A President Ahead of His Time: Jimmy Carter Enters Hospice as the Best Ex-President in History
The Carter Center said Saturday that former President Jimmy Carter has entered home hospice care.
The charity created by the 98-year-old former president said on Twitter that after a series of short hospital stays, Carter “decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention."
It said he has the full support of his medical team and family, which “asks for privacy at this time and is grateful for the concern shown by his many admirers.”
If someone had to pick a “president” who most embodied the opposite of Donald Trump, Jimmy Carter, another one-term president, would likely be the most obvious choice.
Tough as the nails he endlessly pounded.
I could spend all day making brutal comparisons to Trump, but this will be the last one. Trump doesn’t embody this nation. The problem is that Jimmy Carter didn’t embody this nation, not then, but closer now.
Jimmy Carter has always been too mature, too foresighted, too serious, too earnest, and too generous for a country that too often exhibits the opposite. Trump refused to divest in his businesses and had open conflicts (Never mind the ones we never saw). Jimmy Carter sold his peanut farm before taking office. He couldn’t be seen as using the Ag bill or emphasizing the healthiness of the great peanut. In short, he was going to be selfless to the point of almost “silly” in order to be worthy of the presidency.
Funny. The peanut farm led some people to see him as a more genuine person. It led others to see him as an unsophisticated, out of his league country bumpkin.
He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with a B.S. and immediately set about to work on the nuclear propulsion system in the new nuclear submarines. Country bumpkin? No, a serious, compassionate scientist.
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The Clairvoyant President:
This article doesn’t need to be long. We all know the story; we just need to remind ourselves and be happy that Carter has lived a life long enough to build hundreds of homes (While “others” golfed hundreds of times), but more importantly, see the concerns that he pushed as presidential policy become obvious international concerns and developing policy.
He had solar panels installed on top of the White House in the late 70s. Ronald Reagan took them off, never to return.
On his second day of office, Carter pardoned all Vietnam draft dodgers. It was a move that was probably unfair to those who dutifully served. But it also put a necessary end to that war. On January 21, 1977, the longest war (at that point) in U.S. history actually ended with reconciliation. Now the nation could put it in the rearview mirror.
He established the Department of Education and the Department of Energy. The Department of Education is always a target of the Right, but some aspects of education - especially then, needed to be federalized.
The genius in establishing the Department of Energy showed his foresight, knowing that we would need to get off fossil fuels (for environmental purposes, smog, pollutants, acid rain, not climate change, not quite yet) and knew that the future would depend on renewable energy and some nuclear. He was, after all, practically a nuclear engineer.
He had worked in race relations and desegregation since the 1960s. He must be thrilled that some areas are finally mature enough to embrace history from Black Americans’ point of view along with traditional history.
He was unparalleled on the international scene. Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, and the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II). All three were moves that were ahead of his time, and yet he punched his way in anyway.
In so many ways, he was too mature for the country over which he served. He was mocked for wearing a sweater at the White House when he ordered the thermostat be turned down to 68 degrees to preserve energy at a time when “energy” itself was being choked off by the Middle East. He tried to encourage people to conserve. Very few Americans were interested in conservation.
His term in office was effectively capped by three major events entirely out of his control. The Iran hostage crisis had no “good” solution, and when U.S. helicopters crashed in the desert - a military failure - he effectively lost. There was also the fact that “stagflation” hit, a combination of inflation and slow economic expansion. Economics is a science that progresses like all other sciences. We now know that the only way to fight out of a bad recession (But economists then did not) is to infuse money into the poorest of citizens, the ones that spend it right away on critical needs. Ironically, there was also the Three Mile Island Nuclear Accident.
The country was depressed. But Carter was a grown-up, and he wasn’t going to sugarcoat things. He would tell the truth that things would be hard, steps needed to be taken, changes made… the “truth” Americans disliked.
Along came Reagan. He would “bring America back,” his new “Vodoo Economics” (As it was appropriately called by another responsible present, George H.W. Bush, Reagan’s Republican opponent and then vice-president.) Yes, trickle DOWN would fix everything. If we just lowered taxes, especially on the wealthy, you really could have it all. Not only were you not responsible for doing anything for your country, but your country was also going to help you, or at least the wealthy - the people who mattered.
Carter never stood a chance for a second election. Ahead of his time, hard changes needed for long-term gain, sacrifice, foresight… too visionary. Carter took the loss in stride and proceeded to become the single greatest ex-president in our lifetimes.
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I am going to simply get out of the way and let Wiki list out the biggest highlights - and they are only that. There is so much more as to what made Carter the man he was post-presidency, and we continue a theme. Ahead of his time:
In 1982, Carter established the Carter Center, aimed at promoting and expanding human rights. In 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in co-founding the Center. He has traveled extensively to conduct peace negotiations, monitor elections, and advance disease prevention and eradication in developing nations. Carter is considered a key figure in the nonprofit organization Habitat for Humanity. He has written over 30 books, ranging from political memoirs to poetry, while continuing to actively comment on ongoing American and global affairs, including the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
He didn’t want awards but they came anyway.
That is quite the plate. He was indefatigable and, near as I can tell, remained so right up until his body gave out on him: constant, unceasing service and a sharp mind to this day.
If only we could find the fountain of youth, a good enough portion of this nation is actually ready for his platform and his decency. (Though Joe Biden is just as “decent” a man.) And what a contrast he would be to the “America First” and “me first” crowd.
Rest, Mr. President. May your last days be beautiful and pain-free, knowing that the model of “a life well lived” falls woefully short of what you managed to do. From the moment you entered the Naval Academy, to the Georgia Senate, to the Presidency, to the post-presidency, and pounding nails, always pounding service, pounding nails when most people were too weak to golf.
To this very end, one of the most beautiful, sweetest men to ever live:
May God bless you. Rest, enjoy, please stay as long as you want, and then receive from a loving God what you so deeply deserve.
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No beaches today. Let’s see Carter’s final walk through Georgia:
Georgia, Georgia
The whole day through (the whole day through)
Just an old sweet song
Keeps Georgia on my mind
Just great
The country was blessed for his time as President. He did much to demonstrate American values in a time of international turmoil.