Former President Jimmy Carter’s recent death and funeral reminded Americans of his legacy and the values that motivated his public service.
Monday’s inauguration of President Donald Trump offered a stark contrast of vision and values, as well as a challenge. I suggest that Americans recommit to the values that Carter embraced. I believe these values would serve to strengthen our country and democracy.
Carter’s last year as president seems like yesterday to me — it was a busy year. In January 1980, I participated in the Iowa caucuses for the first time as a law student. By the end of that year, I had been admitted to the Iowa Supreme Court Bar, entered the U.S. Army and moved to Germany.
On Carter’s last day as president, I remember driving past Wiesbaden Air Base (now Lucius D. Clay Kaserne) to work when I heard the news that the plane transporting American hostages held by Iran for 444 days was about to land at Rhein-Main Air Base near Frankfurt.
The biggest box office draw of 1980 was “The Empire Strikes Back” — the Wednesday matinee was a welcome distraction for those who had just completed the final session of the Iowa bar exam. The TV series “Dallas” symbolized the materialism that emerged during the 1980s. Historian James T. Patterson wrote about shows such as “Dallas” and “Dynasty,” which “featured the manipulations of the rich and powerful.” He noted that later in the 1980s, a “boastful, in-your-face autobiography of the hitherto uncelebrated” real estate magnate Donald Trump became a bestseller.
Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 represented a seismic shift in U.S. politics. In his January 1981 farewell address, Carter emphasized commitment to the common good: The “national interest is not always the sum of all our single or special interests. We are all Americans together, and we must not forget that the common good is our common interest and our individual responsibility.”
Reagan had a different worldview. Reagan embraced individual initiative and self-reliance. He distrusted government and asserted that government was not the solution to problems but was the problem itself.
Reagan described the federal government as a swamp, advocating lower government spending, lower taxation and deregulation. He sought to help people become — and, perhaps more importantly — remain rich.
Reaganomics and economic mobility
Reagan’s worldview translated to policy. He dramatically cut marginal tax rates on wealthy taxpayers, slashed federal estate taxes and reduced taxes paid by business corporations by $150 billion over a five-year period. Labor unions, facing pressure from conservative groups, declined in membership.
Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Trump, in his first presidency, succeeded in following Reagan’s example in enacting major tax cuts. Republican talking points praised the wealthy as “job creators” to justify tax cuts. Groups such as Americans for Tax Reform and individuals such as Grover Norquist crusaded for smaller government.
George H.W. Bush was right in 1980 when, during the Republican presidential primaries, he described Reaganomics as “voodoo economics.” Reagan’s tax cuts and subsequent tax cuts have created mass deficits. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts are estimated to have increased the deficit by $2.5 trillion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
Statistics reveal that the conservative crusade for smaller government has not increased opportunity for Americans. Economic mobility has declined sharply in the United States since 1980, after increasing from 1950 to 1980. The United States now lags many European countries in economic and social mobility.
Economic inequality has also risen dramatically in the United States since 1980. A Rand Corporation study estimates that $50 trillion was redistributed from 90% of the American people to the top 1% between 1981 and 2021. Adjusted for inflation, CEO pay in the United States increased 1,322% between 1978 and 2020, while the pay for the typical worker increased 18%, creating the largest gap in the world between CEO pay and worker pay.
Anger fueled by misinformation
In 2023, conservatives hailed Oliver Anthony’s hit song “Rich Men North of Richmond” as an anthem for the MAGA movement. The song expresses anger and resentment toward the establishment. Its lyrics describe working overtime hours for poor pay, and rich men and politicians looking out for themselves at the expense of the working class.
“Rich Men from Richmond” also pushes the trope of “welfare queens” and the undeserving as a source of working-class grievance. Reagan made the “welfare queen” famous as a campaign issue in 1976, successfully stirring up anger. But there was one problem: The story consisted of exaggerations and misinformation.
For Trump supporters who embrace Anthony’s song, there is great irony. The richest man in the world, Elon Musk, whose companies have received billions of dollars in government contracts, spent over $250 million on behalf of the 2024 Trump campaign.
Musk’s financial support was rewarded. Trump named Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head the Department of Government Efficiency to identify massive federal spending cuts. (Ramaswamy has since stepped down to run for governor of Ohio.)
Other billionaires spent $1 million each to support Trump’s inauguration. These members of the billionaire class want favors from the new administration to protect their interests, whether it involves H-1B visas for “specialty occupations,” lower taxes, deregulation, special consideration on proposed tariffs or the future of TikTok.
The manipulations of the rich and powerful may have been entertaining television in the 1980s, but such manipulations have not improved the lives of the Americans left behind.
Trump continues Reagan’s narrative
In recent years, Republican politicians have demonized the federal government and career civil servants and created a fictitious “deep state.” Many Republican politicians and conservative media have stoked resentment of “others,” whom they consider less deserving. False narratives have driven this strategy. Reagan planted the seeds. Trump watered, fertilized and harvested them.
Trump lies without shame, whether it is about the 2020 election, Federal Emergency Management Agency relief to North Carolina, the immigration status of the perpetrator of the Jan. 1 attack in New Orleans, or the wildfires and the lack of water supply in southern California.
Fox News paid $787 million to settle a defamation suit for backing Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. Rudy Giuliani was ordered to pay $148 million for defaming Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss to support Trump’s false claims. Attorneys have been disbarred and suspended for false claims on Trump’s behalf, yet Trump continues to assert the Big Lie.
Honesty and truth are the foundations of trust. Walter Mondale’s posthumous eulogy of Carter summarized their accomplishments: “We told the truth; we obeyed the law, and we kept the peace.”
When I lived in Dubuque, Iowa, in the 1980s, a liberal friend told me that he voted for Republican Congressman Tom Tauke, despite their ideological differences, because he knew Tauke and trusted him.
The 19th century French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville asserted that “it was in the interest of every man to be virtuous” in American democracy. He described this as self-interest, rightly understood. Carter would have called it upholding American values of decency, telling the truth and caring for one another.
The next four years will test American values and our democracy. Virtue is needed. Americans must resolve to speak truth to power during the next four years. I believe that Jimmy Carter would agree.
Gregory Hand, a Manheim Township resident, is a retired Army civilian attorney (1989 to 2017). He served as an Army judge advocate in Germany and as a local prosecutor in Dubuque, Iowa, from 1980 to 1989.
