US: What if Jimmy Carter’s political story had been different?

US: On Tuesday, Jimmy Carter turns 100 years old, making history as the first American president to do so.
Many people evaluate Carter’s legacy in terms of his achievements as a statesman and humanitarian, but what if his political trajectory had been different? What if Jimmy Carter had won a second term as president in 1980, rather than falling short against Ronald Reagan?

Newsweek discussed what the 1980s might have looked like with four more years of Jimmy Carter in an interview with presidential scholar Robert Strong, a senior fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and author of Working in the World: Jimmy Carter and the Making of American Foreign Policy.

A Budgetary Conservative in the Oval Office

Carter stood apart from both his predecessor, Richard Nixon, and his successor in terms of his approach to fiscal policy. Carter fit Strong’s description of “a traditional fiscal conservative.” He was dedicated to budgetary balance and had an approach to economic regulation that was ahead of several of Reagan’s initiatives.

Carter believed in employing market forces rather than government monitoring to spur economic development, and this was evident in his deregulation initiatives in the airline, trucking, and natural gas sectors.
Reagan, on the other hand, raised the national debt by raising government expenditure and lowering

taxation. Strong said that a second Carter administration may have been marked by more moderate economic policies and smaller deficits than those of the 1980s, and that Carter would not have instituted such a significant tax reduction.

Strong did not think Carter could have prevented the catastrophic recession that struck the US at the start of the 1980s, despite his budgetary prudence.

An Alternative Method for Social Programs

Carter differs from Reagan’s conception of America in his views on social expenditures as well. Strong said that Carter, in contrast to Reagan, supported Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” social initiatives, which aimed to utilize public funds to lessen racial inequality and poverty.

“Carter was sympathetic to the causes or the purposes of the social spending in the Great Society, but he wasn’t going to push that agenda unless we had a revenue stream that would pay for it,” said Strong.

This viewpoint was reflected in his refusal to support Democratic Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy’s health care proposals, which included a plan to create a single-payer, nonprofit insurance plan for all citizens. Carter did not oppose expanding access to health care; rather, he believed that the nation could not currently afford it.

Carter, according to Strong, believed in boundaries: “If you can’t afford it, you can’t have it.” Reagan ran on a platform of cutting down social services. Strong said, nevertheless, that Carter did not share Reagan’s basic opposition to social expenditure.

A more balanced approach to social services, emphasizing fiscal restraint while yet admitting the necessity for government assistance when feasible, may have been seen under a second Carter presidency.

Human Rights and International Relations

Carter was a fervent supporter of human rights on the international scene, and this dedication probably would have been crucial in a second term.

Strong referred to Carter’s raising of human rights to a top priority as “an important achievement,” one that has continued to have an impact on succeeding administrations.

He supported a sensible, diplomatic, and morally grounded approach to international affairs.

Strong said that while Carter would have tackled the Cold War with a focus less on military expenditure and more on moral impact, Reagan maintained Carter’s stern position on human rights in his critiques of the Soviet Union.

Strong said, “Carter wasn’t exaggerating the Soviet threat the way the neoconservatives and Republicans did,” claiming that Carter preferred to see the Soviet Union as an economy in decline rather than as a nuclear menace.

“The Soviet Union’s military prowess and growing dominance were not the major stories of the 1980s. The true narrative revolved on the waning influence of an economy and a society divided along ethnic lines.

Contrary to the “wildly higher” military spending under Reagan, a second Carter administration may have resulted in more controlled spending, and Strong maintained that the Soviet Union would have ultimately crumbled.

Strong suggested that Carter would have pursued continued engagement with China, encouraging its economic development and concentrating on diplomatic solutions in the Middle East. There, he would have tried to build on the historic diplomatic accomplishments of his administration, namely the Camp David Accords, wherein he assisted in mediating a treaty between Egypt and Israel.

Civil Rights and the HIV/AIDS Crisis

It’s probable that Carter and Reagan disagreed greatly on how to handle the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic.
In the words of Strong, Carter “would have been more serious about supporting scientific efforts to discover what the cause of the disease was, and then he would have followed the public health advice about what needed to be done.”

Reagan’s handling of the situation has often come under fire for being slow and unenthusiastic.

If the Carter administration had taken action sooner, the early stages of the pandemic in the United States may have been different.

In a second term, Carter’s commitment to civil rights may have taken on new dimensions domestically as well. He was a fervent supporter of civil rights who said in 1971, during his first address as Georgia’s governor, that “the time for racial discrimination is over,” even though pro-segregation elements had aided him in victory.

A second term would have given him the chance to nominate justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who were “more sympathetic to or committed to advancement of civil rights,” Strong said, even if he was unable to do so during his first term.

Might Carter have altered the current wave of conservatism?

Strong did not think that a second Carter administration would have changed the long-term course of conservative politics in the United States, notwithstanding these potential distinctions.

“It would have been a tight race if Carter had been able to win a second term. Strong said that the election wouldn’t have changed the course of history.

Reagan and the conservative movement would have gained more traction as a result of the growing discontent among American voters throughout the 1970s.

Though Carter’s fictitious second term may have had a big influence on policy, it probably wouldn’t have stopped the ideological changes that came to characterize the 1980s in the end.

Strong believed that Carter lacked “the popularity or the political skills to produce a change in the trajectory of American political culture.” A close Carter victory would not have been enough to stop the Republican tsunami that Reagan rode to victory in 1980.

A President of Moderate Triumphs

Ultimately, a second term for Carter would have probably consisted of a string of little wins: fiscal conservatism without the deficits of the Reagan years, moderation in social expenditure, ongoing diplomatic efforts, and a steadfast dedication to human and civil rights.

Carter’s potential second term as president may have provided a different vision for the 1980s, one based on moderation, prudence, and moral leadership, even if it was not a transformational one.