Ford died 18 years ago. But before he passed, the 38th president of the United States penned a eulogy for the 39th president. Prior to his death, Ford had asked Carter to deliver the eulogy at his funeral...
In the 1976 election, Carter, running as a let’s-clean-up-government Democrat who vowed “I will never lie to you,” defeated Ford, who was weighed down by the stench of Richard Nixon and Watergate (and perhaps his pardon of Nixon), by 2 points in the popular vote. Five years later, a year after Carter was trounced by Ronald Reagan, Carter and Ford found themselves together on Air Force One flying to Egypt for the funeral of Anwar Sadat, the assassinated Egyptian president with whom Carter had negotiated the historic Camp David Accords (with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin). The two one-term ex-presidents hit it off and for the next 25 years enjoyed a friendship...
Politics for Republicans has long been a blood sport. Nixon exploited racism with his Southern strategy; Reagan teamed up with the religious right that accused Democrats of hating God and country; Newt Gingrich encouraged Republicans to brand Democrats as traitors and the enemies of American families and children; Sarah Palin assailed Obama as a commie who despised the United States. But Trump has embraced malice and brutality unlike any president.
As Carter’s fundamental decency, intelligence, devotion to faith, commitment to public service at home and abroad, and generosity of spirit were celebrated by the eulogists—who included two Carter grandsons; former Vice President Walter Mondale’s son (who read the eulogy his deceased father left behind); Andrew Young, the civil rights leader who served in Carter’s administration as UN ambassador; and Biden—Trump was the elephant in the room. The question hovered: How have we come to this? About to reenter the White House is a grifting and deceitful narcissist who relishes insults, who incites violence, who encourages savagery. And how many houses for the poor did Trump build after his first White House tenure? What efforts did he make to improve the lives of the less fortunate overseas? Trump’s own foundation was shut down, and he was forced to pay a $2 million fine because he had inappropriately used it for business and political—not charitable—purposes.
During his presidential campaign, Carter released a book titled Why Not the Best? After Watergate exposed the sordidness of American politics, he suggested that we as a nation could do much better. When Trump was considering a presidential run in the spring of 2015, I asked one of his aides if his crew was worried about Trump’s well-known liabilities: his history of misogynistic remarks, his many business failures, his mob ties, his relentless hucksterism, his ego, his obnoxiousness. None of that, the aide said, was of concern to Trump’s team. “That’s all baked in,” he said. The strategic premise guiding Trump and his minions was that voters wanted an asshole who would be their asshole. It’s as if the Trump campaign motto would be “Why not the worst?”
As a person, Carter was the antithesis of Trump. Sure, as a politician he was no saint, and his presidency had both accomplishments and serious flaws. But for four decades after leaving the White House, he showed the world how a politician could serve without putting himself first. With Trump returning to power, Carter and all the tributes he has received are counterprogramming showing us that the leader of America need not be a cruel, callous, and vicious megalomaniac.