Nice Man. Bad President. The Truth About President Jimmy Carter

Nice Man. Bad President. The Truth About President Jimmy Carter – Top 3 Takeaways – January 9th, 2025  

  1. Nice man. Bad president. Today the 39th president of the United States will be laid to rest near his home in Plains, Georgia may he rest in peace. Since the recent passing of Jimmy Carter at a remarkable 100 years of age, which made him the longest living president in American history, there have been no shortage of niceties advanced by most in news media. And to be sure he lived a remarkable and improbable life. Born into peanut farming, James Earl Carter Jr., briefly attended Georgia Tech before being accepted into the Naval Academy in Annapolis where he graduated in 1946 – just after the conclusion of World War II. Jimmy went on to serve honorably in the Navy for seven years. Upon his exit from the service, he went back to the family farming business out of need when his father died of cancer. His first foray into politics came a few years later in 1955 when he successfully ran a county campaign for a seat on the Board of Education. From there he turned his attention to state politics becoming a state senator and later, after losing his first gubernatorial campaign in 1966, successfully ran a campaign in 1970 that led to a runoff election win. It’s here that we first run into revisionist history as it pertains to Jimmy Carter. You don’t have to even seek out information about what a humanitarian Jimmy Carter was, and about the strong civil rights record he had. It’s so pervasive in news reporting it’ll find you. But here’s the thing and it’s a considerable one because he never would have eventually become president without it. Do you know why Carter was able to narrowly win his second attempt for governor after having lost his first? In his first campaign he positioned himself as a supporter of the Civil Rights Act and racial integration. In his second campaign he dropped references of it, stopped campaigning in majority Black communities, and... 
  2. Campaigned on putting an end to busing as a means of ending racial segregation in schools. Details, right? Anyway, the ambitious Carter quickly turned his sights on Presidential politics announcing his candidacy for president in 1974, effectively running a two-year campaign for president which was effective in winning over Democrats during the primary and that allowed him to capitalize on the general backlash against Republicans following Nixon’s disgraceful exit from office. Carter beat Gerald Ford with 297 electoral college votes to Ford’s 241. What happened while he was president? To say nothing good would be an exaggeration, but only slightly. Shortly after becoming president his weakness on the world stage became evident and was seized upon by the world’s bad actors. This included an escalation of the Cold War with Russia, which also included the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. Carter’s energy policy included an over-reliance on OPEC which exploited the US, most notably Iran, leading to an energy crisis and record high inflation which brought about a deep recession. The conditions within this country and around the world became so dire that it was during this period Carter delivered what is widely regarded as the worst presidential address in American history. On July 15th, 1979, he delivered what was known as his Crisis of Confidence, or what became known as the ‘Malaise’ speech, where he essentially owned up to his policy failures, acknowledging the problems were severe. While the honesty and acknowledgement was nice, his proposed solution, that Americans should consume less, and thus use less energy, was a remarkable moment. In that moment two things were clear. That Carter had no answers to meaningfully address the crisis that his weakness had created, and that effective American leadership and exceptionalism were dead on his watch. Following his speech the crisis only worsened. It was only four months later that Iran seized the American embassy in Tehran holding 53 Americans hostage until the day that Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president of the United States. The inflation rate when Jimmy Carter became president of the United States was 4.9%. During the first year of his administration, it rose to 7%. In year two of the Carter administration the inflation rate rose to 9%. In years three and four of his watch it stood at 13%. For perspective, during the peak of the inflation crisis under the Biden administration, inflation topped out at 9% - where it remained for one month. Those who were adults when Jimmy Carter was president know what that period of American history was like. But for the rest of us... Imagine living with that level of inflation, and higher for over three years? In fact,  
  3. The average inflation rate of Carter’s four years in office was 10.4%. This is why when many in the leftist news media are quick to talk up his presidency and speak of what a ‘great humanitarian’ he was I bristle. Yes, Jimmy Carter went on to do incredible work with Habitat for Humanity following his presidency. His personal involvement with his foundation over the course of 35 years was credited with raising the resources to build, renovate and repair a total of 4,390 homes. That’s truly doing God’s work and is commendable. However, the definition of a humanitarian is this: A person who works to improve the lives of others and reduce suffering. He certainly did that following his time as president for thousands, however, for the 227 million Americans alive under his watch as president, the result was just the opposite. This conversation I believe is important because of the inherently dishonest state of historical accounting and news reporting that takes place these days. To illustrate the point, it was only last year that 154 historical scholars produced a report that was widely reported, ranking US presidents. They ranked Joe Biden as the 14th best. They ranked the president who just won a commanding victory, Donald Trump, as the worst in American history. Academia, the news media, they can’t be trusted to disseminate the truth. On that note they ranked Jimmy Carter 22nd overall or about mid-pack. How dishonest is that? Which incumbent president suffered the worst election loss in American history? Jimmy Carter. Ronald Reagan’s 489-49 victory over Jimmy Carter in 1980 stands as the largest over an incumbent president in American history. Voters who lived through the Carter presidency clearly felt differently than the espoused revisionist history. For perspective, Herbert Hoover, who was the incumbent president during the Great Depression, fared better than Carter. The reason I think it’s important for this information to be told today is two-fold. First and foremost, there are two sides to stories and one side to facts. These are the facts. The facts that aren’t otherwise being disseminated as Carter’s virtues are otherwise being extolled. Secondly, I firmly believe in knowing history so we can learn from it and not repeat the same mistakes. In the case of Carter’s lesson, that we are careful as a country not to fall for politicians who change positions from one election cycle to the next, saying whatever they think they need to say to win an election. And also, that with the world’s bad actors it’s only through the projection of strength that peace is attained. Had those lessons been learned and taken to heart we wouldn’t have suffered for the past four years under the worst president we’ve had since Jimmy Carter. Carter by almost all accounts was a nice man. May he rest in peace. However, he was also one of the worst presidents in American history, if not the worst. May we learn from it.  

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