The Dark Side of Jimmy Carter with Robert Buzzanco

Behind the celebrated image of Jimmy Carter as a Nobel Peace Prize-winning humanitarian lies a presidential legacy that demands closer examination. This revealing conversation with historian Robert Buzzanco challenges the sanitized narrative of Carter's presidency, exposing how he functioned as a crucial transitional figure between postwar liberalism and the full flowering of neoliberalism under Reagan.

Buzzanco methodically dismantles popular misconceptions, documenting how Carter accelerated Cold War tensions rather than reducing them. While Nixon had pursued détente with both China and the Soviet Union, Carter reversed course, supporting the genocidal Khmer Rouge, working with apartheid South Africa against liberation movements in Angola, and initiating support for the Mujahideen fighters who would later evolve into Al-Qaeda. These military interventions reveal a hawkish president whose actions directly contradict his later humanitarian image.

On the domestic front, Carter's presidency marks the beginning of neoliberal economic policies that would reshape American society. His administration aggressively pursued deregulation across multiple industries, appointed inflation hawk Paul Volcker to the Federal Reserve, sidelined labor unions, and rejected government intervention when factories closed in the Rust Belt. These policies accelerated the decline of working-class living standards and laid the groundwork for Reagan's more explicit dismantling of the New Deal consensus.

Perhaps most strikingly, Carter's political transformation after leaving office represents one of the most remarkable second acts in American political history. The same man who collaborated with China to punish Vietnam later won the Nobel Peace Prize and wrote "Palestine Peace, Not Apartheid." Understanding this contradiction helps illuminate broader patterns in American politics, where Democratic administrations have repeatedly embraced corporate-friendly policies while facing pressure to move rightward after electoral defeats.

Have we been too quick to sanitize Carter's legacy because of his admirable humanitarian work? What does this selective memory tell us about our political culture? Listen now to this thought-provoking deconstruction of a presidential legacy that continues to shape our world today.

You can find Robert Buzzanco's work:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/02/jimmy-carter-is-a-liberal-saint-now-was-a-war-criminal-then/
https://afflictthecomfortable.org/
https://creators.spotify.com/pod/dashboard/episodes

Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake

Transcript

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C. Derick Varn 0:48

Hello and welcome to VarmBlog , and I'm here with Robert Pazanko , bob who is a co-host of the Green and Red podcast . He's a professor of history at the University of Houston and the author of Masters of War , military Dissent and Politics in the Vietnam Era . You also blog at Afflict the Comfortable and you've written for Counterpunch on the legacy of Jimmy Carter . Um , who is and in my mind and yours and you went into the same things , I did not know a transitionary figure between , uh , kind of , let's say , post-war consensus , liberalism and fortism and neoliberalism , but also , uh , an accelerator of a lot of the military debacles

Introduction to Carter's Complicated Legacy

C. Derick Varn 1:35

that we associate with the Reagan administration . So , and you know , you point out that it's really hard to reconcile his post-presidency figure with who he was as a president , and that may be a good way of burying what he was actually responsible for . So let's get into this . How should we understand Jimmy Carter now that he's gone ?

Robert Buzzanco 2:05

I mean much of the coverage focused on what he did after he left the presidency and that is really unmatchedatched in us history .

Robert Buzzanco 2:14

No one really who had that much power in the president of the united states ever kind of I don't want to say renounced it although that might not be far off in some cases but who kind of left the presidency , left that nexus of power and then started doing you know kind of good deeds and engaging in progressive politics uh , you know , looking over elections , won a Nobel Peace Prize , helped eradicate diseases , built houses , of course .

Robert Buzzanco 2:40

So I mean that post-presidency reporting on him is accurate . I actually think in many ways he's an inspirational figure . But in those four years when he was president and in the preceding years when he was running for president and creating a political career , he was kind of you're just your typical politician , but in many ways not even typical , because he was kind of , as you pointed out , breaking away from that kind of New Deal liberalism that had marked , you know US politics with both Democrats and Republicans really since FDR and you see the break . We generally attribute all these terrible things to Reagan and he deserves much of the responsibility for that , but Carter really did lay the groundwork in so many ways , both the domestic economic policies , labor policies and of course , as you pointed out , in foreign policy abroad , which was kind of a series of interventions . And what Chomsky says every post-war president's a war criminal , and what Carter did as president I think you know would constitute war crimes in many cases .

C. Derick Varn 3:42

Well , why do you think people don't pay that much attention to how much he undid ? So , for example , I don't hear people talk about Carter as an accelerator of the Cold War , particularly in its last round . But Nixon was more of a peace president than Carter was , which I think many people would be surprised by , given all the atrocities we know that happened under the Nixon administration . So would you like to talk about that a little bit ? So would you like to ?

Robert Buzzanco 4:10

talk about that a little bit . Yeah , I mean , you know Nixon had negotiated a strategic arms limitation treaty , salt , with the Soviet Union and was actually working on SALT II . He and Ford and Carter just moved away from that . He came to office within a week or two . Somebody had asked him whether the United States owed Vietnam reparations or should help them rebuild , and Carter said no , because the destruction was mutual . I mean mutual , the United States . You know Vietnam lost two , three million people . The country was utterly destroyed and you know Carter thinks that what the US suffered , which was horrible right 58,000 dead to call that mutual . And then Carter actually opposed Vietnam .

Robert Buzzanco 4:54

Vietnam went into Cambodia to overthrow the Khmer Rouge who were running the killing fields and they put a new government in power led by somebody they were close to . And Carter and then Reagan continued to support the Khmer Rouge's claim to the government seat in Phnom Penh in , you know , kampuchea , cambodia . I mean they did it at the UN . They defended Pol Pot's regime at the UN to have that seat there . And in fact in 1979 , carter began to talk with Deng Xiaoping . And in fact in 1979 , carter began to talk with Deng Xiaoping and they somewhat cryptically , but the message was quite clear . They wanted to kind of make Vietnam pay for what it was doing in the region . And so Carter and Deng Xiaoping had this kind of series of cryptic messages about actually invading Vietnam .

Robert Buzzanco 5:56

And in early 1979 , vietnam actually did that they invaded I'm sorry , china invaded Vietnam with Carter's encouragement and support . So again , you know working with the Chinese to intervene to , you know , wage war against Vietnam , a country the United States had just been destroying for , you know , two decades , and Carter clearly , you know , moved away . I mean , you know the United States had kind of washed its hands of Vietnam . The American people had opposed the war and you know , carter just kind of did a reversal on that . You know , didn't get a ton of attention and you know a lot of the documentation obviously wasn't available for quite some time , but it's now clear Carter and the Chinese were working on these anti-Vietnam measures . And that wasn't the only time he worked with China either . I don't know if you had something specific , but I could just go on and on .

C. Derick Varn 6:41

No , tell me more about the China situation . I mean , we do need to put this in the context of the Sino-Soviet split .

Robert Buzzanco 6:50

Right , although the US at this point you Nixon again is emerging into this period of daytime with both countries . But with regard to China , not only did Carter work with China to try to hurt Vietnam , but something that I find is really quite staggering Again , given his later work he wrote a book called Palestine Peace , not Apartheid . He wrote a book called Palestine Peace , not Apartheid , right . Yet in the mid-70s he actually supported apartheid South Africa in the later 70s , when he was president , especially in Angola . In Angola there was a group , a liberation group , a Marxist group , the MPLA , who had won kind of a civil war , they had taken over .

Robert Buzzanco 7:32

But in the South Africans this was a Marxist group that was supported by cuba and south africa didn't want , you know they would hear of it . So they , they decided they were going to not recognize this new government and try to get rid of it . And so the , the south african apartheid regime , jimmy carter and the chinese once more worked together to support , in particular , a warlord named Jonas Savimbi in Angola to try to prevent this group from coming to power . So you got Carter supporting this apartheid regime in South Africa to try to overthrow this new revolutionary government and you know it extended the conflict . Ultimately , cuban support in Angola made the difference and they were liberated , but it took , you know , a few more years and obviously a huge number of extra people killed in that as well .

Robert Buzzanco 8:29

So you know , again you see Carter working with the Chinese to overthrow the government in Vietnam and to support apartheid in Africa , which is really , you know , obviously quite staggering . Because , you know , one thing that is genuinely noble is what he did in the Middle East . You know , in the last 10 , 15 years or so he really has been an ally . But you know , and I'm not a psychologist , psychologist I don't know if some of this is just trying to make up for what he did as president or what , but but as president , you , you know , in these particular cases it's , it's pretty bad . I mean , this is not a peacemaker that I guess it could be a nobel peace prize winner , because they give them to everybody , right but uh , um , what he did , we would not necessarily equate we've not generally equate with kind of a peaceful , you know , approach to international relations as president .

C. Derick Varn 9:16

Yeah , I mean , I think part of why this doesn't get discussed is dealing with China's role , and suppressing leftist regimes in Africa

Carter's Cold War Escalation

C. Derick Varn 9:23

is not something that people really want to look at now , but also it does seem like this has been basically I don't know . We might call it just a race from history . I , like I've I knew about China's role and go . I actually didn't know that Jimmy Carter was part of that and , um , that it was have to do with the South Africans . Um , another real damning thing that you talk about in your article and I you know love for you to go into more detail was his role about what went on in Indonesia and how it's a lot more active than we are often led to believe .

Robert Buzzanco 10:02

Yeah , I think the general liberal critique is that the United States just kind of stood by and let everything happen , but in fact it was deeply involved , much more involved , but in fact it was deeply involved , much more involved . As soon as you have this kind of and he's Timor right , you have this Timorese independent movement , you have this movement that occurred after the 1965 coup in Indonesia . They kind of purged all kinds of people on the left , killed maybe a million people , and the United States sponsored and supported that . And Carter continued to do that , continued to support the Suharto regime . He rejected Timorese claims to independence and it wasn't just sitting aside .

Robert Buzzanco 10:41

In 1978 , I believe , carter sent , I believe , well over $100 million of weapons to Indonesia and he even sent his vice president , walter Mondale , there of weapons to Indonesia and he even sent his vice president , walter Mondale there . You know , both symbolically and in terms of policy , to show the world that the United States was supporting this . And so the US did not support any kind of liberation movement in East Timor . In fact it continued to support Indonesia , just as the US had been doing since the coup in 1965 . And you know Indonesia , you , indonesia , carter's the human rights president , which is a big part of his legacy and in some cases , like Argentina , I think that really meant something . But Suharto , indonesia had one of the worst human rights records of human rights abuses and Carter continued to send them weapons to destroy Timor and to repress people at home . So again , this is another instance where it's you know , the kind of things that really are war crimes , intervention , subversion , supporting these really kind of brutal regimes and so on very much part of the Cold War .

C. Derick Varn 11:46

Yeah , another thing you point out in the article that I didn't know anything about was that the Carter administration seemed to have taken a very similar stance to the Reagan administration to Nicaragua and even set up a lot of what was going to happen later . So can you go up a little bit into what Carter did around the Contras and all that ?

Robert Buzzanco 12:11

Sure , yeah , and this is something that I get so much blowback about People just even though it actually happened . There's plenty of evidence for it , there's diplomatic documents . You can get them online from the State Department . But I remember , following this , 1979 , the Sandinistas were marching on to Managua . It was fairly clear that , you know , somoza's days were numbered and Carter opposed that . And so in July , what was very clear , the Sandinistas were about to take over Managua . His secretary of state , I believe , cyrus Vance , oversaw , you know , kind of headed the meeting , chaired it and proposed that the OAS put together a multilateral military force to go in to Managua and essentially , you know , establish stability , establish order , but prevent the Sandinistas from coming into power . Right , and remember too , the Sandinistas and other areas in Latin America were part of the liberation theology movement , and so Carter , and actually the Pope , who was upset that these Catholic priests who were dabbling in some ways in Marxist ideas and things like that . So Carter and the Pope actually opposed this too , not just in Nicaragua , in El Salvador and other places as well , but in Nicaragua . So they tried to get the OAS to go in and prevent a Sandinista victory , and the OAS refused .

Robert Buzzanco 13:37

But Carter in 1979 , beginning like in the late fall of 1979 , began appropriating money to opposition groups in Nicaragua . Now , it was a fairly small amount at first 10 , 12 million , right 18 million , something like that but clearly you know it laid the groundwork and you know the message was clear that , you know , despite Carter's rhetoric and he was he had an opening with Cuba , which I think was very positive . But at the same time , you know , having this kind of whatever socialist , social democrat , whatever the San Dinesians were at the time government coming to power was just , you know , off the books . You couldn't do that . That wasn't even on the table for Carter , and so he actually began the counterrevolutionaries , the Contras . Now , you know , obviously Reagan picked up on it and , you know , put it on steroids , but Carter did that in 1979 . Around the same time he's doing similar things in Afghanistan too . Well , yeah , so doing similar things in Afghanistan too .

C. Derick Varn 14:32

Yeah , so one of the other things that you point out that I did not know that much about that Carter played a key role in what we might call the proto-war on terror . I mean , people know about Iran , but what role did he play in Afghanistan and maybe even Iraq ?

Robert Buzzanco 14:46

Yeah , Iraq , it's not as clear-cut . So Iraq and the United States were actually allies against Iran , especially after the Islamic Revolution , right ? So Iraq and Iran had longstanding disputes and in 1980 , as we know , iraq invaded Iran and fought a long , eight-year , brutal , bloody war , uh , in which it was supported by the united states , the united states senate , saddam hussein , something like 40 , 45 uh billion dollars in aid and weapons and so forth to fight against iran . We do know that around 1980 , uh , carter's representatives met with um saddam and his foreign ministry and it seems , you know , there are kind of some suggestions that they encouraged Saddam to invade Iran . But even if they didn't , I mean , it's kind of one of those things where you don't really have to . I mean , everybody kind of knows it's headed that way and the US made clear that Iraq would continue to be funded against Iran . Iran was considered the main enemy there , right . At the same time , this is happening and this really kind of becomes a labyrinth thing , right , because , you know , at some point America's biggest enemies are going to be Afghanistan and Iraq . But in the Qaeda years they weren't . They were actually quite the opposite . So the United States is supporting Saddam Hussein in Iraq . At the same time , there's a crisis . Well , something was going on in Afghanistan . It became a crisis , I think , because Carter turned it into one .

Robert Buzzanco 16:24

Afghanistan . It's kind of a complex situation but , to try to simplify it , afghanistan's government was actually close to the Soviet Union . It was a Marxist government . However , there was another political group in Afghanistan who were also communists , who were also Marxists , but far more extreme , and they did not have the support of the Soviet Union . And so inside Afghanistan , you have this conflict . You know , I call the extreme and the moderate Marxist . You know , call them whatever you want , but the Soviet Union is supporting a more moderate group , the moderate Marxists . You know , call them whatever you want , but the Soviet Union is supporting a more moderate group , and this group , you know in a lot of ways engaged in , you know , kind of reform , politics , public education , spending , women's rights . You know girls going to school , things like that . However , the more extreme government was putting pressure on and eventually overthrowing the more moderate group , and the Soviet Union went into Afghanistan . That was what motivated the Soviet Union to intervene . It was to defend this moderate , more reformist group against a more extremist group , and I think it's really relevant to this issue .

Robert Buzzanco 17:30

When that happened , carter convened his people to talk about what to do . The Soviet Union had just invaded Afghanistan , an area of virtually zero importance to the US prior to that , and a lot of Carter's people told him that . They said this is not important , that's part of the Soviet Union's sphere , it's close to them . We've never really had any interest in this at the Soviet Union . You know , if we had something going on in Latin America , the Soviet Union wouldn't invade here . And this is people like his Secretary of State , cyrus Vance , the famous diplomat George Kennedy . I believe Kennedy wrote a piece in the New York Times in that era saying we need to stay out .

Robert Buzzanco 18:05

But Carter , I think . First of all , I think he saw an opportunity , because this is also during the iran hostage crisis . Uh , he saw an opportunity to bolster his credentials . Uh , he's being hammered . Uh , it's clear that someone like ronald reagan is likely to be the nominee in 1980 . He's going to beat up carter over his foreign policy and I think it's just that's who carter is . I

Supporting Apartheid and Interventionism

Robert Buzzanco 18:24

think he believes in this stuff . I don't think he's . I think he genuinely is as a cold warrior in a hawk and and so immediately he took action , within like a week or two of the Soviet invasion , carter sent his national security advisor , this big man Brzezinski , and the appointment Brzezinski says a lot about Carter too . Brzezinski saw himself as kind of the next Kissinger , you know , really kind of a hawkish guy , a hardcore Cold War warrior . Carter was a hardcore Cold War warrior and so he sent Brzezinski to the Khyber Pass and he's talking to this group of people here who are Mujahideen , and the United States is already supporting this .

Robert Buzzanco 18:59

It's just like literally weeks in , and there's this short video where Brzezinski is saying to these Mujahideen points over to Afghanistan and he says see that , those are , that's your land , those are your mosques and with our help , we're going to get you back there . You're going to get that back because God is on your side , right ? So this is at the same time , you're allegedly fighting this war against civilization and the Iranians have taken hostage . You have this Islamic revolution in Iran which has become kind of public enemy number one . You have this Islamic revolution in Iran which has become kind of public enemy number one . At the same time , the United States is doing that . They're supporting these Mujahideen who are fundamentalist Muslims who fled I'm sorry who poured into places like Afghanistan to fight against the , the . You know the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and those Mujahideen . Over time you know where thisviet union in afghanistan and those mujahideen . Over time you know where this is headed right . Over time those mujahideen become al-qaeda and and taliban and and probably islamic state uh as well down down the road . And so carter uh , uh threw his lot in uh with this group .

Robert Buzzanco 20:10

Um , the united states began , carter in 1980 , began sending significant amounts of aid there , more than in Nicaragua , including surface-to-air missiles . And you have this group which would later include people like Osama bin Laden right who go to Pakistan . The United States is kind of helping organize that . They're funding it . They're funding it . And Carter at the same time goes to Congress and he asks for a significant increase in the military budget for 1980 because of the Soviet . Now , keep in mind , this is what , six years after the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty , so in a fairly short period of time , carter has taken what was fairly successful on Nixon's behalf , this , this period of detente where he reaches out to put the Soviet Union in , and the People's Republic of China , carter's upended it . And so you have the United States is funding these Mujahideen . It increases the US military budget . Oh , he decided in the 1980 Olympics we're supposed to be held in Moscow . Carter said , no , we're not going to go , we're going to boycott it .

Robert Buzzanco 21:11

And so the United States continues to fund this resistance and that led to the horrible situation we have in Afghanistan . It often begins in the media's mind , they often start talking about it , you know , like in 2001 , right after the 9-1-1 attacks on the United States . But you know , you have to go back over 20 years earlier to kind of get a sense of what was really happening there . And throughout the 1980 , carter's last year , then obviously even more after that , the United States had made , you know , decades and four trillion dollars to replace the Taliban with the Taliban . And that's kind of where it was headed even back then the United States .

Robert Buzzanco 22:01

So the United States was working with Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda . Basically , carter was to try to harm the Soviet Union and these other countries that it perceived as an enemy and , as you pointed out at the beginning , this really does help usher in the terror era . The United States really is , you know , subsidizing both Iraq and what later become , you know , and these Mujahideen who later become like al-Qaeda . So , yes , absolutely , carter is absolutely doing that , and at the time , his supporters defended this . They really praised him he's strong , he's this , and it created an even worse situation that just grew and grew over time .

C. Derick Varn 22:52

But , yeah , your reporting on this is quite interesting to me because I agree with you , most people start this with at between 99 and 2001 and beginning of the war on terror . If you get people who are more analytically astute , they'll talk about this going on in the 80s , but not many people talk about this beginning in the late 70s , like it's usually something that even people in the know kind of view as a Reagan development , but it predates it and it's important to notice that there's two things you know . To switch to the domestic front , where this is stuff I knew a little bit more about , um , uh , because I started doing research into neoliberalism and realizing that even people as good as david harvey had not really been paying attention about when it actually started , which was before reagan , um , and even before thatcher , um . But , uh , you know , one of the things you've implied in all this is carter massively begins this like massive uptick of funding towards the , the military , and also oversees downticks of funding towards pretty much everything else .

C. Derick Varn 24:07

One of the things that I found was interesting and I'm from Georgia , so you know , I'm I'm aware of this history actually better than a lot of people , just by dint of birth , although I was not born early enough to have lived through this , but a lot of stuff that we associate with neoliberalism was tried in the South before it was implemented nationally implemented nationally . And you point out that Carter's really bringing this stuff from the state house in Atlanta to the White House . Can you talk a little bit about how Carter's really one of the key figures in implementing neoliberalism as a policy set ?

Robert Buzzanco 24:47

Sure , Carter was kind of one of the harbingers of what they were calling the New South in the early 70s and in that way , and I think that referred more to kind of civil rights and things like that . You know , they wanted to break away from that legacy of O'Connor and Jim Crow and all that kind of stuff . And so Carter developed a reputation . But , as you point out , you probably know this better than me since you grew up there . But in Georgia he also became kind of close to and was essentially mentored by a lot of business executives at places like Delta and Coca-Cola and places like that , and they started taking him around to meet world leaders , business leaders and so forth on junkets and whatnot . And this is before he was governor . He was kind of proposed I think he was in the statehouse , I believe in Georgia , but he was kind of an up and comer . Everybody knew it . So he's starting to make these connections . In 1972 , he went to the Democratic Convention and worked with some other conservatives to try to prevent George McGovern from becoming the nominee , and that's kind of where he cut his bones . That's where people kind of find out about Jimmy Carter at the 72 Convention working with the kind of more , you know kind of hawkish wing of the party to prevent a McGovern victory . And then , of course , when McGovern lost , all of these folks said we told you so and that's when Carter decided to run for president . However , around the same time he was also , I would say , adopted , I mean mentored by David Rockefeller , famous Rockefellers , who brought him into the Trilateral Commission . And I don't mean this in any kind of conspiratorial way , it's just that he now had access to these influential global businessmen , these influential global interests , and they start taking him on junkets and he's going all around the world and beating people and that , you know , went a long way in developing his own economic ideology . It was not an embrace of the democratic ideology from Roosevelt . On the New Deal , carter in fact was kind of clear that he didn't want to do that . He believed business had to be treated better . That you know , in a sense , that the pendulum had swung too far against business and business was being hampered and all that kind of stuff . And so when he became president , that's what you get , I think , the creation or the origins of neoliberalism . The basic idea of neoliberalism is that the government has kind of gone too far . Government , you know what would Reagan later say Government doesn't fix the problem , it is the problem , or something like that . And that's very consistent with Carter's ideas .

Robert Buzzanco 27:08

When he became president , he wanted to liberalize all of these business regulations . Right , liberalizing meaning giving business more power , more authority . He wanted to reduce the role of government in regulating or guiding these industries , and a big part of that would be deregulation . Deregulated a lot of industries . I think the two at the time that were kind of the most controversial I guess would have been the airlines and the trucking industry . And if you look at what happened after that , as a consequence of both airlines and trucking , you have fewer carriers . Prices went up , quality of service went down . Truck drivers today , I think , actually make less than they did in the early 70s , before deregulation . When you adjust it , they're actually making less . So Carter had a huge role to play in that and basically you had all of these kind of Wall Street types of business types coming in . Carter reached out to them

Origins of Neoliberalism Under Carter

Robert Buzzanco 28:09

. The Democratic Party has always had plenty of friends on Wall Street and corporate suites , so it wasn't necessarily a shock that he did that , but he was quite successful at it . He made a lot of overtures . He connected with people who were , you know , connected on Wall Street and you know significantly . That significantly affected the way he approached policies . He reduced the influence of labor .

Robert Buzzanco 28:33

I am from Youngstown , ohio area , so I remember , you know , growing up a little kid , you know , when everything kind of fell apart there . All these factories started closing down and the people who work in these mills , the labor leaders and a local group of ecumenical leaders got together , also led by the famous labor historian and activist Todd Land , who lived in Niles at the time , and they actually put together a coalition to go to the White House and to say can you save these factories here in Ohio , employ all these people ? And made the area quite affluent in a lot of ways , and I think they wanted I don't remember the precise number , it wasn't a huge amount , it was something like 200 million or I forget what . It was right uh , and essentially this this request came from labor . Now , obviously , when corporate america makes requests that we saw this , you know , in a one after the , the terror attacks , when all these corporations were subsidized , that uh , in oa , uh , when the , when the bailout happened , you had tarp and all these corporations were subsidized . In 08 , when the bailout happened , you had TARP and all of these big banks were rescued because they were too big to fail , and again in 2020 , where all of these big banks got literally trillions of dollars which the Fed just created .

Robert Buzzanco 29:44

But when it came to labor , even Jimmy Carter , who was elected with significant labor support Ohio at the time was still a blue state significant labor support Ohio at the time was still a blue state , and Carter won Ohio easily in the 1976 election , actually put him over the top . But when it came time to help these folks out , when these factories shut down very abruptly , carter refused to do anything . There was an interview done at the time with I forget which labor leader I was , but one of the kind of national labor leaders . Somebody said you know , what can jimmy carter do at this point to help labor ? And the guy said he could drop that . So that's how labor felt about jimmy carter . They did not see him and and carter even said he's like you know , even though the liberals in my party vote for me , I actually get along way better with the moderates and the Republicans , so he was pretty candid about that . So , and again to get back , I mean , the person he became later is again really quite remarkable . But as president , you know , he was nothing like that at all .

Robert Buzzanco 30:44

In addition to the Youngstown situation in 19, . It was an early 1978 , there was a minor strike in West Virginia and it had gone on for about three months and it was starting . You know miners were badass , you know they were . It was getting ugly , there were kind of skirmishes going on and you know the miners union wouldn't budge . The operators were , you know , kind of really holding holding firm and Carter sided with the operators . He even said that he's like , you know , operators are losing money and Carter invoked Taft-Hardley and forced the miners back to work .

Robert Buzzanco 31:19

And so this is his legacy . You know he creates neoliberalism . He unleashes all these kind of financial you know types of , you know these kind of new financial institutions , uh reduces , uh government regulations in many key industries . Like I said , trucking and construction are big ones , I think , beer , I mean , just all kinds of stuff . So it comes , you know , gets to this point where , say , regulations are bad and and the con you know what you have as a consequence of that is , uh , you know it really kind of limits the growth of working and middle class people . And if you look at charts you can start to see it really level off like in the mid 70s and from that point on American workers really aren't making any more money than they were like in that era in the 1970s .

Robert Buzzanco 32:08

And Carter's drift toward neoliberalism had a great deal to do with that . You had well , I mean , it's not you had you had massive inflation , which in part was because Carter had appointed Paul Volcker to head the Federal Reserve Bank . He became famous for the so-called Volcker shocks where he dramatically raised interest rates . Inflation in 1979 was way bigger than it was a couple of years ago . I think it was up in the 12 , 13% range on basically T-bills and things like that . It was pretty significant . So Carter appointed Volcker and then he shifts these priorities away toward businesses , toward deregulation , and really kind of frees them up to engage in the kind of things that you'll see in the 1980s . But that was already going on before Reagan came to power . And again Carter is starting to make these overtures . He ends up meeting with a lot of the same people who would later work with Reagan , you know corporate leaders and bankers and so forth . So you know we often we talk about the Democratic Party shift and often it starts with Clinton in the Democratic Leadership Conference . But that fits perfectly in with what Carter was doing in that earlier era .

Robert Buzzanco 33:26

Carter wasn't one of those you know tax and spend liberals and you know all that kind of stuff , even though they attacked him as such .

Robert Buzzanco 33:34

He was . You know , I'm not sure he was any more liberal than Joe Biden was really his president and in a lot of ways , you know , organized labor didn't have a good relationship with him and in 1980 , his share of the labor vote went down substantially , just kind of as an aside to . Carter was also really the first president to reach out to the evangelical community . So in 1976 , he talked a lot about being a born-again Christian and talked about his faith and actually got you know kind of the same people who would later be part of like the moral majority , and all those groups actually voted Democratic . Carter , I believe , may have been the last president of the majority of that demographic vote . So in all of those ways , carter really did have kind of an older centrist attitude on a lot of these things . It really did move away from the kind of New Deal programs that had been accepted by pretty much everybody . Eisenhower and Nixon did as well as you know , truman and LBJ so , and Carter really is a break from that .

C. Derick Varn 34:38

Yeah , one thing that I happen to know that I don't know that you mentioned , but that Carter's administration also are the people who change rules around monopoly lawsuits and whatnot . So you know , one of the reasons why we've only had two busts of some monopolies in the past I don't know 50 years is the Carter administration changing rules to align with what we might see as neoliberal prerogatives . And that's what got me really looking at the Carter administration . I mean , I knew about Volcker and I knew that like okay , we can't blame Volcker and Reagan Volcker's a Carter appointee , but and also that his shocks actually didn't lower inflation , they actually made it worse for a little while . It took about like I think inflation doesn't start slowing down until like 85 . So it's .

Robert Buzzanco 35:33

Yeah , it's like later Reagan .

C. Derick Varn 35:36

Yeah . So I think that's a real important thing to notice and I often talk about people missing the beginning of , like , the DL , the Democratic Leadership Commission , and all that stuff really beginning in the 70s I tend to start looking at it when Gary Hart selected as senator in 1978 . But you know , that also means that he's in the tenor of the Carter administration and that this has the blessing of a lot of the post-McGovern people . Why do you think this gets missed so much of a lot of the post McGovern people ? Yeah , why do you think this gets missed so much ? Is it because , I mean , carter was only president for four years ? Is it , is it his actions starting in the late eighties that kind of erase this history ? Is it Ronald Reagan's an easier , clear bad guy to blame , because all this stuff becomes a lot more obvious under him ? Like , how did we clean this up ?

Robert Buzzanco 36:34

Yeah , I think all the things you just mentioned are correct . They're true . I think it's all of that right . Part of it was he was only president for one term and was considered kind of not even taken seriously in a lot of ways back then , so it was kind of easy to forget and move on . Plus , he was kind of bookended by Nixon and Reagan , who were pretty big figures , right .

Robert Buzzanco 36:56

Obviously , a big part of it is what he did after he left the White House , which I again even I think is very admirable and unmatched , and you know it's a good story . And then , of course , you know the liberals didn't want to . You know , say , jimmy carter , although I , you know there was a time many years ago I was in an academic setting and somebody there who was defending carter very vigorously uh , pointed out that he had laid the groundwork for Reagan , increased military budgets and intervened in Afghanistan . That's a positive thing , right . So I think a lot of it was just that like , yeah , carter wasn't some crazy weak wimp , he was actually a tough guy who , you know , defended apartheid in South Africa , he helped invade Vietnam and so forth . So it's a lot of that . I mean it's a nice story , obviously what he did after being president and the stuff he did like on the Middle East really is noble , and I can't imagine any other global leader well , at least the US leader saying those kinds of things , calling Israel an apartheid state In 2008 , I believe after that book came out Palestine Peace , not Apartheid he was scheduled to speak at the Democratic Convention and the Democrats took him off the program because of pro-Israel complaints that Carter was going to speak there and you know which . You know anybody who can piss those folks off like that is doing , I think , some good work you know . So I think you know which . You know anybody who can piss those folks off like that is doing , I think , some good work , you know . So I think you know what he did after being president was noble and you know it does sort .

Robert Buzzanco 38:26

You know I've noticed like I've been talking about this a bit a fair amount since he died . You know people think you just want to say bad things about someone because he's dead , you want to be hip or you want to be different . But I think there's something , something really important in this one . I mean the historical record should be accurate , but also I mean I think it shows that even somebody like Carter , who really seems to be a genuinely good human , a decent human , cared about people , did all kinds of cool stuff .

Robert Buzzanco 38:51

You know , after he left the White House as president , he was just no different than anybody else , you know , you just wanted you know one in this big group and he committed crimes against humanity , committed war crimes . He took care of the ruling class here in the united states , didn't do a whole lot to help workers and middle-class people , uh , and so in that regard he was just , you know , and you could , I mean , you know , I I say this more , I mean actually , probably more seriously than facetiously , but we might make a case that nixon was more , you know . I say this more , I mean actually , probably more seriously than facetiously , but we might make a case that Nixon was more , you know , whatever helpful than Carter was to working class issues , you know . So it was , it was , it was . I just think it's important to correct this historical record but also understand he's not a , he wasn't a savior . He was a politician who somehow , after he left the White House , apparently reflected on what he did and ended up doing some really great stuff .

C. Derick Varn 39:48

Yeah , it's interesting to think about him as a center-right figure in the Democratic Party , not a center-left one , which I think looking at . If you'd asked me to look at the Carter administration the year I was born , I would have probably seen that . But from the standpoint of when I was educated , you know , by the time I come of age in the late 1990s , he's already got a halo around him , and particularly I'm from Georgia , so he really had a halo around him , georgia , so he really had a halo around him . Um , but it's it's interesting to talk about because I do think there are two other presidents , uh , and I'm sure I know you've written about one of them , so , uh , and I didn't warn you , warn you about this but they also get a kind of weird similar cleanup , um , I think jfk , for example , enjoys a whole lot of the . We don't look into what he actually did because he died uh , um , legacy , um , with a lot of people attributing good parts of the johnson administration to jfk and stuff like that , whereas I think you know there's even in

Labor Relations and Economic Policies

C. Derick Varn 40:59

some ways I wouldn't say that jfk was a neoliberal , but he's almost a proto one , um , and then I'm going to be interested in how carter will compare to , uh , joe biden , since they're both similarly one-time presidents that got a progressive gloss .

C. Derick Varn 41:19

But biden will not have an afterlife that Carter's had . He's too old . There's no way he's going to be able to clean up his legacy in the same way . He's just too damn old . So there'll be a lot more straight ahead . You know , looking at things . But I mean , you know , one of the things you mentioned is Carter and Biden share invoking Taff Hartley , which has not been brought up all that much in the modern world . I've noticed recently you wrote about JFK and misunderstandings of JFK's legacy . A lot , yes . In what ways do you think of JFK's legacy ? A lot , yeah , yeah . In what ways do you think JFK has misremembered as a progressive president in a way that maybe we shouldn't remember him ?

Robert Buzzanco 42:10

Yeah , this is Actually . I've done a lot on this . I've kind of been in my own little battle with Oliver Stone's people for a few years now . I don't really care about the actual Kennedy conspiracy stuff , but a big part of that is this idea that the so-called deep state killed kennedy because he was going to end the cold war and end the vietnam war and make peace with the soviet and all this , and that's just not . That's silly . I mean jfk . Yeah , I think he is actually somewhat similar to Carter , like Kennedy's record on civil rights , even though he gets all this praise for it was really halting and slow . It took forever . He continued to kind of tolerate Southern violence until it just became too big and too overbearing and he had to do something about it . But on foreign policy , kennedy , you know , really was hawkish . He was , I think , is like as hawkish as any postwar president . The idea that he was a dove , which is what you know , a lot of these people Oliver Stone , jefferson Morley and all these kind of conspiracies they always talk about it's just nuts to me . It's also worth pointing out that a big part of the kind of QAnon origin story revolves not just around trump but around jfk . They see them both kind of as these kind of people who are coming in to take on the , the bad people , the smoke killed rooms , the deep state , whatever you want to call it , and you know they're out to get him and all this kind of stuff . So that's , that's part of the , the founding story . They they also admire jfk was taking on the state and they killed him . I mean , you know , kenn know Kennedy made the situation in Cuba even worse .

Robert Buzzanco 43:42

Kennedy authorized the pigs invasion . Kennedy engaged in subversion in 1962 . Kennedy acted , I think , recklessly and almost created a war during the Cuban missile crisis . Kennedy continued after the missile crisis , continued to try to subvert Cuba . Just immediately , in the immediate aftermath of the Missile Crisis , kennedy authorized an attack by some of the Miami Cubans that the US was supporting in Cuba . That killed 400 people . They blew up a factory . That was just after the missile crisis , where all these kind of de-apologists say , oh , he learned his lesson and he became a man of peace and there's just no evidence for that . But you see , in the Soviet Union , like Carter , he increased defense budgets and you know , I'm sorry I've drawn a blank here . I have some data in my head but I just can't bring it up . He increased defense budgets . You know , in all of these situations he engaged in actions that were typical of the Cold War .

Robert Buzzanco 44:59

He , you know , in Vietnam in particular , which is the area I know best , right , you know , in vietnam , he , he increased , uh , the american presence there , uh , with 16 000 troops by the time he died armor , helicopters , agent orange , napalm , artillery , increased that at the same time , carter's military advisors were all telling him this is a bad idea and you know , v know , vietnam isn't really a part of our national interest and things are really not going well there . It's a guerrilla war . This isn't really where we should be . And he just ignored that . He rejected all of it , continued to send more support and then , most importantly , I think , for this idea that Carter was going to somehow make peace in Vietnam , just three weeks before he was killed , carter approved of a coup . Carter decided to authorize a coup against Ngo Dinh Diem . I mean , if you're going to get out of Vietnam , if you're making these plans to withdraw because things are going well , you don't authorize a coup against this guy you've been supporting for nearly a decade and hundreds of billions of dollars . You get rid of him and then you create utter chaos .

Robert Buzzanco 46:01

So the idea that Carter was somehow a peace activist or a dove , you know , again , his preposterous you know , in Latin America he created this kind of internal subversion machinery . You know where Latin military leaders would come and train at US bases or train with Americans At one point in the 70s , I think , like every , virtually every president of Latin America was a graduate of the School of Americans . Right , you know Kennedy . You know everybody talks about the Peace Corps but they don't talk about the internal subversion programs that he instituted , you know . So again , it's that you know the media wants to make heroes out of these folks . As to the other point with Biden , yeah , I think I think they will probably kind of have similar presidential , you know kind of evaluations as president , although again , I think you can make a case that Biden is actually probably more progressive than Carter . But you know , I think they're one term presidents . They succeeded . You know big figures , whether it be Nixon or Trump , and then you know they really are .

Robert Buzzanco 47:04

You know , ultimately they failed badly , carter , and not just . You know , it wasn't just that Carter himself failed , but in the election of 1980 , the Democrats got destroyed . I mean they lost the Senate , they lost the House . They lose the House , but they lost the Senate . I mean they lost like 10 or 12 Senate seats that year . Biden was so I mean I'm sorry Jimmy Carter was so unpopular .

Robert Buzzanco 47:24

The whole party was dragged down and what they took from that which is what the Democrats have been taking out of these kinds of debacles for 50 years was that they had to act more like the Republicans .

Robert Buzzanco 47:35

And you know Carter actually kind of saw that coming and he was already doing it . But after 1980 , that clearly was the message that you know we went too far to the left and we're too extreme . And we're hearing it right now , 2024 , you know Chuck Schumer's blaming the voters and you know the Democratic Party is saying no , you know we were too woke or we were too this or that , and you know they're not taking any , any accountability for what they did and they're just acting more like , you know , the Republican party . And Carter is a good example of that too , and he really created the groundwork for , you know , things that I think became much worse . But you know , as president , there's not a whole lot of difference . I mean , you know Trump , on a personal level obviously is crazy , sociopathic and odious , but in terms of the things they do as president , it's pretty similar . You know from you know whatever really most of the time almost always right . But and Carter clearly fit in with that , clearly fit in that framework .

C. Derick Varn 48:31

Right . I mean , this is the thing that I think people somewhat miss is presidential administrations are kind of regimes , they're just individuals , and there's usually even in radical ones like reagan and or trump too maybe that hasn't happened yet , who knows there's , uh , there's usually remarkable continuity . Um , you know , there are exceptions to that lincoln , maybe , fdr , although even with there's there's precursors , um , but in general , um , it's not as much about the key figures , uh , and yeah , it's interesting . I mean , like God , I , it's hard to imagine anyone losing uh , this bad anymore . Uh , but um , even though I think , what , what is it ? Um , reagan only won by like 51 of the popular vote . He , he won all but what ? Four or five states , and it was like that was that was it ?

Robert Buzzanco 49:36

yeah , it was georgia and it , yeah , he had over 400 electoral votes .

Robert Buzzanco 49:43

It wasn't as bad as what Mondale would do four years later . It was pretty bad , yeah , and it does . It really creates there's a big political transformation at this point and the New Deal era is gone , which means that the Democratic Party is essentially gone too . I mean , it's hard to put a date , but I think if you want to say , ok , 1972 , the McGovern campaign , which was a disaster , that's when it started . Carter's fingerprints are on that too . Like I said , he was part of that group trying to prevent McGovern from getting the nomination .

Afghanistan and the Proto-War on Terror

Robert Buzzanco 50:21

So you know , he really is a different world and really a bridge toward this new neoliberal world which you see really kind of come to fruition .

Robert Buzzanco 50:24

Uh , and even you know some of the like in the middle east . I mentioned it and you know what he did after he was president and he also gets um rewarded for for the camp david accords , which you know was something right . But I mean , if you look at the camp david accords , it was essentially a framework , so it really didn't solve anything . It gave Sinai back to Egypt , but the Palestinians weren't acknowledged . They weren't there . Carter didn't talk to them . In fact , at one point his ambassador to the United Nations , andrew Young , met with representatives of PLO and Carter fired him , you know , denounced him there . So even when Carter was kind of , you know , trying to do , I guess , do the right thing , right . With regard to the middle East , what you saw in the Camp David Accords obviously wasn't the basis for any kind of lasting peace and you know the issues that were discussed there weren't settled , and you know they , you know , and it just continued . Then you had Oslo , and you know , look where we are today . You know so , even you know , and it just continued . Then you had Oslo , and you know , look where we are today . You know so , even you know .

Robert Buzzanco 51:23

The areas where he did , you know , seem to have kind of a genuine political sense , you know , things didn't work out well and he was subject to the same political pressures , you know , as everybody else , which is why , you know , later in life , when he took them on , when he took on AIPAC and when he took on a pack and when he took on the israeli lobby , was really really powerful . I mean , I I legit give him , you know , a lot of credit for that , because it wasn't easy . He caught so much for it . You know , he became kind of persona non grata . He was never really part of that . You know boys club , which is great , you know he .

Robert Buzzanco 51:53

You know I can't think of anybody , after leaving a position like that , who ended up doing some good stuff . George Kennan , a diplomat , was kind of like that too , because virtually like I sounded like a new left . You know , anti-war activist he wasn't , but Carter really is quite amazing in that regard , but as president not so much , and I think we have to understand there's a difference between the two . And that's who he is , that's his entire legacy , you know , and to ignore what happened before 1981 or whatever , it doesn't help us . I think we have to understand these people aren't heroes , they're not perfect , they're not icons , they're not saints and we can't expect that out of them .

C. Derick Varn 52:34

So I guess , to tie it back to today , I mean Carter's passing , he made it to 100 . So I mean it it back to today . I mean you know Carter is passing , he made it to 100 . So I mean it's hard to you know I'm sad he's gone , at the same time Like it's hard to be sad when someone dies at 100 . Yeah , yeah , but it does seem like we're looking at a Democratic Party that may be making , as you already imply , implied or just said , the exact same choices they've made in the past , which is move to the right after already normalizing right-wing policies . So , um , do , do you see like any lessons for us today about how to deal with the democrats and the legacy of jimmy carter ?

Robert Buzzanco 53:29

um , I mean , I think it's to confront it . I mean they were . I mean , carter had plenty of liberal entities by 1980 . He wasn't popular with that wing of the party and a lot of much like , you know , in 2024 , right , you know in 2024 . Right , you know the way the Democrats especially handled , like Gaza , they just drove a lot of people , you know , not to vote for Trump , but just not to vote at all . You saw that too , I think Carter Carter , you know did a lot of that . I mean , I would think the lesson is to confront this stuff , you know , not embrace it or not hide it . You know bury it . And after Carter , you know bury it . And after Carter , you know , that was kind of .

Robert Buzzanco 53:59

All the postmortems were essentially pretty much the same ones you're hearing today . Right , you know , carter alienated too many people and you know it was almost guilt by association . He was around all these black leaders , he was around all these labor leaders . He was doing this , he was doing that , you know , and he was kind of like the Democratic Party . They get stained with these things . They don't even do or they don't believe it . So Carter was kind of being attacked as this guy who was too liberal , you know . Conversely , he was considered too weak because of Iran , mostly the hostage situation and the failed rescue mission , and the Democratic Party , just , you know , never confronted that , never challenged it . They kept going along with it . Once you start moving in that direction , you know you don't stop , but they haven't since then .

Robert Buzzanco 54:49

I mean , it would seem to me , you know , in many ways the 2024 election , I mean in 1980 , carter was unpopular but and reagan was kind of a an interesting figure , right , nobody knew , everybody knew he was pretty conservative , but you know he had this kind of hollywood background and so , so you know , you kind of I think people could be optimistic , they might be getting something better in 1980 . I mean , in 2024 , you knew what you were getting with Trump , and the Democratic Party didn't offer any resistance at all . They went around the country with Lynn Cheney and a bunch of other Republicans , right , and so I would say , you know , to me I would think , like , try to be like Jimmy Carter was after he was president , but you got to know what he was like as president , because I think it's important and frankly I think it makes what he did after he was president more impressive , right that he was able to move out of that kind of culture , that kind of political ideology . And , you know , I mean , in American life he's as good as you're probably going to get . You know we don't have , you know , a real radical . You know , component here we don't have there's no american che guevara walking around , right . So people like carter , you know , in this particular case , I think , are pretty good . You know and and and but , just like kind of making him into a mythological figure who built houses for poor people , you know , like paul bunyan or something . I don't think that does us any good . I think we have to know what he was about , like the whole thing , because it talks a lot about America . Right , he was , you know , he was embraced by these people , like David Rocker , followed the Trilateral Commission , because they saw what he could do for them and that he was a believer .

Robert Buzzanco 56:12

I mean , if he wasn't , if he had been the kind of person he was after he became president , he , after he became president , he would have been elected to the state house in Georgia , you know , let alone governor , and certainly not president . So , um , right , you know he's a . He was a very good politician in his day , you know . But uh , at the end of the day , I think you know we need to to confront what's really happening .

Robert Buzzanco 56:32

And uh , uh , you know , obviously the democratic party isn't , so it's up to us to figure out ways to do this outside of the democrats , because they I don't think they're going to help us at all , I don't think they ever have really so , and I think carter is a good example of that . You know , it is easy to attack reagan or nixon or trump or whoever , but it's just the problem's bigger than that , you know , and that kind of , I think , carter , you know , basically , it kind of gets to this vote blue , no matter who mentality you . Well , we don't care , we're just going to vote for him . And you know , when that happens , you get a lot of Carter's and Biden's out of it . You know .

C. Derick Varn 57:07

So , yeah , I mean . I mean it's interesting because I think of Joe Biden weirdly as a politician of this era , in a way , like , and that's why he's I vote . I agree with you . He's actually probably more progressive than Carter , although my read on that is like that's an accident of the time period that he entered politics Because he's a coalitional dude . He would just throw meat to all the coalitions in the party and that hasn't been the modus operandi for a while in the Democratic party . Um , so yeah , every now and then you're accidentally progressive , but it's kind of an accident yeah , um , I do think you know .

C. Derick Varn 57:52

Uh , it's important to to go after these figures and talk about them honestly , particularly these figures that don't have for a variety of reasons , usually because they die , but also with Cardi , you just have this radical change . Later on , it seems to erase any criticism or end up looked at their actual administration , and we should definitely not be fooled by that . I don't think I'm going to live to see some weird valorization of Joe Biden , but maybe I will . I should count it out . Democrats are weird . Where can people find your work , bob ?

Robert Buzzanco 58:44

um , you can just , you know , kind of always do a google search . Uh , my books are available all over the place . Uh , I blog at afflict the comfortable one word , afflict the comfortableorg and uh , green and red podcast , where you know we do . You know a few shows we do , at least one a week

Comparing Carter to Other Presidents

Robert Buzzanco 59:01

, sometimes two or maybe more a week . We talk about politics and history and all kinds of really cool stuff like that . So that you know , kind of I think you know the best way . But yeah , start with the podcast . You know I've written a bunch of stuff all over the place , places like Counterpunch , history News Network , op , op-eds , things like that , so not hard to find , all right .

C. Derick Varn 59:22

I'll put a link to the blog .

Robert Buzzanco 59:24

Thank you so much .

C. Derick Varn 59:26

And thank you so much for coming on .

Robert Buzzanco 59:28

Thank you so much . This was really great . I really appreciate it . Yeah , take care of yourself .

C. Derick Varn 59:33

You too , bye-bye , bye .