James Earl Carter (1977-1981)
~Visionary
Click here to go to Gerald Ford.
Jimmy Carter was ahead of his time. We only get one planet to live on and Carter worked to save it in an attempt to avoid the dire situation we find ourselves in 2023. He conserved hundreds of thousands of acres in Alaska and established the Superfund program with the goal to contain and clean up the 1,000+ toxic waste sites in the US.
Carter put solar panels on the White House and worked towards moving America towards renewable energy and to decrease America’s reliance on oil.
Even without the benefit of hindsight, the oil embargos and long gas lines of the 1970’s told the story. Our reliance on fossil fuels made Americans vulnerable to foreign powers that were not all allies. And a 1977 memo arrived on Carter’s desk that warned that the release of Fossil CO2 could possibly result in Catastrophic Climate Change.
Carter tried to communicate this message, but the American people weren’t ready or willing to hear it. And it was in Carter years when corporations began their decades long campaign obstructing the truth about carbon dioxide emissions. Real progress towards moving away from oil, gas and coal stopped before it began. Soulless multi-national companies feared their huge profits might be impacted by the changes we needed. It’s the same old song and dance today almost fifty years later.
At home, Carter pardoned Vietnam draft-dodgers, recognizing that it wasn’t immoral to avoid a war we never should have fought in the first place.
Carter worked for social justice for women and minorities and the equitable treatment for all nations of the world, including the negotiation of the historic peace deal between Egypt and Israel. After his presidency, he established The Carter Center that continues his work with the mission Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope.
“The test of a government is not how popular it is with the powerful and privileged few but how honestly and fairly it deals with the many who must depend on it.”
-Jimmy Carter
At 99, Jimmy Carter has lived longer than any other president. He has had one of the most productive post-presidencies in history, rivaled only by John Quincy Adams and William Howard Taft.
But like Gerald Ford experienced, the 1970’s were a very difficult time for the United States. Our post World War II dominance was over. The country was scarred by assassinations, the Vietnam War, economic turbulence and the omnipresent threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. I’m not sure any president would have been successful - and definitely not one who told people the truth.
On July 15th, 1979, Carter addressed the American people on television in what came to be known as the “Carter Malaise Speech”.
Carter warned people of the economic, political, and social challenges facing the United States then and in the future. He called for a renewed sense of civic responsibility and national unity, not unlike JFK’s call to ask what you can do for your country.
Initially the speech was praised, but the media hammered it and claimed he blamed the American people for our problems.
The presidency of Jimmy Carter taught us that late many 20th century Americans didn’t want or couldn’t handle a smart, progressive president. We face many of the same issues in the 2020’s that we faced in the 1970’s, and our resistance to solution-based leaders is more prevalent and problematic than ever.
“The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens.”
-Jimmy Carter
Carter was a former peanut farmer and governor of Georgia - not the best preparation for foreign affairs. Though he did sign another nuclear limitation treaty with the Soviet Union, Carter said the Shah of Iran was an "island of stability" right before he was overthrown. A product of that revolution was that in 1979, fifty-two Americans were held hostage in the US Embassy in Iran. The crisis lasted over a year and further lowered national morale and confidence. The country blamed Carter who remained in isolation in the White House.
Heading into the 1980 election the Republicans pulled a dirty trick out of the Nixon playbook. They sent emissaries to Iran telling them to wait until Regan became president to negotiate a deal, once again putting politics over American lives. The hostages were released January 21, 1981 - the exact day of Ronald Regan’s inauguration.
One of Reagan’s first acts was to remove the solar panels from the White House. Stupid.
My grade of Carter is higher than might be expected given the prevailing attitudes about him as president. His term was rocky, but a careful examination shows that Carter is a man of the highest character. What he accomplished in the four decades since he left office is an indication of what might have been were it not for the constraints of politics, corporate power and the American people.