The past is another country, and it’s hard to understand Jimmy Carter (who died yesterday at age 100) without understanding the very weird decade that thrust him into prominence.
The cultural milieu of the 1970s usually gets squeezed down to “disco” and “cocaine,” but there was an awful lot more (both good and bad) going on then. It was one of the greatest decades for movies ever, but with a focus on unlikable antiheroes, urban decay and downer endings (Dog Day Afternoon, Taxi Driver). The reaction to that extreme brought us Rocky and Star Wars (and, speaking of cocaine, The Star Wars Holiday Special). There was a tremendous ferment in music, from progressive to punk rock, very little of which was getting played on the radio, while things like “Muskrat Love” and “Disco Duck” topped the charts.
Traditional religious belief was in decline, but people flocked to see Satan in movie theaters and it was a golden age for all sorts of crackpot cults and pseudoscience.
Politically, the unpopular (though not as unpopular as depicted in the movies) Vietnam War had come to an end with America pulling out, South Vietnam collapsing, and the genocidal Khmer Rouge coming to power in Cambodia. Democrats had controlled both the House and Senate for all but four years since FDR’s election. Watergate had taken out Nixon, but not before he had carried 49 states in crushing George McGovern.
The 1976 Democratic Presidential Primary was a different kettle of fish. Scoop Jackson was considered an early favorite, but faded. Carter, seen as moderate centrist in contrast to McGovern’s far left “acid, amnesty and abortion” vibes, won a plurality at the Iowa caucuses. George Wallace, still a segregationist (don’t let Democrats get away with their “the parties switched places/southern strategy” myth) dominated the Mississippi caucuses. From then on out, Carter dominated the primaries, distancing himself from Wallace, Jackson, Arizona Rep. Mo Udall and California’s Jerry “Governor Moonbeam” Brown. Then he beat Gerald R. Ford, the first un-elected Vice President to ascend to the Oval Office, after he survived a brutal primary challenge from Ronald Reagan, who hadn’t jumped into the race until September of 1975.
Once in office, Carter, a nasty piece of work masquerading as a plaster saint, proved unequal to the multiple challenges besetting the nation. Post-Bretton Woods inflation resisted all attempts to tame it, and was soon joined by high unemployment rates, hitting ordinary Americans with a one-two punch of stagflation that Keynesian economists assured us was impossible.
In foreign policy, Carter’s supine weakness encouraged the fall of the Shah and the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Republic in Iran, which led to Iranian hostage crisis, all of which encouraged the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan.
Even beyond policy, Carter seemed snakebit. “Lust in my heart,” Billy beer, the jogging collapse, the “malaise” speech. And, let’s not forget, the killer rabbit. Even nature seemed to have it in for Carter.
All of that combined to make Carter vulnerable enough to lose soundly to Ronald Reagan in 1980.
It must be said that late in his term, Carter would finally embrace some policies that would pave the way for Reagan’s success: Rebuilding the military, deregulating significant segments of the economy, and appointing Paul Volcker to the federal reserve.
I suppose I’m supposed to talk about his charitable work in his retirement, but Carter’s primary traits seemed to be that he got both crankier and more leftwing as time went on, and seemingly more bitter over how America had rejected him in 1980.
Carter’s longest lasting legacies will probably be the Camp David Accords (which cost the American taxpayer billions in subsidies to Egypt and Israel every year), and the USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23), a nuclear powered fast attack/electronic warfare submarine (Carter served in a submarine prior to his political career).
100 is a good, long run, especially given that the last year was spent in hospice care. Many a wag online has suggested that God kept Carter alive long enough to see Trump win a second term.
Sic Transit Gloria.
Tags: 1970s, 1976 Presidential Race, Communism, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Gerald R. Ford, inflation, Jimmy Carter, Obituary, Ronald Reagan, Soviet Union
What is meant by “Post-Bretton Woods inflation”?
I only learned about Bretron Woods in recent years, after watching 100s of Peter Zeihan videos. From watching PZ and reading what i have, I had the impression Bretton Woods defined the post WWII order (and the Cold War order), as well as the globalist order from 1990 on (now declining).
So reading “post” referring to the 70s, I’m curious.
Any relation to leaving the gold standard in the early 1970s? From what I gather the economic chaos of leaving the gold standard is STILL GOING ON, but I’m no expert.
To expand on my last sentence, see the dozens and dozens of charts on the website “WTF Happened in 1971?” https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
Yes, the severing of the link between gold and the dollar was the end of the Bretton Woods system.
…and every year since, the current account has been in deficit and the federal budget deficit has widened. Renouncing dollar redemption finished what FDR started and US monetary inflation got exported to the entire world.
“…Carter, a nasty piece of work masquerading as a plaster saint…”
In defense of the man, his maladroit political maneuvering yielded eight years of Ronald Reagan but his false piety quickly became the working model for all subsequent Democrat Presidents.
One can only hope Brandon will join him soon after 12 Noon on 1/20–don’t want Kamala in the history books as #47 even for a day.
“I suppose I’m supposed to talk about his charitable work in his retirement, but Carter’s primary traits seemed to be that he got both crankier and more leftwing as time went on, and seemingly more bitter over how America had rejected him in 1980.”
Carter spent his post Presidency fluffing Yasser Arafat, Hafez al-Assad, Hugo Chavez, and the Sandinistas. His Carter Center certified stolen elections across the globe.
[…] BATTLESWARM: Jimmy Carter And The Weirdness Of The 1970s. […]
The one thing Carter did right:
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/jimmy-carter-remembered-hero-sparked-craft-beer-industry
Of course if he hadn’t done so Reagan probably would have.
It has been my understanding that Breton Woods only pegged the signatories’ currencies to a nominal gold standard, and that in practice they were instead pegged to each other with the gold not actually making an appearance. And that most of the central banks involved noticed this and slowly (and quietly) sold off the gold that notionally backed their currencies. This made the repudiation of Breton Woods more a recognition that the ‘gold standard’ it represented didn’t actually exist, and allowed the signatories more freedom in how they manipulated their own economies, for better and worse.
His foreign policy was ‘more’ than just Iran. He was responsible for the Cuban Mariel boat flotillas. He also assisted the Sandinistas in their attempt to over throw Somoza, which resulted in the Sandinistas’ Ortega holding power to this day. He also was responsible for the chaos in Haiti during Baby Doc Duvalier’s rule. And in 2004 his Carter Foundation stated that the Hugo Chavez recall elections were authentic and not corrupt, thus given 20+ years of miserable and false legitimacy to Chavez and Maduro. His foreign policy is the prime example of the useful idiot.
“Breton Woods only pegged the signatories’ currencies to a nominal gold standard, and that in practice they were instead pegged to each other with the gold not actually making an appearance.”
The “peg” is what caused European currencies to be overvalued. They were desperately in need of American dollars and were eager to depreciate their currency so as to increase exports as a means of getting dollars in exchange.
This tended to overvalue the dollar. When LBJ debt financed the Viet Nam war, it led to monetary inflation in the US. The dollar being overvalued internationally and suffering depreciation domestically became vulnerable to a “bank run”.
The French had become worried about the franc’s weak exchange value and were eager to balance the budget as a means of shoring up its purchasing power.
Thus, the strengthening franc and weakening dollar led to French demands that Nixon honor the Bretton Woods agreement and redeem French dollar holdings for gold,
Nixon refused and so defaulted on the Bretton Woods agreement. France retaliated by refusing to exchange dollars for francs during the Carter stagflation era, This left many American air travelers stranded in France, which required US State Department intervention to extract them.
Harry Dexter White, one of FDR’s several in-house NKVD agents, dominated the Bretton Woods Conference. His Soviet masters wanted a fixed exchange rate system managed by an IMF to ease the USSR’s abrogation of Lend-Lease debt and destroy the Nationalist Chinese financially.
The Bretton Woods exchange rates actually used the U.S. dollar as a substitute for the prewar gold standard. It built on the fiction that the U.S. dollar was a gold standard currency. That fiction came to a final conclusion when Georges Pompidou sent a French cruiser full of dollars to the United States for redemption into gold during 1971. President Nixon closed the gold window on August 15, 1971.
Carter’s Presidency was a disaster, and his predilection for cozying up to despots and dictators was bizarre considering his Christian values.
I remember having a real argument with my Dad over the Panama Canal deal. He was furious that Carter was giving it to Panama, and I told him we might as well since Carter wouldn’t fight to keep it. I was working the night the Iranian Hostage operation failed, and the news broke about 4am. My first thought was “Why didn’t we contract the job to Israel?” But it DID get us Delta and Seal Team 6.