Jimmy Carter was America’s best ex-president
Best “ex-president” is a little bit like the classroom award for “most improved.” It’s not what you want to be recognized for, but it’s good nonetheless.
And so it was for Jimmy Carter. In the mid-1970s, America was worn out from a White House scandal and a protracted war in Vietnam. Carter had been an officer in the U.S. Navy; after finishing his service, he returned to his native state of Georgia to work on his family’s peanut farm.
He jumped into politics in 1962, winning an election to represent his community in Georgia’s state legislature. In 1970, he became governor of Georgia. After just a single term, he ran for president. He was so little-known at the time that people called him “Jimmy Who?”
But he represented a generational change and promised to help the country move on from years of war and scandal. He did have some experience in business, government, and in the Navy. But most of all, he had a friendly disposition and an optimistic smile. “The Grin Will Win” rhymed one of his campaign buttons.
Alas, his presidency was not successful. Inflation was high, and nowhere was that felt more than in energy prices. There were long lines at gas stations. In one of his first speeches to the nation, Carter dressed in a sweater, sat by a fireplace, and told Americans to turn their thermostats down to 55 degrees at night—that’s not even 13 degrees Celsius.
Things were no better for Carter in foreign affairs. America was frequently caught on the back foot. He was slow to respond to the growing threat from the Soviet Union. In the third year of his term, militants in Iran seized the U.S. embassy and took 52 Americans hostage. They were held hostage for the remainder of Carter’s term.
He suffered one of the most lopsided electoral college defeats in history, to Ronald Reagan in 1980. In a final humiliation, the Iranian militants released the hostages on the day Reagan took office.
And then a funny thing happened. James Earl Carter, Jr., became America’s best ex-president.
There’s no job description for former presidents. Many write memoirs, give speeches, volunteer in their hometowns, and establish libraries to polish their legacies. But Jimmy Carter was young when he left office. And he decided that he still had work to do.
He established the Carter Center at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. The Carter Center is dedicated to advancing human rights and alleviating human suffering. And the Carter Center is considered one of the most impactful global non-profit organizations.
The organization does a lot of things, but you can put them into three categories: peace, health, and human rights.
It has done tremendous humanitarian work related to public health. The Carter Center works to reduce disease in poor, remote places that are often overlooked. Here are just two examples that Jimmy Carter and his nonprofit worked on: river blindness and Guinea worm, a parasite.
Guinea worm is terrible. People get it by ingesting larvae in unfiltered water. The worm can grow to three feet long—and then it can burn holes in people’s skin and emerge from their bodies. It’s extremely painful.
In 1986, there were 3.5 million cases around the world. The Carter Center led a global effort to eradicate this disease, promoting water filtration and education. In 2023, there were fourteen—not 14 million, not 14,000. Fourteen cases. Carter said he wanted the last Guinea worm to die before he did; that probably didn’t happen, but it nearly did.
It was a similar story with river blindness, a parasite spread by insects that live in rapidly-flowing rivers. Thanks to the Carter Center’s work, this disease has been eliminated in Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Guatemala, and cases have been significantly reduced in Brazil, Venezuela, Uganda, Sudan, and other places.
If this were all the work that Jimmy Carter did, he would have a strong legacy as an ex-president. But he did so much more.
The Carter Center helps countries design free and fair elections, and it has observed over 110 elections in 39 countries, helping to safeguard citizens’ right to vote. Its opinions are considered an independent gold standard in election fairness.
Carter personally has helped negotiate peace in Haiti, Sudan, Ethiopia, North Korea, and other troubled places.
Separately from the Carter Center, he helped build up Habitat for Humanity, a Christian volunteer organization that builds and renovates homes around the world.
On October 1, 2019, Jimmy Carter became the first American president to celebrate his 95th birthday—and then he was the first to live to 96, 97, 98, 99, and, finally, to 100 years old.
He was diagnosed with cancer at age 90 and entered hospice care about two years ago. In 2023, he lost his wife Rosalynn to cancer; they had been married 77 years. Jimmy Carter died at his home in Plains, Georgia, in December 2024.
Jeff’s take
I said Jimmy Carter was America’s best ex-president. Others have had strong post-presidential careers. Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia. John Quincy Adams served in the legislature—after leaving the White House. William Howard Taft became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
But nobody else had the global impact after leaving office that Jimmy Carter had. Certainly a lot of people don’t agree with his politics. Some may say his peacekeeping efforts were naïve. But you can’t deny the huge impact he had on health and democracy around the world.
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