Jimmy Carter 1924–2024

Jimmy Carter died yesterday at the age of 100, and we are all worse for it. The 39th President has been compared to Joe Biden on numerous occasions, but one thing they both undoubtably had in common was they were disliked by the same party they were members of, to the point where Democrats felt more comfortable allowing the worst Republicans possible to enter the White House over simply defending their own incumbent. A Republican propaganda machine has since done everything possible to convince the public that Carter was among the worst Presidents in American history, but actually looking at the events which unfolded during his time in office, this record is highly unjustified.

The truth is that Carter’s economic woes — what his administration is most infamous for — were due to events largely outside of his control. Ever since Keyes, it had been believed that it was impossible for both unemployment and inflation to rise at the same time. Carter, however, was forced to deal with stagflation — both inflation and increasing unemployment — something nobody even thought could happen until that point. Carter was similarly blamed for an unstable situation in Iran which resulted largely from the United States backing an unpopular authoritarian — Mohammad Reza Pahlavi — since the Second World War, largely due to his father — Reza Shah Pahlavi — wanting to remain neutral in that very conflict along with his…