Transcripts For CSPAN2 Lectures 20240704 : vimarsana.com

At cspan. Org. Welcome to the poly side and also some graduate student sitting in the back of gotten up ofhandouts for you all. Greetings to our friends watching this on the cspan lectures and history series. So just a quick reminder on thursday and were in a circle with the writing assignment and get back a test. I know were getting very close to spring break if you are not able to make it you have e opportunities to get the assignment and ask plenty of questions and i will of course hand exams back after the break as well. Any logistical questions about that . Okay. Im going to get us started with scheduledto program here. Today worked on by the president ial legacy of jimmy carter who is president from 1977 until 1981. Our lectures tired entitled whynot the best which is also te title of his campaign biography gives us some insight to keep that title in mind as we think about carters political projects and legacy. Im going to start us off here with jimmy carter in the news. A couple weeks ago it was announced former president carters 98 years olds going to live out the rest of his days in home hospice. This kicked off a lot of reassessment. A lot of conversation about cartersle president ial legacy d legacy in the world but some of which you read about today. But up until this point carter has had a pretty negative legacy all that the bottom of lists of great president s. You kind of see thishi here, the are both conservative news sites comparing democratic president s to jimmy carter. Ese are intended to be an fltering sorts of comparisons. Especially withh emplacement we will talk quite got a lot of comparisons between carter and bided it did not start that is also comparisons with barack obama. But lately as you saw in the piece you read theres been a reassessment and resurgence thinking about the jimmy carter as an individual and a president. And rethinking what happened not just in post presidency which is been very famous for all the Public Service he has done but also really rethinking carters time in office and its significance. Does anyone have any preliminary questions or thoughts on this before we launch into the rest of it . Okay we talked a couple weeks ago we brainstormed about what do we know about carter . I kept that in mind as a put this all together. Im going to start with a little personal 2006 story. 2006 i was doing some research for my doctoral dissertation i was doing archival work at the carter president ial Library Reading files exchanged by his communications team. The carter president ial library is located in atlanta. Its on the same grounds as the Carter Center which is the area where the carters sorted their launching point for the humanitarian work. Ascent electionn monitoring and other global democracy promotion activity. Its a really big center its august is in a class of interns folks like ourselves are probably arriving at the Carter Center. Center. As i was leaving archives one day really thought id spent too much time in the archives i was hallucinating because im pretty sure i just saw president carter and his wife. I saw o of the archival staff walking out she said did you see the president did you go say hi . Did you shake his hand . Then i saw security detail a couple feet away. That actually wasnt president carter i guess i should go say hi. I chased him down so i do not recommend. With former World Leaders i went up and introduce myself it was him and his wife roslyn. I introduced myself and immediately started babbling which would probably probably not be surprising to any of you. Ive been reading speeches for dissertation ive been reading a lot of your speeches. And he said im sorry to hear that. Which was funny and unexpected. Also this is 2006. Your building cynicism about the wayy what they did but also they talked about what they did. There is a growing sense the public had been lied to. A growing sense about the kinds of tradeoffs involved in governance. Thereth is not a lot of humility in that rhetoric. That is what appealed to me as a grad student reading carters street speeches struck me. I dont have living memory but i was reading the speeches. He talks about tradeoffs. Look, here are sacrifices you are going to have to make. Heres what may work heres what may not work speaking of his own election tuktuk keeping campaign promises. He had this comment is that i did not win by that much but its a very close election to approach that with a sense of humility per the time i remember thinking this is really different than any kind of a president ial speech or a rhetoric i have encountered before. That really stayed with me not only as i wrote my dissertation and book about president ial mandate claiming also im putting this together on what you think about this framework. Heres where were going to go over here are some themes. I want to think about carters pathway to the presidency. Not just the election and the nomination contest you all know i love those. When he was responding too. We know quite a bit about that but was accomplished, what was not accomplished. Also the politics of that. Finally the big question, the legacy. What does this all mean for american politics . Then finally when to end by talk about carter as a transition point. Again im cutting into my own work as a jumping off point. But why carter is in the class is a transition point also between our two units as well as a transition point in the presidency and its role in american politics. Any preliminary questions, comments, concerns . Okay. So were going to start the political backdrop here. Again this is familiar territory to you all. Here we have got president richard nixon. The last president elected before carter. Theres brief gerald ford interlude after nixon resigns in watergate there would talked about this a couple weeks ago. Its a real moment of declining trust in the government. Declining trust specifically in the presidency and this idea that a lot is going on in the presidency. One person has a lot of power and a lot of people working directly for them. They are really able to use publice resources for private good by 1976. Nixons resignations and 74 by 1976 when carter is running for president that is still pretty fresh in peoples mind. The link further back than that its going on in the Democratic Party the chaotic ending of the Lyndon Johnson also got implications since johnson had by multiple administrations. The issue of civil rights. We talked a bit about that the impact on the broader thats going to press it real pain points in the democratican coalition. Its both a southerner, not some border self but from the deep south. From georgia. It has a reputation as a racial liberal, someone who has stood up to some of these sub segregationists others someone has a forwardlooking vision on race. One thing carter exemplifies in the coalition is somebody you can actually bridge this really painful divide in the coalition. Its a morally painful its also politically painful that gives carter its one of the ways carter has an in. Theres a couple other things going on here. My 1976 a new president ial nomination system. Before if they wanted to get nominated as president talked a lot about these. They have 19th century theyve y president ial nomination conventions. How to get into it the delegates that you know that we know. When he should dwell in the primaryy system. In order to win it delegates from early summer and late summer all over the country its relative new at that point no one knows how to gain it. No one knows how it works. No one knows how to strategize. Carters able to take advantage of that and think there is own strategy or some luck he goes to iowa. Theres a lot of talk about iowa caucuses. Now they have the common importance. It was not so much a case in 1976. Carter took advantage of this is a very littleknown one term governor from georgia who is in the stateth legislature before that. Not a big national figure. Hes able to go to iowa and meet people in appealed to the voters there on the basis of his personal characteristics. This is with the other piece of the political backdrop is so important. He really presents himself as someone whos going to be honest. Someone who is evangelical and bornagain christian has a deep moral basis, deep kind of faith basis for his worldview and his morality. Maybe we are used to hearing about religion and politics but at the time this was a little bit different. It hit a little differently it was really appealing if you think about the nixon administration. Think about the johnson ministration, the way the public felt so alienated and lied to. Carter comes in and says i am different from all of that. I am an outsider i am not part of the washington mess. Im not part of what has gone wrong over the last decade or so. That really lands with the crucial voters after doing wellin iowa carter is able to get a lot of media attention. That becomes known after that is the way they went a president ial nomination you meant in the early contests and then you get a National Media presence. Already we areth starting to see even though we might think of carter as the person in the early 8 the president other president s do not want to be compared to. We are already starting to see how nevertheless the things he did were consequential and help create the system we now understand for how president s relate to the people, their parties, and how they position themselves, it becomes very tcommon as this outsider per the last thing i want to point out is something that is really obvious. But you dont hear a lot about. Especially in light of carters service heavy post presidency. That is to be in this kind of position. To come at this andka say i am n outsider, i am from georgia, i am really just coming at this for Public Service and my values. But to really go forming a statelevel politician in georgia to being im going to run for president you have to have serious political omission. Yet the really be ambitious. The person that carter was in the 1970s, as other lost people talk about is a selfless servant. I dont think it takes away from the selfless Public Service narrative. Too also emphasize how ambitious carter was. The way we think about those things going together is one of the questions i would suppose to you at the end. Think of these things is been deeply incompatible . Okay, questions . So just a little bit about the general election here. Again carter runs in this weird way. He positions himself is not really liberal and not really conservative. He positions himself as conservative in the primary race but the literal to knock each other out but to win and really consulted the coalition he has to have some liberal ideas he is a democrat. Ideologically ambiguous. He talks about government efficiency and tax reform and welfare reform things you might think of is more conservative. Not concerned with the plight of people less fortunate. Well talk about later he brings a moral vision to a lot of the policy issues. So it is kind of hard to pinpoint ideologically. And hard to pinpoint in terms of where the two parties have been up to that point. But he really emphasizes this idea of why not the best . The government is as good as its people. The American People are fundamentallyy good. People are good they deserve a better government. They deserve a Good Government. What is a Good Government . Who gets to decide . Who are the winners and losers of a Good Government and a political philosophy . We are going to find out. Thats a harder set up political appeals the result was very. Close. Just 50 of the vote. The other thing about this map as it is very weird. It is a weird map. Anyone have any observations about how this is different . We lookedtl at a lot of these maps. We have thought a little bit about their geography. Any observations here . Its a little tricky. Normally we look at these maps, one of the things is the dynamic between the middle and the coasts. We have see that not to seek contemporary maps but in older maps. The other is the north and the south. Carter isbu from the south. If you look at this map from 1976 you might come away and say it United States have been deep east to west divide. A lot of other electoral maps. Its again its like eight middle and coast dynamic are used to seeing. It was more organic its our self. Why is that . Thats an interesting question that is not gotten a lot the same have. Some might be a Party Politics story about the Republican Party under nixon was a couple different theories theres a nacouple once carter wins hes t to face this question. Its one thing to appeal to the voters but the broad set of government who like to say they dont like Good Government . Its a trick question. The campaign to govern its transition for carter is always hard. It is always hard but it really proves to be kind of tricky for the newarrdmistration. Before we get into policy about carters aroh to the presidency this is a lotf what i was researching and wring about. This is carter with this office of management and budt director bert lance. His friend from georgia who came wi him. Im carter again had run in t nomination race had run in the general, is i am going to be a leader of Good Government, clean government. Not corrupt government. Honest and then bert lance gets implicated in a banking scandal this is the highest economic official in the administration and he getson accused of some financial corruption back in georgia. Hef actually gets cleared of a couple years later in 1980. But carter cannot wait around for that so eight months in bert resigns his alleged behaviors already undermined. It turns out promising youre going to be transparent, accountable, not corrupt at all times turns out to be very tall order and politics. So carter has already set himself up for some challenges. There is also this imagery element to it that is quite fascinating. Carter tries to bring b down the level of the image of the white house. Ci using public facing symbolism to respond to this political environment of a watergate, vietnam and this kind of sense government is out of touch and out of control. Carter is inaugurated wearing a regular suit and not a more formal kind of attire. The first president to get out of the motorcade i walk along in the main avenue which is now common when carter did it it was like a little innovation and just out here with the people. He sold the president ial yacht the sequoia which was not only a nod to being less fancy but being a little more frugal a little more careful with public money. To try and give that impression. And one of things literally if you read theres a new president ial biography of carter that had a lot of depth about alwhat people were saying they complained about people wearing jeans in the white, house. It looked dirty. It looked disorganized carter himself would wear jeans sometimes off the white house ad so would some of his aides pretty brought in a bunch of people from georgia they were referred to as a georgia mafia. People who do not have National Political experience. So we party got a very different kind of president ial style and their substance. Their style, they set a high bar for what they are going to do. They brought it down in a way that did not necessarily sit well with everyone but one things that carter did that was unpopular he asked they stop playing hail to the chief when he came into the room. People like a little bit of ceremony on the presidency. Anyone have questions or comments on any of this . Something that is been lurking throughout the semester. Weve not dealt with it totally had on but weve been talking with the themes that valves the president s need to strike between being one of the people, regular citizen accountable to the people theyre not specially do not have the monarchy. At the same time they have a lot of power. Some ways we do want them to be a little special over the office to be a little special or an carter comes in right at that point attention. The other part of this that i want to talk about here is how this plays out with carter, onc hes done running against shington. All the people he has been running against. And 76 hes not just runnid against nixon and johnson a ford actual opponent. But running general against it culture and way people do things in washington. You get to washington and realize those same people are still in congress. You have to deal with them. Are in your own party. If you want to get anything done if got to deal congress. Hopefully less is also a theme weve talked a lot embedded in e other branches. One other things carter wants to do is really speak to the people about the new things he wants to do. All of these changes he wants to make. And again now we think about the president speaking directly to the people on tv and various forms of immediate that we might have or a live event is pretty normal. It was not new thing in 1976 but we had w not really talked about president speaking directly to the people this can create a little bit of a tense dynamic with congress. When you go to the people who were goingw to do. Heres how were going to solve. This problem. We talked about in the semester congress is the first branch. Congress can be like we will see about that who passes a loss here . Members of congress. Theyey may not want the presidet telling them what to do they dont work for the president. We can kind of see how that creates attention there with the president speaking directly to the people. This is a big scene in the file as were going throughem them. Talk about their values, talked with thehe policy agenda it woud be. Obviously Public Opinion was very important to them. Theres also a lot of debate about theirs is big energy bill will talk about in the moment. Rttheres a big backandforth between carters speechwriters partner going to have two speeches else will make you want to address multiple audiences. Theyre like okay if we speak to Congress First and then to the people the people are going to fill it were not being honest with them. Theyre going to fill one speech with governing elites and one for the general public. That is exactly what was that they were going to do. But if we speak to the people first and thenco congress, the words they use in the memo or congress will be pissed. Congress will feel like that we are going over their heads. Literally something that also comes up in the memos. Respect to show congress. A you also want to show respect to the American People. Those may beff in the mind of Public Service<\/a> he has done but also really rethinking carters time in office and its significance. Does anyone have any preliminary questions or thoughts on this before we launch into the rest of it . Okay we talked a couple weeks ago we brainstormed about what do we know about carter . I kept that in mind as a put this all together. Im going to start with a little personal 2006 story. 2006 i was doing some research for my doctoral dissertation i was doing archival work at the carter president ial Library Reading<\/a> files exchanged by his communications team. The carter president ial library is located in atlanta. Its on the same grounds as the Carter Center<\/a> which is the area where the carters sorted their launching point for the humanitarian work. Ascent electionn monitoring and other global democracy promotion activity. Its a really big center its august is in a class of interns folks like ourselves are probably arriving at the Carter Center<\/a>. Center. As i was leaving archives one day really thought id spent too much time in the archives i was hallucinating because im pretty sure i just saw president carter and his wife. I saw o of the archival staff walking out she said did you see the president did you go say hi . Did you shake his hand . Then i saw security detail a couple feet away. That actually wasnt president carter i guess i should go say hi. I chased him down so i do not recommend. With former World Leaders<\/a> i went up and introduce myself it was him and his wife roslyn. I introduced myself and immediately started babbling which would probably probably not be surprising to any of you. Ive been reading speeches for dissertation ive been reading a lot of your speeches. And he said im sorry to hear that. Which was funny and unexpected. Also this is 2006. Your building cynicism about the wayy what they did but also they talked about what they did. There is a growing sense the public had been lied to. A growing sense about the kinds of tradeoffs involved in governance. Thereth is not a lot of humility in that rhetoric. That is what appealed to me as a grad student reading carters street speeches struck me. I dont have living memory but i was reading the speeches. He talks about tradeoffs. Look, here are sacrifices you are going to have to make. Heres what may work heres what may not work speaking of his own election tuktuk keeping campaign promises. He had this comment is that i did not win by that much but its a very close election to approach that with a sense of humility per the time i remember thinking this is really different than any kind of a president ial speech or a rhetoric i have encountered before. That really stayed with me not only as i wrote my dissertation and book about president ial mandate claiming also im putting this together on what you think about this framework. Heres where were going to go over here are some themes. I want to think about carters pathway to the presidency. Not just the election and the nomination contest you all know i love those. When he was responding too. We know quite a bit about that but was accomplished, what was not accomplished. Also the politics of that. Finally the big question, the legacy. What does this all mean for american politics . Then finally when to end by talk about carter as a transition point. Again im cutting into my own work as a jumping off point. But why carter is in the class is a transition point also between our two units as well as a transition point in the presidency and its role in american politics. Any preliminary questions, comments, concerns . Okay. So were going to start the political backdrop here. Again this is familiar territory to you all. Here we have got president richard nixon. The last president elected before carter. Theres brief gerald ford interlude after nixon resigns in watergate there would talked about this a couple weeks ago. Its a real moment of declining trust in the government. Declining trust specifically in the presidency and this idea that a lot is going on in the presidency. One person has a lot of power and a lot of people working directly for them. They are really able to use publice resources for private good by 1976. Nixons resignations and 74 by 1976 when carter is running for president that is still pretty fresh in peoples mind. The link further back than that its going on in the Democratic Party<\/a> the chaotic ending of the Lyndon Johnson<\/a> also got implications since johnson had by multiple administrations. The issue of civil rights. We talked a bit about that the impact on the broader thats going to press it real pain points in the democratican coalition. Its both a southerner, not some border self but from the deep south. From georgia. It has a reputation as a racial liberal, someone who has stood up to some of these sub segregationists others someone has a forwardlooking vision on race. One thing carter exemplifies in the coalition is somebody you can actually bridge this really painful divide in the coalition. Its a morally painful its also politically painful that gives carter its one of the ways carter has an in. Theres a couple other things going on here. My 1976 a new president ial nomination system. Before if they wanted to get nominated as president talked a lot about these. They have 19th century theyve y president ial nomination conventions. How to get into it the delegates that you know that we know. When he should dwell in the primaryy system. In order to win it delegates from early summer and late summer all over the country its relative new at that point no one knows how to gain it. No one knows how it works. No one knows how to strategize. Carters able to take advantage of that and think there is own strategy or some luck he goes to iowa. Theres a lot of talk about iowa caucuses. Now they have the common importance. It was not so much a case in 1976. Carter took advantage of this is a very littleknown one term governor from georgia who is in the stateth legislature before that. Not a big national figure. Hes able to go to iowa and meet people in appealed to the voters there on the basis of his personal characteristics. This is with the other piece of the political backdrop is so important. He really presents himself as someone whos going to be honest. Someone who is evangelical and bornagain christian has a deep moral basis, deep kind of faith basis for his worldview and his morality. Maybe we are used to hearing about religion and politics but at the time this was a little bit different. It hit a little differently it was really appealing if you think about the nixon administration. Think about the johnson ministration, the way the public felt so alienated and lied to. Carter comes in and says i am different from all of that. I am an outsider i am not part of the washington mess. Im not part of what has gone wrong over the last decade or so. That really lands with the crucial voters after doing wellin iowa carter is able to get a lot of media attention. That becomes known after that is the way they went a president ial nomination you meant in the early contests and then you get a National Media<\/a> presence. Already we areth starting to see even though we might think of carter as the person in the early 8 the president other president s do not want to be compared to. We are already starting to see how nevertheless the things he did were consequential and help create the system we now understand for how president s relate to the people, their parties, and how they position themselves, it becomes very tcommon as this outsider per the last thing i want to point out is something that is really obvious. But you dont hear a lot about. Especially in light of carters service heavy post presidency. That is to be in this kind of position. To come at this andka say i am n outsider, i am from georgia, i am really just coming at this for Public Service<\/a> and my values. But to really go forming a statelevel politician in georgia to being im going to run for president you have to have serious political omission. Yet the really be ambitious. The person that carter was in the 1970s, as other lost people talk about is a selfless servant. I dont think it takes away from the selfless Public Service<\/a> narrative. Too also emphasize how ambitious carter was. The way we think about those things going together is one of the questions i would suppose to you at the end. Think of these things is been deeply incompatible . Okay, questions . So just a little bit about the general election here. Again carter runs in this weird way. He positions himself is not really liberal and not really conservative. He positions himself as conservative in the primary race but the literal to knock each other out but to win and really consulted the coalition he has to have some liberal ideas he is a democrat. Ideologically ambiguous. He talks about government efficiency and tax reform and welfare reform things you might think of is more conservative. Not concerned with the plight of people less fortunate. Well talk about later he brings a moral vision to a lot of the policy issues. So it is kind of hard to pinpoint ideologically. And hard to pinpoint in terms of where the two parties have been up to that point. But he really emphasizes this idea of why not the best . The government is as good as its people. The American People<\/a> are fundamentallyy good. People are good they deserve a better government. They deserve a Good Government<\/a>. What is a Good Government<\/a> . Who gets to decide . Who are the winners and losers of a Good Government<\/a> and a political philosophy . We are going to find out. Thats a harder set up political appeals the result was very. Close. Just 50 of the vote. The other thing about this map as it is very weird. It is a weird map. Anyone have any observations about how this is different . We lookedtl at a lot of these maps. We have thought a little bit about their geography. Any observations here . Its a little tricky. Normally we look at these maps, one of the things is the dynamic between the middle and the coasts. We have see that not to seek contemporary maps but in older maps. The other is the north and the south. Carter isbu from the south. If you look at this map from 1976 you might come away and say it United States<\/a> have been deep east to west divide. A lot of other electoral maps. Its again its like eight middle and coast dynamic are used to seeing. It was more organic its our self. Why is that . Thats an interesting question that is not gotten a lot the same have. Some might be a Party Politics<\/a> story about the Republican Party<\/a> under nixon was a couple different theories theres a nacouple once carter wins hes t to face this question. Its one thing to appeal to the voters but the broad set of government who like to say they dont like Good Government<\/a> . Its a trick question. The campaign to govern its transition for carter is always hard. It is always hard but it really proves to be kind of tricky for the newarrdmistration. Before we get into policy about carters aroh to the presidency this is a lotf what i was researching and wring about. This is carter with this office of management and budt director bert lance. His friend from georgia who came wi him. Im carter again had run in t nomination race had run in the general, is i am going to be a leader of Good Government<\/a>, clean government. Not corrupt government. Honest and then bert lance gets implicated in a banking scandal this is the highest economic official in the administration and he getson accused of some financial corruption back in georgia. Hef actually gets cleared of a couple years later in 1980. But carter cannot wait around for that so eight months in bert resigns his alleged behaviors already undermined. It turns out promising youre going to be transparent, accountable, not corrupt at all times turns out to be very tall order and politics. So carter has already set himself up for some challenges. There is also this imagery element to it that is quite fascinating. Carter tries to bring b down the level of the image of the white house. Ci using public facing symbolism to respond to this political environment of a watergate, vietnam and this kind of sense government is out of touch and out of control. Carter is inaugurated wearing a regular suit and not a more formal kind of attire. The first president to get out of the motorcade i walk along in the main avenue which is now common when carter did it it was like a little innovation and just out here with the people. He sold the president ial yacht the sequoia which was not only a nod to being less fancy but being a little more frugal a little more careful with public money. To try and give that impression. And one of things literally if you read theres a new president ial biography of carter that had a lot of depth about alwhat people were saying they complained about people wearing jeans in the white, house. It looked dirty. It looked disorganized carter himself would wear jeans sometimes off the white house ad so would some of his aides pretty brought in a bunch of people from georgia they were referred to as a georgia mafia. People who do not have National Political<\/a> experience. So we party got a very different kind of president ial style and their substance. Their style, they set a high bar for what they are going to do. They brought it down in a way that did not necessarily sit well with everyone but one things that carter did that was unpopular he asked they stop playing hail to the chief when he came into the room. People like a little bit of ceremony on the presidency. Anyone have questions or comments on any of this . Something that is been lurking throughout the semester. Weve not dealt with it totally had on but weve been talking with the themes that valves the president s need to strike between being one of the people, regular citizen accountable to the people theyre not specially do not have the monarchy. At the same time they have a lot of power. Some ways we do want them to be a little special over the office to be a little special or an carter comes in right at that point attention. The other part of this that i want to talk about here is how this plays out with carter, onc hes done running against shington. All the people he has been running against. And 76 hes not just runnid against nixon and johnson a ford actual opponent. But running general against it culture and way people do things in washington. You get to washington and realize those same people are still in congress. You have to deal with them. Are in your own party. If you want to get anything done if got to deal congress. Hopefully less is also a theme weve talked a lot embedded in e other branches. One other things carter wants to do is really speak to the people about the new things he wants to do. All of these changes he wants to make. And again now we think about the president speaking directly to the people on tv and various forms of immediate that we might have or a live event is pretty normal. It was not new thing in 1976 but we had w not really talked about president speaking directly to the people this can create a little bit of a tense dynamic with congress. When you go to the people who were goingw to do. Heres how were going to solve. This problem. We talked about in the semester congress is the first branch. Congress can be like we will see about that who passes a loss here . Members of congress. Theyey may not want the presidet telling them what to do they dont work for the president. We can kind of see how that creates attention there with the president speaking directly to the people. This is a big scene in the file as were going throughem them. Talk about their values, talked with thehe policy agenda it woud be. Obviously Public Opinion<\/a> was very important to them. Theres also a lot of debate about theirs is big energy bill will talk about in the moment. Rttheres a big backandforth between carters speechwriters partner going to have two speeches else will make you want to address multiple audiences. Theyre like okay if we speak to Congress First<\/a> and then to the people the people are going to fill it were not being honest with them. Theyre going to fill one speech with governing elites and one for the general public. That is exactly what was that they were going to do. But if we speak to the people first and thenco congress, the words they use in the memo or congress will be pissed. Congress will feel like that we are going over their heads. Literally something that also comes up in the memos. Respect to show congress. A you also want to show respect to the American People<\/a>. Those may beff in the mind of Te Administration<\/a> a different kind. We have already got all of these approach in stylistic tensions even gotten to the policy agenda. Do you have any questions of far . What questions do we have . We are good . Okay. All right. This is a list of some of cartersolicies it reads like a chart at t eye doctor starts big, get small. So many policy priorities. If you think about these in detail in the Democtic Party<\/a> he was now a leader of it. Energy something we often hear associated carter now its environmental orientation weve got foreign policies. Weve g all of thisther stuff,eahcare, the economy which is almost always a forefront in peoples mind especilyn the 70s its forefront peoples mind. Carter is a big advocate of protection which he thought would be better for consumer urban politics we have these Different Things<\/a> carter wants to be. He wants to address. It was in the photo didnt want to recognize a person with carter in the photo . Youve got it . Joe biden new senator joe biden. Theyre in a close relationship biden was an early endorser to oneof the things we take from ts carter has a lot of ideas a lot of vision. A lot of things he wants to get done. Spoiler alert a lot of things do get done when you look at this administration you look at what actually got done this a lot of legislation passed. This in real foreignpolicy at low points theres also some achievement is not a donothing administration. Puzzles of setting carter. One nothing is ad parody. Was coming to this the background of engineer of the navy. Quite a reader people were around him at the time described him as an intellectual. Someone who really did his homework. But also someone who really had a tendency to be involved in all the details. You are the president this is your agenda you cannot be involved in all the details. Some has to the coalition some somewhat the nature of prioritization. Some has to of carters political and individual style. Talk us through a couple of the policy areas. This is going to beat not a very deep dive in each of these policy areas. One is energy. Energy has been issued throughout the 70s with gas lines and shortages of fuel. Carter had a couple priorities going forward. One was Energy Independence<\/a> was vulnerable to whats going on in the middle east or other oilproducingin countries. That fed into some of the more environmental ideas. Alternative fuels and things like that. Also carter had a consumer orientation. When it cost to be lower for the consumer these two things already do not always smash. And then you add in politics. We have very ambitious plans about what to do to deregulate natural gas. Change the regulation system around that comment to develop taxes to decrease consumption. You have very ambitious a plan going to congress. Trying to get Public Investment<\/a> in alternative fuels. Theres about 100 items in the first legislative request that carter sends to congress. There are a couple of issues. One is we have a Democratic Party<\/a> that has strength in places like louisiana louisiana where oil is a big part of the economy the extent carter was asking for things that would benefit consumers at the expense of industry that was very much carters orientation. They are notot going to go for parade thats their voters, that is their base. This industries were important. Youve got a push and pull in the Democratic Party<\/a> and the 70s is a little bit different than how we might expect it to be constituted today. Although some of the issues are still a problem you run into the problem theres a big picture menvironmental idea. It might benefit everybody. But its not good for Certain Industries<\/a> and those are very important members of congress. That dynamic persist today. It was a little different in the 70s. Carters got a complex situation house and Senate Passed<\/a> different versions of thet bill they do not agree on the details. Natural gas regulation. I consensual some articles in the 70s if you want to read those. Part of it for carter is it looks like he does not have to negotiate with congress. It looks like he does not have good legislative skills. What covers is a very big bill. That makes changes that doesnt deregulate. It creates the department of energy. We would consider this a fairly major piece of legislation. Its water down compared to what the administration has wanted. That makes people on the left and met it makes environmentalist meta makes people post industry and not interested in these changes are also mad. Carter comes off looking weak it depicted in the media string of bad legislative leader. Pretty solid policy success but the politics of it keep getting away. Ay if that was not complicated enough for you. [laughter] nearly foreignpolicy. Foreignpolicy president s day. Theres a couple ways we can break this down analytically. The reading to do good job as a short reading but a pretty good overview of the key stuff. Some of this comes or going to start again with carter as a person. Carters values as a person for human rights report to him. Guided by the good of people in the world. That soundso great. Again his went to be against human rights . You asked that question and campaign very few people. U. S. Sent in a governing context and things change. Very guided by policy of human rights. Also approach things like an engineer pretty going to break down the promo going to analyze it, but at its different parts sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt. Sometimes that is valuable other times it goes a field of the politics of the situation. Human rights orientation carter quickly learns its one thing to go with countries not especially powerful to nothing to do out countries where the United States<\/a> has either an alliance or involved in some complex sets of arrival leaves like the soviet gounion. Im going to go to the list here of a couple of the things. Carter starts out negotiating the panama canal truly treaty to give the canal back to the people panama. This is not carters idea this had been in the works for about a decade. But carter it was on the push it in congress and became really contentious. Really contentious will this but u. S. Interest at risk in the region . Why are we giving this back . And so even though it happened again the politics of it kind of get away. It fits into a larger narrative of carter making the country seem week on the national stage. The other piece of this the relationship with the soviet union. Complex and evolves over time. Carter enters into talks trying to reduce nuclear weapons. Carter was to approach that relationship with more of a human rights framework and less of a power politics framework. Now sometimes it does sometimes it doesnt. Also it makes a pressure points because on the one hand carter was to push that theres a lot of human rights abuses in the former soviet union. But on the other hand that makes for a negative set of negotiations pretty are trying have a relationship with the country. They can refuse to meet or talk to you or do what you want or negotiate with you if you call at the human rights abuses. That creates a political incentive for carter to downplay that even though its a very significant moralal issue. Later in carters presidency they invade afghanistan that becomes other thing carter has to react too. Reacts by pulling out of the olympics and making simple trade deals over things like wheat too. Not getting involved on the ground. Thats another piece ofng reassessing how to reassess what didnt happen . How do we assess the stuff he didnt do . Next step we have from carters first year of the camp david accord. This is sitting down the leaders of israel and egypt. Putting together a Peace Agreement<\/a> negotiating a Peace Agreement<\/a> really high priority for carter. A Nobel Peace Prize<\/a> not for carter but for the other two leaders involved. I read about this a little bit. This becomes another piece its a really big foreignpolicy accomplishment. But how high is this on the priority agenda of the American People<\/a>, what constituency in the Democratic Party<\/a> does it speak to . There are people who care about it of course its not going to be a topflight issue like the economy and inflation are. Carter is very foreignpolicy forward in his first year he wants to get a lot done. So to his advisors. We need to do stuff that our voters are going to care more about. We attend not just the policy but to the politic side of that. The discrepancy between politics and policies going to come up again and again as we talk about carter. And then we are still not dont foreignpolicy this is the most we about or in policy all semester. Weve got the revolution hostage crisis. Another thing carter got to react to already very tense situation. Botched attempt to rescue american hostage and i run who were there for a year becomes a really bad piece of bad campaign imagery. Bad imagery of the success of the administration. They tried, he sent helicopters to try to rescue the hostages. Theyso failed, the helicopters crashed, eight soldiers died that looks really bad for the administration but theyre not able to control the events for their noten able to control what ofhappened in the internal domestic politics of the country. Thatn becomes another challeng. But on the other side of the ledger we have normalizing tied up atps with creating a diplomaticer relationship with china very big accomplishment. It was really complicated to put carters Foreign Policy<\/a> into a box. It also speaks to this difficulty of controlling main political narrative. If you make foreignpolicy the centerpiece of your administration thats great. First of all people do not pay a lot of attention. Second of all your very vulnerable to external events that youve got no control over whatsoever. Live a couple more policy priorities then we will get into legacy. He read a bit about this today, goodod government. I asked earlier what does Good Government<\/a> mean . Does anyone have any suggestions . What is Good Government<\/a> in this context . One other thing carter emphasizes is a waste. Making it more efficient. Being more careful steward of public funds. And so he goes after these local projects that congress is patching the district based a water project. He kind of goes after those. Does that remind you of anything . Do you have a president sang on the nationald leader. I am going to push back on this local stuff. Cassandra jackson . Lex yes a little bit of Andrew Jackson<\/a> and what . Exactly weve got we see this come up again and again. And that president ial history of the idea of the presence like ive got the big picture idea. Members of congress are just being aei little bit parochial d narrow in their vision. Maybe so its not my constituents want. And in order to get a law passed in congress to vote on it. They cannot pass laws. Thats pretty much what happened with the water projects. Carter goes after the democrats are mad. They end up cutting out about half the projects. They come back to members of its own party. In these trying to Good Government<\/a>. So, talking to inflation here just briefly. The new relevance of inftion. Inflation is twice what is right now atpr the end of carters presidency. T just got a little text of the speech he gave in the flf 1978 about inflation, what hes going toow do about it. Were going to hold on Government Spending<\/a> part of going to federal hiring. Get rid of needless regulation. Bring that competition. What ideology does this sound like . What party does it sound like liberal or consertive . What you tnk . Cracks notypically what you expect to hear out of democratic president. It sounds a lot like what youre goin to hear when you get to carters successor, ronald reagan. You are seeing a very different kind of democrat. Very different kind of Democratic Administration<\/a> really moving away from some of the main points of the Democratic Party<\/a>po even more on the outs wh other democrats with the specifically the liberal wing of the Democratic Party<\/a>. So, im happy to get to the point we are kind of winding down all the policy detail. You probably feel like ive shot to shoot with a fire hose of policy detail, right . This is intentional because i want to give the effect of what thisra administration kind of ft like. What this agenda felt like you have all of these Different Things<\/a>. All of these different details. And the political criticism carter was being unfocused. I want to think about why would people receive it that way . Is that a fair criticism . Is that a criticism that links to this particular kind of context . You would sayg today . Now people complain the government does notyt get anythg done. The government is in gridlock the two parties cannot get along. Here youve got administration focusing on a lot of things. Fighting allows its own party. Fighting a lot with congress. Things are getting done not everything is great. Not everything is perfect. They are accomplishing some of things they said theyre going to do. I do want to move briefly though to what is not there. Thisca is really notable given e scope of the carter agenda. What is nott there is a fnt and center civil rights proposal. At thisoi weve been talking a lot about president s and race and civil rights and the constuonal struggles around that. It is really remarkable for democratic president , the first democrat president sincees Lyndon Johnson<\/a> should not be dressing this. And a party or this has been such a main point. It has been such a political struggle. For African Americans<\/a> are still incredibly important constituency civil rights activists are still part of the anbroader coalition. And it has things there. Carters idea on the race are about business opportunities. They are about support for historically black colleges and universities. And that is kind of like nixon. They are based in economic opportunity. That is not nothing. Thats not to say those things are bad are notit necessarily good. With the federal involvement and equal opportunity. About bolstering bullying rights these were important to administration. Card it was invested in these ideas pretty agreed with these ideas. Even as a person and the south he had borne personal cost as a business person not joining the reactive southern white citizens councils. At the top of the agenda he has a mixed legacy for that reason. In the early part of the administration the Supreme Court<\/a> heard a big case on affirmative action. The administration was really torn internally but exactly where to go at that. Ended up coming out in general support of the concept of affirmative action. But again its kind of reactive, riley . [inaudible] where their empty promises with that . Quickset is a good question. It was not really a campaign focused either Brady Campaign<\/a> was a lot more general about this kind of Good Government<\/a> kind of idea. It was not really a front and center campaign. You see that also in the way the electorate shapes out. Carter it was quite popular in the south. It was a safe bet separate carter took the safe bet in the general election of not pushing it. Great question. Else. So i want to spend the rest of our time here really bringing down the legacy here and everyone see that i have a different motif for legacy. The thing is how we ink about president ial and weakness and i think that this is we this both in the reay kind of symbolic and superficial stuff like carter wearing jeans in, t we see this bot in the relay kind of symbolic and superficial stuff like carter wearing jeans in the white house or appearing on tv. He is on tv telling everye to turn the thermostat down. Also major Foreign Policy<\/a> moment of the country maybe not always being able to assert dominance in every Foreign Policy<\/a> interaction of things like the International Treaty<\/a> are approaching things from a human rights framework. How does that shape how we think about president ial strength . It really shapes the kinds of symbolism and words and language that the president s use. I think that it made president s really hesitant to use this kind of tradeoff language or to talk about things not going so great. One of the most famous moments with carter, this topic happened in 1979, what is commonly known as the malaise speech. Also was kind of known in the administration is the crisis of confidence speak. How the country is experiencing this low point. We come together figuring out where we are going. We totally misunderstood the speech. In fact, people were responsive to carter talking about the need for national sacrifice. The peoplee of the country to do something to make things better. Instead of promising that the government will deliver better. They wrote this book and said actually after that, people wrote in and said we will make sacrifices to conserve. We will do this. Quite responsive to the speech. Things kind of tore apart. The administration goess into some turmoil over that. The economy continues to be bad. Have the hostage situation and things falling apart and iran. Not misspeaking about this malaise speech. There is kind of a debate about that legacy. The american president cannot go on tv and say things are bad. The american president cannot go on tv and tell the American People<\/a> what they are doing wrong or what is wrong with them. Thatat i think has really, realy took hold. Really took hold through the following decade. What do we think about this . Is this good or bad for president not to address the American People<\/a> that way. There is kind of the sense of carter is just being a downer. We wantnt to have a president tt will tell us where great. The country is great. We are all doing fine we will acknowledge these tradeoffs. The last piece of that is sort of an emphasis on big picture versus details. Weeks to be overly invested in thei details. We kind of shift back and forth agbetween these different kindsf president ial images of is the president to nerdy un relatable he used to say he was professorial like that was a bad thing. Versus not invested enough in the details. Not invested enough in the reading. A common critique of trauma. I think that it is kind of a framework from tha era as well. Is it bad to have a president that is over invested in the details of a situation. In the details verses may be under invested. That leaves us with an open question about howow they may navigate with the open tradeoff questions about this . Comments . Im throwing a bunch of questions that you appeared ponder. Time to ponder we can come back to these questions over the course of the semester. Again, what i take away from this is carter takes this roadmap. Avoiding looking over investigating details, avoid being negative, avoid people making too many sacrifices. I think a lot of president s since then have sort of acted accordingly. This is a little bit less, the rabbit incidentey from 1979. Anybody know about thi . You are smiling way too much back there. He was canoeing and he was attacked by a rabbit. The president did not believe so he brought a big rabbit to show it did in fact happen. This is the only pho that i am aware of. The descriptions of this are like it was a swamp rabbit, not a cute little bunny rabbit, it was a wild animal and it jumped into a canoe. Here is the picture appeared this also became all of these kind of rumors like what the media said in private to carter s press secretary. Also how they were thinking about it. None of this is confirmed particularly well. This idea that this becomes a single of carters failure in the iran crisis. Inthe idea is this president can get attacked by a rabbit. Making himself look deep. No one is really sure if hes ecbehind the scene situations really happen. The press secretary, a book in the 80s trying to tell what really happened. Having an experience with enraged rabbits. Truly a wild animal. It exemplifies this relationship withak carter and the media appeared it kind of takes us back to watergate. How important the press, the press being a little bit aggressive. Rthow important that was in the watergate story. Carter is a different person. Circumstances have changed. Carter is still contending with this idea of the news media that really wants to expose the wickedness of the administration with carter, there are many Different Things<\/a> that are quite newsworthy. It kind of illustrates this weakness point. You will remember this rabbit. Carters legacy in the isDemocratic Party<\/a>. This is kind of weird. Whether they lose, when whatever appeared they always have kind of an odd relationship with their parties. Sometimes they are kind of the elder states person of their parties. There time is done. Sometimes its time to let other people lead. Carter influenced the trajectory of the t Democratic Party<\/a> in addition to still being somewhat of a figure within the party. One of the things i want to draw your attention to is the think was probably presenting the most challenges for carter and the most responsible is the legacy that really stuck. The legacy that did become the outsider idea appeared nominating people who are little bit fresh. This idea of outsider politics, the nomination system, the primaries, the iowa caucus where you canrl meet everybody, new hampshire, i think you literally have to meet every person in the state. That is a real advantage. I will go to the diner and get name recognition. That sticks. That becomes a thing. Really on both parties. Particularly on his own. We do see the Democratic Party<\/a> moving to the center under carter. The size of the government. Thinking back to the slide. It is okay to build out government, building out b new cabinet departments, new regulations. We see that with ronald reagan. Carter is one of the people to articulate these ideas. They articulate them as a sitting president. Of course that causes kind of a fault line. Between these more traditional democrats and this kind of new string of thought within the party. A new role of the south. The south has been lurking all throughout our semester appeared we have had a lot of experience with the south kind of being the veto point. The constituency and congress that they are worried about. Now we have someone from the deep south. Even 19th century sense the civil war. Carter is part of this cohort of new and more moderate southern governors. We are seeing real changes in that as well. We doe see it through the 1980s the Democratic Party<\/a> similar trying to pivot towards that. It was kind of a moderate move to the old southern democrats or on the other hand is Old School New<\/a> deal northern liberalism. Carter actually has a really profound effect on the ships within his own party. Within the ideas floating around in the country. The last piece of lacy i want to talk about. In a lot of ways the deepest one the image that you are most familiar with with carter. Does anyone know wt he is doing there . This is a couple years old. Building a house. He is building a house. With whatt organization . Does anybodyni know . Habitat for humanity. A couple years old. Reading the caption here at t bottom. Building homes for habitat for humanity. It is not that old. This isos only like two years o. This was one of the post presidency legacy of jimmy carter. We have the Carter Center<\/a> which he and his wife found. Really devoted to election monitoring. Democracy promotion throughout the world and also disease ratification. Carter is really active in eradicating diseases in this developing world. And then on the other hand, building homes with habitat for humanity which carter is out there physically building these houses. And that is really the post president ial legacy of carter. It is also centered at the point of contrast. Carter was not very good at being president. Sort of theer way that this goe. On the other hand is wonderful and humanitarian human being. One of the ideas that i think got deeply absorbed into the political culture is that those two things are just at odds with each other. You cannot be kind of a sunday School Teacher<\/a> kind of person and also be a successful president. That is one of the legacy ideas that i think may need to be revisited and probably will be revisited h as people rethink carters legacy or rethink what happened while he was president. Why do i think that we may treat those things as being so different, this idea that if you were this Service Oriented<\/a> person you cannot be an effective president. Do you think that this is true . What do you think . Who thinks that this is true . You want to say why . Goe for it. Maybe this is a generalization. [inaudible] okay. U yeah. An International Relations<\/a> class , taken a game, there is this idea and politics, how you will play a power game of politics. You are not thinking how could i help this other person. You are thinking how could i win you have to think strategically. This really drives how we think about politics. This powerful theoretical paradigm and also in other areas being ruthless does not really mesh with being a good person. Anyone else have thoughts on this question . I dont really have an answer about whether these things are fundamentally different. Whether this o is just someone o is very effective and then very ineffective in another. One of the things that really got absorbed into the culture is the idea that these things are totally incompatible. With a casein of one, people coming off the end of the presidency, quite raw about the whole thing, this humiliation, inflation, all of these things are sort of bad. It may lead people to make a very general called conclusion. That may not always be true. Not ever possible to bring these two things together. It seems a little bit quick to give us the idea that the presidency can be sort of compatible with service or democracy or a lot of the constitutional themes we have been talking about. The presidency just cannot be reconciled with those. I think that we will see as atpeople revisit carters legac, kind of revisitation of whether this presidency was more effective than people think. Whether the things about carter that kind of foreshadow his post presidency, his abatis on human rights,ou his emphasis on vision, his emphasis on the environment, these things actually were a part of the presidency that had some success or brought something good to the table. It depends on where you look to assess the carter presidency. Are their thoughts about this . Okay. Kind oflosed us up with carter as a transitional president. Both for the country and for the class. Kind of identify carter as a transitional president around this idea of the old par going into decline. We see that was a change in nomination. Weee that with the kind of decline of this new deal Democratic Party<\/a> and carte comes in as president , again, really makes us outside her vision very popular way to run for president. A very successful way to run for president. King a bigger government towards an idea tha government ould be efficient and pared back. Andhis really complicated inheritance for how strong the presidency should be. On the one hand sort of craving for strong goals such stronger symbols, to be really attentive to how they are looking to congress, to how it looks that they are negotiating or relating to international actors. At the same time, the water gate baggage has not gotten away. They are also contending with an environment where there is suspicion for the government for being disruptive and dishonest and all that kind of stuff. As in this sort of goal lee baca goldilocks and the three bears, if nixon and the presidency after thatti point ws too strong and then carter overcorrected and was to weaken his manipulation ofho the symbo, president s now have to think about how they will present themselves as just right. That is really constraining. Carter is a really important turning point in how we think about the presidency and how we think about the post watergate presidency. For us in this class, carter represents our transition between our constitutional unit building up there talking to these themes about how president s have enacted their constitutional obligations. How they have navigated the demands of civil rights and federalism. Now moving into a period where we will focus on the public residency. How do president s relate to that really delving into that unit. If anyone has any final thoughts or questions. Before we wrap things up here. Okay. For next time, thursday, we are really peeling back. Talking about how carter related to the new Deal Coalition<\/a> and the Democratic Party<\/a>. We have gone over that. We will really immerse ourselves and then on thursday and kind of move backward in time ago how did we get here. That will be a lecture on fdr the Democratic Party<\/a> for thursday. Get excited. Hopefully this poses some questions about the Carter Legacy<\/a> that we can chew on the rest of the semester. If you are enjoying American History<\/a> tv signup for our newsletter using the qr code on our screen to receive the weekly schedule like lectures of history, the presidency and more sign up for the American History<\/a> tv newsletteray and be sure to watch ame history tv every saturday or anytimenline on csg history. On saturday august 26 a celen of the 60th anniversary of the march on gton at the Lincoln Memorial<\/a> in washington, d. C. Reverend al sharpton and the faf Martin Luthering<\/a> jr. Joined activists and retatives from national occasion. Ions to celebrate the live coverage begins at 11 00 a. M. Easternn cspan. You can also watch it onur free mobile video app cspan now or online at cspan. Org. A healthy democracy does not just look like this. It looks like this. Americans can see democracy. Citizens are truly influenced while the public thrives. Get informed straight from the source on cspan. Unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. 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