Thanks for the great article. Hope our Great Experiment can survive the latest pendulum swing.

Unfortunately, the guinea worm ended up on RFK jr’s brain.

Carter helped end the stagflation that began in 1973. He lowered the budget deficit, brokered the Camp David Accords, and helped create 9.8 million new jobs. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis GDP grew 2.8% annually under Carter, compared to 2.3% under Trump.

Thank you for this well researched, informative article, Erin.

I can truly say Jimmy Carter is a jack of all trades and master of all! He tried to eradicate diseases and helped the poor immensely and went overseas to even help, name any former or present that has any interests in voluntary their personal time, none well l give him my sincerest respect and honor in what he…

Very good article, and an unexpected number of educated and respectful responses from my fellow Jalops. Kudos to you all.

“Carter’s most enduring legacy will be this: He tried to leave America a little better than he found it.”

But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.

Terrific article. He was an under-appreciated and forward-thinking man. Sadly we seem to be in just the same type of situation now, when one rational president is about to give way to one that only feeds on American’s greed and hedonism. 

I had some foreign policy disagreements with him. That said, he was the most decent, honest, ethical, moral and law-abiding person to ever serve as the President of the United States. And, while perhaps not the best politician, he was definitely one of the most intelligent to have held that office. Reagan and the…

The government basically cosigned a loan.

You are not wrong, unfortunately. And now they are going to weekend-at-Bernie's Trump for 4 years.

Biden was middle-of-the-road and shone only, because his opponent is a cheese-brained mob boss. President Biden should have made it clear that he will not seek reelection from day 1 and used the time to hand-pick a strong successor.

Long time reader, first time commenter… this is a terrifically researched and written piece. So good that I started reading on my phone then switched to a bigger screen to better absorb it, but when I looked at NY Times on my new device I couldn’t find the article. Then I remembered it was actually on Jalopnik. Chapeau…

I appreciate the link to the article here by Bill McKibben. He is a wonderful scholar on the subject of climate change in the leftist Christian space. He has referenced Carters Christian values and care for the earth in many other podcasts and on his substack.

Reagan’s people communicated with Iran to hold the hostages until after the election, so what’s happening with the feckless Republican Party today is nothing new.

“Carter was the first president to bail out an American automaker, Chrysler, with a $1.5-billion Treasury loan.”

Jimmy Carter was both a good President and a good man through and through. Conversely, there’s not a decent cell in Trump’s body, unless it’s a cancer cell. The “malaise” (a word President Carter never used) of the late 1970s looks pretty good compared to the utter shitshow we’re about to face.

The same people who bitch endlessly about politicians being corrupt and useless are the people who vote for reagan over Carter and trump over Biden, and somehow never make the connection.

The problem with Biden was that in 4 years he never came close to pushing back on the narratives the GOP threw out there about him and his actions. And that’s why he lost.