Jimmy Carter, Conservative

America's rightward turn began during the Carter presidency.

Carter was a very good man, but not an especially liberal president.

Jimmy Carter was so old when he died that many of his obituarists, including Edward Walsh of the Washington Post, Roy Reed of the New York Times, and my friend Walter Shapiro of the New Republic, predeceased him. Walter was a speechwriter in the Carter White House and I recommend his tribute in TNR. My own Carter appreciation was penned nearly a decade ago and posted this morning on Politico (my place of work when I wrote it). It argues that Carter’s was not, as is often said, the last liberal presidency before the nation took a conservative turn, but rather the first step in that conservative direction. I state this not as condemnation—I admired Carter—but merely as historical fact. You can read my Carter essay here.

I also have a piece up today in the New Republic explaining that the oligarchs won the first (very ugly) immigration fight of the second Trump administration, over importing skilled labor from overseas. I expect business interests to win more fights this time out than during Trump’s first term. You can read that piece here.