Former President Jimmy Carter passed away on Sunday at the age of 100. Widely hailed as America’s “best ex-president” for his humanitarian efforts in the decades after he served as president, Carter’s legacy is, to be sure, a complicated one, given the tumultuous time in which he was president.
Indeed, when many think of the Carter years, they think of the long gas lines, stagflation, the “malaise speech” and, at the end, the Iran hostage crisis. Others think of his pardon of Vietnam War draft dodgers or the Camp David Accord. It was an extraordinary rise — a peanut farmer from Georgia who made it to the White House, the only president from his state.
Like any president, judgments of his legacy and record will be filtered through ideological lenses and presentist biases. There’s no doubt, though, that he was overwhelmingly rejected in the 1980 presidential election. Ronald Reagan carried 44 states and 489 electoral votes to Carter’s six states and 49 electoral votes. And that was after he faced a tough primary challenge from Sen. Ted Kennedy.
That he was president during such a difficult time and was ousted by someone who would be a conservative icon has made him largely a punchline for the right. Meanwhile, on the left, his overwhelming defeat and his much more centrist philosophy has made him a less appealing figure to elevate as a model to emulate.
Certainly, there are many things he did as president that we don’t remember fondly. For instance, the fact that he established the federal Department of Education, which hasn’t done anything to help improve the state of education in America.
However, Carter also kickstarted a deregulatory push that set the stage for the economic boom enjoyed under Reagan and for years to come.
“Of all our weapons against inflation, competition is the most powerful,” he said, sounding not at all like some run-of-the-mill progressive.
As president, Carter lifted price controls on oil and gas, signed legislation deregulating railroads, trucking and airlines, and lifted a Prohibition-era ban on the freedom of Americans to brew their own beer at home.
Thanks to those efforts, America eventually overcame the oil crisis, had a much more dynamic supply chain, more transportation options and, yes, better beer.
On the civil liberties front, Carter was ahead of his time on many issues. As president, he was supportive of decriminalizing marijuana, staunchly opposed California’s anti-gay Briggs Initiative and held accountable abusive federal law enforcement authorities.
“The Carter Justice Department prosecuted several top FBI officials, including the former acting director of the agency, for ordering illegal wiretaps and break-ins under COINTELPRO,” notes Gene Healy from the Cato Institute in a piece reviewing the Carter presidency for Reason Magazine.
While any president must be understood in his full context, Carter deserves much more credit for the good he actually did as president.
Carter’s courageous post-presidential efforts to eradicate disease and to build much-needed housing have no doubt inspired many Americans to do their part to volunteer and help the less advantaged both at home and abroad. May he rest in peace.
