Conventional wisdom holds that Jimmy Carter was a failed president who went on to become the greatest former president America has ever produced. But that assessment, so common now that it qualifies as cliche, ignores historic successes prior to the disastrous final year of Carter’s presidency.
Among the most important of those successes — helping heal a country riven by war and scandal — demonstrated the political value of Carter’s innate character, decency and (to use a word so commonly misapplied today) morality. With those elements in such short supply in today’s politics, Carter’s life, if not all of his tumultuous presidency, should be viewed as a useful template.
Carter died Sunday at age 100 at his home in Plains, Georgia. In 1976, the former Navy officer, peanut farmer and Georgia governor burst from relative political obscurity to unseat incumbent President Gerald Ford. Having thus completed the nation’s symbolic break with the traumatic Watergate era, Carter on his second day in office pardoned all draft evaders from the Vietnam War, bringing crucial closure to that corrosive conflict.
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In a domestic policy focused on making government more responsive (and less threatening) to its citizens, Carter ushered in landmark civil service reforms; put controls on the ability of government to spy on citizens; prioritized education, energy and emergency assistance with the creation of Cabinet-level departments; and deregulated airlines, lowering ticket prices and making flight more accessible to regular families. An ahead-of-his time advocate of renewable energy, he installed solar panels at the White House before most people had ever seen one.
Carter’s foreign policy was equally forward-thinking. Most notably, of course, were the historic Camp David Accords that brought lasting peace between Israel and Egypt.
Carter also signed treaties to hand the Panama Canal over to Panama’s government, a controversial decision even then. The argument for it was primarily geopolitical; U.S. relations with not just Panama but much of Latin America had long been strained by America’s control of the Canal Zone. But Carter, as he tended to do, presented it as a moral imperative as well, given the canal’s symbolism as a vestige of American colonialism.
Morality and politics might not seem a natural pairing — realpolitik devotees like Henry Kissinger would scoff at the very notion — but to Carter, morality was central to his mission as president.
Carter’s character and decency were rooted in a liberal evangelical tradition that was (to borrow another ex-president’s memorable phrase) a kinder, gentler version of the weaponized evangelical movement that dominates the political right today.
Carter’s faith and moral compass were central to his dedication to civil rights, which went beyond mere posturing. Carter appointed more women and people of color to the bench, for example, than all previous presidents combined.
In the final stretch of his presidency, it all came apart under the strain of unforeseen crises that might well have sunk any president: an energy shortage that was made real to Americans with fuel rationing and long gas lines; inflation rates approaching 10%; and, of course, the Iran hostage crisis, in which 53 Americans were held for 444 days. A desperate and catastrophically failed hostage rescue attempt sealed Carter’s political fate in the 1980 election.
Over the next four decades, the ex-president demonstrated that his unabashed embrace of public service as a moral imperative was no political pose. He traveled the world mediating military disputes and elections. He built houses as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. His Carter Center helped fight disease the world over, including a central role in eliminating Guinea worm disease in West Africa. His work earned him the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize.
One way of assessing Carter’s presidency is as a depressing demonstration of the axiom that being a good man does not necessarily provide the tools for having a successful presidency.
Here was a real-life version of the good-guy, Jimmy Stewart-esque model of a politician. Yet his presidency was largely (yes) a failure, at least by standard political definitions. Stand that against some of the awful men — slaveholders and warmongers, philanderers and crooks — whose presidencies are judged successful by history, and it’s fair to wonder what it says about our politics.
But Carter’s story isn’t necessarily over, even as America prepares for his state funeral on Jan. 9. History has a way of rescoring presidencies with the clearer vision of hindsight. Missouri’s own Harry Truman, after all, didn’t even seek reelection in 1952 because polls made clear he couldn’t pull off a second-lightning-strike comeback, and today, he is consistently ranked among our greatest presidents.
It brings to mind another fashionable cliche today: Carter was good rather than great — as if those two elements cannot coexist in the White House.
Wouldn’t some goodness be a welcome change of pace in today’s political conversation (which once again includes, inexplicably, the Panama Canal)?
It’s unimaginable that the peanut farmer from Georgia would have refused to accept the results of a valid election, lied to the country about his cognitive health or committed any of the many other sins we see from today’s morally untethered political leaders. President James Earl Carter may yet fare better in the eyes of history than he did in the eyes of the voters.
