing down the leg of his secret service detail long enough to sense which way the wind was already blowing.
Your point made, however: it takes a true monster to survive American politics.
An example of why Carter was a terrible President. Remember the looong gas lines? I sure do. For years, just getting gas was a miserable experience with arbitrarily long waits, up to hours.
Reagan's first act was to sign an Executive Order eliminating all oil and gas price and allocation controls.
The gas lines vanished literally overnight (and I'm not exaggerating) and never returned. Boy do I remember that.
Carter could have done that. But he simply didn't understand economics.
Sadly, Biden is considering having the government control fuel distribution again.
It was during the Nixon administration that price controls and rationing of gasoline were introduced, in response to the OPEC oil shock of 1973 (crude oil prices had been set by government since 1971). You mention Reagan's executive order, but that was just closing the stable door after the horse had bolted; Carter began the phaseout of the Nixon-era price controls in 1979.
"The President [Carter] said that he would set gasoline consumption targets for each state and would order mandatory steps, assuming Congress allows him to do so, if the states fail to save as much gasoline as they are supposed to do. One such step, he added, might be the weekend closing of service stations."
Carter dinked around for 4 years failing to get it done, and Reagan does it in a few minutes with the stroke of a pen.
All your article shows is Carter simply didn't understand the problem. Reagan did.
Not mentioned is the DOE also controlled allocation of gasoline to filling stations. That was quite a disaster. Reagan ended all that nonsense with the same EO.
Isn't it interesting that Biden is going down the same path? He'll fail just like Carter.
You placed all the blame for gas lines and price controls on Carter, when it was a policy imposed by Nixon and continued by Ford. Then you complain about Carter 'dinking around' because he opted to work with Congress and stick to the goal of trying to balance the federal budget. Many of the price controls had been dismantled by the time Reagan took office.
I might observe that Carter's 'dinking around' also reduced the federal government's budget deficit, which increased sharply under the Reagan & Bush administrations, along with the national debt.
Without going full conspiracy, is there any chance this was a pre Koch brothers example of industry undermining government authority until it gets the government it wants?
Genuinely amazing human sure, but terrible President. He didn’t get anything done and nearly lost the nomination from his own party for a second term, which is rare.