Air Date 1/18/2025
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast. We look back on Jimmy Carter's life and legacy as a lens through which to more clearly see and understand the current state of our politics, our incoming president, the Middle East, the climate and more. For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our top takes in about 50 minutes today, includes Past Present, The Brian Lehrer Show, Democracy Now!, Facepalm America, Holy Post, and Today Explained. Then, in the additional deeper dives half of the show, there'll be more in four sections: Section A- Historical Context, Section B- Foreign Policy, Section C- Christian Nationalism, and Section D- Republican Rat Fucking.
Episode 364: Jimmy Carter Part 1 - Past Present - Air Date 2-28-23
NICOLE HEMMER - HOST, PAST PRESENT: I think that it's important to keep Carter's presidency in the context of the particular moment in which he became president. That he wanted the presidency to be small and to not be cashing in and to not [00:01:00] be corrupt is very much a response to the Nixon administration and to Watergate and this idea that you needed to restore trust and confidence in American institutions. And that was far too big of a job for Carter to do. So it is not something that he necessarily succeeds at, but you can understand what he was trying to do and what he continued to try to do. And in some ways why he was the right person for the moment, because Americans had just seen this intensely corrupt and mean and at times really racist and antisemitic presidency.
And then here comes Carter, and he's modeling a very different way of approaching, not just the presidency, but things like foreign policy as well. I also think it matters that Ronald Reagan comes after him. And so Carter is often sort of redrawn in historical memory as the anti Reagan, right? Somebody who was like dowdy and was telling us to sacrifice and not calling for mourning in [00:02:00] America. When in fact he was, as Neil was saying earlier, he was like putting in place the conditions that would allow the Reagan presidency to thrive. Not only battling back against that image of the presidency as corrupt, but breaking the back of inflation, starting the trends toward deregulation and a kind of conservative politics and evangelical politics. A moral, sort of morality focused, if not morality obsessed politics that would follow in his stead.
NEIL YOUNG - HOST, PAST PRESENT: Yeah, and two of those points I want to build on, which is first, that absolutely, his idea that the American presidency should not be this, you know, elaborate pomp and circumstance demonstration, but there should be sort of a simple and small c way of being a president is absolutely shaped by Watergate and the era's sort of cultural sentiments.
It's also deeply tied to his faith. And you know, I just want to keep bringing us back to that because it's so core to him and who he is and understanding him. And I think, remember, you know, this is a president who wore sweaters and turned the thermostat down, right. And also sent his daughter, Amy [00:03:00] Carter-
NICOLE HEMMER - HOST, PAST PRESENT: Like a grandpa.
NEIL YOUNG - HOST, PAST PRESENT: Yes. Then sent his daughter Amy Carter to public schools and was sort of criticized for that. And I think we should understand a lot of that plain living as tied to the sort of plain folk religion he came out of. That simple, ascetic, modest, self sacrificing sense of Christianity that he held consistent throughout his life. And I think again, what he was coming up against, what he was really colliding with was a religious right movement that understood religion and politics as a pathway to power, not as one of sort of self sacrificing Christian obligation and service to the nation.
And I think that that's really important to think about how his own sense of faith drove him, but also sort of drove him into the wall of this brand new political movement on the scene that became a tidal wave, to mix a couple of metaphors there.
NATALIA MEHLMAN PETRZELA - HOST, PAST PRESENT: Can I like pivot a little bit [00:04:00] in terms of precedent setting? I'm not sure, we should have like probably prepped this one. Maybe you two don't know off the top of your head. It is, how unique is it for a president to announce they're going into hospice? Because I feel like we're doing the whole obituary parade right now. And that is, I mean, I'm sure there's going to be much more to come when, you know, he passes, but it does seem, I don't remember doing this with other presidents.
NEIL YOUNG - HOST, PAST PRESENT: I thought George H. W. announced that he was in hospice at the end. I may be misremembering that.
NICOLE HEMMER - HOST, PAST PRESENT: I think that it is at least, I mean, clearly unusual. We don't have that many former presidents. You know, Ronald Reagan announced his struggles with Alzheimer and sort of retired from the world stage, which is a little different.
I mean, that same piece that Neil mentioned earlier about Jimmy Carter being you know, the greatest former president alive had, I think, as its subhead, he's teaching us how to die with dignity or something to that effect. And there is that sense that in his kind of closing act he is [00:05:00] representing that same kind of dignity and calm that he has been associated with for much of his post-presidential life.
From the Archives: Former President Jimmy Carter on Women's Rights, Religion and Power - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 12-30-24
BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: You and I have spoken about religion before in the context of your faith and your lifetime of teaching the Bible, so why point to religion now as a prime cause of what you call the most serious problem in the world?
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: Well, religion and violence are the two generic causes of the abuse of women and girls around the world. It's a misinterpretation of some of the scriptures that result in abuse of women and derogation of them in the eyes of men because they are convinced that women are inferior in the eyes of God. For religious people even that are Christians, for instance, we know that Jesus Christ, in His ministry and His words, all the recorded words, He never discriminated against women.
In fact, he exalted women far above what they had ever been previously in history. [00:06:00] Even in the New Testament, where St. Paul began to write to the early churches, he wrote to individual, sometimes little, tiny churches that had 20 or 30 members. Some of his verses can be interpreted either way. For the first three centuries, in the Christian church at least, women played an equal role as Paul points out in his 16th chapter of Acts. After that, the men who ran the church began to say, "Why don't we select other verses, which show that women are not qualified to be priests or deacons in the church?"
BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Can you give me an example of either of these verses on either side of this?
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: Well, yes. In fact, Paul said to one of his small churches that women should always never adorned themselves, that women should be silent in church. There's even a verse that says women shouldn't teach men. On the other hand, he said that in the eyes of God, men and women are equal, as are slaves and masters and are Jews and Gentiles. They are equal [00:07:00] in the eyes of God.
As I just mentioned in the 16th chapter that I mentioned, he lists about 25 people who were preeminent in leadership roles in the early church. About half of them are women by name. You can interpret it either way you want to if you have a preference. There are 36,000 verses, more or less, in the Old Testament, in the Hebrew text, and in the New Testament. You can interpret any way you want to.
BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: In today's world, is this mostly a radical Islam problem? Certainly, we can find the conservative Christian and the history you were just describing, or the Orthodox Jewish or other religious practices that are sexist and cause harm to women and girls, but maybe there's nothing like the terrorist attacks and other military campaigns aimed at depriving girls in education and other things, Taliban, things going on in Nigeria, et cetera. A tiny minority of Muslims, we should say, involved in global terms, but still at a unique scale and intensity [00:08:00] compared to other religions?
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: Well, I've studied the Koran probably more than most people have in the United States that are not Muslims. When they were holding our hostages in Iran, I really made a dedicated effort to understand the Koran. I had experts come into the Oval Office and teach me about the nuances of it. It's very difficult to find a verse in the Koran that doesn't emphasize the equality of men and women in the eyes of Allah as interpreted by Muhammad.
Obviously, they are interpretations of that by the Taliban and others that deprive women of an equal right. Most of the problems that afflict women and girls are not from religious texts, but sometimes that's the basis for them as I've already mentioned. For instance, I'd say the worst unknown crime against women and girls is the murder little girls [00:09:00] by their parents. When a girl is born, they strangle her because they want a boy. Now, with the advent--
BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: For economic reasons?
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: For economic reasons and also because some countries like China and India and others have put a limit on the total size of families. One is best, two is most. If they only have one child, they want to make sure that it's a boy. Also, they don't have Social Security like we do, so they want boys in the family so they can earn a living to support the parents when they're old age.
They look at a family in an area of poverty and they say, "We can only feed two children," so they strangle the rest of them. There's a new movie out called It's a Girl. It was premiered in November. There's a mother in India who very proudly says, in effect, she strangled eight daughters when they were born because she had to have a son. We know that in many areas, if there's only one opportunity to send a child to school, [00:10:00] they send a boy. If they have a limited amount of food, boys get first choice.
The other thing is that there are now about 160 million missing girls on Earth because either they baby at birth or the fetus in a selective abortion have been eliminated. This has resulted in China and India, in effect, in a very great shortage of women to be married to men or to satisfy the men's sexual desires in a brothel and so forth. This is another ancillary, terrible problem about it.
BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Am I right that you and Mrs. Carter left your Christian denomination of 70 years over women's issues?
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: Yes. In the year 2000, the Southern Baptist Convention deviated from its previous policy and ordained that women, being inferior, could not occupy the positions of pastor or deacon [00:11:00] or chaplain. They also even ordained it in some of the seminaries, which is the higher education level of Southern Baptist Church, that women couldn't even teach boys in a classroom.
BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: It's not even just that they're not coming along as fast as some other denominations. It's that even in the post-feminist era, if you will, they went the other way.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: They went the other way in the year 2000. My wife and I left the Southern Baptist Convention. We now belong to a Baptist church where I teach Bible lessons every Sunday, as a matter of fact. We've had women pastors and my wife is a deacon, the chairman of our board of deacons. The last time was a woman. We have a majority of deacons who are women. We treat men and women equally, which I believe that Jesus Christ always exemplified and promulgated as His policy.
BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Gee, if they don't want women teaching men and boys, maybe we can get more males into the teaching profession.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: Well, you certainly can in the Southern Baptist Seminary.
BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: I guess so [00:12:00] [chuckles]
Jimmy Carter’s “Decency & Humanity” Came with Deadly U.S. Policies in Latin America: Greg Grandin - Democracy Now! - Air Date 1-7-25
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Before we get into Panama, because it was under President Carter that Panama Canal was returned to Panama, the oversight of it, and before we talk about Salvador and Nicaragua, overall, President Carter’s legacy in Latin America?
GREG GRANDIN: Well, I think it was mixed, and it was confused. I mean, Carter was in many ways a transitional president that came to power having to deal with the combined disasters of both Vietnam and Watergate and rebuild trust and rebuild the kind of moral foundation on which the United States justified its exercise of power. And in many ways, Latin America was the place to do that.
And just to set the stage a little bit, set the scene, Carter comes to power, and he’s inaugurated in 1977. Pretty much all of South America is run by [00:13:00] anti-communist dictatorships that were installed or supported by the United States — the Nixon Doctrine, coups under Lyndon B. Johnson, coups under Kennedy. They brought to power one anti-communist dictatorship after another, largely in response to the Cuban Revolution, backing up even further. In Central America, there weren’t dictatorships, but there were insurgencies, revolutionary insurgencies, and anti-communist states fighting those insurgencies. And domestically, you had a very anti-imperialist Congress elected after Watergate and after Vietnam, that insisted that the United States start pulling back some of its support for dictatorships, for more of its unsavory allies. And Latin America seemed the place to do it.
And they did. They cut aid to Uruguay. They cut [00:14:00] aid to — they limited aid to Chile. They cut aid to Brazil, all the military to Argentina. And, of course, that became a kind of shining example of what the United States should be in terms of its foreign policy. The reality was actually more complicated. It was also the place where the United States started putting conditionalities on military aid. And obviously, we see that under Gaza, how that’s played out, but that the United States would — you know, there would be certain markers or certain checkmarks that countries had to meet in terms of human rights monitoring before military aid was released. In many ways, it was more symbolic than real. In a country like Guatemala, for instance, where the United States did cut off military aid, it didn’t cut off military aid that was already in the pipeline, so that continued to flow. Now, in Central America, where you had insurgencies, these were [00:15:00] kind of like a stress test for this new foreign policy, this new moralism that Jimmy Carter represented. And he didn’t at first cut aid off to Nicaragua, and he didn’t cut off aid to El Salvador.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Meaning, in Nicaragua, to Somoza.
GREG GRANDIN: To Somoza or to the junta in El Salvador.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Now, let’s talk about El Salvador —
GREG GRANDIN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: — because you have Archbishop Óscar Romero, who has been canonized a saint by the Vatican, who was assassinated on March 24th, 1980. He appealed to President Carter, weeks before his assassination, to stop the flow of aid.
GREG GRANDIN: Directly, in a very impassioned letter that was — I teach that letter. And Carter didn’t respond. He left it to Cyrus Vance to respond. He didn’t respond. And they didn’t cut off aid. And even prior to that — Cyrus Vance was Carter’s secretary of state. [00:16:00] Brzeziński, Zbigniew Brzeziński, was his national security adviser. And in many ways, you can think of them as two sides. Like, Vance was considered more dovish, and Brzeziński more hawkish — a little more complicated than that. But Brzeziński was complaining to the Vatican about Óscar Romero, that he had been moved too far to the left. This was before the letter. So, you see that, you know, it’s not just Jimmy Carter; it’s the administration he presides over. It’s much more —
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And he — when Óscar Romero was giving his homily, that was broadcast throughout El Salvador, when he was gunned down, he was appealing to the soldiers of El Salvador, to the paramilitaries. He said, “I beseech you, I urge you, I plead” —
GREG GRANDIN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: — “with you to put down your arms.”
GREG GRANDIN: Yeah. Actually, that was a day before he was assassinated. He was assassinated in a smaller church. It was a smaller Mass in a smaller parish in San Salvador. He was shot through the heart. But yes —
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: [00:17:00] By? By?
GREG GRANDIN: By a death squad that was trained by the United States and led by Roberto D’Aubuisson.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Who would later become president.
GREG GRANDIN: He would later become — he would later become the head of the ARENA party. I don’t believe he was president, but, no, he became the head of the party that ruled El Salvador, the ARENA party. But he became a very influential politician, Roberto D’Aubuisson.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Right. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly.
GREG GRANDIN: Yeah, yeah. And he was a favorite of the far right. So, Jimmy Carter, in many ways, was a foil for the rising right in the United States, and his policies in Latin America kind of captured the contradictions — and I would use the word “contradiction” rather than “confusion” — of Carter’s foreign policy. You know, he came to power — he came to power promising to end the United States’s inordinate fear of communism. He gave a speech in Notre Dame that was considered a kind of a new kind of doctrine, that the United States [00:18:00] was moving away from both the ideological excess and the support for dictatorships that led to wars like Vietnam or coups in Chile.
But he fairly — pretty quickly, events got ahead of him, in many ways. In Central America, the rise of the Sandinistas and insurgencies led to contradictory policies. In El Salvador, he, for instance, continued supporting the military regime and its death squads. In Nicaragua, he cut off economic aid, but he continued military aid as he tried to kind of guide, you know, force Somoza out and lead to more democratic elections when the Sandinistas had the momentum. There was the Iranian Revolution in [00:19:00] the Persian Gulf, which led to the Carter Doctrine, which was written by Brzeziński and basically asserted that the United States would respond with military force to anything that they perceived as a threat to U.S. interests.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I want to play a clip of President Carter’s commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame in 1977.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: Democracy’s great recent success in India, Portugal, Spain, Greece show that our confidence in this system is not misplaced. Being confident of our own future, we are now free of that inordinate fear of communism, which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, that was President Carter. The significance of what he was saying there when it relates to, for example, Latin America?
GREG GRANDIN: Well, that he was saying that he was going to deal with Third [00:20:00] World nationalism on its own terms, not as just a front for geopolitical Cold War politics, meaning the Soviet Union. But that gives way very quickly. I mean, we only have a few minutes, but we have to say that it was under Carter that the CIA began its operation in Afghanistan, began supporting the mujahideen. It was the Carter administration in July 1979, urged by Brzeziński to begin providing nonlethal aid to what becomes the mujahideen. All of these things led to what — the end of détente and the pulling of the Soviet Union deeper into Afghanistan and the weaponization of Islam as a geopolitical tool in the United States, that we’re still living with the consequences today. And for all of his decency and humanity, especially compared to orgastic — the wealth and [00:21:00] the clown circus that we’re living under now, we have to kind of look at how Carter — some of the more unfortunate legacies of Carter’s administration.
The Faith of Jimmy Carter - Facepalm America - Air Date 4-12-23
RANDALL BALMER: I think, there's another story that has to be woven into this that is not so pretty and that is when he ran for governor and second time in 1970, ultimately successfully. Toward the end of that campaign he was really quite afraid that he would lose the Democratic nomination. And to his shame, and he is ashamed of it, he courted the segregationist vote late in that campaign. And I'm not trying to give him a pass on that by no means whatsoever, but it does show humanity and human frailty, it seems to me. And I think the other thing that we have to take away from that, is the fact that when he was inaugurated as governor of [00:22:00] Georgia in January 12th, 1971, he famously said that the time for racial segregation is over. And part of that, I'm sure, was really doing penance for that campaign, which he was not proud of.
But also, again, I think you have to judge him by his actions, because he did make good on that pledge to try to put racial segregation behind him and behind his state. Through several acts of substantive policy changes that he inaugurated as governor, but also symbolically. He hung three, the portraits of three African Americans in the state house in Georgia during his governorship. And that's including Martin Luther King Jr. And that I think speaks to his sincerity.
BEOWULF ROCHLEN - HOST, FACEPALM AMERICA: What influence did his faith have on [00:23:00] his evolving racial beliefs, especially at that time?
RANDALL BALMER: Well, I think it was profound. That said, he often talked about the fact that his playmates growing up in Archery, Georgia, which is three miles down the road from Plains, Georgia, Archery, Georgia is, a nothing town really it's really a farm community. And not very large at that. But his playmates were African Americans. So he grew up really racially blind in many ways.
And he often talks about the day that he and his his two buddies were playing, they were both in their early teens at that point, and they were going through one of the garden gates there on the farm, and all of a sudden, they opened the gate for him and deferred to him to go through the gate 1st, and he thought at 1st, it was a prank that they were going to trip him or something. And he realized later [00:24:00] that this was a transitional moment that is when they were moving away from the innocence of childhood, in terms of racial matters, to adulthood when they had to observe the protocols of the South. So, in many ways, he was colorblind.
I think it's fair to say now I have to again mention the 1970 campaign as an exception. I do think it is an exception. But it's also true that his faith is certainly informed not only his racial views, but his other policies as well.
BEOWULF ROCHLEN - HOST, FACEPALM AMERICA: How did it inform his politics as governor, as president, and how was he considered also within the community of Christian evangelicals, and particularly Southern Baptists, as a Christian? Was he thought of as being too progressive during this time?
RANDALL BALMER: Yeah, to some degree. Well, you asked a complex [00:25:00] questions,
BEOWULF ROCHLEN - HOST, FACEPALM AMERICA: Feel free to take the time. I don't want to, I don't want to,
RANDALL BALMER: He was very interested in prison reform, noting that the overwhelming majority of the prison population in Georgia, as it is for the nation, of course, was people of color. And so he sought to make their situation better.
He also appointed a lot of people of color to state offices. And as president, he appointed more women and more people of color than all of his predecessors combined. So that would be one measure of how his faith informed his policies. In terms of his presidency, he recognized early on that if the United States was to have any meaningful relationship with third world countries, in particular, Latin America, that we needed to abandon our colonial attitudes.
And so very early in his presidency, he pushed very hard, and it [00:26:00] cost him dearly politically. But he pushed hard to revise and have the Panama Canal treaties ratified. And again, I think history looking back on it, the consensus is that he did the right thing. But it did cost him dearly politically. He also sought to move American foreign policy away from the reflexive Cold War dualism that had defined the US policy since at least World War II and toward a common, a concern for human rights and his policies on human rights, even though it angered a lot of our allies. His policies on human rights really did succeed in freeing a good number of political prisoners. It's hard to put a precise number on it, but I think it's safe to say thousands of political prisoners were freed because of his policies.
I mentioned his appointment of women and people of color. [00:27:00] But environmentalists also consider Jimmy Carter to be the best environmental president ever, because of his concern for the natural order, for the created order, God's created order.
BEOWULF ROCHLEN - HOST, FACEPALM AMERICA: And that's where it came from for him, presumably.
RANDALL BALMER: I think it did. Absolutely.
BEOWULF ROCHLEN - HOST, FACEPALM AMERICA: In a sense of stewardship, really.
RANDALL BALMER: Absolutely. I don't think there was really anything in terms of his policies that wasn't informed some level by his faith. His faith was very important to him. And, just to parenthetically, that's the reason I wrote Redeemer, my biography of Jimmy Carter, because I wanted to take his faith seriously. Because he took his faith seriously. And I think that's important to understand in any assessment of Jimmy Carter.
651: The Jimmy Carter Cudgel & Preparing for Mass Deportations with Gabriel Salguero - Holy Post - Air Date 1-8-25
PHIL VISCHER - HOST, HOLY POST: I said, Mr. Rogers, Donald Trump, which one is more like Jesus. If that is a controversial thing to [00:28:00] say, I need to have a talk with you offline.
ESAU MCCAULLEY: It's not a controversial thing to say. It's an easy thing to say. That's different. There's a difference. It's not controversial. It's an easy, it's easy...
PHIL VISCHER - HOST, HOLY POST: yeah. I didn't have any trouble saying it. Yeah. It's not.
SKYE JETHANI - HOST, HOLY POST: I don't think. First of all, I'm not making any assessment of Jimmy Carter's policies and whether they were Christlike or not. I'm not. I'm talking about the man. Yeah. And I think his humility is a reflection, it's a Christian value that I think we are called to emulate and I don't think that value went over well with most Americans and especially when there were challenges that came along like the Iranian Hostage Crisis and inflation and OPEC and some of the other things he had to deal with during his presidency. His humility did not go over well when he goes to address the nation and starts confessing failures and mistakes that he made. It's not great.
And I think at least in my experience in in the ministry subculture that I've been a part of, you hear people say all the time, Oh, I want a [00:29:00] pastor who's like Jesus. And I want a ministry leader who's like Jesus. Or even I want a president who's like Jesus. And I think when you really dig down, most people don't. They say that because it's what they're supposed to say, but when you really present them some of those qualities that mark Jesus's life, it's not what most Americans want from their institutional, political, or even religious leaders. They want people who are strong, who are confident, who are brilliant communicators, who are going to stick it to their enemies, who are going to be aspirational in their leadership because they exhibit the kinds of values that people want for themselves.
And in a lot of American Christian subculture, the values we want for ourselves are not the humility and suffering and self sacrifice that epitomized the good shepherd that we claim to follow.
PHIL VISCHER - HOST, HOLY POST: On that we agree.
ESAU MCCAULLEY: We'll agree. I mean, we agree.
PHIL VISCHER - HOST, HOLY POST: Okay. Okay. So what can we learn from the question? One is, what can we learn from Jimmy Carter [00:30:00] being really humble but also rather stubborn? He was extremely stubborn. It's not a good recipe for winning a second term as president of the United States. But what can we learn from the way the media treats Jimmy Carter? Esau, what do you say? Scott, what do you say?
ESAU MCCAULLEY: I mean, I think that we can take a lot from Jimmy Carter's, the way that he treated his wife, from what I can tell from afar, from the fact that he was faithfully married to his wife for his entire life. As far as I know there's no scandals attached to him there. I think the fact that he lived out his Christian faith by service in his local church. I think that's important. I think that you can see that he also lived out his faith and how he cared practically for other people. And I think all of those things are laudatory, and I think that that's a good example for anybody to follow.
If you happen to be married, treat your [00:31:00] spouse well and remain faithful to them. Don't cheat on them. Serve in your local church and practically express your faith by the way that you treat those people who don't have the resources to pay you back. I think those are things that you can learn from Jimmy Carter.
SKYE JETHANI - HOST, HOLY POST: Yeah, I agree. And I would summarize it this way. I think Jimmy Carter was an exceptional humanitarian and a somewhat crummy politician. And those are actually two compliments, because I think to be a really good, shrewd politician is a hard thing. It is a calling for some people, but it does require a willingness to compromise on some principles that I think Christians should find it really hard to compromise on. And he didn't. And that made him a poor politician at times.
PHIL VISCHER - HOST, HOLY POST: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Okay. Okay, well, there you go. I guess we're done. I guess we... but is it okay, Esau, that [00:32:00] the world is attracted to humanitarian Christians and ascribes their humanitarian work to their Christian faith without getting into doctrine?
ESAU MCCAULLEY: No, I get it. I get it. No that's not a bad thing. People should see, they would know you by how you treat other people, as like a common Christian idea. So, I don't think it's bad that someone says these Christians are people who care about the poor and who do things for the poor. I just feel like it's very easy for us to say, look at all the good things that Jimmy Carter did. Look at how Jimmy Carter embodied Jesus. Look at how these other people don't embody Jesus. And these are people who we didn't like before Jimmy Carter died. And so Jimmy Carter's death becomes an occasion for us to duck on the people who we already don't like. And I don't find that the most unique take, which is what the media did... in other words, it's not like Jimmy Carter's death was freshly revelatory [00:33:00] for certain elements of the Christian right. And so I'm not saying that we shouldn't praise Jimmy Carter. I'm saying that there is an obsession with here are the things that a certain segment of White evangelicalism has done wrong. And every single thing that exists is an example of that phenomenon. And I'm just tired of saying it. I'm tired of saying it. I've said it a thousand times. And so it may feel like I'm just like, afraid to praise Jimmy Carter, but it's like, yeah, I could praise Jimmy Carter and use Jimmy Carter's life as a cudgel for people who I might disagree with politically. And I'm trying to say in 2025, I'm going to put that cudgel down and try to have a better conversation.
When Carter called out America - Today, Explained - Air Date 12-30-24
SEAN RAMESWARAM - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: President Carter called out what many think of as a central pillar. of American life: Cap-i-tal-ism.
KEVIN MATTSON: Consumerism and the want of things was creating an unsustainable world. And the oil crisis was making that clear to people and staring them in the face.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about [00:34:00] the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.
KEVIN MATTSON: How many times have we heard a president in the past take on the selfishness of consumerism and say it's a significant problem for Americans? And the fact that he called individualism into question was, again, what made the speech exceptional. You usually don't use that line, you know, because Americans like to think of themselves as individuals. And here he was, you know, attacking that and showing his shortcomings. So I think that that's probably back to why I get more and more entranced in the content of the speech. I started wanting to kind of dig down deeper because I think I had never seen a president in the United States call into question the consumerist lifestyle that Americans are known for.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: Why have we not been able to get together as a nation [00:35:00] to resolve our serious energy problem? It's clear that the true problems of our nation are much deeper, deeper than gasoline lines or energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession. And I realize more than ever that, as president, I need your help.
KEVIN MATTSON: It's July 15th, 1979. The thing that Carter just stated is pointing to something that's really disturbing to a lot of Americans, which are these long gas lines that are forming at gas stations.
ARCHIVE NEWS CLIPS: Anger and bewilderment are growing as more and more Americans cope with gasoline lines and empty pumps. For millions of Americans, this may be the worst weekend they've ever faced for finding gasoline to give them the automobile freedom they take as their due.
KEVIN MATTSON: And what happens on these gas lines, people are getting in fistfights, there's a woman who [00:36:00] puts these pillows up under her dress to make it look like she's pregnant so she could cut into the line and say, I need gas for me and my unborn child. And then these pillows fall out, people start to throw things at her. I mean, it's just total chaos.
ARCHIVE NEWS CLIPS: Gasoline shortages are spreading across the country. Odd even service, gasoline lines, and closed gas stations are becoming increasingly common.
KEVIN MATTSON: One of the things that they would do at these gas lines is that the gas attendant would take a poster and say, "Last Car" and put it on the window, where if they went past that, they would run out of gas and people would jump into the cars, take the signs, put them back 25 spaces so that other people could get gas. And it was kind of like individualism coming to the fore in a really ugly way. I mean, the threats of violence, the actual violence, people just looking for their self interest. I think that kind of was one of the key things that made Jimmy Carter really worry about individualism and consumerism is that it could lead to such awful fights that were being engaged in by normal ordinary Americans. That's I [00:37:00] think the foremost issue that's on Carter's mind that's happening in the streets of the country at this time.
ARCHIVE NEWS CLIPS: You tell that goddamn governor he's gonna police this goddamn gasoline situation. I will not take the blame for this thing. I will not take the crap and the harassment from these customers. Now let him police it or stop selling gas.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: I will soon submit legislation to Congress calling for the creation of this nation's first solar bank which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000.
KEVIN MATTSON: He did install solar panels on the White House. And I think it was kind of a practical thing. I mean, it would reduce energy costs, obviously, and reliance upon foreign oil. It reminds me also of an early episode in Jimmy Carter's presidency, and he's fairly famous for this, where he sits with a cardigan sweater with a fireplace [00:38:00] next to him. And he basically says, turn down the thermostats because we're wasting energy.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: All of us must learn to waste less energy. Simply by keeping our thermostats, for instance, at 65 degrees in the daytime and 55 degrees at night, we could save half the current shortage of natural gas.
KEVIN MATTSON: It symbolized both, I'm the president of the United States, but I'm going to do something. He's doing stuff concretely in his own behavior. I mean, I can't read how Americans would respond to that, but I think they would think at least he's not a hypocrite. He's actually putting his money where his mouth is. And there's something to that, that I think makes Jimmy Carter attractive as we look back upon both him and what's followed in his wake.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: This is not a message of happiness or reassurance. But it is the truth, and it is a warning. These changes did not happen [00:39:00] overnight. They've come upon us gradually over the last generation, years that were filled with shocks and tragedy. We were sure that ours was a nation of the ballot, not the bullet, until the murders of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. We were taught that our armies were always invincible, and our causes were always just, only to suffer the agony of Vietnam. We respected the presidency as a place of honor until the shock of Watergate.
KEVIN MATTSON: The distrust that he's, I think, talking about there amongst the general American public is really strong. And he's basically saying, we made mistakes. I made mistakes. We're [00:40:00] all making mistakes, which again shows the kind of radical nature of this speech is that he's sharing the blame but he's also saying that things like Watergate and Vietnam, you can't just slough them off They are things that leave a huge imprint on American political culture. So I think that there's a kind of growing distrust he's trying to address and trying to push back on.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not [00:41:00] satisfy our longing for meaning.
KEVIN MATTSON: He's got this mix of touting traditional values in contrast with the consumer culture that dominates at this time. To take that on, to put that front and center, saying essentially, you know, Let's stop paying attention to all the scenes in the gas lines. Let's get beyond that sort of stuff. And realize that there's something much deeper that's troubling, and that is a reliance upon consumer goods and trying to seek our own happiness out of all the things that we want to get.
Keep in mind that Jimmy Carter was notorious for teaching Sunday school. He has a kind of minister's tone in some of these passages. But I don't think that he's just simply blaming or scolding the American people, because he prefaces everything with pointing out to his own faults. Usually people who are scolding don't say, I'm also a part of the problem.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: We can manage the short term shortages more effectively, and we will. But there are no short term solutions to our long range problems. [00:42:00] There is simply no way to avoid sacrifice.
KEVIN MATTSON: We're going to have to sacrifice. I think that's the bottom line is what Carter is saying. He's calling people back to sacrifice and he's saying, you know, there are things we can do in our day to day lives. We can turn down the thermostat. We can try not to drive our cars everywhere we go. I think that he sees a way to get back to a better place, but it's going to take sacrifices. It's going to take people doing something in their ordinary lives.
And that's, again, a rarity. I think that, you know, where do we see our government actually interacting with ordinary citizens to actually push through a policy that includes, at least in part, sacrifice and living within one's means.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: I do not promise you that this struggle for freedom will be easy. I do not promise a quick way out of our nation's problems. When the truth is that the only way out is an all out effort. [00:43:00] What I do promise you is that I will lead our fight and I will enforce fairness in our struggle. And I will ensure honesty. And above all, I will act.
KEVIN MATTSON: You can really hear the war language there, you know: mobilize, I'll be your leader, but we have to sacrifice and pay attention to one another. What he wants to aim for is to build a kind of simpler society, maybe one where consumption wasn't so widespread and taking things over. But also at the same time, it's got to push back against our over reliance upon foreign sources of oil.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: We know the strength of America. We are strong. We can regain our unity. We can regain our confidence. We are the heirs of generations who survived threats much more powerful and awesome than those that challenge us now.[00:44:00]
SEAN RAMESWARAM - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: He doesn't make it seem like that tall an order, though he's probably throwing out ideas that are very foreign to the American people.
KEVIN MATTSON: I think that that has to just be called a contradiction. I mean, the speech opens up with such a long treatment of all the problems that the country faced historically. To turn it around on the kind of optimistic note, if anything, that's the part in the speech that every time I read it, I'm like, eh, you know, you've set out a pretty difficult course to chart and to just kind of slough it off and say, well, we have the competence, we can do it. We've done it before. I think that's the part of the speech, at least for myself, that rings slightly hollow.
Note from the Editor on the supposed desire for truth
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with Past Present, looking at the stark differences between Carter's presidency and those that came before and after. The Brian Lehrer Show pulled an interview with Carter from their archives discussing gender equality. Democracy Now! discussed Carter's foreign policy with particular focus on Latin America. Facepalm America looked into Carter's complicated [00:45:00] history on race. Holy Post analyzed Carter's faith and why it didn't help him when the Christian vote. And Today Explained dove into the legacy of Carter's attempt to address the oil crisis through unity and collective sacrifice. And those were just the top takes.
There's a lot more in the deeper dive section. But first, a reminder that this show is produced with the support of our members who get access to bonus episodes and enjoy all of our shows without ads. To support all of our work and have those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new members only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show bestoftheleft.com/support. There's a link in the show notes, through our Patreon page or from right inside the apple podcast app. And as always if regular membership isn't in the cards for you, shoot me an email requesting any financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.
We've been trying something new and offering you the opportunity to submit your comments and questions on upcoming topics. It takes a little time for us to do all the research and prep shows, so I can give you [00:46:00] a heads up on what's coming. So you can be part of the conversation as it happens. Next up, we're working on the concept of de-alignment of labor and the left, as well as the self-styled realignment of so-called populist conservatives happening on the right. And then following that we'll be tackling the LA fires and the broader interplay between fire and water in the age of climate change. So get your comments and questions in now for those topics, you can leave a voicemail or send us a text at (202) 999-3991. Or simply email me to [email protected].
Now as for today's topic, I have some thoughts on the upsides and downsides of telling the truth. As we're hearing in the show today, Jimmy Carter was famous for promising to be straight with the American people. Up to and including telling them that wearing sweaters would help during the energy crisis. A couple of months ago, we had a discussion here on the members show, about this idea from a journalist Claude Cockburn. He died in the eighties. [00:47:00] He argued that we shouldn't bother speaking truth to power as is so often said, because he argued. The rulers of the earth, don't generally care about truth, which I think, you know, fair enough. It's more effective, he argued, to speak truth to the masses. So that they have a fighting chance in their struggle against the powerful. It's a nice idea. I like it. It rings true, et cetera. The only problem is that people really hate being told the truth. They think they like it. They think they want it. But the case studies of Jimmy Carter and Donald Trump tell the different story, I think.
Carter went out of his way to try to always tell the truth. And he was booted from office at the first chance. Trump has almost certainly broken the record for the most lies told by any American politician. And his supporters, many of whom know he's lying, are happy to follow him to the end of the earth. Perhaps literally. Trump's reputation among the MAGA crowd is that he tells it straight. Which [00:48:00] is definitely not true. Whereas Jimmy Carter was the actual president who told it straight.
The biggest difference that I can see, I mean besides Trump's lies and you got that giant disparity, is the presence of an enemy. A guilty party, those responsible for the bad things I'm telling you about. Carter would tell you straight about problems, but he didn't conjure a scapegoat the way Trump does. So people think they want the truth, but in reality, they want someone to blame. And they hope that that blame is true. You know, they want it to be real. But they really, much more, just want someone to blame.
So I got thinking about all this and wondered, well, okay, so what's my conclusion about this. And what came to mind was the old saying "In a democracy, people get the leaders they deserve." The sort of thing that people on the left generally say when the country elects politicians, we don't like, right? It's like, well, yeah, maybe this is what we [00:49:00] deserve. We're not the best. But then I wondered, well, wait, who said that? You know, I just had never looked it up before. So I looked it up and it's a French guy from the early 1800s, Joseph de Maistre said that back in 1811, according to Wiki Quote. But then I was just looking at the very next quote on that same Wiki Quote page by the same guy. And I couldn't believe the relevance to this topic. So maybe, maybe this is my takeaway point.
Keep Jimmy Carter in mind as I read this quote from the early 1800s: Joseph de Maistre
says, quote, "I don't know what the life of a rascal is like since I've never been one, but that of an honest man is abominable. How few men are there who's passage on this stupid planet has been marked by really good and useful acts. I prostrate myself before the one of which one can say 'he went about doing good.' The one who [00:50:00] had been able to instruct, console, and relieve his fellows, the one who made great sacrifices for charity, these heroes of silent charity who hide themselves and expect nothing in this world. But what is the ordinary man? And how many are there in a thousand who can ask themselves without terror, 'What have I done in this world? In what way have I advanced to the common good and what will remain of me? Good or evil?'"
SECTION A: HISTORICAL CONTEXT
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue to dive deeper on four topics. Next up Section A- Historical Context, followed by Section B- Foreign Policy, Section C- Christian Nationalism, and Section D- Republican Rat Fucking.
Episode 364: Jimmy Carter Part 2 - Past Present - Air Date 2-28-23
NEIL YOUNG - HOST, PAST PRESENT: I think he's a really seminal figure in this history and a lot of sort of unexpected ways. When he runs for president in 1976, he tells reporters that he's an evangelical and they don't know what that is. [00:51:00] And there's really, there's literally an account of New York Times reporters like getting out their dictionary and looking up the word evangelical to figure out what he's even talking about. Now that is inconceivable for us from the vantage point of 2023. But he was on the cusp of history that was literally unfolding in real time.
And he wasn't saying that for some sort of political gain. He wasn't inserting religion into politics as much as he was just speaking about himself authentically as a person of deep faith, who was introducing himself to the nation at a time when, you really had to do that as a presidential candidate. It wasn't the same sort of media space. And also his time in office coincided with the rise of the religious right and the politicization of religion in American public life. And a good bit of that, I've argued in pieces I've written and in my book, was a response to him because he wasn't the type of Christian in American politics that these newly energized, white [00:52:00] evangelical conservatives were expecting someone like him to be.
NICOLE HEMMER - HOST, PAST PRESENT: I don't remember if Carter won the white evangelical vote in '76, or if he split it with Ford. But I do remember that there was a big "exit stage right" for many of the evangelicals who supported him in '76 when it came to the election in 1980. And I think that's worth just throwing out there because we so closely associate white evangelicalism with conservatism. But Jimmy Carter was this political presence on the national stage.
He was somebody who he wasn't conservative necessarily, although I think that he was the more conservative candidate in the democratic primaries in 1976, but he also just represented something different. Kennedy and Johnson and Nixon and Ford, they had all been creatures of Congress, and they were very much part of Washington, DC.
And Jimmy Carter represented the rise of the Southern or the Sun Belt [00:53:00] Governor as president. So he was a transitional figure. And that way, he represents this moment of real fluidity in the coalitions for both parties. And I think that the white evangelicals are just one place where you're seeing that play out. You're seeing it play out in white, blue collar workers and union members. You're seeing it play out among Catholics. There's just this sort of mushiness to the electorate in this moment, and you're not sure where it's going to go.
And I think one of the things that also sticks out to me about him is, Jimmy Carter was the only Democratic president between the time that Lyndon Johnson left office and Bill Clinton came into office. And so there, it strikes me that there has to be something kind of special about him to break through those years of landslide Republican victories. I know that he's largely remembered for the fact that he lost in 1980, but the fact that he won in 1976. That seems pretty impressive as well.
NATALIA MEHLMAN PETRZELA - HOST, PAST PRESENT: What do you make of his [00:54:00] southerness? I'm curious, like how that plays in and you two both with deeper southern roots than I have, are probably more fit. Nikki, I know you're a transplant, but I'm giving you that. But I feel like that has something to do with this, right? This is an era when we talk about like the sun beltification of America.
We often associate that almost entirely with the reddening of America and with conservatism, but doesn't his unique status as having been a Democrat who won in that time period, in the time that you sketched out, Nikki. Does that have something to do with his southerness and the palatability of a southern liberal at that in that period? What do you think?
NICOLE HEMMER - HOST, PAST PRESENT: I mean, it absolutely does. Who are the two democratic presidents between Johnson and Obama? It's Carter and Bill Clinton. I think Neil can speak to this a little bit more as a native southerner. But there's also, at least from the political sense, he is an outsider. He is somebody who's not of Washington, DC. He's from elsewhere. He's seen more as a populist. Somebody who's outside of the establishment. He's [00:55:00] a farmer and a Sunday school teacher. And so he brings all of that to the table. As well as the way that his southerness, it takes the edges off of his liberalism.
NEIL YOUNG - HOST, PAST PRESENT: Just piggybacking on to what you had said a few minutes ago, Nikki, about the fluidity of this sort of coalitional politics and how it's shifting really in these years, it's also important to remember that a lot of Southerners are starting to split their ticket in this time. And they're starting to show up more as Republican voters on the presidential level, but really into the nineties Southerners are voting for Democrats at the local and state level, and a lot of them are keeping their registration as Democrats because that's where the more important elections are at the state and local levels throughout the South. Even, into the 1990s.
And so Carter winning the presidency in 1976 with a good chunk of southern states supporting him isn't all that remarkable. It actually ties it back to a longer history of the Democratic party in the South. Now he was a bit of a different candidate in some ways and in other ways not so [00:56:00] much. When he ran for governor in the early 1970s, there were some really unfortunate things, or really he spoke in coded language to appeal to voters in order to win that election. Although as governor, he did push Georgia in a civil rights direction. And certainly as a presidential candidate he was more clearly aligned with a civil rights tradition of the Democratic Party.
But there's a sort of fluidity within him as well, because there's a sort of political transformation that he's undergoing. that in some ways, butts up against the South's transformation and other ways still aligns with it.
NICOLE HEMMER - HOST, PAST PRESENT: I'm glad you brought up sort of the more complicated history around Carter when it comes to race and segregation and the South.
Because I do think that there is a tendency, particularly among Democrats who I think many have a soft spot for Carter to maybe not paint the fullest picture of him. In part because, his dedication to things like human rights, his [00:57:00] work for Habitat for Humanity, his work for peace at the Carter Center, and all of these other ways, the ways that he doesn't cash in on his post presidential sort of potential earnings, because he's not interested, as future presidents would be, in making millions of dollars because he once was president. I think all of those things put a kind of rosy glow around Carter. And in some ways, maybe keep us from fully reckoning with Carter as an ambitious political character, right? Because morality seems so central to his politics. I don't think we often allow him to be a politician in our memory of him.
NATALIA MEHLMAN PETRZELA - HOST, PAST PRESENT: Well, it's really worth reading this essay by Kai Bird, his biographer, who really in some ways, I think props up the kind of mythology, not falsehood, but the sort of image of Carter that you're talking about is this kind of humble guy who moved back to Georgia and didn't pursue all these, big money speaking [00:58:00] engagements. On the other hand, he talks about him as like this hard nosed politician. One on the issue of racial equality that, growing up as a Southerner, yes, he had this idealism of the urgency of solving racism and ending racial discrimination, but he also had a very pragmatic view about what it would take to get that done.
And then also at, even in his nineties, that he was like calling for 7 a. m. meetings and giving only 45 minutes or 50 minutes to his biographer to talk about his time at the White House and had a very sort of pointed way of dealing with people. Some people called him intimidating, even kind of mean. And so I do think all of that does absolutely push back on this sort of like avuncular, like, friendly, modest, like Southern grandpa image that you know, and nice Southern grandpa, not like old racist Southern grandpa image that I think some people perhaps rely upon a little too readily, especially at this point in his life. When he is, we, I don't even know if we said it, he's the longest [00:59:00] living president ever, right? He's been the longest time out of office than as any president, more than any president. And also he's the oldest.
NICOLE HEMMER - HOST, PAST PRESENT: Yeah. I think George H. W. Bush had also turned 94, but Carter is definitely the oldest ex president we've ever had.
Remembering the extraordinary life of former President Jimmy Carter - PBS NewsHour - Air Date 12-29-24
JUDY WOODRUFF - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: On the domestic front, the President grappled with an economy beset by spiking inflation and interest rates and an energy crisis.
Just two weeks into his tenure, a cardigan clad Carter urged Americans to conserve during a televised fireside chat.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: All of us must learn to waste less energy.
WOMAN: Why didn't they come out and tell us there was no gas?
JUDY WOODRUFF - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: But by the summer of '79, the public's patience was wearing thin.
WOMAN: I've been here since 4:30 this morning. It's ridiculous waiting on line here.
MAN: I'm in the line two hours in, I can't get gas. This is baloney. Carter doesn't get my vote next year.
JUDY WOODRUFF - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: With his [01:00:00] popularity plunging, President Carter set out to turn the country's mood.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: So I want to speak to you first tonight about a subject even more serious than energy or inflation. I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy. The threat is nearly invisible. In ordinary ways, it is a crisis of confidence.
JUDY WOODRUFF - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: He never actually used the term, but it came to be known as the malaise speech. And it brought new ridicule. Then, in November of that year, half a world away, the great crisis of the Carter presidency began. The capture of 66 Americans in Iran, most of them at the U.S. embassy, all with the tacit backing of that country's new supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.[01:01:00]
In April 1980, the President authorized an ill-fated military operation to try to free the hostages. But the mission ran into mechanical troubles and one helicopter crashed, killing five U.S. airmen and three U.S. Marines.
It was the Iran crisis and the nation's deep economic trouble that haunted the Carter reelection bid. Senator Ted Kennedy mounted a primary challenge that lasted until that summer's Democratic convention.
Meanwhile, Republicans coalesced around former California Governor Ronald Reagan.
MAN: Good morning. How are you?
Judy Woodruff [voice-over]:
And Illinois Congressman John Anderson. And also ran in the GOP primaries, turned independent for the general election.
JOHN ANDERSON: Give me your help. Give me your votes on the 4th of November.
JUDY WOODRUFF - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: For weeks, the Carter campaign declined to have the President debate both Reagan and Anderson [01:02:00] on the same stage.
JOHN ANDERSON: The man who should be here tonight to respond to those charges chose not to attend.
JUDY WOODRUFF - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: But finally, just a week before the election, Mr. Carter did square off with Reagan, but found himself outmatched.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: Now we have an opportunity to move toward national health insurance. Governor Reagan, again, typically is against such a proposal.
MAN: Governor.
PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: There you go again.
JUDY WOODRUFF - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: Reagan used the debate to disarm depictions of himself as an extremist and thus ease voters' fears. He closed with a simple question that summed up his indictment of the Carter presidency.
PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: And it might be well if you would ask yourself. Are you better off than you were four years ago?
Judy Woodruff [voice-over]:
Reagan would later call it a critical moment in the campaign. But in President Carter's eyes —
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: The major factor in the election had nothing to do with that debate. It was the fact [01:03:00] that went through election day, which was the exact one year anniversary of the hostages being taken in Iran.
JUDY WOODRUFF - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: By then, the Iranians had freed 14 of the original 66 American hostages. The other 52 remained captive and Iran refused to budge.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: The parliament decided under Khomeini's pressure that they would not release the hostages. And this devastating negative news about hostages swept the country. But on election day, I've always been convinced that this was a major factor.
JUDY WOODRUFF - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: Whatever the reason, President Carter was trounced that night. And at 9.50 p.m., more than an hour before polls closed on the west coast, he conceded.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: I promised you four years ago that I would never lie to you. So I can't stand here tonight and say it doesn't hurt.[01:04:00]
JUDY WOODRUFF - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: He spent much of his remaining time in office trying to free the Americans held in Tehran while he still could.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: At 10 o'clock on inauguration morning, all the hostages were in an airplane ready to take off. And Khomeini held them until five minutes after I was no longer present. Then they took off. But that was one of the happiest moments of my life. Every hostage came home safe and free.
JUDY WOODRUFF - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: The landslide election defeat returned the Carters to civilian life, but they set about on a new life of service that won new respect. In 1982, the former president and wife Rosalind Carter founded the Carter Center, their platform for advancing democracy, peace, and health policy beyond America's borders.
The work took them around the world to places like Nicaragua to monitor elections and Bosnia to try to end years of fighting. As he told the NewsHour during the 2000 Democratic [01:05:00] Convention, it seemed to be ideal work for a former president.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: The best times of my life have been after the White House. You have served a great nation, the greatest nation on earth, and then you have freedom from political obligations. You have an almost unlimited menu of things that you can either choose or say no.
JUDY WOODRUFF - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: His new agenda did lead to occasional run ins with his successors in the White House, as in 1994, when the Clinton White House balked at Mr. Carter's talks with North Korean leader Kim Il Sung on freezing his government's nuclear program, and in 2002, when he made waves in Cuba, meeting with President Fidel Castro and calling for an end to the decades long U.S. embargo.
He was also a vocal critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. But his diplomatic work, including the Camp David Accords, ultimately won him the [01:06:00] 2002 Nobel Peace Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He remained in the public eye through his final years, and he minced no words in his attitudes about President Trump.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: There's no doubt that the Russians did interfere in the election, and I think the interference, although not yet quantified, if fully investigated, would show that Trump didn't actually win the election in 2016. He lost the election and he was put into office because the Russians interfere.
JUDY WOODRUFF - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: In 2015, he was diagnosed with melanoma, a cancer that spread to his liver and his brain, but underwent a new treatment that sent it into remission.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: I've had a wonderful life. I've had thousands of friends, but now I feel, you know, that it's in the hands of God whom I worship, and I'll be prepared for anything that comes.
JUDY WOODRUFF - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: Through it all, Jimmy Carter remained active, [01:07:00] especially in his well-known work for Habitat for Humanity, building homes for the poor, and he continued teaching Sunday school in his hometown of Plains.
(Latest details on L.A. fires and what it's like to evacuate; Jimmy Carter laid to rest) - The BradCast w/ Brad Friedman - Air Date 1-9-25
BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: The world was in the grip of the cold war back in 1952 when a nuclear reactor began You melting down. That reactor located at Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario, Canada, just over 100 miles northwest of Ottawa, had suffered an explosion on December 12th of 1952.
Radioactive material had escaped into the atmosphere and millions of gallons of radioactive water flooded into the reactor's basement. Now, thankfully, no one was injured in that explosion, but the Canadians needed some help to disassemble the reactor's Damaged and melting down core and obviously it needed to be done quickly somehow And hopefully, safely, [01:08:00] somehow.
The United States, at the time, sent a 28 year old guy by the name of Jimmy Carter to help out. Yes, that would be the same Jimmy Carter who is much better known for being the nation's 39th Commander in Chief. And until his passing late last month at the age of 100, the US 's oldest living president. But his service to the country began when he was a teenage plebe at the US naval Academy and continued for four decades after his presidency. According to Jillian Brockel for the Washington Post, back in early 2023, after Carter had announced that he would be entering home hospice care. Of course, only to go on to live for another nearly two years in the years after graduating from Annapolis in 1946, Carter was promoted to lieutenant in the Navy, and he took a dangerous assignment aboard a submarine.
He was away from his young bride, Rosalyn and their [01:09:00] growing family quite a bit. It was in those years that President Harry S. Truman desegregated the military. While, uh, Carter's submarine was docked in Bermuda, British military officials invited white members of the American crew to a party, and at Carter's urging at the time, the entire crew refused to attend because it was segregated.
In 1952, Carter was then selected to join an elite team to help develop the Navy's first submarine. first nuclear submarines. Once he had trained his crew and the submarine was constructed, Carter was to be the commanding officer of the USS Seawolf. Then the partial meltdown happened up at Chalk River.
And then Lieutenant Carter was one of the few people on the planet at the time who was actually authorized to go inside a nuclear reactor. Carter and [01:10:00] his two dozen men were sent to, uh, to Canada to help because of the intensity of the radiation, a human could spend only 90 seconds inside the damaged core, even while wearing protective gear.
First, they constructed an executive. Duplicate of the reactor nearby. Then they practiced and they practiced and they dashed into this duplicate quote, to be sure that we had the correct tools and knew exactly how to use them. Said Carter in a 1976 memoir, each time one of the men managed to unscrew a bolt in the actual reactor, the same bolt would be removed from the duplicate.
And the next man would then prepare for the next step bolt by bolt. Eventually it was Carter's turn. He was in a team of three, quote, outfitted with white protective clothes. We descended into the reactor. So it sounds like they were lowered into it, kind of like Mission Impossible, as I [01:11:00] understand it, and they worked frantically for their allotted time.
Which was, in this case, 1 minute and 29 seconds, where Carter had absorbed the maximum amount of radiation that a human can withstand in a year, at least according to the, uh, to the numbers at the time, as they understood them. The mission, however, was successful. The damaged core was removed, thanks to Jimmy Carter and his squad.
Within two years, that, uh, core had been rebuilt, and it was back up and running, for good or ill. For several months afterwards, Carter and his crew submitted fecal and urine samples to test for radioactivity, but quote, there were no apparent aftereffects from this exposure, Carter wrote back in 1976, just a lot of doubtful jokes among ourselves about death versus sterility.
But in an 18, in an interview with historian Arthur Milnes in 2008, Carter [01:12:00] was not as cavalier. He said for six months, Is urine tested positive for radioactivity? Quote, they let us get probably a thousand times more radiation than they would allow now, he said. It was in the early stages, and they did not know.
Carter returned to, uh, preparing to command a nuclear sub, but soon fate intervened in July of 1953. His final father died of pancreatic cancer. Uh, pancreatic cancer would also eventually kill his mother and all three of his siblings, uh, as the oldest child, uh, Carter sought an immediate release from the Navy to take over the family business after seven years of service and given what he did inside that melted nuclear reactor, I would say after seven years of incredibly brave service, he was honorably discharged in 1953.
But the impact of the incident had a. Lifelong impact on his views of nuclear [01:13:00] power. His biographer, Peter Bourne said that as a young naval officer, he had approached it in a quote, very scientific and dispassionate way. But Chalk River showed him the power of nuclear power to destroy quote I believe this emotional recognition of the true nature of the power mankind had unleashed informed his decisions as President said Bourne not just in terms of having his finger on the nuclear button But in his decision not to pursue the development of the neutron bomb as a weapon If only everyone with their finger on that button had such personal experience and could be trusted with that button.
The Legacy of Jimmy Carter - Ralph Nader Radio Hour - Air Date 1-11-25
RALPH NADER - HOST, RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR: In reading all the articles and obituaries on Jimmy Carter, In the major newspapers, there was very little about his performance in the area of consumer protection, which means, in effect, his work with the regulatory agencies and the people he appointed to [01:14:00] enhance the health, safety, and economic well being.
Of the American people, I found that rather strange, especially since I made a lot of calls trying to urge reporters to cover its consumer area. I was astonished one day during the campaign of Carter in 1976 to get a call from a reporter who said, you know what Jimmy Carter just said? I said, no, he said he wants to outdo you as a consumer advocate.
And he wants to take your recommendations as to who he should appoint to head these consumer regulatory agencies. I said to myself, what? You know, it's not something before or after that I was accustomed to. I thought it was just campaign rhetoric, and it turned out not to be the case. He meant what he said.
He accepted our invitation right after he was elected to address a huge Ballroom of civic advocates in a hotel in Washington, and no one's ever [01:15:00] done that before or since. And then he proceeded to nominate many of the people that I would have recommended. They had the Federal Trade Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Auto Safety Agency.
And the Occupational Safety and Health Administration had the best nominees to date. So he meant what he said. And most prominently, he took a stand against the biggest lobbying effort that corporations have ever mounted against the Consumer Bill. This one was to establish a Consumer Protection Agency to intervene before other federal agencies and make them pay attention to the consumer interest in their deliberations.
Thank you. And if they were arbitrarily not doing that, they could take these federal agencies to court. This was a structural institutionalized proposal, and he supported it all the way. Unfortunately, too many of his Democrats in the Congress [01:16:00] voted against the agency, and it was narrowly defeated. But I wanted to ask you.
Because you poured through all kinds of archives and materials and writing your Jimmy Carter book that nobody reached, if you could comment on his work in this area.
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY: He was a very great admirer of Ralph Nader. You know, you had, by the early 1970s, really had a movement going around the country about consumer activism and advocacy and awareness.
And Carter was in your camp. Part of it was he saw that he had a distrust of big corporations and really big politics of Washington. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he wanted to have a people's movement that people were aware of their right. And so you were one of those people, William O. Douglas was another that he just admired.
And, you know, you had political clout in 1976 and your message was getting across and [01:17:00] Carter wanted to adopt what you were doing and kind of integrated into his White House. And he did. But the bigger problem at the end of the line for him was what you just said, there weren't enough Democrats to back what Carter was trying to do.
I mean, you started losing on that issue, everybody, from Ted Kennedy liberals and muskies of the world to Scoop Jackson in Washington. He couldn't. Bill, the Democratic Party that could push forward a very righteous idea, which emanated from you.
RALPH NADER - HOST, RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR: It is amazing how he lost support among his Democrats. He couldn't even get the Congressman from the Plains, Georgia district in Georgia, a Democrat to vote for the Consumer Protection Agency.
In the last 18 months of his term, he was really overwhelmed by Paul Volcker's high interest rates, too. Try to tame down a spiraling inflation and there was the Iranian hostage crisis that went on. [01:18:00] For a year and was prominently noticed by CBS, Walter Cronkite every night, the end of his session, he would mention it and he was under great pressure to deregulate natural gas, which he finally did and lost his base more and more.
So it's amazing that he did not interfere with either Joan Claybrook, who he appointed as head of the Auto Safety Agency, or Michael Perchick, who appointed chair of the Federal Trade Commission, or Doug Kostel, who appointed head of the Environmental Protection Agency. The ultimate tragedy was when Ronald Reagan came in.
He dismantled these agencies, he put in toadies for business interests, the level of enforcement went way down, and even tore off 32 solar panels that Jimmy Carter put on the White House roof as a punctuation for his desire to convert our economy to renewable [01:19:00] energy. Did he ever criticize these Democrats?
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY: Yeah, he liked very few of them. When he came in, Ralph, in January of 1977, he said the Democratic Party is an albatross around my neck. And he did not care for the liberal wing, the musky Kennedy wing, or the Washington scoop Jackson. He had some fondness for a little bit for Gaylord Nelson and Frank Church.
He should have been able to get a little closer to church. They had a lot of in common. He was very close to meet Carter, to Idaho's secretary of interior, Cecil Andrus, and that was a very effective relationship, Carter and Andrus, because. They were able to do quite a bit with public lands, culminating largely in the big Alaska, December 19, 19, right before he left office in 1980.
But there's Southern Democrats that voted for Carter in 1976 in the Senate [01:20:00] because of, you know, he's a fellow Southerner. They abandoned him. They wanted nothing to do with him and it started really with the Panama Canal and they started distancing themselves and saying, I'm not a Carter Democrat, the national news medium, making fun of Jimmy Carter, his accent, the Washington Post did not like him because Catherine Graham and Ben Bradley really mocked Carter.
They were very much more involved with the Kennedy wing of the Democratic Party. And, you know, he didn't really make a lot of friendships along the way in his presidency. He worked hard, Ralph, from beginning all day long to the end of the day. If he had a dinner, he would eat, and then he'd say, I gotta get back to work.
And he wasn't worried about cultivating Washington relationships. Now, there are individuals in America he became very close to. Andy Young, his ambassador to the United Nations, but that's because Carter's the one that told Andy Young to meet with [01:21:00] the Palestinian leadership in New York, and it blew up that it was secretly done by Andy Young, and Young kind of took the sword for Jimmy Carter.
It resigned, but that came directly from Carter, and Carter knew that Young could have turned on him, and it didn't, and Admired young and they became friends from Georgia on issues of human rights and civil rights and beyond. And then later in life, he had a few psych friends, particularly Ted Turner, who doesn't get talked about, the founder of CNN, you know, is Turner created the Jimmy Carter that everybody's honoring of the post presidency.
Because when Carter would go to Sudan or would go to Chile. Or go to China. He would send a CNN crew to follow ex President Carter and get a report on the news. And that helped open stories up that weren't getting covered in the national news. And, of course, as you know, Ted Turner gave his famous big gift of a billion dollars, I believe, to [01:22:00] the United Nations.
Then he bought all this land, public lands, and Carter liked that land environment conservation issue. He had a very easy hand at that because he really, we call him a farmer, a peanut farmer, but he knew agricultural science and became a first rate conservationist, understanding botany and, and, you know, cycles of planting, and it interests me, Ralph, that that same little belt where Carter's from, you can do a short drive to Tuskegee Institute where, you know, The famous George Washington Carver was known as the peanut man, you know, for all of the agronomic innovations and replenitive or regenerative farming.
And Carter fell into that quite early, and it's very progressive to think around how to feed the world and issues like that, and how to save public land, have clean air, clean water.
Carter 77 - My History Can Beat Up Your Politics - Air Date 12-27-23
BRUCE CARLSON - HOST, MY HISTORY CAN BEAT UP YOUR POLITICS: The presidency of Jimmy Carter is an example of a phenomenon in American politics that is seen in 1977, the presidential honeymoon. The president is elected [01:23:00] conceivably with a large mandate. A little bit of fear in Washington of this new guy coming in who can make or break their political careers, who the American people might like and don't want you to oppose.
Get some respect from the Congress. They have a few months to achieve the maximum amount of their goals. It does seem that successful presidents accomplish things in the first few months. Maybe it doesn't have to be 100 days, but it's those first few months. Carter's story demonstrates the opposite, that if you don't accomplish in the first few months, the whole presidency might be in trouble.
A couple other notes about Jimmy Carter. He has, as you know, become one of the most successful ex presidents in his involvement with charity work in the Carter Center, several diplomatic initiatives, helping sitting presidents with foreign policy at different times, monitoring elections, resolving crises around the world. He's improved his image overall as a person. And polls that are taken [01:24:00] decades after his presidency even see his presidency in a greater light.
I believe that since we've experienced energy spikes in 2008 and again in 2021 and 2022, we understand Jimmy Carter in 1977 perhaps a little better now. As throughout the 80s and the 90s, all that anyone would look back and see the pain of the times associated with him. Maybe that view is controversial. Maybe there's some that think that a different person elected in 1976 somehow wouldn't have those same problems. The energy plan that Carter's going to pass in his next year, changes things dramatically in terms of energy policy. That strategic reserve is still there. We all, well, almost all see the merit in researching new technologies, solar wind, electric cars and hybrid cars and things like that. We see [01:25:00] the, I think it's apparent now, the foresight in those programs in promoting those programs using the bully pulpit of the office, whether it was successful or not.
Other parts of it, for instance, windfall taxes, which was simply removed from the programs, and some parts of the energy plan that Carter had just simply don't work. I mean, it would cry a whole podcast to go into that. You know, but I do think that when energy prices drop in the eighties, because the Saudis who had been holding onto their oil eventually by '83 want cash. And they want to start selling again, and they break the log jam. And that's one of the many reasons that prices go down a bit. And so when you're in a time when costs are less, it's harder to see a president in a time of sacrifice. In a time where energy supplies were limited here. And to look at that.
There's something else here. Presidents, per the Constitutional [01:26:00] Convention, were elected by the Electoral College, a group of supposedly wise men who would be picked merely for the purpose of selecting a president. The president was not originally elected by the people. Though there were proposals for it, it's not what passed. The framers of the Constitution didn't have anything like a mandate in mind. It was Andrew Jackson who started the concept of an election mandate. That produced a mandate that gave the president the idea of being the representative of the people. They're elected by the whole nation. They have a mandate to govern.
Carter takes that extremely seriously. And I think at times too seriously. And I think at times a person that was a democratic president and seen as somebody who's a fan of democracy, and he certainly is, I never thought he was anything else. But was a little, you know, seemed to be a little bit too [01:27:00] enamored with his own election and not the concurrent election of members of Congress, who also had a mandate in each of their districts.
Despite the frenetic energy, the pace of introduction of legislation by the White House, the calendar is the reality. 1977 must end. By the end of it, through all the trials and tribulations, you have a president with a 57% approval rating, which is not bad. And there's really very little reason to believe in 1977, I mean, partisan attacks aside, sure. Ronald Reagan's out there making all kinds of statements, but nobody thinks he's gonna be president. Maybe Ford comes back or something else.
I mean, you know, there's no reason to believe that this political situation won't work. That what Carter's doing won't work. That his approach, his fresh approach won't work. He's come down, no doubt, in [01:28:00] approval rating from 75 to 57 from inauguration day. But disapprove up from 8%, 30%. These problems are gonna linger. But as you end '77, there's no reason to think, no reason to think that this is a president in trouble.
Carter ends 1977 outside the United States. He's in Poland. And he's equating American and Polish aspirations on human rights. He's in the middle of the Warsaw bloc, nations that ostensibly are controlled by the Soviet Union. And indeed, the government of Poland receives aid, military support, and advice. In fact, gets orders from Brezhnev in Moscow. But they have some independence. And they have borrowed a lot of money over the 70s from Western nations. Carter said [01:29:00] he's grateful for the degree of religious freedom that exists in Poland. In Poland, the Roman Catholic Church has been made a partner with the Communist state.
"My own constant hope is that the nations will give maximum freedom of religion and freedom of expression to their people," Carter said. From the Associated Press, "President Carter, hatless and wearing a blue topcoat, pause for a moment in silent prayer today and placed a gloved hand to his face in a gesture of humility at the Warsaw Ghetto Monument, a black stone memorial to the thousands of Jews who held out in the walled ghetto against the Nazis during a shortlived uprising, in 1943. The president then walked over to shake hands with Poles, many of whom shouted "Carter! Carter!" Commenting on the ghetto uprising, Mr. Carter told the crowd, "They died alone, but they live in our conscience.""
SECTION B: FOREIGN POLICY
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering [01:30:00] Section B- Foreign Policy.
The handover of the Panama Canal - Witness History - Air Date 12-12-24
GILL KEARSLEY - HOST, WITNESS HISTORY: I'm taking you back to 1999 and the handover of the Panama Canal.
ALBERTO ALEMAN ZUBIETA: We were all looking for, you know, after 85 years, the day when Panama was going to be all by ourselves in charge of operating and controlling the Panama Canal.
GILL KEARSLEY - HOST, WITNESS HISTORY: That's Alberto Aleman Zubieta. Who was an administrator for the canal when it was transferred from American to Panamanian rule in December 1999. Panama is a very small country, smaller than the US state of South Carolina. Despite its size, it plays a huge role in global shipping. The 80km Panama Canal is a shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean.
A ship traveling from New York to San Francisco through the waterway covers a distance of about 9, 500 kilometers. That's less than half the distance of going around Cape [01:31:00] Horn. Used by around 13, 000 ships a year, it's an amazing sight. As described here by the BBC, just after the handover.
ARCHIVE NEWS CLIPS: The Panama Canal is one of the engineering marvels of the world.
From the brilliant floating lock gates, to the enormous artificial lakes and dams that supply the huge quantities of water, all in all the canal has been an enduring success. Built, run and protected by the USA for the last four score years, the vital waterway has just been handed over to the tiny, relatively poor country of Panama.
It changed everything.
ALBERTO ALEMAN ZUBIETA: First, because we proved to the people of Panama that we have the capability and I think that we can show the world that if we put our heads and minds together we can do and achieve whatever we decided to do. I feel that I've been very lucky and blessed to be allowed to do this.
GILL KEARSLEY - HOST, WITNESS HISTORY: So, going back to the early history, it was finished in [01:32:00] 1914, but as the result of a treaty eleven years before. The United States had rights to the land surrounding it, known as the Canal Zone, and also controlled the waterway itself. Fast forward to 1977. I'm responding to years of Panamanian protest. US
President Jimmy Carter and Panama's General Omar Torres signed two new treaties that meant Panama would get full control. The signing took place in Washington, D. C., with President Carter making a passionate speech.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: The American people are big enough and strong enough, courageous enough and understanding enough.
To be proud of what has been accomplished.
ALBERTO ALEMAN ZUBIETA: The Panama Canal Treaty was signed on September 7th of 1977, uh, with a 23 year period basically to transfer the canal and all this land back to [01:33:00] Panama.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: And I believe that this treaty can open up a new era of understanding and comprehension, friendship, and mutual respect throughout, not only this hemisphere, but throughout the world.
ALBERTO ALEMAN ZUBIETA: It's an example of two countries, you know, getting together and, and provided a very unique process that ended up in a transfer that was, actually there were more people concerned about the year 2000 problem, the Y2K, than actually the ships continued to move. Obviously there was a lot of concerns, I would say worldwide.
From the, uh, shipping industry, how Panama was going to run the, the canal, if we were going to continue to invest, if we were going to do the maintenance of the canal as required. Panama, we created this institution with a set of rules that allows the canal to operate very independent from party politics in Panama.
It has its own [01:34:00] budget, the way that we contract the people and so on. It's a very unique institution.
GILL KEARSLEY - HOST, WITNESS HISTORY: The Canal Zone was abolished in 1979. The handover of the actual canal, though, was confirmed as being the last day of the millennium. But, as Alberto mentioned, there was concern worldwide about Y2K and what was known as the Millennium Bug. It was anticipated that there could be problems with the global infrastructure because of the date change.
ALBERTO ALEMAN ZUBIETA: We have the Y2K problem, so there was not going to be any presidents present at the exact date and time when the transfer was going to happen. And therefore, Panama decided that we were going to have this ceremony. Uh, that was going to be held in the locks of the Canary Miraflores on December 15th.
ARCHIVE NEWS CLIPS: Jimmy Carter rode into the famous 50 mile waterway on a mule, the machine that tows ships into the locks. A [01:35:00] crowd of thousands watched.
ALBERTO ALEMAN ZUBIETA: Well, uh, it was a very important day. We have President Carter, the King of Spain, and we have oldest president of the region. President Carter gave a fantastic speech.
ARCHIVE NEWS CLIPS: Jimmy Carter acknowledged that the original canal treaties were unfair, and he told the crowd that handing the waterway back to Panama was the right thing to do.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: But we must pledge ourselves on part of the United States of America to be a full partner, a harmonious partner, an equal partner in answering any request that come from Panama to make the operation of the canal even greater.
It's the next millennium.
GILL KEARSLEY - HOST, WITNESS HISTORY: Although Jimmy Carter attended, questions were asked over why the current president of the USA, Bill Clinton, wasn't there. There was, though, a unifying speech from his Panamanian counterpart, Murray Moscoso.
MIREYA MOSCOSO: [01:36:00] To the whole world, I say that the carrying out of the Panama Canal treaties is proof that the mutual understanding between nations and diplomatic negotiation are the right ways to resolve conflict between countries.
Everything else only breeds pain and destruction.
ALBERTO ALEMAN ZUBIETA: It was a beautiful moment. We have a huge ship moving through the locks. As the president was providing her speeches to the people who were all assembled there because we were already in a very festive mood.
GILL KEARSLEY - HOST, WITNESS HISTORY: Not everyone was in a festive mood though. There was still some unrest.
ARCHIVE NEWS CLIPS: Outside, protesters rung in the event their own way. These demonstrators were angry about America's 75 year control over the canal. The handover culminates the 31st, when the canal officially becomes Panamanian.
ALBERTO ALEMAN ZUBIETA: It was, uh, you know, [01:37:00] people getting warmed up for the date that for us was, let's say, the important date.
From here on, the canal is run only by Panama.
GILL KEARSLEY - HOST, WITNESS HISTORY: The end of the millennium was approaching, alongside the end of an era for the canal.
ALBERTO ALEMAN ZUBIETA: We raised both flags every day at the Panama Canal Authority building, that is a very majestic building. On December 30th, when we lowered the flags, and the flags were actually handled, the U.
S. flag to the US ambassador, and the Panamanian flag to the President of Panama, Miriam Moscoso. Because that was the last time where the two flags were going to fly together.
GILL KEARSLEY - HOST, WITNESS HISTORY: The most memorable moment for Alberto was the day the canal was transferred from the USA to Panama. December the 31st, 1999.
ALBERTO ALEMAN ZUBIETA: It was kind of drizzling, so we kind of got wet.
For me, rain is a [01:38:00] blessing. At noon, we raised the Panamanian flag and was the only flag flying. on Panamanian territory. People start running towards the post where the flag was being raised. It was amazing to see the people, the reaction of the people of Panama. It was very emotional and actually it was a very beautiful moment in history.
GILL KEARSLEY - HOST, WITNESS HISTORY: The Panama Canal is still as important today as it was then.
Christian Zionism With Daniel Hummel Pt 2 - American Prestige - Air Date 2-27-24
DEREK DAVIDSON - HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: Carter is an interesting guy. He occupies the only lane I think as an evangelical leftist, or left of center president in American history. And I'm curious how that evangelicalism, of that bent, kind of frames the question of Zionism in Israel. He's also an interesting guy because he's, really, the president, where US policy toward Israel has advanced so far that the US has begun doing foreign policy on Israel's behalf with the Camp David Accords, which is a trend [01:39:00] that obviously has accelerated quite a bit in recent years.
But Carter then goes on after his presidency to be maybe the only anti Zionist US, ex-US president. It's sort of, fascinating kind of trajectory that he has, but maybe we could start with the notion of a left evangelical president and what that means in terms of Zionism.
DANIEL HUMMEL: Yeah. And there was a lot of, I, I think I remember one document I was looking at. It was in the American Jewish Committee archives, and it was from 1978 or '79, and he was reading Carter as the wave of what evangelical politics is gonna be. And it was a, there was a line in there that said, "we need to prepare for a million Jimmy Carters in the 1980s." And it's like, wow, what a misread of where the Evangelical politics was going.
Anyway, yes Jimmy Carter's interesting. I mean, part of this is realizing that Jimmy Carter, sure, he was an evangelical, or more precisely in 1976, he was a born again Christian, which was the [01:40:00] big term that was being bandied about that year. He was also a Southern Baptist, and this, he, and maybe that's as important as born again for someone like Jimmy Carter.
And back in the 70s, this is before the Southern Baptist Convention swung to the conservative side in the late 70s and then on until today. The Southern Baptist Convention was very broad in the 70s. It had what was, what were called the moderate wing and then the conservative wing. And Carter was definitely on the moderate wing. And so, you can see even in in the 70s Southern Baptists aren't voting like they do later on in the 80s and 90s so far to the conservative side. So in some ways, Carter was representing a constituency. Now because of the religious politics, the denominational politics and then the broader evangelical developments in the 70s and 80s, Carter becomes this representative of a left evangelicalism, though there's even people further to the left of him, but certainly a more moderate evangelicalism.
He definitely has a different frame for thinking about the Middle East than someone like [01:41:00] Jerry Falwell does, who is a fellow Baptist, but much different in his theology and politics and Carter. I think that the easiest way to think about Carter's view is it's a very religious. I think everything Carter did flowed out of his identity as a Christian. But he saw the Middle East as the homeland of the Abrahamic faiths. And he would use that term very often, particularly strategically in Camp David, because he found it very significant that it was him, a Christian, it was Anwar Sadat, a Muslim, the head of Egypt. And then it was Nakim Begin, a Jew, the head of Israel, that were coming together to try to find peace. And he found that to be very biblically resonant and very, as he would say, Abrahamic resonant. And so if you take the Abrahamic fate- the frame versus say a Judeo-Christian frame, which you can put a bunch of presidents in that one, you can see how there'd be a much different, there'd be a multipolar conversation that would lead to a much different type of politics, a much different expectation of give and take between the different parties than a Judeo Christian [01:42:00] framework, which really sees Muslims and the broader Arab world as outside of the sort of in group or the children, the religious children that are part of this.
So that's the first thing to say about Carter is that he's coming at this maybe with a much different religious frame than even other evangelicals would.
DEREK DAVIDSON - HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: So what's the characterization of Camp David among, let's say the mainstream evangelical community and by that I mean the conservative wing, how do they regard what Carter is doing? Are they pleased that this is gonna maybe work to Israel's benefit or maybe a little bit miffed at the idea of giving up Israel giving up land or what is the, what's the sort of impression that they have?
DANIEL HUMMEL: They're mostly skeptical. They are observing Carter making critical remarks in press releases or in press conferences and elsewhere, about settlers, even in, 1977, 1978. So, they're already skeptical that Carter is not on board with that. [01:43:00] They know that he is theologically different from them. So, he doesn't have the dispensational theology. He doesn't have much conservative Baptist theology. He's a more moderate Baptist in that sense. But they're also torn because Menachem Begin is engaging in these talks as well and they tend to like Begin. And so there's often the dynamics of the sort of public conversation is demanding that Begin get- not be boxed in that begging get room to negotiate. Ultimately, this is what I was saying before about the deference to the Israeli perspective. Ultimately, most evangelicals, particularly those who are involved in organizations that are trying to work in Israel or work with the Israeli government, they are ultimately skeptical and critical whenever they feel like Begin is not getting his fair share. And so that, of course, plays into a deeper sort of a deeper level of politics where Begin is then leveraging these critics, or these potential critics, in the US to try to get what he wants as well and try to put pressure on Carter [01:44:00] through those channels as well. But ultimately when the deal is signed the evangelicals accept it. They don', try to force a change or anything. But they are disappointed, among other things, that Israel's giving up so much historic, or seemingly biblical land, including the entire Sinai Peninsula. Also, there's a few settlements that are have to be evacuated because settlement activity had already started in the 70s in the Sinai Peninsula. And they're critical of that as well. And that'll be a pattern as well as, this is one of the areas where there's a big tension with the Israeli government is because when the Israeli government does decide to somehow give up land or pull back settlers, they do this in Gaza in 2005 as well, you get critiques from certain quarters of Christian Zionism that this is going against God's plans, or this is going against the covenantal relationship. And now those are, tensions that they have to negotiate.
DEREK DAVIDSON - HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: Just as a final, my final question on Camp David, there was this two-pronged approach that Carter took at Camp David. One was to [01:45:00] negotiate a direct peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. But the other was this framework for Middle Eastern peace that he was pushing. That Begin and Sadat both kind of said, "yeah, yeah, sure we're behind that," and then they didn't do anything with it, and they just negotiated the direct peace treaty.
I have to imagine that evangelicals in the US were at least happy that the framework for Middle Eastern peace didn't go anywhere, and that this was limited to just an Egypt-Israel process.
DANIEL HUMMEL: Oh, yes, of course. They, for certain theological reasons, they're skeptical of the idea of a framework for peace being achievable. That there is, for many of these evangelicals who believe in a certain end time scenario, like the Middle East is just going to be, plagued with wars and destruction until Jesus comes back. And so they're skeptical of peace in that way. There's also part of their particular prophetic beliefs is that there will be a false peace deal that is [01:46:00] imposed on the region from the Antichrist. We're getting into real real left behind territory here, but the Antichrist will force a peace deal on the entire region that's ultimately a false peace and ultimately leads to Israel's destruction. And so you get references to these types of things when you, when any president starts talking about a framework for peace in the Middle East, this is one of the canars that comes up from the more , the certainly the more bold Christian Zionist sectors is that this feels like the "false peace" that we need to watch out for and we need to mobilize against.
Carter's was a version of that, but it was it was so unenthusiasticly picked up by the parties themselves, like you mentioned by Egypt and Israel that it never really even became, a reality that they could respond to.
Jimmy Carter Championed Human Rights But Also Funded & Armed Indonesia's Genocide in East Timor - Democracy Now! - Air Date 1-10-25
BRAD SIMPSON: I think that we should recall that in 1975, the United States effectively pulled out of Southeast Asia just as Indonesia was invading East Timor, with U.S. support, on December 7, 1975. Shortly after President Ford and then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger left Jakarta, Indonesia invaded East Timor. Over the course of the next year, [01:47:00] they killed upwards of 10% of the population, an invasion that was entirely financed and armed by U.S. weapons. The CIA estimated that about 95% of the weapons used by Indonesia in its invasion were provided by the United States.
And so, when Jimmy Carter became president in January of 1977, he confronted an ongoing genocide, which many officials and journalists were already describing as the worst human rights crisis in the world at the time. And Jimmy Carter, like his top officials, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Zbigniew Brzeziński, were primarily concerned with reassuring right-wing allies in the region, such as Indonesian President Suharto, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos and the South Korean government, that the United States was still committed to providing military and economic assistance. And we see this right from the start, that when Carter was evaluating his policies toward Southeast Asia, his national security [01:48:00] adviser, Zbigniew Brzeziński, reassured his staffers that the Carter administration would not be and should not be prioritizing human rights in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Southeast Asia and the end of the Vietnam War.
And throughout Carter’s administration, although Carter himself may have been sympathetic to human rights in other parts of the world and actually did curtail U.S. military assistance to governments in Latin America and was very good, for example, in enforcing an arms embargo against Rhodesia, in Southeast Asia, Carter really continued the policies of the Nixon and Ford administration. Between 1977 and 1979, the Carter administration more than doubled U.S. military aid and sales to Indonesia, precisely at the moment when the atrocities that Indonesia was carrying out, which included mass murder, the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, and starvation and disease that killed tens of thousands, was escalating into [01:49:00] a genocide.
And the Carter administration’s response, at least those of his top officials, was to lie before Congress. In the spring of 1977, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke and his deputies lied to Congress and said that Indonesia had effective control of East Timor, that the situation was calm, and that the majority of those who had died had died before Indonesia’s invasion. And they used these lies to justify continuing to expand military assistance and weapons sales at a time when congressional human rights supporters and some human rights supporters within his own administration, including the new assistant secretary of state for human rights, Patricia Derian, were calling on the Carter administration to halt weapons sales and weapons aid to Indonesia because of the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in East Timor.
And the Carter administration’s response was pretty illuminating. The CIA, in the spring of 1977 and [01:50:00] into 1978, told the Carter administration that Indonesia was literally running out of weapons, running out of bullets and bombs, because of the intensity of its bombardment of East Timor, and that the Suharto regime was requesting a doubling of military assistance so it could more effectively prosecute that war. And in 1978, the Carter administration actually increased military sales to Indonesia, including the provision of ground attack fighters, such as OV-10 Broncos, A-4 and F-5 ground attack fighters, which the administration knew would be used to bomb and attack the defenseless civilian population of East Timor.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Brad, we just have a minute to go. If you can summarize the presidency to the post-presidency, the post-President Carter, and the human rights framework he put forward, that was applied and not applied in [01:51:00] different situations?
BRAD SIMPSON: I think we should acknowledge that President Carter was the first president to elevate human rights to an idea that should guide U.S. foreign policy, at least in theory. I think what he also showed is how difficult it is for even well-intentioned presidents to support human rights, when the vast majority of the U.S. foreign policy apparatus believes in a more hawkish foreign policy that’s designed to support military dictators around the world with U.S. military aid and sales. And the fact that Carter was not able to sort of elevate human rights as he might have wished in East Timor and Indonesia is a reminder of the challenges that activists and human rights supporters in the U.S. and around the world face in trying to get the United States to actually support human rights and do more than give lip service to the idea that human rights should be a guiding principle in U.S. foreign policy.
Camp David's Failures: Jimmy Carter's Opposition to Israeli Apartheid Wasn't Enough to Secure Peace - Democracy Now! - Air Date 1-10-25
STUART EIZENSTAT: Jimmy Carter’s most lasting achievement, [01:52:00] and the one I think he was most proud of, was to bring the first peace to the Middle East through the greatest act of personal diplomacy in American history, the Camp David Accords. For 13 days and nights, he negotiated with Israel’s Menachem Begin and Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, personally drafting more than 20 peace proposals and shuttling them between the Israeli and Egyptian delegations. And he saved the agreement at the 11th hour — and it was the 11th hour — by appealing to Begin’s love of his grandchildren. For the past 45 years, the Egypt-Israel peace treaty has never been violated and laid the foundation for the Abraham Accords.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: The Abraham Accords are the bilateral normalization agreements between Israel and, as well — and the United Arab [01:53:00] Emirates and Israel and Bahrain, signed in 2020.
In 2006, years after he left office, Jimmy Carter wrote a book called Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, in which he compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to South Africa’s former racist regime. It was striking for a former U.S. president to use the words “Palestine,” let alone “apartheid,” in referring to the Occupied Territories. I went down to The Carter Center to speak with President Jimmy Carter about the controversy around his book and what he wanted the world to understand.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: The word “apartheid” is exactly accurate. You know, this is an area that’s occupied by two powers. They are now completely separated. The Palestinians can’t even ride on the same roads that the Israelis have created or built in Palestinian territory. The Israelis never see a Palestinian, except the [01:54:00] Israeli soldiers. The Palestinians never see an Israeli, except at a distance, except the Israeli soldiers. So, within Palestinian territory, they are absolutely and totally separated, much worse than they were in South Africa, by the way. And the other thing is, the other definition of “apartheid” is, one side dominates the other. And the Israelis completely dominate the life of the Palestinian people.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Why don’t Americans know what you have seen?
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: Americans don’t want to know and many Israelis don’t want to know what is going on inside Palestine. It’s a terrible human rights persecution that far transcends what any outsider would imagine. And there are powerful political forces in America that prevent any objective [01:55:00] analysis of the problem in the Holy Land. I think it’s accurate to say that not a single member of Congress with whom I’m familiar would possibly speak out and call for Israel to withdraw to their legal boundaries, or to publicize the plight of the Palestinians or even to call publicly and repeatedly for good-faith peace talks. There hasn’t been a day of peace talks now in more than seven years. So this is a taboo subject. And I would say that if any member of Congress did speak out as I’ve just described, they would probably not be back in the Congress the next term.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: President Jimmy Carter. To see that whole interview we did at The Carter Center, you can go to democracynow.org.
For more on his legacy in the Middle East during his presidency and beyond, we’re joined in London by historian Seth Anziska, professor of Jewish-Muslim relations at University [01:56:00] College London, author of Preventing Palestine: A Political History from Camp David to Oslo.
What should we understand about the legacy of President Carter, Professor Anziska?
SETH ANZISKA: Well, thank you, Amy.
I think, primarily, the biggest lesson is that when he came into office, he was the first U.S. president to talk about the idea of a Palestinian homeland, alongside his commitment to Israeli security. And that was an enormous change from what had come before and what’s come since. And I think that the way we understand Carter’s legacy should very much be oriented around the very deep commitment he had to justice and a resolution of the Palestinian question, alongside his commitment to Israel, which derived very much from his Southern Baptist faith.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And talk about the whole trajectory. Talk about the Camp David Accords, for which he was hailed throughout the various [01:57:00] funeral services this week and has been hailed in many places around the world.
SETH ANZISKA: Well, I think one of the biggest misunderstandings about the legacy of Camp David is that this is not at all what Carter had intended or had hoped for when he came into office. He actually had a much more comprehensive vision of peace in the Middle East, that included a resolution of the Palestinian component, but also peace with Syria, with Jordan. And he came up with some of these ideas, developed them with Cyrus Vance, the secretary of state, and Zbigniew Brzeziński, his national security adviser. And in developing those ideas, which came out in 1977 in a very closely held memo that was not widely shared inside the administration, he actually talked about return of refugees, he talked about the status of Jerusalem, and he desired very much to think about the different components of the regional settlement as part of an overall vision. This [01:58:00] was in contrast to Henry Kissinger’s attitude of piecemeal diplomacy that had preceded him in the aftermath of the 1973 war. So we can understand Carter in this way very much as a departure and somebody who understood the value and the necessity of contending with these much broader regional dynamics.
Now, the reasons why this ended up with a far more limited, but very significant, bilateral peace treaty between Egypt and Israel had a lot to do both with the election of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1977, as well as the position of Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and also the role of the Palestinians and the PLO. But what people don’t quite recall or understand is that Camp David and the agreement towards the peace treaty was in many ways a compromise or, in Brzeziński’s view, was a real departure from what had been the intention. And that gap between what people had hoped for within the administration [01:59:00] and what ended up emerging in 1979 with the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty also was tethered very much to the perpetuation of Palestinian statelessness. So, if we want to understand why and how Palestinians have been deprived of sovereignty or remain stateless to this day, we have to go back to think about the impact of Camp David itself.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Interesting that Sadat would be assassinated years later in Egypt when Carter was on the plane with Nixon and Ford. That’s when they say that cemented his relationship with Ford, while they hardly talked to Nixon at all. But if you could also comment on President Carter and post-President Carter? I mean, the fact that he wrote this book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, using the word “Palestine,” using the word “apartheid,” to refer to the Occupied Territories — I remember chasing him down the hall at the Democratic convention when he was supposed to speak. This was the Obama Democratic convention. And it ended up he didn’t speak. And I chased him [02:00:00] and Rosalynn, because —
SETH ANZISKA: Remember that in 1977, there was a very famous speech that he gave in Clinton, Massachusetts, talking about a Palestinian homeland. And that raised huge hackles, both in the American Jewish community amongst American Jewish leaders who were very uncomfortable and were already distrustful of a Southern Democrat and his views on Israel, but also Cold War conservatives, who were quite hawkish and felt that he was far too close to engaging with the Soviet Union. And so, both of those constituencies were very, very opposed to his attitude and his approach on the Palestinian issue. And I think we can see echoes of that in how he then was treated after his presidency, when much of his activism and much of his engagement [02:01:00] on the question of Palestine, to my view, derived from a sense of frustration and regret about what he was not able to achieve in the Camp David Accords.
And his commitment stemmed from the same values that he had been shaped by early on, a sense of viewing the Palestinian issue through the same lens as civil rights, in the same lens as what he experienced in the South, which is often, what his biographers have explained, where his views and approach towards the Palestinians came from, but also a particularly close relationship to biblical views around Israel and Zionism, that he was very much committed to Israeli security as a result. And that was never something that he let go of, even if you look closely at his work in Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Some of his views on Israel are actually quite closely aligned with positions that many in the Jewish community would feel [02:02:00] comfortable with.
The fact that people criticized and attacked him for that, I think, speaks to the taboo of talking about what’s happening or what has happened, in the context of Israel and Palestine, in the same kind of language as disenfranchisement around race in apartheid South Africa. And, of course, as Carter said in the interview you just ran that you had done with him when the book came out, the situation is far worse in actuality with what is happening vis-à-vis Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
SECTION C: CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Up next Section C- Christian Nationalism.
Preparing for War with Bradley Onishi - The Lawfare Podcast - Air Date 12-7-23
KATHERINE POMPILIO - HOST, THE LAWFARE PODCAST: I wanted to also talk about, you know, your comparisons of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. I thought those were especially interesting. You know, it seems like if you were a white Christian nationalist, you couldn't have asked for A better candidate than Jimmy Carter, but as you write, you know, he was the quote wrong type of Christian.
What made him the wrong type of Christian? What went wrong there? And why did so many Protestants and Catholics vote for [02:03:00] Reagan instead of Carter?
BRADLEY ONISHI: Yeah, I think this is an obviously an especially pertinent pertinent question in the in the wake of Rosalyn Carter's death and Jimmy Carter entering hospice.
We have. this situation where Jimmy Carter seems like he's made in a lab. If you're a white conservative Christian, like if you were in a video game and you wanted to create a character for the white conservative Christian in the United States to vote for, it's like Jimmy Carter's your man, right? I mean, Jimmy Carter is born to a Southern family who are farmers.
They live in rural Georgia, not Atlanta, rural Georgia. They are Southern Baptists. They are, uh, folks who prioritized reading the Bible. I mean, Jimmy Carter, uh, had a conversion experience in his teen years and he went on to be somebody who rarely left the house without his Bible. Who did Jimmy Carter marry?
His high school sweetheart, Rosalind Carter. Well, what did they do, uh, when they got of age? I don't know. He joined the military and became a military [02:04:00] officer. So we have a lifelong Southern Baptist from the deep South, born into a rural farming family. He's a family man, never leaves the house without his Bible.
And what more could you ask for? When his daddy dies, he goes home and takes over the family farm, eventually runs for school board. And then in a lightning in a bottle kind of career becomes president. Oh my gosh, this is the guy why would you vote for Ronald Reagan? Ronald Reagan was a divorced hollywood actor like hollywood is the den of sin If you're like a white conservative christian in this country He is not somebody who was really dyed in the wool as an evangelical.
He had various stances on abortion when he was Uh governor of california Not a great relationship with his older children. And if we go back to that whole family values idea, uh, Nancy Reagan, you know, there's a lot of reports that say that, you know, when she was in the white house, she had an astrologist follow her around and kind of help her, uh, navigate life.
No, nothing against astrology on my part, [02:05:00] but most white evangelicals see astrology as, uh, the work of the devil, right? Okay. How does Ronald Reagan become your man? Well, Ronald Reagan. Articulated a vision for white christian nationalist america. He said, I will put your values and your policies first. What were those values?
Those values were a hawkish foreign policy. They were opposition to abortion. They were minimizing the federal government. Taking people off what he called the welfare state and so on and so forth. Jimmy Carter, while he was president didn't do that. He appointed more women and people of color to the federal judiciary than anyone before him.
He would not come out with a vehement stance against abortion, even though personally he seemed to be against it. He was not somebody who was a hawk when it came to foreign policy. In fact, he was Really into diplomacy and negotiation, uh, successful or not. He also was just not a [02:06:00] hardline anti gay politician.
He just would not engage in that kind of rhetoric in ways that Jerry Falwell's of the world wanted him to. My argument would be that Jimmy Carter Was too much of a Christian and not enough of a Christian nationalist for the religious right and Jerry Falwell. And so in a way that completely foreshadows this group voting for Donald Trump in 2015, 16, we have Jimmy Carter, this man who never leaves the house without his Bible, teach a Sunday school, and, uh, is a dyed in the wool Southern Baptist who loses.
The vote of white Catholics and white evangelicals to a divorced Hollywood actor who really only discovered religion late in life and was wishy washy on abortion and didn't have a great relationship with his kids. It totally, totally foreshadows what happened with the rise of Trump.
KATHERINE POMPILIO - HOST, THE LAWFARE PODCAST: Yeah. So I want to get into that, you know, we, based off of this, and I think we've covered the myth of Trump.
The Christian nation. How does Donald Trump fit into here? [02:07:00] You said that voting for Trump was once in a lifetime opportunity for many Christian nationalists. Why?
BRADLEY ONISHI: Yeah. So I just want to emphasize the idea that, you know, if we, if we take Christian nationalism, white Christian nationalism, especially as a desire to return the country to its proper order, that, uh, for the white Christian nationalists, the country should look a certain way.
It should feel a certain way and since the 1960s, it has not, whether that's because of abortion, whether that's because of, uh, queer rights, whether that's because of immigration, whether that's because of having a black president with a black family. However you want to talk about it, it seems to them that America is out of order and not working.
So they have put their hope in various people. Ronald Reagan was one of them, and by the end of Ronald Reagan's presidency, they were frustrated. He did not do everything they wanted, and they were a little bit disillusioned. Then we get to the the 90s and the presidency of Bill Clinton, [02:08:00] which was of course something that they did not approve of.
George W. Bush I think is is actually a really good Case in point as to what sets up Trump, George W. Bush wasn't evangelical, George W. Bush was thoroughly conservative in policy. He was a hawk. We don't have to relive all of the details of Iraq and Afghanistan during his presidency to know that. But yet, when he got done, it felt like the itch had not been scratched.
Like there were still gay people in the country and they were just gaining more and more representation. And the country just kept getting more and more like black and Brown and Asian, and, you know, less and less Christian and less and less white. And it just felt like they were losing on every issue, whether it was abortion, whether it was gay marriage, whether it was, uh, anything else, right.
Like we just can't seem to get our enemies in line. And then all of a sudden Barack Obama comes, he's a man named Barack. [02:09:00] He's a man named Hussein, black family, dad from another country, dad from an African country, raised in, in Kansas, but also raised in Hawaii. Like is Hawaii even part of the union? I don't know.
I think so. You know, do we have to change our money to go there? Uh, yeah, I can't remember. Right. Is he, is that even America? Like, I mean, Missouri and Georgia, that's America. I mean, Iowa. Yes. But Hawaii, I don't, I don't trust people. I mean, he's president now. That's weird. Okay. If Jimmy Carter was built in a lab, For the white conservative christian. Barack obama was built in a lab for them to be scared of like to just think this is everything wrong with the country so once obama got into place.
To me, something clicked. It was this. The next guy we, we vote for is not going to be just a Christian. He's not going to be just a politician who, who makes promises like Reagan did. We need a bully. We need the guy that will brutalize the enemies, that will take out the people [02:10:00] causing trouble, and that will put everything in order, policy and law and process and tradition be damned.
We don't need that. What we need is someone to take care of business. We, I don't care if he's nice. I don't care how often he attends church. I don't care if he knows the difference between two Corinthians and second Corinthians. I don't care how many times he's been married. God can use him to save this nation.
And the support was there in 2016. It only grew in 2020. And there's really no indication it's going to wane in 2024.
Straight White American Jesus Weekly Roundup: Jimmy Carter vs Elon Musk Part 1 - Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 1-3-25
DANILE MILLER - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Randall Balmer, a friend of the show, a very well known historian of evangelicalism, we've talked with him on Straight White American Jesus before, wrote a piece in Politico, and one of the things he noted is he said that Carter's death symbolically represented the end of what he called "progressive evangelicalism." And what he meant by that was a kind of evangelicalism that was concerned with what we would now call social justice. It was concerned with, to put it in biblical [02:11:00] parlance, the least of these, or in prophetic language, the poor, the orphan, the widow. It was a vision that said that part of what it was to be a Christian in the world is to create a more just and equitable society, that that was part of the Christian mission.
Now, the people who don't like Carter, they would say he's woke. That's what it would be. Ron DeSantis or somebody like that would say that he's just a woke politician. That's who he was. That's if we wanted to contextualize him now. And it's just as a reminder that relates to this and Brad, I know you've talked about this a lot. We've talked about it. You write about it and discuss it. What really caused the break between him and the religious right was the threat to take away the tax exempt status of Christian schools over the- that were segregated. He was forcing desegregation. That was part of this vision of a more just, equitable social society and so forth.
So we know all of that. We've talked about that. What I want to think about here is just how evangelical and traditionally Baptist Carter was. Because I think it's easy to look at him and say, "Well, he's a guy [02:12:00] who had personal faith, but didn't bring it into his politics." And I think that that's not the right read. I think that if we understand Carter and contextualize where he was coming from, in the 1970s, in Southern Baptist life in the 1970s, he was a very, very committed Southern Baptist president. And I think that that's, I think it's a thing to know and to see.
BRADLEY ONISHI - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: So one comparison point would probably be Tim Walz. So Tim Walz is Evangelical Lutheran, and by all accounts, he's a regular church goer. But when you do deep dives on Tim Walz, he's kind of the guy that's like, "Yeah, I'm a Christian, but I don't really talk about it." And I think what you're saying about Jimmy Carter is, he was definitely a Christian. He definitely talked about it, but just not in the ways that we expect.
DANILE MILLER - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Or even Biden, who would talk about, "I'm Catholic and I have these views on abortion," back when, he was more sort of moderate on abortion and he'd say, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna, carry out the laws of the land and the will of the people and so forth.
That wasn't really, I think, how Carter sort of fits into this model. So the first point I want to bring out is just specifically how Baptist he [02:13:00] was. His politics and his administration clearly embodied and expressed a separation of church and state. He did not have a vision of simply appointing Christians to government. He didn't want to govern from the Bible. He wasn't quoting scripture passages and saying this is the law of the land or things like that. They all expressed a form of secularism, but it was a secularism that had deep roots in his own religious tradition. And I know I've talked about this in the past, but it sort of continues to surprise people.
But Baptists in the 18th century, Baptists in the 17th, 1700s rather, they were proponents of separation of church and state. Thomas Jefferson's famous line about a wall of separation between church and state, it's not in the Constitution. It was in a letter he wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association, and he wrote it because Baptists had supported the formation of the First Amendment. They supported separation of church and state. And not just Baptists, there were other non conforming religious groups like Quakers, who also affirmed separation of religion and state because their own religious traditions had undergone [02:14:00] persecution. So Baptists believed then, that it was the responsibility of the church, not the state, to convert people to Christianity.
That if their God was who they said their God was, and their gospel was as true as they thought it was, that was their job. And that was God's job to go and convert people, not the state. And they also felt that the state should be neutral with regard to religion. And I say this all the time, this was not a view that said all Christians should be created or treated equally. There were Baptist thinkers in early centuries who said, it applied to Jewish people. It applied to Muslim people. It applied to freethinkers, or what we would now call atheists or humanists. They had a broad vision of this. So in not imposing this vision of Christian America, or what now passes as a vision of Christian America, Carter was being a good Baptist.
And I think part of the interesting thing about this is that he also reflected battles going on within the SBC at the time. So, In the 70s, the Southern Baptist Convention, largest Protestant denomination in the US, we talk about people like Al Mohler and [02:15:00] others who are central figures in this super conservative denomination.
In the 1970s, it was controlled largely by theological moderates. Their opponents called them liberals. They were not liberal by any sort of contemporary theological standard. But Carter's Christianity reflected that strain of Southern Baptist life. In 1979, conservatives within the denomination took control. They won the highest post in the denominational hierarchy, they appointed conservatives. And that began a long process that is still ongoing of moving the whole denomination pretty far to the right. That's what coincides with the formation of the religious right. That's what brings about the Southern Baptist Convention we have now. That's what brings about, I mentioned Al Mohler, somebody who far from now arguing for separation of church and state as a traditional Baptist doctrine, is busy talking about the Augustinian city of God and, having to have a theocratic society and so forth. So, all that, some of the Southern Baptist stuff, I got a couple things to say about the social vision, but I want to jump in to see if you have [02:16:00] Quaker or other perspectives on Carter and separation of church and state, and what that means for a religious person, a person of deep religious commitment to affirm the separation of church and state.
BRADLEY ONISHI - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Yeah, there's a lot to say here, and I want to turn to Amanda Tyler, friend of the show, leader of the Baptist Joint Committee. Somebody who's written a book called How to End Christian Nationalism. I've interviewed Amanda and spoken with Amanda and appreciate Amanda very much. She wrote in Time this week about Carter as somebody who did exactly what you're saying, Dan, in terms of the separation of church and state.
And I just she included in her piece some great quotes from President Carter himself. So let me read a couple of those. "'I think that prayer should be a private matter between a person and God,' then President Carter told a group of news editors in 1979 concerning Supreme Court rulings against mandatory government sponsored prayers in public schools in 1962 and 1963."
Quote, "I think the [02:17:00] government ought to stay out of the prayer business and let it be between a person and God and not let it be part of a school program under any tangible constraints, either a direct order to a child to pray or an embarrassing situation where the child would feel constrained to pray."
He told the editors that he made these statements because he was a Baptist, exactly as you're saying, Dan. And so, I think one thing, there's a lot of ways to remember Jimmy Carter. He was not a perfect person, there's things we could talk about in terms of Central America and other things. He was not the most effective president, and so on and so forth.
But I think what stands out in these- this moment, as we remember him, is the ways that he was able to articulate a Christianity as part of his identity that recognized that Christianity and the kingdom of God were about, not forcing or constraining, but about persuasion and acceptance.
And, this quote really exemplifies that. I'll give you one more here that speaks to your point, and I'll throw it back to you [02:18:00] before I jump in on some other issues later. 2010 Autobiography, A Full Life, Reflections at 90. This is Jimmy Carter. "My religious faith had become a minor issue during the 1976 campaign when I responded yes to a reporter's question, 'Are you a born again Christian?' Some reporters implied that I was having visions, or thought I received daily instructions from heaven. My traditional Baptist belief was that there should be strict separation between church and state. I ended the long standing practice of inviting Billy Graham and other prominent pastors to have services in the White House, and our family assumed the role of normal worshipers in a church of our choice."
Of all the things about Jimmy Carter that I appreciate, this is in the very top. In a time, Dan, when Billy Graham was a regular at the White House, whether you were Richard Nixon or any other president. At a time when Jerry Falwell was touring the country holding I Love America rallies, where at the end of those rallies he had an altar call, but it was for America.
At a time [02:19:00] when the more- what would become the moral majority was ascendant and there was a, basically a civil war and a takeover happening in the Republican party, Jimmy Carter is the kind of guy that doesn't soft play it. He's like, Hey, Billy, guess what? Not invited anymore. You can stay home. Why don't you you go see your wife or, hold a rally? You don't need to come over to the white house anymore.
Like that takes guts, man. And because. There are so many lobbyists and power players in Washington, Billy Graham at the time was one of them. To say no to Billy Graham was to say no to a whole lot of people that would have glad handed Carter, helped him get a better image among the evangelical right, and so on and so forth. And Carter was just like, 'nah, I'm good, bro. I actually need to catch up on some things tonight. So don't come over, Billy.' That's just- that's the thing. And I appreciate it. I don't know if I can convey here briefly and succinctly, what it took to say no to the evangelical power complex in that way. And he did it. And it's something I remember.
SECTION D: REPUBLICAN RATFUCKING
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally Section D- [02:20:00] Republican Rat Fucking.
AP x Nonzero - Jimmy Carter vs. Donald Trump w/ Robert Wright - American Prestige - Air Date 1-10-24
ROBERT WRIGHT: I get there is justifiably I think an awareness of the contrast between a Carter and a Trump in terms of just sheer decency You know and that's like an old fashioned word.
I I have not spent much of my life complaining about a decency. Believe me I have many forms of it i'm actively in favor of but You know, it really is a word that captures a lot of what drives me crazy about trump He's just not a decent human being in many senses of that word Carter's obama with
DANIEL BESSNER - HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: his kill list a decent human being this is what drives me mad like obama Every tuesday would look at the kill list.
I mean what if you run the imperial states I think it's worth asking to what degree you can be a decent human being. And that's what I would say about Jimmy Carter. Uh, and this is basically, you
ROBERT WRIGHT: can, you can define it strictly enough to exclude all presidents and all human beings if you want, but I mean, and, uh, and as far as Carter, You know, he was a conscientious, [02:21:00] look, of course he's a, uh, behind it all is a lot of raw ambition.
He became president. Of course there is. And of course, people who worked for him can tell stories about how he wasn't always a Sunday school teacher, but you know, he really, uh, you know, he was kind of, I would say a serious Christian in the sense that he really worked hard to abide by what he saw as like the rules of the Christian life.
Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, I, I, I just respect people who take morality seriously. Trump does not, he is not in any sense, a moral human being. And, uh, I would contend. And so that's the big contrast. I mean, as for, uh, that it's the first thing that comes to my mind, and I think it's a lot of people, it struck a lot of people maybe without them.
articulating it in exactly that way. Um, you know, his foreign policy, uh, you know, I just learned that there, uh, I, I only for the first time read up [02:22:00] on kind of the intramural struggle before he appointed his people over who the people would be. And apparently George Ball was in running for, uh, running for secretary of state.
DANIEL BESSNER - HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: It's
ROBERT WRIGHT: a big was big started off as national security security
DANIEL BESSNER - HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: advisor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and Cyrus Vance was the Cyrus Vance
ROBERT WRIGHT: was who you know I don't really know that much, uh, about him. Um,
DANIEL BESSNER - HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: well, I mean, what do you think? Okay. So here's the argument against Carter basically introduced neoliberalism and ended detente.
So that's the argument against Carter from the historian's perspective. I think pretty much everyone likes his post presidency.
ROBERT WRIGHT: Ended detente in the sense of doing the Afghanistan intervention or started launching that.
DANIEL BESSNER - HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: Spig was very, very anti Soviet and did, did basically did everything he could. To basically bring detente to the end, setting the stage for the second cold war of Ronald Reagan of the early days, I
ROBERT WRIGHT: mean, that's
DANIEL BESSNER - HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: his criticism of him
ROBERT WRIGHT: was in some ways, I think a very smart and wise guy.
I mean, wise in the good sense, wise in [02:23:00] the good sense. You know, if you listen to some of the things he said after 9 11, some of the things he warned against Brzezinski. They were, he was smart. He, you know, he said like, look, here's what's going to happen. Every country around the world is going to convince us that they're, the local, whatever local insurgency they're dealing with is part of the global war on terror, and they're going to suck us into it, which is exactly what happened.
And we fell
DANIEL BESSNER - HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: for it hook, line, sinker. And, but,
ROBERT WRIGHT: but he did, perhaps because of his Polish heritage, I don't know, he did have You know, Jimmy Carter also gets credit for the phrase inordinate fear of communism. Well, unfortunately, Zbig had it, at least when it assumed the form of Soviet communism. He fucking hated
DANIEL BESSNER - HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: communism.
I mean, he was Polish. But he
ROBERT WRIGHT: had a thing about the Soviet. Yeah, I mean, remember the Carter years on the China front? This is when, uh, the kind of, uh, the various policies that are now being questioned by China hawks. Uh, kind of took [02:24:00] shape. I, I, sure. I mean, the one China
DEREK DAVIDSON - HOST, AMERICAN PRESTIGE: policy comes out of right out of Carter's administration.
Sure. So, so, but even that, I mean, even that was, was a strategic move against the Soviets, right? I mean, to cozy up to China. That's
ROBERT WRIGHT: what I'm saying. He's big head of penis bonnet about the Soviets. And that I think worked the whole thing. That's the verdict of the presidency.
Why Trump Must Be Punished For Criminal Behavior With Danielle Moodie - The Muckrake Political Podcast - Air Date 3-21-23
JARED YATES SEXTON - HOST, MUCKRAKE: This article came out this weekend and it should basically be on every corner on every wall. Peter Baker came out, he had talked to, um, Um, uh, Ben Barnes, who came out and said that back before the election of 1980, that him and the former governor of Texas, who, by the way, I think Nick is going to have something to say about this, John Connolly had gone over to the Middle East and repeatedly met with Middle Eastern leaders to tell them to get a message to Iran, to hold on to 52 American hostages until after the 1980 election between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Uh, this [02:25:00] article is very, very thorough. It's been backed up. Also, it seems that the Reagan campaign knew full and well what was happening, which, again, let me check my notes, uh, amounts to treason.
Now, before we go around talking about this, I want to go ahead and say, I think even if this wouldn't have happened, that Reagan probably would have beat Jimmy Carter. I think that that was going to happen in 1980, but we'll never know! We have literally no idea how that would have played out. This is unthinkable.
Absolutely maddening. Danielle, how did you feel reading this? Did you feel like you'd been taking crazy pills?
DANIELLE MOODIE: I, is this, I, all I can think to myself is like, is this what Republicans mean when they refer to, we need to go back to the Reagan years? Like, is this, is this it? Because so foundationally as a value point, they have always been putting party ahead of country.
Right. Like as a, so you go to Nixon. Yeah. And you're saying you prolonged the [02:26:00] Vietnam war. Do you know how many Americans died in the Vietnam war? You go now to this 1980 bombshell and learn that again, to score political points, they were willing to hold the lives of 52 Americans. For just a little bit of time to buy an election.
I just you know It's amazing that we think to ourselves That the party over country is something New when it is as old as time itself for republicans But yet we have allowed them to to cede and control words like Patriotism, they're the flag waving party and they don't know a goddamn thing about anything that the flag actually [02:27:00] stands for.
So, you know, you say, Jared, as you're laying it out, like it's a bombshell and we'll have repercussions. Well, check my time machine. We're like 40 years past this. No one was ever held accountable. Nobody will be held accountable, right? Reagan will still be there. They're not going to change the airport name.
Right. In Washington DC, he'll still be, you know, held up as a hero and as a, and as the Republican when he's same lying ass, just like George W. Bush, just like Nixon, just like Donald Trump. That will do anything to win an election, and to your point, Yes! I think he would have won!
Right? So, I, like, It don't matter. It's amazing to me that they're going to the lengths that they're going to now to erase history. Where, to your point, no one gives a shit about history. Right? [02:28:00] Because we're not going backwards. And I know we're gonna talk about Iraq soon too. We're not going backwards to actually hold people accountable for their treason.
Right? And lies and destruction of entire country. We're not doing that.
JARED YATES SEXTON - HOST, MUCKRAKE: By the way, Nick, I, I, I'm going to give it to you in just a second. But I also, I I've been waiting to hear what you have to say about this for a couple of days. I know, I know a lot of what's getting ready to happen, but before we do, I want to point out part of the reason that why that has happened is because Fox news, the Republican party, the media that, that has been bought and sold.
Most of the people will never hear about this. Yeah. They will never ever encounter. It's not going to be talked about on Fox news. Ronald Reagan has become a mythical figure. They don't even deal with who he actually was and what he actually passed. They have no idea who he is. They have no idea that he gave amnesty to immigrants.
They have no idea that he, he ran up deficits left and right. It's a completely mythical fake version of him. And so this will [02:29:00] never even come on the radar. Now, my good friend, Nick Houselman, give it to me and give it to me. Good. I cannot wait.
NICK HAUSELMAN - HOST, MUCKRAKE: So you have to forgive me if, uh, I'm a little bit all over the place because this is a, you a near dear to my heart of subject to it.
The very quickly I wanted to mention that, you know, Swar Schwarzenegger in 2004 used, uh, Richard Nixon as an applause line, and that signaled to me that, okay, all bets are off. These people are gonna be rehabbed and nothing they did that was bad will ever be considered bad. And then the myth just keeps growing.
And then it's not surprising that, of course, Reagan, of all people. By the way, the reaction when you try and point out anything that Reagan might have done wrong to people who were like Reagan, it is like, uh, an affront to their, their entire, uh, family, you know, like the, it's really kind of, uh, frightening how, how, uh, belligerent they can get.
But here's the thing we've known about this October surprise for forever. The evidence has been very compelling. Probably. I mean, I even think that Carter mentions it in his biography or autobiography that I read where he had [02:30:00] already negotiated the entire release of the hostages. Everything was all set in the place.
Don't forget. They got released on the day of the inauguration. It's not like Reagan came in there and I'm like within an hour and like to somehow negotiated the whole thing. So we knew this. It was very compelling on both sides, Iranians and Americans.
Weekly Roundup: Jimmy Carter vs Elon Musk Part 2 - Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 1-3-25
BRADLEY ONISHI - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: He was born and raised a Southern Baptist, served as a missionary. Supported his church at every turn and married his one and only love. Carter's politics, on the other hand, were not aligned with the vision that Paul Weyrich and Jerry Falwell and others had for the United States. They felt he didn't represent the power of the nation.
I just want to stop and say one of the things that dogged Carter as president is that people like Jerry Falwell and other warmongers labeled him as not manly enough. He was a man who listened, a man who wanted diplomacy, a man who wasn't always talking about control and violence and nuclear weapons.
It's in the same ways that Obama was labeled this guy who wears mom jeans and that whole thing, it's very similar. In essence, Carter was Christian enough, but not nationalist or patriarchal [02:31:00] or warmongering enough to satisfy other Christians. The man who embodied family values was characterized as hating the traditional family.
The man who was an officer in the Navy was castigated as unpatriotic when it came to foreign policy. He brought the cross into the White House, but according to his critics, he left the flag outside of the sanctuary. So in 1980, Christian conservatives supported a divorced Hollywood actor with a mixed record on issues surrounding, quote, "family values" and a history of supporting abortion over the Southern Baptist Sunday School teacher who married his high school sweetheart, served with distinction in the armed forces, and often brought his bible with him when leaving the house.
It was the election that made clear that the cross wasn't enough for Christian nationalists. The cross must always be accompanied by the flag. This leads to one final lesson to be learned from the Carter/Reagan election. When it came to voting for Donald Trump, Christian nationalists had precedent for prioritizing politics over morals, and policies over identity.
[02:32:00] Jimmy Carter was born to a poor family in a tiny town in rural Georgia. Donald Trump was born to a rich real estate magnate in New York City. Jimmy Carter was a dyed in the wool evangelical from the time he left the womb. He was baptized as a teenager and committed himself to Jesus Christ wholeheartedly. Throughout his life, Donald Trump has rarely attended church, and to this day, he is religiously illiterate.
Jimmy Carter joined the Navy and became an officer. Donald Trump avoided the draft in Vietnam because he claimed he had bone spurs. Jimmy Carter's father, Mr. Earle, as they called him, was a pillar of his community who helped out his neighbors in ways that would only go noticed after his death. Donald Trump's father, Fred Trump, was arrested after a KKK rally in the late 1920s.
In 1963, Jimmy Carter ran to be part of the Georgia State Legislature, In part, to prevent segregationists from shutting down Georgia schools after the 1954 Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision. In 1989, Donald Trump took out a full page ad in the New York Press, decrying the Central Park Five and calling for the death [02:33:00] penalty. They were later exonerated, of course.
Jimmy Carter built his presidential campaign out of the conceptions of justice inspired by the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and his friend Bob Dylan, (slash Timothy Chalamet). Donald Trump modeling himself after Andrew- modeled himself after Andrew Jackson. Dan thinks that's so funny.
DANILE MILLER - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: I wasn't expecting that. Sorry. I didn't mean to break in there.
BRADLEY ONISHI - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Jimmy Carter appointed more people of color and women to the federal judiciary than any other president before him. Trump employed open white nationalists in his cabinet, including Stephen Biller- Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller.
When Jimmy Carter became president, he put his peanut farm in a blind trust, giving up control of his financial portfolio. As president Trump has used, as president Trump used his power to promote and grow his various businesses across the world. When Carter left the white house, he was badly in debt because those who had managed his blind trust had done so poorly. By the time Donald Trump left the white house, his children earned [02:34:00] nearly a billion dollars of private income while he was in office, and not to mention Jared Kushner's deal for multi billions after Trump left office. After leaving office, Jimmy Carter helped to build 4, 000 houses for those in need through programs related to Habitat for Humanity. Since the end of his presidency, Trump has lived at the private golf resort he owns in Florida.
One of the things I'll just say, and I want to really launch us into Musk and Trump and all that, is Jimmy Carter was also, Dan, in some ways, the last president Middle Class president. So we might get an email here or two about Obama and that's fair, but the Bush family, the Reagan family, no, not even close. Okay. The Trump family, no, he's a fake billionaire, but still he's lived a life of upper class luxury for his entire existence. The Obamas when they entered the white house, yes, I think we're middle class. And I think you could, I think you could probably say that Obama and [02:35:00] Carter came from the same kind of class background in some ways. But, what I'll add to that though, and of course the Obama's being black I'm not going to overlook what the economic challenges that this country has posed to black Americans at every turn, whether it's enslavement, Jim Crow, redlining, and so on. So not overlooking any of that when it comes to the Obama's.
Jimmy Carter was born on a farm. I mean, he was the first president born in a hospital, but he's a farmer, Dan. Tim Walz, I think was notable for a lot of us, because he came off as this like regular guy, a teacher, a military guy, a dad, go out and fix your car, go out and go hunting for turkey. I think a lot of people found Tim Walz endearing because he felt like somebody they might know. Jimmy Carter was one of those people. And you cannot even imagine that. Now, I mean, the Clintons I, come on, by the time Hillary Clinton ran, they were, they were millionaires a hundred times over.
So. I think that's there. Anything else on Carter before we go to some [02:36:00] contemporary stuff here with Musk and Trump and everybody else?
DANILE MILLER - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: I think, to echo your point about not- have nothing but respect for the achievements of the Obamas, but you also have the University of Chicago educated Barack Obama, I think is another contrast even between, somebody like Carter.
BRADLEY ONISHI - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Well Ivy League law education.
DANILE MILLER - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: So I just to make that point is I think to reinforce that, that, if you wanted some sort of middle class credentials now I think you'd be really hard pressed to find anybody who could have fit that better than somebody like Carter.
BRADLEY ONISHI - HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Well, and this whole idea of class and money and corruption and, the guy put his family's peanut farm in a trust and the whole time he's president, he's like, 'don't tell me about it. I don't, I legally don't want to know about it.' And when he gets out, it's like he's in debt. So I've said this before in the show, Dan, can you imagine being president and you lose and you're like, well, got to leave the white house and take my solar panels with me, right?
He brought solar panels to, I mean, we haven't talked about it, but he brought solar panels to the white house. And then you're like, well, let me see, let's open [02:37:00] up the books, take a look at the business. And it's like, we lost this much in the last four years. I'm now president and I'm in debt. You want to talk about like identifying with real Americans, real Americans know what it feels like to have debt, mortgage debt, student loan debt, credit card debt.
So that's the thing. And it leads me to the clip that I played at the top, which is Governor Sununu of New Hampshire. Okay. And in that clip, he says that Elon is working as an outsider in Washington. Okay? And I want to break down this clip, Dan, because it really speaks to everything we If you just think of everything we just said about Jimmy Carter, and then we bring in Elon Musk.
He's like, 'Elon's an outsider.' And first of all, Dan, Elon has like billions of dollars in government contracts. He has subsidized so much of his business. His business in many ways relies on government contracts, whether it's in this country, whether it's in Shanghai, whether [02:38:00] it's in other places. He is somebody who gets a lot from the government.
That's number one. So you can call him an outsider. Cause what he's not somebody who's like ever run for office or something. Sure. Whatever. Okay. So there's that, but then Sununu says, 'I'd rather have something successful.' And I liked that. I think I liked that. He's successful. Okay. Dana bash says, 'don't you see a conflict of interest?' And Sununu says, 'everyone has a conflict of interest.' I just want to stop on that point. We've reached a place in our politics, whether it's with Christian nationalists, presuppositionalist theologies from reformed circles those who would say there's no such thing as neutrality, and I just want to point this back to Jimmy Carter.
Jimmy Carter, as a religious person, is like, 'keep God out of the government.' As a financial actor, he's like, 'when I get to the White House, I want to have no financial interest. I want no way for me to gain or lose money that [02:39:00] I know about. When I go to bed at night, when I am president and I have a quiet 10 minutes, I don't want to wonder if I've made money today or think about how I could make money today. I'm done with that."
And here's Sununu saying, 'well, everyone has a conflict of interest.' And my point is like, I totally get it, Dan. You and I have been through the philosophical ringers. Everybody wants to talk. Is there such thing as objectivity? We have said on this show that everybody has feeling and affect and embodiment.
I I understand all of that. It does not mean that as a leader, you can't strive to say, 'I'm going to do everything possible to serve the people of this country, of this community, of this state, with the same status and respect and voice.' You can try that. You can do things to practice that. You can cultivate that.
Credits
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. As always keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or our upcoming topics: the disconnect between labor and the left, [02:40:00] and the LA fires and the politics of water in the age of climate change. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991, or simply email me to [email protected]. The additional sections of the show included clips from Past Present, the PBS News Hour, The Bradcast, the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, My History Can Beat Up Your Politics, Witness History, American Prestige, Democracy Now!, The Lawfare Podcast, Straight White American Jesus, and The Muckrake Political Podcast. Further details are in the show notes.
Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our Transcriptionist Quartet—Ken, Brian, Ben, and Lara—for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships. You can join them by signing up today at [02:41:00] bestoftheleft.com/support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple podcast app. Membership is how you get instant access to our incredibly good and often funny weekly bonus episodes, in addition to there being no ads and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes, all through your regular podcast player. You'll find that link in the show notes, along with a link to join our Discord community where you can also continue the discussion. And don't forget to follow us on any and all new social media platforms you may be joining these days.
So, coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington DC, my name is Jay, and this has been the Best of the Left podcast coming to you twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show, from bestoftheleft.com.
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