When I was young he was President of the United States. At the time I knew almost nothing about what that meant, and for whatever he did to keep a world in which children could be blessedly ignorant of politics, I thank him.
It is also due to him, at least in part, that I grew up in Reagan's America. That too is a matter of some gratitude he is partially owed.
De Mortuis nihil nisi bonum.
8 comments:
I was an 18 yr old airman stationed in Germany when Carter was the CiC. What i remember most about President Carter was that a govt. shutdown was in the works and we were told we wouldn't be getting paid.
Did you?
His work with Habitat for Humanity is worthy of recognition. For all his flaws, he tried to help people help themselves.
LittleRed1
I voted for him in 1976, but in 1980 voted third party. The Carter Center, to its credit, called fraud on the recent election in Venezuela. Ironically, defenders of the Maduro regime brought up the Carter Center's statement from years ago about the high quality of the Venezuelan electoral process. Not surprisingly, defenders of Maduro ignored the Carter Center's 2024 statement about the 2024 Venezuela election. (For example, the Maduro regime did not put online the results for the individual voting centers--the Actas--which by law they were supposed to do.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOHrOegiF10
Yes we did. The shutdown was averted after 17 days, just long enough for us to sweat a little bit. It was a big deal for me and my peers for a couple of weeks.
Well, as above so below; his death means that he has forced a lot of military personnel off of holiday block leave early to attend to his funeral. However, he probably didn’t set out to inconvenience them either.
Carter-Reagan was my first Presidental vote. Carter's Presidency also introduced me to the concept of agreeing to disagree about political matters as I listened to my father and other adults discuss him, as well as over time recognizing that arguments over Presidental worth and stature are highly contingent.
In terms of elections, it seems to me that Carter's surprise nomination in 1976 (he ran 2nd to 'uncommitted' in Iowa) and then surprise 1980 loss to Reagan, bookended by McGovern and Mondale being humiliated by the two most hated (at the time) Republicans largely set the Democrats on the path to manipulating their nomination process to ensure the 'right' candidate is nominated, which has a direct line to their current insistence that it's only democracy when the 'right' candidate wins an election.
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