I believe that Jimmy Carter was a terrible and ineffective US President, but also that he was hands down the best human being that has ever been a US President. I sometimes struggle with the implications of this.
Show this thread
-
Two thoughts: Carter got a bad rap in that he was the last president associated with the orthodox post-war policy that had become ineffectual by the 70s, but a lot of the reforms that we associate with Reagan started under Carter. 1/2
But also, Carter was a bit of a moral scold, which is fine. But when you scold people for personal failures without providing the policy responses that would allow people to address their “crisis of conscious,” the electorate isn’t going to react fondly
-
-
Evaluating presidents is really hard. Deregulating the airlines was huge, but the value created from it was accumulated mostly over the decades after he left office. And maybe it would have happened anyway without him!
-
Reagan’s deregulation would have looked very different. Perhaps, Braniff, Eastern, and PanAm might still be with us? That would be terrible.
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.