Recently, we bid farewell to and celebrated the life and service of Jimmy Carter, our 39th president. He was a true statesman, humanitarian and advocate for justice, but, most importantly, he was a decent human being.
On Jan. 20, an indecent man will become our president. He is a liar (“I have done nothing wrong”), draft dodger (bone spurs, indeed), tax evader, election cheater (“I just want to find 11,780 votes”), bully, convicted criminal, serial sex abuser, thief (classified documents) and adulterer. The contrast between Jimmy Carter and Donald Trump is stark. The two men could not be more different.
In August of 1974, then President Richard Nixon, amid the Watergate scandal, was facing certain impeachment, and, at the urging of Republican congressional leaders, Nixon, while claiming he was “not a crook,” resigned (oh, for the days when Republican leaders in Congress had spines).
Jimmy Carter was just what our country needed. In 1976, after the brief administration of Nixon’s vice president Gerald Ford, Carter was elected president on the strength of his vow to bring morality back to government and a promise never to lie to the American people.
It is probably pure coincidence that the intersection of a death and an inauguration has focused our attention on Carter and Trump. Carter was a peanut farmer who ascended to the presidency on a reputation of honesty; Trump was born into privilege and rose to the presidency despite a reputation of dishonesty and corruption.
Have we, as a country, changed so much in just 50 years? Have we become stupider? Have we lost the ability to accurately assess another’s character? Have we become so suggestible that we accept the rantings of a snake oil salesman as truth?
Trump convinced nearly half of our nation’s voters that he will redress their complaints and improve their lives. Fat chance. He is mostly interested in lining his own pockets and those of his family members as well as those of his billionaire buddies.
Jimmy Carter’s death has shined a spotlight on the fact that our nation, in less than five decades, has evolved from electing, perhaps, its most ethical president to electing its most unethical president, a discomforting trajectory. Equally discomforting is the fact that Trump, like his pals Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jon Un, wants to be president for life as he only half-jokingly frequently suggests.
Buckle up. Our form of government is at risk.
Allan W. Smart, Salt Lake City
