With the death of Jimmy Carter, America’s 39th president, on the mind of the nation and the world right now, decency might just make a comeback.
However, if you’ve been paying attention over the past year or so, you might be in serious doubt as to whether America will make it to her 250th birthday intact. Or at least in the America those of us of a certain age know and love.
Credit: handout
Credit: handout
If you’ve been watching MAGA fight defending Vivek Ramaswamy from Elon Musk on X for the past few days, you understand what I am getting at. The two men President-Elect Donald Trump said will lead his Department of Government Efficiency efforts come Jan. 20 have been attacking one another over H1B visas, who is more educated (white Americans or immigrants from India), who is more qualified in tech professions, and whether Americans are lazy, know-it-alls who raise our kids to be entitled and weak.
As the new year beings and with the inauguration of a new president a few weeks away, we should focus on what renowned political strategist and pollster Larry Sabato said about Carter’s legacy: “You know, back then I think we cared a lot more about virtue in high office. Quite obviously, without getting into details, we do not care about that anymore.”
The bar has been lowered consistently by the incivility in politics. Name-calling, casting aspersions and even threats of violence have become commonplace. Sabato’s point was that character once mattered in the U.S. presidency. President Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard M. Nixon in the wake of Watergate was seen as letting the rogue politicians run wild and get a pass in ways the rest of the citizenry never could. Sound familiar?
Almost 50% of American voters chose a convicted felon, former celebrity TV host and real estate mogul with a host of personal and financial scandals dating back more than 40 years to be president. They chose him over the sitting vice president who had none of those character issues or scandals in her background. It was and is a very revealing fact about who we are and who the electorate has become.
Our charge now, especially over the next two years as we celebrate 250 years of being the world’s beacon, is to remain confident.
Carter said it best in his famous “crisis of confidence” speech in the summer of 1979:
“I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy. I do not mean our political and civil liberties. They will endure. And I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might. The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our Nation. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.”
This crisis of confidence was fully realized and, some might say, metastasized in the 2024 campaign. I think that was Sabato’s point: character and virtue were thrown aside, despite John Adams’s warning that the American presidency and government must be occupied by “moral and virtuous men.” Voters thought the economy was bad, crime was high, housing was scarce, and that the price of eggs, milk and gas was too high. People did not feel confident in America’s strength or our security here at home. Confidence in America would mean that we recognize when the economy is good (President Joe Biden did better with the U.S. economy after the pandemic than any other leader.) Confidence in America would mean that we don’t fear our neighbor and we believe the FBI statistics that show crime is abating. Confidence in America would mean we understand that the president can do little to lower grocery prices.
We must also reconsider and reimagine how we define “freedom.” Freedom for who? Some of us or all of us? Freedom for rich capitalists such as Musk to buy our elections with unlimited spending. Freedom to threaten the free press or citizens with whom we disagree? Freedom over our bodies as women?
Finally, we need to rediscover our purpose and promise. We need to understand that we are a center-right country. We are neither liberal nor conservative. Black nor white. Religious nor agnostic. Gay or straight. We are all those things combined. We are a melting pot of ideas and viewpoints. As Carter said way back in 1979, when I was in elementary school, “We must take the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our Nation and ourselves.”
Common purpose, compromise, restoration of American values — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
These are the questions we must dare to ask. And we must work together, despite our differences, to answer them as we Americans always have. And I pray to God we always will.
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