Jimmy Carter Was Everything Trump Is Not
Carter may not be one of our greatest presidents, but he was honest, incorruptible, and devoted his post-presidency life to serving others – the ultimate antithesis of Trump.
Donald Trump, who values image over reality, complains that America’s flag will fly at half-staff over his inauguration. He thinks it makes him look bad.
Yet Trump has deeper cause for discomfort. The reason for the somber image Americans will see on January 20 creates an extremely unflattering contrast.
Flags over government buildings are flying at half-staff to honor former President Jimmy Carter, who passed away on Dec. 29 at the age of 100. His official state funeral service at Washington National Cathedral takes place Thursday at 10 a.m. ET (15:00 GMT).
As much as anyone could, the peanut farmer-turned-politician represents the antithesis of Trump.
‘A Renaissance Man’ vs. Grifter
Jimmy Carter does not rank among our greatest presidents. A recent survey of historians pegged him 22nd – behind modern counterparts Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, and George H.W. Bush, but ahead of Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, and George W. Bush.
The historians ranked Trump dead last at 45. But that doesn’t capture the divergence of character between the two men.
Carter was pious and prickly, clumsy with allies, sometimes willing to take shortcuts in service of ambition. He never possessed Trump’s gift for showmanship and lost his re-election bid in a landslide.
Yet, for all his shortcomings, Carter was also honest, incorruptible, and omnivorous about amassing information. Trump? He lies relentlessly, cons followers for money and votes, and never bothers to educate himself about basic governing responsibilities.
Biographer Jonathan Alter calls Carter “the first American president since Thomas Jefferson who could fairly claim to be a Renaissance man, or at least a world-class autodidact.” It’s exhausting just to read Alter’s list of skills the late president amassed over a lifetime beginning and ending in rural Georgia:
“…Farmer, surveyor, naval officer, electrician, sonar technologist, nuclear engineer, businessman, equipment designer, agronomist, master woodworker, Sunday school teacher, bird dog trainer, arrowhead collector, land-use planner, legislator, door-to-door missionary, governor,…diplomat, fly fisherman, home builder, global health expert, painter, professor, memoirist, poet, novelist, and children’s book author - an incomplete list, as he would be happy to point out.”
Trump, who launched his checkered business career with millions from his father, excels at grifting and golf.
Carter lived his Baptist faith so devoutly that he won support from what later became the Moral Majority. Trump, who hawked "God Bless the USA" bibles for $59.99 during last year's campaign, sees conservative Christians as a huckster sees his marks.
Though he once confessed to having “looked on a lot of women with lust,” Carter was by all accounts faithful to his wife Rosalynn, to whom he was married for 77 years. Last year, a jury convicted Trump of crimes resulting from hush money payments to conceal extra-marital liaisons with two women (which he denied) that took place not long after his third wife had given birth.
After equivocating early in his career, Carter broke with the racism of his native South and diversified the federal judiciary. Once sued by the Justice Department for discriminating against Blacks in apartment rentals, Trump has made racism a linchpin of his campaigns.
As president, Carter placed his peanut farm in a blind trust to avoid conflicts of interest. Throughout Trump’s presidency, his family business harvested revenue from political allies, foreign governments, and US taxpayers.
Carter empowered his vice president to help govern. Trump humiliated and endangered his vice president, standing by while the Jan. 6 insurrections he incited shouted “Hang Mike Pence!”
At great political risk, Carter worked with Senate leaders of both parties to turn control of the Panama Canal over to Panama, improving our relations with Latin America. Trump unabashedly embraces jingoism, musing about snatching back the canal, forcing Denmark to turn over Greenland, and annexing Canada as our 51st state.
Carter pardoned 200,000 draft resisters to heal Vietnam War divisions – “one of the bravest decisions I’ve ever seen a president make,” wounded veteran and former US Sen. Bob Kerrey told Alter. Trump pardoned close associates who had stonewalled prosecutors investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.
After losing to Reagan in Nov. 1980, Carter spent his final weeks as president working to free American hostages held in Iran. After losing to Joe Biden in Nov. 2020, Trump spent his final weeks lying about the outcome and fomenting rebellion against the peaceful transfer of power.
Serving Others vs. Oneself
Carter devoted the longest post-presidency in American history to serving others facing poverty, disease, oppression, and war. Trump serves himself.
At some level, even the narcissistic president-elect recognizes Carter’s virtues. Trump responded to his predecessor’s death with a social media post shocking for the absence of vitriol toward someone who had called him “a disaster.”
“[Carter] worked hard to make America a better place, and for that I give him my highest respect,” wrote Trump, or an aide writing for him. “He was a truly good man.”
Trump couldn’t hold the pose of magnanimity for long. Projecting as usual, he groused days later that Carter’s fellow Democrats want to keep the flag lowered because “they don’t love our country, they only think about themselves.”
John Harwood is the former chief Washington correspondent for CNBC and White House correspondent for CNN. He has interviewed every president from George H.W. Bush to Joe Biden. Sign up for the ‘The Stakes with John Harwood’ to get all of John’s columns in your inbox.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Zeteo.
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A humanitarian and kind man left as a monster remains. It’s almost as if he wanted us to see what good versus evil looks like.