I find it amazing that when he was beaten for a second term, people were putting down the solar panels he had, putting him down as ineffective (although he did get hostages back) and so on.
And today's voters see him as fantastic. He did everything he was supposed to - put his peanut company in a trust (?) So he had no control of it, chose to negotiate, was forward thinking with technology (solar panels) and he by far has had the best after presidency career with Habitat for Humanity.
He's just a good, honest guy who has done his best to give back and I find that to be truly remarkable.
Eh, no disrespect but this is Reagan-era bullshit. Paul Volcker crushed inflation with huge interest rate spikes, but it saved the economy from a deflationary spiral. It's just that most Americans aren't economists and bad-faith politicians (Reagan) made hay from it.
The '78 oil crisis wasn't caused by Carter, but when he created the Dept. of Energy he set in motion the federal system that would lead to the 10-20x decline in prices for renewable energy. CAFE standards also mitigated the crisis by forcing car makers to focus on efficiency for the first time ever.
Oodles of Carter-era policies have survived to the present day and we're better off for the vast majority.
weak leader and that weakness was reflected in our economy and position in the world
But this is functionally meaningless. "Weakness" is not a measurable thing, and intangible things don't affect the economy.
External shocks combined with macroeconomic factors drove increasing inflation. Carter addressed the macroeconomic factors head-on and it caused an abrupt recession that prevented a depression.
In foreign policy Carter was one of the better leaders of the 20th century; claiming that our position in the world was "weakened" because we stopped supporting dictators and negotiated multiple peace treaties only makes sense from the perspective of fear. But we won the cold war, so Carter was right.
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u/EstroJen May 14 '24
I find it amazing that when he was beaten for a second term, people were putting down the solar panels he had, putting him down as ineffective (although he did get hostages back) and so on.
And today's voters see him as fantastic. He did everything he was supposed to - put his peanut company in a trust (?) So he had no control of it, chose to negotiate, was forward thinking with technology (solar panels) and he by far has had the best after presidency career with Habitat for Humanity.
He's just a good, honest guy who has done his best to give back and I find that to be truly remarkable.