Jimmy Carter

"I believe that anyone can be successful in life, regardless of natural talent or the environment within which we live. This is not based on measuring success by human competitiveness for wealth, possessions, influence, and fame, but adhering to God's standards of truth, justice, humility, service, compassion, forgiveness, and love."

"Of the several hundred visitors who attend my Sunday lessons each week, only about 15 percent happen to be Baptists. When I take a few minutes to let my class identify themselves, there are usually about a half dozen "mainline" Protestant denominations represented, often accompanied by Roman Catholics, Amish, Mennonites, Mormons, Quakers, and Seventh-day Adventists. Our church welcomes Jews, Muslims, and other non-Christian worshipers, and we encourage everyone to take part in the discussions. They are quite interesting and helpful to me, and over the years I have acquired an insight into the beliefs and interests of many other religious people."

"There is a remarkable trend toward fundamentalism in all religions — including the different denominations of Christianity as well as Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam. Increasingly, true believers are inclined to begin a process of deciding: "Since I am aligned with God, I am superior and my beliefs should prevail, and anyone who disagrees with me is inherently wrong," and the next step is "inherently inferior." The ultimate step is "subhuman," and then their lives are not significant. That tendency has created, throughout the world, intense religious conflicts. Those Christians who resist the inclination toward fundamentalism and who truly follow the nature, actions, and words of Jesus Christ should encompass people who are different from us with our care, generosity, forgiveness, compassion, and unselfish love. It is not easy to do this. It is a natural human inclination to encapsulate ourselves in a superior fashion with people who are just like us — and to assume that we are fulfilling the mandate of our lives if we just confine our love to our own family or to people who are similar and compatible. Breaking through this barrier and reaching out to others is what personifies a Christian and what emulates the perfect example that Christ set for us."

"A Contemplation of What Has Been Created, and Why I tried to fathom nature's laws From twirling models and schoolroom sketches Of molecules and parts of atoms, And nearly believed- but then came quarks, Bosons, leptons, antiparticles, Opposite turning mirror images, Some that perforate the earth, Never swerving from their certain paths. I've listened to conflicting views About the grand and lesser worlds: A big bang where it all began; Of curved, ever-expanding space; Perhaps tremendous whirling yo-yos That will someday reach the end Of cosmic gravity and then Fly back to where they can restart Or cataclysmically blow apart- And then, and then the next event. And is that all an accident?"

"For instance, I have never believed that Jesus Christ would approve either abortions or the death penalty, but I obeyed such Supreme Court decisions to the best of my ability, at the same time attempting to minimize what I considered to be their adverse impact."

"The government and the church are two different realms of service, and those in political office have to face a subtle but important difference between the implementation of the high ideals of religious faith and public duty."

"There is a strong religious commitment to the sanctity of human life, but, paradoxically, some of the most fervent protectors of microscopic stem cells are the most ardent proponents of the death penalty."

"Some devout Christians are among the most fervent advocates of the death penalty, contradicting Jesus Christ and justifying their belief on an erroneous interpretation of Hebrew Scriptures. "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," their most likely response, overlooks the fact that this was promulgated by Moses as a limitation- a prohibition against taking both eyes or all of an offender's teeth in retribution."

"Eight years before he became vice president, Richard Cheney spelled out this premise in his "Defense Strategy for the 1990s." Either before or soon after 9/11, he and his close associates chose Iraq as the first major target, apparently to remove a threat to Israel and to have Iraq serve as our permanent military, economic, and political base in the Middle East."

"Formerly admired almost universally as the preeminent champion of human rights, the United States now has become one of the foremost targets of respected international organizations concerned about these basic principles of democratic life. Some of our actions are similar to those of abusive regimes that we have historically condemned."

"It is apparent that prisoners of war are among the most vulnerable of people. Not only are they completely under the control of their captors, but in a time of conflict, the hatred and brutality of the battlefield are very likely to be mirrored within military prison walls."

"The authenticity and universal applicability of these guarantees were never questioned by a democratic power — until recently, and by America! Instead of honoring the historic restraints, our political leaders decided to violate them, using the excuse that we are at war against terrorism. It is obvious that the Geneva Conventions were designed specifically to protect prisoners of war, not prisoners of peace."

"Aside from the humanitarian aspects, it is well known that, under excruciating torture, a prisoner will admit almost any suggested crime. Such confessions are, of course, not admissible in trials in civilized nations. The primary goal of torture or the threat of torture is not to obtain convictions for crimes, but to engender and maintain fear. Some of our leaders have found that it is easy to forgo human rights for those who are considered to be subhuman, or "enemy combatants.""

"With massive arsenals still on hair-trigger alert, a global holocaust is just as possible now, through mistakes or misjudgments, as it was during the depths of the Cold War."

"I never felt that my dedication to military service was a violation of my faith in Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace."

"For me personally and for most other Americans, this commitment to peace and diplomacy does not imply a blind or total pacifism. There are times when war is justified, and for many centuries the moral criteria for violence have been carefully delineated."

"When combined, the small individual contributors of caring, friendship, forgiveness, and love, each of us different from our next-door neighbors, can form a phalanx, an army, with great capability."

"It is good to know that our nation's defenses against a conventional attack are impregnable, and an imperative that America remain vigilant against threats from terrorists. But as is the case with a human being, admirable characteristics of a nation are not defined by size and physical prowess. What are some of the other attributes of a superpower? Once again, they might very well mirror those of a person. These would include a demonstrable commitment to truth, justice, peace, freedom, humility, human rights, generosity, and the upholding of other moral values."

"I guess my biggest failure was not getting reelected. [The loss taught me] not to ever let American hostages be held for 444 days in a foreign country without extracting them. I did the best I could, but I failed."

"I obviously hoped that everything that I found would make a difference, … It ended up being way behind my wildest dreams."

"America does not at the moment have a functioning democracy."

"I have become convinced that the most serious and unaddressed worldwide challenge is the deprivation and abuse of women and girls, largely caused by a false interpretation of carefully selected religious texts and a growing tolerance of violence and warfare."

"It would be a fruitless search to look through the Scriptures and find one single instance where Jesus did not treat women either equal or superior to men."

"It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members. So, now we’ve just seen a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over. ... At the present time the incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody that is already in Congress has a great deal more to sell, to an avid contributor."

"We've become now an oligarchy instead of a democracy. And I think that's been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards of the American political system that I've ever seen in my life."

"I think I would choose Trump, which may surprise some of you, but the reason is Trump has proven already that he's completely malleable. I don't think he has any fixed opinions that he would really go to the White House and fight for. Ted Cruz is not malleable. He has far right-wing policies, in my opinion, that would be pursued aggressively if and when he would become president."

"It's very likely Hillary Clinton will still prevail in the Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders, though, has had a remarkable showing, particularly among young people."

"I think he’s a disaster … In human rights and taking care of people and treating people equal. … I think there’s been an attitude of ignorance toward the truth by President Trump."

"I normalized diplomatic relations with China in 1979. Since 1979, do you know how many times China has been at war with anybody? None. And we have stayed at war. (Carter said the United States is) the most warlike nation in the history of the world... How many miles of high-speed railroad do we have in this country?... We have wasted, I think, $3 trillion (military spending) ... China has not wasted a single penny on war, and that's why they're ahead of us. In almost every way... And I think the difference is if you take $3 trillion and put it in American infrastructure, you'd probably have $2 trillion left over. We'd have high-speed railroad. We'd have bridges that aren't collapsing. We'd have roads that are maintained properly. Our education system would be as good as that of, say, South Korea or Hong Kong.... I wasn't comparing my country adversely to China... I was just pointing that out because I happened to get a phone call last night."

"I voted for Bernie the last time. But one of the major factors I have in my mind is who can beat Trump. Because I think it would be a disaster to have four more years of Trump."

"I still have complete confidence that the United States, if given time, will resolve its problems. We have always been able to do that in the past, whenever we faced difficult questions. The United States still has that innate strength."

"Rosalynn and I are troubled by the violence at the U.S. Capitol today. This is a national tragedy and is not who we are as a nation. Having observed elections in troubled democracies worldwide, I know that we the people can unite to walk back from this precipice to peacefully uphold the laws of our nation, and we must. We join our fellow citizens in praying for a peaceful resolution so our nation can heal and complete the transfer of power as we have for more than two centuries."

"Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished."

"If you don't want your tax dollars to help the poor, then stop saying that you want a country based on Christian values. Because you don't."

"Jimmy Carter represents all that is good and decent in public life. And Marjorie Taylor Greene represents all that is sinister and despicable in public life."

"Who ever decided that Americans were so bad off in the seventies anyway? From the right-wing revisionist propaganda that has become accepted as fact, you'd think that Americans under President Carter were suffering through something like the worst of the Weimar Republic combined with the Siege of Leningrad. The truth is that on a macroeconomic level, the difference between the Carter era and the Reagan era was minimal. For instance, economic growth during the Carter Administration averaged 2.8 percent annually, while under Reagan, from 1982 to 1989, growth averaged 3.2 percent. Was it really worth killing ourselves over that extra .4 percent of growth? For a lucky few, yes. On the other key economic gauge, unemployment, the Carter years were actually better than Reagan's, averaging 6.7 pervent annually during his "malaise-stricken" term as compared to an average 7.3 percent unemployment rate during the glorious eight-year reign of Ronald Reagan. Under Carter, people worked less, got far more benefits, and the country grew almost the same average annual rate as Reagan. On the other hand, according to the Statistical Abstract of the United States for 1996, under Reagan life got worse for those who had it worse: the number of people below the poverty line increased in almost every year from 1981 (31.8 million) to 1992 (39.3 million). And yet, we are told America was in decline until Reagan came to power and that the country was gripped by this ethereal malaise. Where was this malaise? Whose America was in decline? The problem with the 1970s wasn't that America was in decline, it was that the plutocracy felt itself declining. And in the plutocrats' eyes, their fortunes are synonymous with America's."

"He started the Carter Center and has been involved in more than 100 negotiations on elections or observing elections, and because of this there has been a huge American presence in the world. Because of this, he won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize. No one has done as much in their post-presidential years."

"The situations of the Wilmington 10, and the Charlotte 3, are very small symptoms of the monstrous and continuing wrong for which you, as the elected leader, are now responsible…I must add, in honor, that I write to you because I love our country: And you, in my lifetime, are the only president to whom I would have written."

"No one's going to clarify the situation for black people. They know that very well-the situation of the kids in the street who have no jobs and no future. We have to articulate that necessity because Mr. Carter can't do it. He never sees those people. Those people are numbers in the bulk of the American population. I suppose that what I'm suggesting is that we're going to have to create the help."

"Reagan finally won the nomination by promoting "Reaganomics", an economic program based on the theory that the government could lower taxes while increasing spending and at the same time actually reduce the federal budget by sacrificing a live chicken by the light of a full moon. Bush charged that this amounted to "voo-doo economics," which got him into hot water until he explained that what he meant to say was "doo-doo economics." Satisfied, Reagan made Bush his vice-presidential nominee. The turning point in the election campaign came during the October 8 debate between Reagan and Carter, when Reagan's handlers came up with a shrewd strategy: No matter what Carter said, Reagan would respond by shaking his head in a sorrowful manner and saying: "There you go again." This was brilliant, because (a) it required the candidate to remember only four words, and (b) he delivered them so believably that everything Carter said seemed like a lie. If Carter had stated that the Earth was round, Reagan would have shaken his head, saying, "There you go again," and millions of voters would have said: "Yeah! What does Carter think we are? Stupid?"

"Religion always functions best at the margins of society and not in the councils of power, and I think Jimmy Carter’s career illustrates that beautifully ... He doesn’t have to worry about getting the approval from Congress on an initiative in Africa on river blindness. He’s not tethered by political considerations any longer."

"The Carter administration set a goal of deriving 20 percent of U.S. energy needs from such renewable sources by the turn of the century. Today, the U.S. gets a mere 7 percent of its energy from renewables, the bulk of that from the massive hydroelectric dams constructed in the middle of the 20th century. Solar thermal and photovoltaic technology combined provide less than 0.1 percent."

"Throughout his career he invariably found himself defending tyrants and dictators at the expense of their oppressed peoples, not because he was insensitive but because he was confused."

"Mr. Carter always subscribed to what my friend Michael Scroccaro calls 'Underdogma,' a knew-jerk reaction to champion the cause of the underdog however immoral the party. Poverty dictates virtue and weakness dictates righteousness."

"Carter had the attitude of a Calvinist white man's burden regarding politics. He wasn't a good politician."

"At first glance, it may seem even stranger to compare the Manhattan real estate developer to a mild-mannered Georgia peanut farmer instead, and a president with serial marriages and allegations of sexual improprieties with a monogamous, Sunday school-teaching Southern Baptist. But politically, Trump and Carter have more in common than one might think, and the comparison goes well beyond Trump’s recent attempt to broker peace between Israel and the United Arab Emirates as Carter did with Israel and Egypt. Indeed, if recent polls hold, their ultimate political fates will be more alike than different, forever united in history as one-term presidents who were largely unable to rise to the challenges of their day. When Jimmy Carter won the presidency in 1976, his victory was hailed as a triumph of the outsider. No governor had been elected president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, and with the exception of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the White House had generally been occupied by senators and former vice presidents who might best be described as "Washington insiders." No wonder, in a nation reeling from Watergate and Nixon’s subsequent pardon, voters looked for leadership without the stench of the swamp. Carter’s close-fought victory in the Electoral College reflected his ability to attract Southern Democrats, who now leaned Republican in presidential elections, to his side and produced an electoral map that hadn’t been seen since 1960—and hasn’t been seen since his victory. (Clinton, the next Democratic president after Carter, managed to win a few states in the Deep South, but the shift to Carter in 1976 was largely temporary.) The region voted for Reagan and Bush—and more recently against Obama—as it became reliably Republican at the presidential level. And in the lead-up to Donald Trump in 2016, the electoral map remained largely consistent. In short, Carter was the right person at the right time to draw enough of those voters back into the Democratic tent to win election. Flash back to 2016, and we see Trump also realigning the American electoral map, making inroads into working-class Midwestern states like Michigan and Wisconsin that hadn’t voted for a Republican in a presidential election since the 1980s. As with Carter, Americans elected Donald Trump as an “anti-establishment outsider” who promised to “drain the swamp” and change the way conventional Washington does business—messaging that his campaign is still using as an incumbent in 2020. Trump’s 304-227 victory in the Electoral College was similarly narrow to Carter’s 297-240, and whether he will be able to replicate this map in 2020 remains to be seen."

"As we’re seeing in real time, Trump’s presidency will be singularly characterized by his ability (or inability) to rise to the challenges that now threaten his time in office—in much the same way that Carter’s electoral success ultimately depended on his handling of the Iran hostage crisis and the economic difficulties of his day. Like Carter, Trump is running for reelection with an economy in recession. One of the most critical difficulties faced by Carter in the 1980 campaign was Reagan’s question, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Rather few can answer “yes” to that today—and the same was true for Carter. At first, Carter’s response to the recession received high marks from voters. His now infamous “malaise speech” in July 1979, criticized in years since, was viewed overwhelmingly positively at the time. Carter’s poll numbers rebounded such that by the start of 1980, he led presumptive Republican nominee Ronald Reagan by more than 30 percentage points in some polls. Much of the Trump presidency tells a similar story. Trump never had the same high approval ratings, but for perhaps even longer than Carter, he seemed to be well-positioned for reelection. And despite a “blue wave” in the 2018 midterms, Trump’s record on the economy pointed toward victory in 2020. He oversaw a bullish stock market, record low unemployment, and the strongest economic expansion since at least the mid-1990s—all traditional indicators of strength. But Trump’s fortunes changed dramatically this past spring, first with the rise of the novel coronavirus, and then with the development of civil and racial unrest in America’s cities. In both cases, his actions—or with respect to coronavirus, his inaction—only exacerbated these problems and threatened his chances of a victory in November. Teargassing peaceful protesters to secure a photo op for evangelicals, then sending heavily armed federal law enforcement officers to Portland, Ore., echoes Carter’s failed attempt at rescuing the hostages—only to have things blow up in his face."

"Carter and Trump’s inability to respond effectively to their respective crises also stems from an unwillingness to engage with Congress and develop the relationships necessary to sway the legislature their way. While both had big plans for changing Washington—for Carter, it was energy and welfare reform; for Trump, a smattering of new trade deals, building the Wall and repealing Obamacare—neither mastered the levers of Congress and how to pull them to their advantage. Ultimately, they were stymied when crises struck and all the wheels of government needed to turn together. The seeds of these late-term failures were sown early in their terms. Trump and Carter both had a few, early successes. Both were able to deregulate massive swaths of American industry, and both signed tax cuts in the second year of their administration. Carter—much more of a fiscal hawk than the current President—aimed for a balanced budget but, like Trump, also faced a breakdown within his own party over health care. More often, though, Carter struggled to advance his domestic legislative priorities. He began his term with his party in control of both houses of the legislature, but Congress rejected his welfare reform plans and Democratic leaders famously scuttled his plans to wind down a collection of what he saw as pork-barrel water projects in their districts. Later, they would even override his veto of a bill that repealed oil import fees, the first time they had done so for a majority party president in 28 years. Likewise, when Donald Trump took office with Republican control of the House and Senate, he began hitting walls right away. Despite years of promises, the party was not able to take action on rolling back Obamacare, the signature achievement of Trump’s predecessor. Trump was not able to sell the issue to the public or members of Congress, and the majority-led bill famously went down in the Senate when John McCain cast the deciding vote against it. Trump’s much-vaunted border wall also failed to gain traction despite unified party rule, and he even tried to shift funds from the military budget to get his way. Unlike Carter, Trump quickly gave up working with Congress. In discussions over the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and later with Covid relief, Trump had Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin take over the role of chief negotiator with Congress, relegating the president to the sidelines. But no matter the amount of effort they put in, both presidents ended up acting largely alone until they hit existential threats—whether hostage-takers or a virus—that required seamless coordination among power centers. The failures that followed were almost predictable, whether an unsuccessful rescue attempt or an uncontrolled pandemic."

"The country’s tilt against Trump may have come later in the campaign than it did against Carter, but the end result looks likely to be the same. And if that is the case, then the legacy of the 2020 election might have implications far beyond our current times. If Trump is our generation’s Carter, then 2020 just might look more like 1980 and make 78-year-old Joe Biden the Ronald Reagan of our times—a broadly popular figure rising out of the malaise and establishing a legacy for his party for the next generation. A strange turn of events, no doubt. After all, although history rarely repeats, it may yet again rhyme."

"Today -- and I'm not making this up -- Jimmy Carter endorsed Donald Trump. Here's what Jimmy Carter said: the reason is Donald's views are malleable, he has no core beliefs on anything... This Cruz guy actually believes this stuff. I want the video, and I am going to pay to air Jimmy Carter attacking me."