Carter’s truths vs. Trump’s lies: What voters value
Carter, who told voters he would never lie to them, was considered weak. Trump, who continues to lie about everything, is considered strong.
In death, former president Jimmy Carter is being remembered as a humble truth-teller who put principle ahead of politics — the very qualities that led voters to reject him after just one term.
He will be buried this week. Donald Trump, that brash master of deception and endless self-promotion, is set to return in triumph to the White House on Jan. 20.
When it comes to their political fates, can there be any starker judgment about what voters value in a president? Certainly not honesty, especially if it makes them feel bad about themselves.
Carter, who told voters he would never lie to them, was considered weak. Trump, who continues to lie about everything from the attack on the US Capitol four years ago to the state of the country he is inheriting, is considered strong.
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The truth Carter spoke as president about a national “crisis in confidence” was a downer that turned off voters. Trump’s distortion of truth — that a declining America must be made great again — is considered uplifting.
Carter asked Americans to look at themselves for answers to the country’s problems. Trump tells Americans to blame others, such as immigrants.
As president, Carter put his faith in solving problems through thoughtful process rather than trying to sell a grandiose mission to the country. But when he urged Americans to look inward, he was considered preachy and sanctimonious. His low-key style of governing, plus inflation and the Iran hostage crisis, led to public perception of a weak president. During his presidency, the public continued to think of Carter as truthful. But as Marc Fisher wrote in The Washington Post, Carter’s honesty hindered his ability to get things done. The truth was not necessarily what voters wanted to hear — or, to paraphrase that famous line from “A Few Good Men,” what they could handle.
When Carter announced his presidential bid, he promised, “I would not tell a lie; I would not mislead the American people.” Trump promised no such thing. Since his first campaign and term in office, he has issued thousands of lies and misleading statements and continues to do so.
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In just one recent example, Trump picked up on an inaccurate Fox News report in the first hours after the Jan. 1 attack in New Orleans and suggested a link to immigration at the US-Mexico border. He continued to make statements suggesting a connection with illegal immigration even after federal law enforcement officials identified an Army veteran who was born in the United States as the sole person responsible for the attack.
With Trump, truth can always be sacrificed to political gain. As The New York Times reported, he “flipped” the script on Jan. 6, reframing it from a violent effort to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election into a patriotic display of love of Trump, if not country. He claims the country is a disaster when it is actually in good shape, based on such traditional metrics as jobs and the economy.
And on the character front, let’s not forget that a New York jury found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts involving the falsification of business records in an effort to illegally influence the 2016 election.
But as the veteran Democratic consultant James Carville wrote for The Times, “it’s clear many Americans do not give a rat’s tail” about Trump’s “indictments — even if they are justified — or about his antidemocratic impulses.” Voters happily overlooked Trump’s character in what Trump has led them to believe is their economic self-interest.
With Carter, Americans did come to respect his virtue — after they kicked him out of the White House. His long, post-presidential life of service and commitment to truth-telling is now celebrated, a truth recognized even by Trump.
In the first statement he posted on Truth Social after Carter’s death was announced, Trump wrote that the former president “did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans. For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude.” In a separate, follow-up post, he wrote, “While I strongly disagreed with him philosophically and politically, I also realized that he truly loved and respected our Country, and all it stands for.”
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Of course, Trump couldn’t resist a jab about the timing of the lowering of the American flag to honor Carter. As Trump wrote on Truth Social, “The Democrats are all ‘giddy’ about our magnificent American Flag potentially being at ‘half mast’ during my Inauguration. They think it’s so great, and are so happy about it because, in actuality, they don’t love our Country, they only think about themselves.”
Ridiculous, right? And more proof that more than any other president since Carter, Trump knows many Americans don’t care about the truth. All too often, it’s messy and complicated and does not lend itself to easy solutions or scapegoats.
All the more reason to honor and respect Carter, a president who put truth ahead of self-interest and, some might say, was honest to a fault.
Joan Vennochi is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at joan.vennochi@globe.com. Follow her @joan_vennochi.
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