The contrast this week has been striking. The solemn ceremonies and tearful farewells for ex-President Jimmy Carter over against the threats, bombast, and bloviations from President-elect Donald Trump.
Dig a little deeper and the disparities multiply. Carter as a lad once lifted a penny from the collection plate at church; his father so scolded him that he never stole anything again. Donald Trump watched his father run scams with federal housing funds, and Donald’s own sons worked with him to bilk charities founded in their name. Carter celebrated the end of Jim Crow in Georgia; Trump wished he could replicate it in New York. Carter was faithfully married to one woman for 77 years; Trump has worked through three wives besides the untold pick-ups from his Manhattan clubbing days, a civil conviction for sexual assault, and felony convictions for covering up payoffs to a porn star.
Carter served eight years in the U.S. Navy. Trump ducked behind his bone spurs. At the Naval Academy Carter was taught that honesty is an officer’s highest virtue and observed the lesson to a fault. Trump has lied like no president in history. Carter was born-again twice and ever professed Jesus Christ as savior and guide. Trump has followed—well, who’s the father of lies?
“Character”—Really?
One could go on but it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. The slap in the face—one can no longer call it a surprise—is that, when it comes to choosing between the two men, white evangelical Christians have overwhelmingly supported the felon, the con-man, the biblical illiterate and sexual libertine while never giving a majority of their votes to the man who prayed like no other occupant the White House has ever seen.
Sorry to beat a dead horse; we’ve known all this for a while. It’s just that the stark juxtaposition in the news puts the paradox front and center once more. So how do we understand this? What might be the moral of the story? Maybe that character matters less than we might hope, and certainly less than common pieties have long claimed.
First off, to thrive in politics you need political savvy—the ability to read the room, and the compulsion to keep on doing so. Franklin Roosvelt excelled at this; so did Bill Clinton. Ronald Reagan learned it in Hollywood, Donald Trump in unreality TV. Hillary Clinton tripped up at this point, and Jimmy Carter flopped. Like Herbert Hoover, a truly epic failure, Carter was an engineer and believed that exact calibrations on paper, along with hard work, would produce self-evident solutions to the question at hand. As a submarine officer, he would read manuals in his berth rather than play cards with the fellas in the mess. Schmoozing seemed a waste of time when there was work to do.
But the work of politics requires connecting with people. That means learning to channel their hopes (Roosevelt) or fears (Trump) and to cast oneself as the champion who can meet them. It’s a kind of charisma and in this profession it counts more than character. Rallying people amidst a crisis is the crucial test and here, where Roosevelt and Reagan succeeded, Carter (inflation, Iran hostages) failed. True, Carter’s failure cost half a million fewer American lives than Trump’s (COVID), but lies, denial, swagger, and a media apparatus to support them can cover a multitude of sins. Honesty leaves you bare.
Whose Christian Ethics?
Secondly, personal character has to match up with your package of policies—better, with the character people project onto your policies. Here Carter did not fail so much as elicit the difference between white Evangelicals’ professed and actual ethics. His agenda was as Christian as can be. Putting racism outside the acceptable bounds of public speech and policy. Setting human rights as the lodestone of foreign policy. Making health care available to the poor and needy. Caring for the environment and giving prescient attention to the causes and costs of climate change. (Remember the solar panels on the White House roof?) Forging a lasting peace between Egypt and Israel. Forestalling conflict over the Panama Canal. Bringing China into the council of nations.
Against all this and more the New Christian Right arose boasting of a “moral majority.” Its agenda? At first a defense of racial segregation in the name of “religious liberty” alleged to be under attack in federal court. When that didn’t play well in the polls, an attack on feminism in the name of “sanctity of life.” The life in question was fetal; whatever happened after birth was surrendered to the tender mercies of the “free market” and its supposed punishment of sloth. On the global scene, America first—keeping China ostracized, the Canal American, and Zionism unmitigated. And tear out those solar panels while you’re at it.
Collective Character
Character does matter but more among the target audience, the American people, than with the president. Here Carter read the room wrong and Trump gets it right. “The people of this country are inherently unselfish, open, honest, decent, competent, and compassionate,” Carter offered. It is a bromide repeated regularly by American presidents, Republican and Democratic alike. And it is manifestly untrue, or only half true. Americans can be all these things individually, but they are also recurrently driven by hatred, fear, self-righteousness, scapegoating, narrow-mindedness, short-sightedness, and pursuit of the main chance.
All this Donald Trump understands and works to aggravate. Such religious inspiration as he draws upon roots back to his childhood exposure to Norman Vincent Peale and the gospel of positive thinking—positive thinking about oneself, that is, with the flip side of negativity ready at hand to project on others when things go wrong. By contrast, Carter said many times that he drew his social ethics from Peale’s great contemporary, Reinhold Niebuhr. But Niebuhr would never utter the above-quoted bromide—in fact, made a career out of attacking it, correcting it, and trying to find a way through the very mixed moral quality of the American people.
Whose Immorality?
Some commentators have said that the title of Niebuhr’s most famous book, Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932) should have been Moral Man and Amoral Society. I used to agree. But in view of the last fifty years of U.S. history, I think the original title gets it right. Americans continue to be plagued by original sin—Niebuhr’s starting point. More specifically, they continue to deny and dodge their complicity in slavery and racism, land expropriation and the pillaging of the natural environment, their fantasy that maximizing private interest will produce the greatest general good.
Niebuhr’s dictum is right: Americans are not innocent, pure, nice, and good. Trump knows this and declares it open season for collective sin even if, or because, grace will not abound—grace never having been necessary for himself nor available to others. Carter knew better, tried better, did much better. But a closer reading of Niebuhr might have shown him the full dimensions of what he was up against.
22 Responses
Yes, the “deep state” exists. As Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Well said, James. I will never understand the appeal Trump has for so many people.
Trump’s ascendancy should surprise no one – least of all Herman Melville, who well over a century ago proclaimed that the USA is a “country of confidence men, rogues, hucksters, impostors, sharks and pretenders.” 45/47 is simply the apotheosis of all these descriptors. What else could be our national character, based as its early economy and ethos (and, well everything) were on convincing ourselves of the lie that people with dark skin were less than human……a lie that continues to this day?
Well said James. I hate it that President Carter’s passing will forever be linked in historic association to…well. Feels like we are at a turning point and there’s no going back.
Jim, thanks for helping me bring some organization to my free-floating anxiety. Our nation seems committed to ignoring or denying the current moral crisis. The life and death of Carter, along with the widespread (and belated) expressions of admiration for him, stand in shocking contrast to the record of our President-elect.
Our vote was not between Carter (once) and Trump (once), but between Biden (once, and thankfully, not again) and another well described defective candidate. When will we ever learn!
Teddy Roosevelt once said that the most important quality of any leader (including President) is character. I think he is right in general, but probably wrong in our current political climate and election process. Think this was the point of the article in comparing Carter to the President-elect. As Christians, I’ve always thought that character was of upmost importance. It was what I was taught in my Reformed community, as candidate and then President Clinton ascended to the office. Alas, I’ve come to understand that character matters not. It is power that we cling to. Maybe Teddy was wrong all along. Character is a load of bunk, a dream that makes no difference. I hope that’s not true, at least for those outside our faith community, because it certainly is true for a majority of those inside the church.
Thanks Gordon. The Lord gave us 4 years of Biden so that most people could wake up to seeing how destructive his government was to the American people. The arrogance of my Democrat friends is hard to digest. The values of the Democrat party are ones I as a Christian cannot vote for!!!Just think of that Planned Parenthood van outside the Democrat Convention this summer. They do not want God in anything! God bless us with Trump as President. If the borders are closed properly we can have a country again. Pray God will be merciful to America in the next four years. Pray for Trump’s safety. Even Cyrus was used by God and called His servant!
Yes to Al’s comment! Democracy is at risk around the world precisely because people insist on self-interest ( Poor me, it’s the economy) over honesty, forgiveness, and mutuality. America-first, Christian Nationalism, and Zionism-first, are not just un-Christian, they are anti-Christian. Niebuhr’s understanding of sin goes deeper than that of the evangelical populace. Sin, for most people, is not intentional and defiant rebellion, it is wishful, justifying, self-delusion. Blindness, as Jesus describes it. Certain politicians are eager to very dishonestly and proudly exploit that. Others, Carter and Ford in this case, two of the most highly mocked presidents in recent memory, were not so willing to sacrifice integrity. Jesus was also mocked. But who would not choose their after-death eulogies and legacies of virtue? The entire Carter memorial service, camera shots of former presidents, wives, and one VP included, created a modern day parable experience.
Yes, how much better for a politician to appeal to the “better angels” of the nation’s character rather than to tell us that we are simply good.
Jimmy Carter was a hero of mine. I was able to meet him over lunch in 1991 during a Pew-funded conference at Emory University, convened by the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, directed by Calvin alum John Witte. The theme of the conference was Christianity and Democracy. Carter opened the meeting and Desmond Tutu was the closer. Those were very different times, when dictatorships and oligarchies were falling and democracy was on the rise worldwide. Jimmy and the Carter Center played a critical role in that movement. My prayer today, then, is like the one overheard from a man kneeling at the casket of Salvation Army founder William Booth: “Do it again, Lord. Do it again!”
Thank you for the article. I think it would be helpful to lay out the truth of the Iran hostage situation and Carter. It’s become clear that those in the government worked against Carter to bring American hostages home during his administration, stalling this important work to help drag Carter down. It may not have made a difference to his ultimate defeat, but the story of history matters. It’s not a coincidence that in mere hours (approximately) after Reagan took office, the hostage conflict was ended. Thus began the practice of putting party before country and power over the people. One could argue that this is a continuation of the practice, but it was a rather bold move of the “deep state.”
Thanks for this great essay. I’m forwarding it on to friends and relatives.
Many thanks to both Jim and, earlier, Wes Granberg-Michael for their tributes to Jimmy Carter. Much as I also appreciated the warm and respectful coverage by the media of yesterday’s moving funeral, I couldn’t help recalling, however, as Wes points out, how much less comprehending and reverential the press was toward Carter during his actual presidency!
When I listened to President Bidens’ eulogy yesterday, with his emphasis on Character, I immediately thought, No, Joe, that’s off. Character is certainly important, and true of Carter, and not of 45/47, but I think it misses the real point, and was well-intended but short analysis–typical of Biden (and the Democratic Party). I think Jim Bratt is right on here. Biden also appealed to civil religion, as he did four years ago, the civic “faith” of America. Not Christian Nationalism, but the old liberal civil religion. I think we’ve got a struggle going on between two civil religions, the old easygoing one of the Democrats and a few RINOs, and the newer, more powerful, more attractive Baalism of the Christian Nationalists. Baalism does not require Faith. (I’m following Jacques Ellul here).
Interesting point. Could use some clarification or further discussion. I think I sense what you are saying when Biden repeats the phrase, “We are America. There is nothing we cannot do if we do it together.” There is still a hint of America is second to none in the world to that phrase. On the other hand, it has been said that Carter’s honesty was his downfall. His unwillingness to make statements that showed American in the greatest light or greatest strength. I remember hearing from the GOP in earlier eras, “Why are the Dems always down grading America?” But it can be said today, and Biden has said it, “Why is MAGA always saying America is terrible?” Of course it is only terrible to Trump if he is not the one in office. We likely need to be careful how we view our nation…. an honest view of it and ourselves but never losing the hope that we can challenge ourselves to be better.
Spot on, and well said. Thank you Jim
Jimmy Careter’s funeral brought to mind an interesting historical fact: Jimmy Carter, Fidel Castro and the Aga Kahn were honorary pallbearers at the funeral of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Canada’s present Prime Minister’s father. Jimmy Carter was a humble man of integrity and we all knew it!
Jim, I wish you could read minds as well as you read history and current political realities: I found myself wondering what went through Trump’s mind as he listened to tribute after tribute to Carter for his exercise of virtues that have never been a part of Trump’s life.
That was exactly my thought as I listened to the importance of faith and character! Perhaps it was taken as a dagger, more likely Trump did not understand the meaning of the words! Who will eulogize him at the end of his life? Musk? Bezos? And what will they say?
I echo these thoughts also. I wondered so much what Trump’s thoughts might be about all the people talking about character and integrity, and wondering if he was listening at all. I believe that character does matter, whether or not it pays off politically. Our God is watching.
Henry (and Jim), your comparison of Carter with Trump is “spot on”. And now, l think it’s time we stop trying not to offend those among our friends, and in our families, schools, and churches who choose to defend the right of a convicted criminal to occupy the White House.
Enough already!
Jim, when we have so many honest and compassionate people in our lives, it’s hard to understand how 45/47 was elected. Thank you for this refection on the relationship between politics and personal morality. The election results are a little less of a mystery now.