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| A man who actually made America great |
The first Presidential election I ever voted in was in 1980. I had followed Jimmy Carter's meteoric 1976 campaign, even staying up until 2:00 am on Election Day (a school night, no less) to watch him be projected the winner over Gerald Ford. Though I was too young to vote, my parents had ingrained in me that Democrats were always preferrable to Republicans, and I enjoyed his victory immensely (especially in redder than red Kokomo, Indiana). But by 1980 I had thrown my support to his primary opponent, one Ted Kennedy, disappointed in the job that Carter had done (though I shouldn't have been). Carter won the primary easily, and after watching Kennedy give a brilliant speech at the 1980 Democratic National Convention, I was convinced that the Democratic Party had blown their chance and as a protest I gave my precious vote to a third-party candidate, John Anderson (no matter how disillusioned I was, my vote was not going to the Republican candidate). On election night, after Ronald Reagan had been projected the winner (at 6:00 pm EST, which caused many west coast voters to go home because the Presidential race was already over, and thus was the last campaign where a winner was projected before the west coast polls closed), Anderson (who did not win a single voting precinct) gave his concession speech, and the first words out of his mouth were to the effect of "at least Carter didn't win." And I knew instantly that I'd pissed my vote away on a charlatan.
I have never made that mistake again.
Jimmy Carter passed away today. At age 100, he was the longest living President in the history of our country. His legacy will be the greatness with which he handled his post Presidency (Habitat for Humanity, Nobel Peace Prize, his tireless devotion to bettering our world through peace initiatives and disease eradication), but his Presidency was a lot more consequential than he is given credit for (have a hunch the same is going to happen to President Biden). Carter was the first President to acknowledge climate change, fought for a wide range of energy options (created the Energy Department), created the Department of Education (if you have a special needs child getting help at school you can thank Carter), and brokering an unprecedented accord between Israel and Egypt.
While our world is most definitely a worse place without such a selfless humanitarian, I am grateful today for the fact that he passed away while Joe Biden was President. I would not even want to imagine how crudely and crassly the Trump administration would have handled it.
May Jimmy Carter rest in peace.
Peace,
emaycee
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