This is Democracy – Episode 229: Jimmy Carter

[00:00:00] Intro: This is Democracy, a podcast about the people of the United

[00:00:09] states, a podcast about citizenship, about engaging with politics and the world around you. A podcast about educating yourself on today’s important issues and how to have a voice in what happens next. Welcome to our new episode of This Is Democracy.

[00:00:30] Jeremi Suri: This week’s episode is on President Jimmy Carter, uh, who was, uh, one of the defining presidents of the most recent era of American history, the late 20th century, and a defining post president as well, uh, involved in all kinds of peace activities, uh, anti-poverty activities, home building activities around the world.

[00:00:51] Probably one of the most recognized American figures. On many parts of the planet. And, uh, president Carter is reaching the, uh, end of his life and we are fortunate today to be joined, uh, by his biographer. Many people have written about, uh, Jimmy Carter, but my favorite biographer of Jimmy Carter is our guest today, Jonathan Al Alter.

[00:01:11] I’m sure many of you have heard of him. Uh, he’s an award-winning journalist, author, political analyst, television commentator, often on Ms. N B C and many other network. Uh, programs. He’s the author of his very best Jimmy Carter, A Life published in 2020. I hope all of our listeners will go out and buy that book and read it, uh, at this important moment.

[00:01:33] Uh, Jonathan has also written The Center Holds Obama and His Enemies, the Promise President Obama, year one and a wonderful book Jonathan wrote many years ago on Franklin Roosevelt book. I’ve used actually with students on many occasions, the defining moment, FD R’S hundred days, and the Triumph of Hope.

[00:01:50] Jonathan, thanks for joining us today. My

[00:01:52] Jonathan Alter: pleasure and thanks for the plug, Jeremy. I appreciate it. Well, those of

[00:01:56] Jeremi Suri: us who write books, we always need to have them plugged, right, Jonathan? Yeah. . That’s true. , before we turn to our discussion with Jonathan Al alter of, uh, Jimmy Carter, we have of course, as always, Mr.

[00:02:08] Jeremi Suri: Zachary scene setting poem. What’s the title of your poem, Zachary, from Mr. Carter of Plains. Let’s hear it.

[00:02:15] Zachary Suri: Last, like all great prophets, you lacked that for which you might have been forgiven. If we could have, like you seen the blackened cat who pointed out to us the looming cliff Cassandra, you spotted the drop so soon, but for your want of timing, we’d have heard the horn.

[00:02:33] Zachary Suri: You blew your whistle like the loon on lakes. You tried to save majestic. I’d like to think I would’ve noticed this had I then been around to hear your song. But truth is stinging like a poet’s kiss. It hurts so much because it is so strong. So take your rest and set aside the world and know in death that now your times unfurled.

[00:02:58] Jeremi Suri: What’s your poem about Zachary?

[00:02:59] Zachary Suri: My poem is about, uh, the, the, the, the one of the central tragedies, I think about Jimmy Carter’s presidency, which is that so many of, of the speeches and, and, and policy proposals that defined his presidency, uh, were ridiculed in his day, but seemed so prescient, uh, today, for example, his efforts to protect the environment.

[00:03:20] Jeremi Suri: Right, right. Jonathan, do you agree?

[00:03:22] Jonathan Alter: I totally agree. I thought that was a, a very good poem and also very fitting because after Jimmy Carter, um, left the presidency among the skills that he developed, um, was that of a poet. And he de he had wanted to write poetry his whole life, but I hadn’t had the time.

[00:03:44] Jonathan Alter: Uh, and I think of him as a, a driven engineer with a humanist struggling to get. . So he consulted with two, um, well-known poets from Arkansas and he set to work writing poetry and eventually published a book of his poems. Um, and at least some of them are not bad. Uh, I used a few of his poems in my book, especially his poems about his father.

[00:04:17] Jonathan Alter: Uh, At one point in our interviews, he told me that he could only express his, um, real feelings in poetry. Uh, and I think there was a lot of truth to that. But I think that your poem was very apt in its focus on the environment because that’s one of his greatest legacies. Um, and, uh, and I think you, uh, I think if he was in a.

[00:04:46] Jonathan Alter: A couple of years ago where he could appreciate it, I would have encouraged you to send that poem to him. And I think you probably wouldn’t have, would’ve gotten a nice letter back, but I’m afraid it’s too late for that.

[00:04:58] Jeremi Suri: Right. What was it like Jonathan getting to know Jimmy Carter?

[00:05:04] Jonathan Alter: Um, well, um, you know, I was, I was always, um, surprised by his.

[00:05:13] Jonathan Alter: Accessibility, I guess to me. Um, I think he decided early on that he trusted me and, and so, um, allowed me to spend time with him. But, uh, I guess my, uh, my first and. Biggest memory is from, um, the first day, uh, that when I arrived in Atlanta, where the Carter Center is located. And I also spent a lot of time at his home in Plains where he is now, but this was in Atlanta.

[00:05:45] Jonathan Alter: And, um, I was starting my research and I was getting ready to interview him a couple of days later in planes. And he had a, uh, family dinner that he held every month. Atlanta in, in, in the, uh, Carter Center. Um, and he would’ve family and, you know, two or three friends to this dinner. And I got a call from his son saying, you know, you’re invited to this family dinner.

[00:06:15] Jonathan Alter: Um, and so I showed up and I was one of only two people not in the extended Carter family who were at this dinner. And, um, after we. Um, some, uh, wine before dinner. Um, Carter said to me, uh, Jonathan say a blessing . And so I’m like, uh, I’m, you know, I have this kind of moment of panic where I’m going, you know, what, what do I say?

[00:06:50] Jonathan Alter: Do I say Like, do I say Roka? Like, uh, you know, blessing over the wine, a Hebrew prayer, like I know. Ecumenical like, and, um, so finally I just, um, I just said, um, you know, thank you Lord for presenting us with this bountiful meal and for including me tonight. , you know, and right Car Carter laughed and, um, he’s normally kind of famously or infamously.

[00:07:24] Jonathan Alter: Known among staff for not, um, praising people or saying, um, thanking people enough. It’s a, it’s a shortcoming that he knows he has. In this case, he, um, he indicated his approval and after that it was, um, you know, pretty clear sailing for me. Uh, I’d say for the rest of the time that I spent time with him, but it would be, An exaggeration to say that we became friends because, um, while, um, I did join them in building a house in Memphis for Habitat for Humanity, um, for a day on a work site.

[00:08:07] Jonathan Alter: And, um, I went back to the Naval Academy, which he had attended for his, the 75th anniversary of his graduation from the Naval Academy. Um, while that was, or 70th actually, You know, well, I spent time with him outside of the office, except when I was interviewing him at home, when I had a couple of very lengthy interviews with him.

[00:08:30] Jonathan Alter: When I interviewed him at his office in Atlanta, at the end of one hour, his secretary would come in and the interview was over. You know, it was like there was no wasted time in his mind, you know? It was, he was there for a purpose to. Um, give me, um, what he thought I needed to write a good biography, even though he knew he wouldn’t like everything in it.

[00:09:01] Jonathan Alter: Um, and he, you know, he didn’t feel that, um, He had to make me part of the family. So just to, you know, by contrast, um, my friend in longtime Newsweek colleague John Meacham, um, who wrote a biography of George h w Bush, um, he delivered the eulogy at both. Bush and his wife Barbara’s funerals. Right, right. And needless to say, I’m not sitting by the phone waiting for the call.

[00:09:35] Jonathan Alter: I’m gonna be asked to do that.

[00:09:37] Zachary Suri: Um, how do you, how do you think, um, the American public, um, and per in particular, those who lived through his presidency will remember the man and the president?

[00:09:48] Jonathan Alter: Well, I think you have to distinguish between, um, today’s American public and those people who are, um, over, uh, the age of about 55, who are the only ones who really remember his presidency.

[00:10:03] Jonathan Alter: Um, so I’m 65 and I was. Uh, in, in college during most of his presidency. He was actually an intern, a college intern in his speech writing office, uh, when, but, um, you know, um, anybody, um, 15 years younger, they don’t really remember him. So younger people, interestingly, have a. Because they don’t remember his presidency, they have a quite favorable impression of him and his, you know, his moral rectitude, his involvement in all the cutting edge issues, uh, of our time from global health to democracy, promotion to conflict resolution, uh, the environment.

[00:10:49] Jonathan Alter: Um, so, you know, he is extremely well. By them. And I think more broadly, even people who are older, um, they tend to use this easy shorthand, you know, mediocre president, great former president. Uh, and I kind of reject that as, as, uh, too simplistic. I think he was a, um, Much better president than people remember.

[00:11:15] Jonathan Alter: He wa he doesn’t belong on Mount Rushmore and he made a number of mistakes, but much, much better than people recognize. And that as a former president, while he is accomplished a lot in those areas, I discussed, um, he doesn’t have the power that he had, um, when he was president, so to say that he, um, you know, was a better former president than president.

[00:11:37] Jonathan Alter: He, he actually touched and changed many more lives when he was. President and as a former president, he sometimes got in the way of his successors in ways that were understandably irritating to them. And sort of freelance. I have a chapter called Freelance Secretary of State. Right, right, right. Um, so I think that his presidency’s underrated, his post presidency is overrated.

[00:12:01] Jonathan Alter: I think in, to answer your question, I’m sorry. Be long-winded. You know, my, my. View of the way he should be viewed is as a political and stylistic failure, but a substantive and often farsighted success. And that journalists are trained to judge, um, presidents by how they do politically. And if you’re not reelected, if you’re crushed by Ronald Reagan, you know the winners write the history right.

[00:12:37] Jonathan Alter: Historians are supposed to look at the actual record and you know, which I’m prepared to do with you as a fellow historian, and when you do that, Carter comes across much better than, um, most people now who remember his presidency would

[00:12:54] Jeremi Suri: assume. Absolutely, Jonathan. And, and that’s exactly, you know, what we seek to do on this show each week is really to understand the historical legacies and the policy effects of decisions that are made.

[00:13:07] Jeremi Suri: By figures like Jimmy Carter in our history and what we can learn for our democracy today. So what would be the two or three things that you would single out, uh, as successes and legacies of, uh, Carter’s presidency that matter for our democracy today?

[00:13:24] Jonathan Alter: You know, if you qualify it that way, it’s a little different than thinking about his, his biggest successes, because I don’t, I don’t think the Camp David Accords.

[00:13:34] Jonathan Alter: Huge implications for our, our democracy. Um, uh, even though they’re extraordinarily important, um, I, I don’t think that, um, the Panama Canal treaties have huge implications for our democracy, but they help contribute to the spread. Democratic societies across Latin America for reasons that relate to his human rights policy, which is what I would put number one Yes.

[00:14:07] Jonathan Alter: In answer to your question. Um, so, uh, it wasn’t just that Carter, you know, created an assistant secretary of state for human rights and began issuing, um, Reports on, uh, countries and their human rights records, which are a very important tool now for human rights activists around the world. It’s that he set a new global standard for how governments are supposed to treat their own people.

[00:14:38] Jonathan Alter: And that is the essence of democracy, is a government that doesn’t repress its people. And so even though his human rights policy. Hypocritical in certain respects because it, it took place amid the Cold War. So it was very, um, inconsistent in its application. And, you know, he praised the Chevron early on in his presidency.

[00:15:02] Jonathan Alter: He looked the other way. Uh, you know about marcos’s abuses there, there are plenty of of places you could say, well, he’s a hypo. On that. But the fact that he raised the standard in the first place was extraordinarily important. And if you look at all of the nations in, particularly in Latin America, but also in Asia, that moved from authoritarianism to democracy, uh, in the 10 years after.

[00:15:37] Jonathan Alter: Carter was president and then you talk to the human rights activists in those countries, as I did, many of whom were in prison when Carter was president and at least three of whom became presidents of their countries like Vasco, Pavel and um, um, Kim Daja in in in South Korea. They will tell you how I.

[00:16:05] Jonathan Alter: that human rights policy was, and conservative Republican scholars of the Cold War will tell you how important the soft power of Carter’s human rights policy was to ending or hastening the end of the Cold War. So, you know, thi this is a, a big thing in the world, and I think that when democracy is strengthened abroad, it’s strengthened at home as well.

[00:16:34] Jeremi Suri: Do, do you think that, um, Carter’s policies with regard to the US economy, uh, strengthened our democracy in certain ways? He’s usually labeled as the, the man who was, uh, had the misfortune of being president during a period of stagflation, continued oil crisis. Uh, but on the other hand, as I think Zachary referred to in his, um, poem, Carter was someone who did speak forthrightly about the importance of economic fairness.

[00:17:00] Jeremi Suri: And, uh, dealing with problems of inequality. Do you see a legacy there, Jonathan?

[00:17:05] Jonathan Alter: Uh, actually, I, I, I don’t, um, I don’t think, um, that he, um, was, uh, much of a, uh, crusader for economic justice when he was president. Um, uh, and it’s not just because, um, you know, he didn’t believe in the Humphrey Hawkins full employment bill, which, um, you know, was a big thing at the time and.

[00:17:28] Jonathan Alter: He, he was not a, um, new Deal liberal. He was more of a Teddy Roosevelt progressive. Um, and, um, he, um, so, um, and he was not, um, um, particularly, uh, uh, you know, redistributionist in, in terms of his economic policy Now, He did think that the tax code was horribly unfair and that fat cats, as he called them, you know, shouldn’t be allowed to have three martini lunches and write ’em, write ’em off.

[00:18:08] Jonathan Alter: Um, and he wanted to make it fair to ordinary working people, but that was one of his failures because, um, this actually, um, is, says something about the less appealing parts of Carter. So, Instead of, um, calling Russell Long, who is chairman of the uh, Senate Finance Committee. A guy named Al Alman, who was the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, both Democrats calling them to the White House and saying, well, like what can we work on for a more fair tax code?

[00:18:45] Jonathan Alter: As I promised during the campaign, he stayed up all night studying all the details and tax code, and then . He just, by the way, his attention to detail. Much maligned and unfairly maligned. It was hugely important in the Camp David Accords. In the Alaska Lands Bill, which doubled the size of the National Park Service, a a and, and in, uh, Panama Canal treaties normalization with China.

[00:19:11] Jonathan Alter: That obsession with details that he was so criticized for was extremely helpful, but in this case, on Taxe. He studied the tax code and he delivered an elaborate proposal, and you know, long and Alman were offended that they weren’t brought in At the beginning of the process, they gutted his bill and what do we get a cut in the capital gains rate in 1978?

[00:19:40] Jonathan Alter: Now you can say, well, that cut in the gap, capital gains rate, depending on how one views, you know, the growth of the American economy. That did stimulate. Some significant economic growth in the 1980s that Reagan got credit for. Um, but, uh, but it also was, you know, not particularly fair since working people don’t, don’t, uh, you know, get, um, uh, you know, they don’t itemize.

[00:20:09] Jonathan Alter: So they, they don’t, they don’t have capital gains. Um, and he also, he. He was a fiscal hawk and, you know, was always trying to balance the budget and believed erroneously that, um, deficit reduction would help reduce inflation when they really don’t have anything to do with each other. We’ve learned through hard experience.

[00:20:34] Jonathan Alter: Um, so, um, I, I don’t think his economic policy was not only, you know, did he have bad. Um, that to have double digit interest rates and inflation, which will cause for things beyond his control. But he also, his, his remedies weren’t so great unless you believe, as I do that at a certain point you do have to raise interest rates to end inflation.

[00:21:04] Jonathan Alter: We’re, we’re seeing some of that right now. Right? So he appointed Paul Volker and it was Volker who ended inflation. Unfortunately for Carter, it was Reagan who benefited from that? So Reagan, I asked Bulker when I interviewed him, I said, you, you know, some people say you elected and reelected Ronald Reagan.

[00:21:23] Jonathan Alter: And he said, I’ve heard that . You know because he jacked up interest rates to 19%, 15% that a month before the election, before the. 1980 election, how do you win an election when interest rates are 15%? And then, and then his harsh medicine worked and they got low inflation and economic growth. And Reagan was resoundingly reelected in 1984.

[00:21:49] Jonathan Alter: So I guess I put that on the positive side of his economic, uh, legacy. But, uh, unless you consider like lower. Airfares on certain route to be helpful for, uh, economic justice. And I guess, I guess you could, and that came out of Hi Carter’s airline deregulation. So there, because of Jimmy Carter, there are a lot more people who can visit relatives than could, um, before Carter because they can afford to fly.

[00:22:19] Jonathan Alter: Um, at, at the time. Uh, He was before airline deregulation. The cheapest ticket between New York and LA was, um, in today’s dollars, I think, um, 13 or $1,400. Wow. Wow. So it’s a lot harder to Yeah. Travel some of the shorter route got more, more expensive. He also, they, they, uh, they allowed for craft breweries.

[00:22:44] Jonathan Alter: Uh, the breweries were operating under New Deal. Uh, legislation that, um, basically prevented crap breweries. And so, uh, um, he certainly did that for, uh, anybody who likes.

[00:22:58] Jeremi Suri: Likes their beer. Yeah. And Jonathan, I wanted to, to also get into one other continuity. I really like how you, you pointed out how many of the policies he pursued in the economic sphere as often happens, right.

[00:23:09] Jeremi Suri: There’s a policy lag and we don’t see the effects until years after. Uh, another place one could point to that would re would be with regard to the Soviet Union. Uh, and this is relevant also for our conflict with Russia and Ukraine today. It was during Carter’s presidency that the Soviet Union placed intermediate range missiles in Europe.

[00:23:28] Jeremi Suri: And it was Carter who began the process, uh, of responding to that. And it was also Carter who responded initially forcefully. To the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, most infamously pulling the United States out of the 1980 Olympics. Do you see a legacy there, uh, especially in a world today where we seem to be moving toward more conflict with Russia yet again?

[00:23:50] Jonathan Alter: Yeah, very, very definitely. So in, in, in, it applies in several different ways. So, you know, I, I don’t believe Reagan won the Cold War, but to the extent that we, I. Um, the Soviet Union with our weaponry, it was weaponry that was developed in the Carter administration, most particularly the B2 stealth bomber, which, um, was something they couldn’t match.

[00:24:15] Jonathan Alter: Um, if you go back earlier, if you really wanna look at continuity, Jimmy Carter was in the nuclear navy. He was a protege of Hyman Rickover. And if you ask Colin Powell, how do we win the Cold War? His answer was two words, nuclear submarines. Because when we developed nuclear submarines and Carter worked on the prototype, um, you know, we could stay under the water and totally change the strategic balance.

[00:24:43] Jonathan Alter: And the Russians tried to match us and they, they failed in part because. Rick over, uh, was such a fiend for safety that we didn’t have accidents and the Russians did. So that was a very important factor in, in eventually ending the Cold War. Um, the Sol two treaty that Carter negotiated wasn’t ratified, but, um, uh, both sides abided by its terms.

[00:25:09] Jonathan Alter: Um, and that became the predicate for the start treaties that, um, Reagan got signed. And then, you know, all the arms control that, that followed from, from salt too. Um, so there was a continuum there. Um, you know, that, that started at the dawn of the Cold War, you know, every post-war president played his part.

[00:25:33] Jonathan Alter: And I think Carter’s part in ending the Cold War and confronting. So the union was, was partly through human rights. Uh, uh, and, and somebody like Larry Eagleburger, who was ambassador to Yugoslavia, you know, really disliked Carter. Um, but you know, later when he was Republican Secretary of State, he and many others acknowledged how important, um, human rights was to hollowing out Soviet Union.

[00:26:05] Jonathan Alter: and then, you know, they did the first aid to, uh, covert aid to the mujahideen in Afghanistan. Uh, and that, um, you know, before, uh, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan starting in 1979. And, um, you know, that eventually contributed not just to Afghanistan becoming the Soviet Vietnam and the collapse of the Soviet Empire, but to nine.

[00:26:34] Jonathan Alter: Because, you know, Osama Bin Laden was part of the mujahadeen. So there’s, there are these connections between these things as far as the invasion went that I would give Carter lower marks on when it came to the invasion of Afghanistan because, um, you know, I think in retrospect they, the Russians were not really trying to.

[00:27:02] Jonathan Alter: Uh, interrupt oil supplies. Um, Afghanistan’s landlocked the Carter Doctrine, that was all about threat to Persian Gulf oil supplies was a lit, a little bit concocted. Carter had to respond cuz it was an election year and I actually think Ted Kennedy got the better of that argument, that it was very different than them invading Ukraine.

[00:27:26] Jonathan Alter: You know, this was, they went. To, um, prop up their puppet government in Kabul, the way we intervened in Vietnam to prop up, you know, our puppet government in Saigon. And so, um, you know, it was a little more comparable to Vietnam in that, in the same way that, you know, the Soviet Union shouldn’t have responded, uh, vigorously to our.

[00:27:56] Jonathan Alter: Intervention in Vietnam, we probably shouldn’t have responded as strongly to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. And the two ways we did respond were both very ineffective. So the grain bargo, which Walter Mondale pleaded with Carter not to do was really useless. It, it, it, the, the Soviets just bought from other countries that bought grain from other countries.

[00:28:23] Jonathan Alter: It pissed off the farmers. Not just then, but for all the years since you can still find farmers. Why are you a Republican? You used to be Democrats in this part of Nebraska, LA Carter or grain embargo who was stupid. You know, you can literally still hear that. I talked to Dan Glickman, who was Secretary of Agriculture, uh, under, uh, Clinton, under Obama.

[00:28:47] Jonathan Alter: And he, uh, confirmed that, um, anyway, that. Counterproductive and the Olympic boycott, which was very popular at the time, also didn’t do anything. It just ticked people off and was unfair to American athletes. So I understood how they wanted to send a message to Moscow, but uh, they needed to think harder.

[00:29:13] Jonathan Alter: Sending a different one

[00:29:15] Jeremi Suri: last question,

[00:29:15] Zachary Suri: Zachary. I just want to, as we conclude, take a step back, uh, and to, to, to talk a little bit more about Carter the man. What do you think made him so appealing as a politician, uh, in 1976? Uh, I think that there’ve been a lot of comparisons made these days between Carter or Carter’s moment and, uh, the political moment we’re in, or at least the political moment we were in in 2020.

[00:29:39] Zachary Suri: What do you think made his leadership at that moment stand?

[00:29:43] Jonathan Alter: He was an outsider. He was promising to clean up Washington. You know, it had been since F D R that we had elected a governor. Um, there were people he was running against who were 40, 50 points ahead of him in the polls at the beginning, the senators.

[00:30:00] Jonathan Alter: All better known they stank of Washington, even though they weren’t connected to Watergate. So his timing was perfect after Watergate to promise that he wouldn’t lie. Uh, promise the government as good as its people. You, he ran a brilliant campaign in 76, and I don’t think he would’ve been elected without Watergate.

[00:30:24] Jonathan Alter: Um, and I think that w um, the. Watergate press made him and then unmade him. They made him, cuz they gave him almost a free ride in that campaign as Carter admitted to me. Um, and, and they let him just coast on that Watergate theme. Um, and then once he got into office, they treated every flap as if it had a gate attached to it as a.

[00:30:49] Jonathan Alter: You know, a suffix like Lance Gate, , you know, I mean, everything was a gate. They, they, they assumed, the press assumed that he was, he was, uh, a crooked, which he was not. And so, uh, as Jodi Powell said, you know, not only did we not get a, uh, uh, a honeymoon, we didn’t get a one night stand with the President.

[00:31:12] Jonathan Alter: That contributed to a lot of. People’s, you know, um, uncomfortable feelings about him. And then he. You know, he mismanaged his relationships inside the Democratic party, most importantly with Kennedy. And, um, he didn’t curry favor enough with the Washington establishment. He, he could have gotten even more done than he did.

[00:31:33] Jonathan Alter: Um, he, you know, he did get more legislation through than any president since F D R, except L B J. And that record still stands, and that includes people who served eight. His, his scoreboard is more full of achievements. Uh, you can look it up. Yep. And that’s really counter to the conventional wisdom, but it’s a fact.

[00:31:55] Jonathan Alter: And, you know, the, the, so the consequences of his failures were not as great, um, for his legislative program as people assume, but they were really hard for him personally when he ran for reelection. It didn’t help that. Bad on tv, but he, he still the, to the very end, even after he was crushed, the American people, still admired him, trusted him, and saw him as a figure of integrity and that impression.

[00:32:27] Jonathan Alter: Has just been compounded and intensified with the passage of years, and that’s why he, even if he’s never, you know, in the first rank of American presidents, you know, he keeps moving up and he will be remembered as a global icon and somebody who brought honesty, decency, and most important, arguably peace.

[00:32:53] Jonathan Alter: Um, he was the first president. Thomas Jefferson and the only president under whom not a single, uh, soldier, died in combat on, on his watch. Um, so, um, you know, the, I mean, it’s, I, I’m, I’m climbing a steep hill as you guys find, trying to get people to reappraise him, and I’m not asking them to, you know, go.

[00:33:25] Jonathan Alter: Put him on Mount Rushmore, but I just think that people need to take another look at him and try to get the, uh, you know, killer Rabbit and collapsing in a road race and the thrashing by Ronald Reagan, you know, out of their heads and assess him, uh, for his humanitarianism and his, um, Desire to represent the best of America.

[00:33:58] Jeremi Suri: Jonathan, that’s very well said, and I think you make a compelling case here as you do in your book also, and I encourage, uh, readers to read your book, Zachary, to close us out. What are your thoughts as, as a young person who, I mean as, as Jonathan said, I didn’t live through, uh, the Carter years, or I did, but I was too young to remember.

[00:34:16] Jeremi Suri: You were not alive at all. Obviously during the Carter years. Uh, for your generation, what do you think Carter’s gonna be remembered for?

[00:34:22] Jonathan Alter: Well, I.

[00:34:23] Zachary Suri: That, uh, he will be remembered. First of all, and, and, and first and foremost as a kind man and, and a good man. And a decent man. And I think that that, that for those of us who have come of to our political awareness in, in, in this age, in this day and age and, and in a period of great political polarization, uh, and, and seeming moral corruption in our politics here in the United States, I think that, that, that will.

[00:34:49] Zachary Suri: Much more meaningful than, than Carter probably imagined it would be when, when he left the presidency in 1981. Uh, so I think that the legacy he leaves, at the very least is, is as a sort of model for the kind of people that we should elevate to, to, to our,

[00:35:05] Jeremi Suri: to our highest offices. Yeah, I, I think Carter will be remembered and Jonathan will help us remember him as, as an example of how you can succeed in politics if, if only for a short time perhaps, but you can succeed in politics through integrity.

[00:35:19] Jeremi Suri: Through seriousness, through competence, and through goodwill. And that one does not have to always, uh, be the dirtiest version of ourselves to be successful in politics. Uh, Jonathan, thank you for, for reminding us of perhaps what, what Lincoln would call the better angels of our nature and, and Carter, despite the mixed record, uh, uh, someone who represents in some ways the better angels of our nature.

[00:35:41] Jeremi Suri: Thank you for, for sharing your time with us, Jonathan, and your insights.

[00:35:45] Jonathan Alter: Thanks for having me on.

[00:35:47] Jeremi Suri: Zachary, thank you for your poem as always, and thank you most of all to our loyal listeners for joining us for this week of This Is Democracy.

[00:36:01] Outro: This podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts I t s development studio. And the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harris Kini. Stay tuned for a new episode every week. You can find this is Democracy on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. See you next time.