reconciliation despite bitterness

A means and an end

The late president Carter’s passing is surprising me a bit because of the praise he is receiving. A man roundly condemned, if not mocked, for too much of the past forty-five years, Carter’s accomplishments are not only cited (because of his passing) but appreciated because of the model he offered us all. Whether you liked him or not, that is refreshing in this era of such deep negativity.

As I have noted earlier this week, I did not always appreciate Carter but came to realize his vast policy range about ten years ago. That doesn’t change the fact he was as prone to human reactions and foibles as anyone. After 100 years and early 4 months of life, however, Jimmy Carter truly embraced some unique choices.

A piece in today’s Washington Post, however, goes a long way to explain the late president’s appeal now in a nation replete with hatred, criticism, fracture, and distrust. On this first day of a new year, as we either prioritize or resolve, I call your attention to Carter’s actions.

For those either too young or otherwise absorbed, the 1976 presidential campaign had its ugly moments. The former governor from Georgia proved a cutting, direct opponent when criticizing the accidental incumbent, President Gerald R. Ford. The man who assumed the presidency upon Richard Nixon’s departure (follwoing the elected vice president’s conviction on taking bribes in brown paper bags) from the White House in early August 1974 suffered a number of gaffes, much like our current incumbent. Ford had also made the controversial (or courageous, depending on one’s perspective) choice a month into office to pardon the Watergate president for his many missteps; Ford argued this was a path towards national healing.

Carter was having none of it. He fiercely campaigned on behalf of a new generation, a new approach, and a new country. Carter aggressively leapt on Ford’s most famous misstep during a 1976 debate when the president argued that the Soviets did not dominate Eastern Europe precisely as conservative Americans were increasing worrying about our policy of “detente” with that same evil empire. Carter cut Ford no breaks on inflation, international politics, or anything else in what was ultimately a hard fought, brutal split across the country. Carter won, sending Ford home as a failed president—a haunting foreshadow of 1980.

Yet by Ford’s death in 2006, the article notes Carter and Ford were not only reconciled but actually close friends (although I readily acknowledge that is a relative term so I am taking it literally). Drawn together by their travel together to mutual acquaintance Anwar Sadat’s October 1981 funeral in Cairo, the two men shared a determination for national as well as personal healing. Years later, of course, their shared defeats following a single term presidency must provided further links.

Authors Jordan and Sullivan then catalog how Carter accomplished the same rapproachement with other erstwhile adversaries over the next five decades. Jimmy Carter clearly found both Senator Ted Kennedy’s and former President Bill Clinton’s moral failings to be repugnant but the harsh public criticisms of each eventually became less important than rekindling ties. I can’t pretend to explain why those reconciliations, particularly with Clinton who seemed to have triggered reactions in the Georgian because of their shared southern experiences.

Ted Kennedy, probably the antithesis of everything Carter experienced, challenged Carter in 1980 at a point when the president must have desperately wondered how everything (the Iranian hostage crisis begun the previous autumn, the failed hostage rescue, the on-going national malaise Carter cheered against, and the rise of the Christian nationalists in support of Reagan rather than him as Born Again from among them) could have gone wrong. Yet Kennedy’s own failure to offer serious rationale beyond his surname for challenging Carter must have provided the smallest of comforts in what became a massive public rebuke.

Yet Carter chose to rebuild intra-Democratic ties with the Massachusetts senator well before the latter succumbing to aggressive brain cancer fifteen years ago. Some of it was time, some of it probably was Carter’s conviction born of faith, a dose of it likely was Kennedy’s altered public persona following a remarriage, and a bit of it was the work Mrs. Carter did to add mental illness, an issue Kennedy’s family confronted, to the former president’s radar. In any case, by the Massachusetts’ passing, Carter spoke compassinately and warmly of Kennedy.

The Clinton connection, like so many with Bill and Hill, took longer because of more ups and downs along the road. Bill and Hillary Clinton were aggressively energetic on their 1970s trajectory to recast the Democratic Party as anything other the one shown in Chicago in 1968. Bill, as the nation’s youngest governor, stood out during Carter’s term but the never ending swirl of questions of his appetites, explanations, and half-truths bred Carter’s disdain. The former president proved thin-skinned, according to the Post, regarding public acknowledge at Clinton’s 1993 inauguration. Carter then complicated things further by eschewing Hillary to support Barack Obama in 2008. Yet by his final years, the Clintons and Carters sewed back their relationship in a meaningful way.

I said earlier this week that Carter was human because one’s obituaries with such high praise can appear to erase the negative characteristics each of us has in one form or another. Of course Carter never forgave Iranian leaders. The article and what I have read elsewhere indicates the former president sought better ties with Ronald Reagan or even the Bushes. His links with the current incoming president were tenuous as Carter’s moral rectitude could hardly have been further from some Mr. Trump’s acknowledged behavior, much less the public positions of some of Trump’s supporters.

But how many reconciliations can we envision right now across our political spectrum? The attacks on Joe Biden as he enters his final nineteen days in office remain scathing. Democrats, similarly, remain too often unwilling to acknowledge that Vice President Harris lost the election and Donald Trump won. Senator Mitch McConnell vacates his Kentucky representation in the Senate yet the disdain for his decisions, particularly on the 2021 impeachment vote, leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of many Americans. Democrats have their own elected officials departing, such as Sherwood Brown of Ohio or John Tester of Montana, with as much venom directed against their records as if the campaigns had not ended. In short, reappraisals and improvements appear in short supply these days. Or, perhaps you see cases I am missing.

An erstwhile colleague, someone with whom I had public differences over two decades at the National War College, lectured to our students about Washington several times. He opened their eyes to the fact that few things in the nation’s capital (and by extension the country) are permanent breaks—or at least that is how it used to work. Instead, as true in Realpolitik in the world system, alliances and divisions are shifting, remade when it serves the interests of both sides. He used to end with a reminder that no policy debate is ever final, a wise admonition.

This applies at home and abroad yet in contemporary America, on 1 Janaury 2025, far too much of our conversation focuses on permanence of disruption, of fracturing, and of fundamental distrust (I admit to words of despair on this subject). As we seize this new year, it bears remembering that things change (back to my points about priorities yesterday) if we so desire. If we seek to maintain complete distrust, we can probably do that but accomplish little as citizens or as a nation; that’s just evident to me.

Jimmy Carter (and those with whom he rebuilt ties) decided consciously to do so. It was within his power to go either way, as it’s within ours a nation to look at our divisions to ask if they are healthiest for us. We may assess the splits need remain permanent but I doubt we will. But, that opens another entire subject. But, reconciliation is a consequence of decision-making and actions.

Let me close by reminding that reconciliation can be an end or a means to something else. I think reconciliation for its own sake may have been Carter’s goals or it may have been an end to his personal journey associated with being an active Christian. I have no idea whatsoever.

I do know that reconciliation for our nation needs be a means that we probably cannot ignore, regardless how fiercely each of us holds our particular views right now. We are citizens of the same country, after all.

I wish you a healthy, happy, prosperous, and resilient 2025. I appreciate your time each day you read this column. I also genuinely seek your feedback on any individual point or the overall thrust as I don’t have all of the answers for the future but am pretty sure we need discuss that path ahead. Please chime in. Please feel free to circulate this if you find it valuable. Thank you, finally, to the subscribers who commit to the column.

Be well and be safe. FIN

Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan, “Carter made enemies, then peace. Ask Ford, Kennedy, Clinton.”, WashingtonPost.com, 1 January 2025: A6.