I feel that my role as a former president is probably superior to that of other presidents; primarily because of the activism in international affairs.
Jimmy Carter
It’s a cold winter for liberals. Kamala Harris lost, the National Archives released photos of Joe and Hunter Biden with China’s President Xi, Jimmy Carter’s death elicited recollections of a record-setting Misery Index, and pundits are questioning the Democrat Party’s future. Meanwhile, it feels like morning has broken for conservatives and Catholics. Donald Trump was re-elected, Republicans control Congress, and Notre Dame Cathedral has beautifully risen from the ashes.
Too bad that one-term presidents Carter and Biden are this week’s news; those woeful bookends to the Clinton and Obama presidencies. Because, in spite of Bill ushering China into the WTO, and Barack weaponizing federal agencies to go after conservatives, it’s Jimmy and Joe that made “Democrat” synonymous with weakness and wokeness.
Let’s say goodbye to Biden, the grifter and serial liar, and let the record show that his approval fell to 32% in a recent CNBC poll, his own party denied his re-election, and he’ll struggle to “raise enough money” for his presidential library (source: Wall Street Journal). If it’s mean to beat up a senile puppet, then his un-elected “handlers” should be punished for the COVID lockdowns, inflationary spending, botched withdrawal from Kabul, and pushing transgenderism where it was not welcome.
Carter, on the other hand, had his wits about him for the entirety of a presidency, which was a “hiccup” in twenty-four years of GOP presidential power. Maybe that’s why his obituaries are all over the place (i.e. from the “honest man after Nixon” to the “worst president in America’s history”). Which is to say Jimmy was a complicated feller.
Carter was a one-term president because of long gas lines, runaway inflation, and American hostages being held by Islamic militants inside the US embassy in Tehran. After his approval fell to 31% in Gallup’s poll, he lost 44 states, 489 electoral votes, and 59% of the popular vote in his re-election bid. He is the “face of weak leadership” because his 79-point drop in “net approval” is a record in modern presidential history.
President Carter was responsible for inflation hitting 13.5%, the US military going under-funded, Russia invading Afghanistan with impunity, and the United States being humiliated by OPEC and radical Islamists. Almost nobody felt “better off now than four years ago” in 1980, which resulted in Carter being soundly beaten by Ronald Reagan.
This is why few remember the Carter Years for 10 million new jobs created, average real GDP growth of 3.4%, and cost-benefit reviews of new regulations. You can thank Carter for cheap airfares and 500 cable channels, because he ended price controls on oil and gas, deregulated the trucking, railroad and airline industries, and began deregulating banking and telecommunication.
De-regulation – AKA cutting the administrative state down to size – was actually the meat of Carter’s oft-criticized “Malaise” speech: “I want to talk to you about a fundamental threat to American democracy: our people are losing faith [that] citizens serve as the ultimate rulers of our democracy. What you see is a system of government twisted and pulled in every direction by powerful special interests, every extreme position defended to the last vote, paralysis and stagnation and drift.”
Mr. Carter specifically addressed rising energy prices: “You don’t like it, and neither do I. What can we do? I will urge Congress to create an energy mobilization board which, like the War Production Board of World War II, will have the authority to cut through the delays and endless roadblocks to completing key energy projects.”
Credit Carter for his heart being in the right place – cut the red tape – but not having the chops to turn the “right idea” into legislation. And that sums up his sorry four years as president, because he waited too late to hire Federal Reserve chairman William Volcker, who helped Reagan whip inflation, and he negotiated the nuclear-disarmament treaty that was implemented by Reagan and the Soviets.
Most Democrats claim Carter was a victim of the times. Maybe, but that does not excuse his post-presidential meddling; specifically, trying to stop the first Iraq War, and conducting freelance nuclear diplomacy with North Korea. He undermined President Bush by urging Arab leaders to oppose Operation Desert Storm. He boxed in President Clinton by flying to North Korea, negotiating a “nuclear agreement” and announcing it on CNN. Within a few years, North Korea had its nuclear arsenal.
Truth be told, Carter should have stuck to hammering nails for Habitat For Humanity, and Biden should stick to baby-sitting Hunter, because failed presidents should neither be seen nor heard, especially the two responsible for emboldening communists and anti-Christians.
Can I admit writing about Biden and Carter is a buzzkill? Because I’d rather celebrate Trump holding court in Notre Dame – it had to be Providence – because that reminded me that Christianity still has its glorious shrine, and that a fight-fight-fighter is leading the USA again.