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The unCarter, the unTrump and the Creation of a
Usable Past
It goes without saying
that the big historic event of last week — maybe of the year — is the
catastrophic L.A. Fire, which I will write about in the weeks ahead. But
before we say farewell to Jimmy Carter’s Long Goodbye, I wanted to tell you a
bit about my experience over the last two weeks, including one freaky moment
of synchronicity, and to re-post some of what I wrote in October about the
contrast between Carter and Donald Trump. I was shopping for a
non-Elon EV on Saturday, December 28, when I received a text from Jeff
Carter, Jimmy and Rosalynn’s third son, telling me that his father, who had
been in hospice for nearly two years (a record for prominent people that may
never be broken), would be gone within a day or two. I found this fitting.
Carter wanted EVs by the mid-1980s, just one example of his visionary and
much-misunderstood presidency. That and his recognition of the threat of
global warming lend a tragic dimension to the 1980 election. The following day, my
daughter, Charlotte Alter, and son-in-law, Mark Chiusano, delivered on their
Christmas present: We all went to see the matinee performance of my favorite
American play, and Edward Albee’s, Our Town, now playing to rave reviews on Broadway. At the play’s climax,
the stage manager (Jim Parsons in the Broadway production) grants Emily’s
request to leave the afterlife for a moment and return to earth and watch her
family having breakfast on her 12th birthday. I’m not a weepy guy, and
I can count on one hand the number of movies or plays that have jerked tears
from my eyes. But that number does not include Our Town. I’ve seen the play performed at
least a half-dozen times and held it together for the first two acts. But in
the Third Act (“Death and Eternity”), I cry every time — for my mortality, my
family, and, more recently, for my inability — even after cancer — to take
more time from my busy life to savor and appreciate every day. The play, centered on
the small town of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, has long been celebrated
as an unpretentious depiction of how fleeting our existence is and how we
need to see — really see —other people and make the most of our brief time on
earth. This production began
at 2:00 p.m. and ran an hour and 45 minutes without an intermission. About
five minutes before it ended, Emily says, “Do any human beings ever realize
life while they live it? Every, every minute?” As I later learned, at
that minute, 3:40 p.m. EST, nearly a thousand miles south of the Barrymore
Theatre in Plains, Georgia, a town the size of Grover’s Corners, a man who
made the most of every minute breathed his last. Jimmy Carter had his
shortcomings, which I acknowledge in my book. But he “realized life as he
lived it” as much as any person I’ve ever met. I was on the subway
when the Carter Center announced his death, got off at 14th St., and made a
beeline for 30 Rock, where I spent the better part of the next two days on
various NBC outlets. After a break for New Year’s came another week of dozens
of media interviews as news organizations from around the world scrambled to
join the growing chorus of appreciation. As the critic Van Wyck Brooks wrote
more than a century ago, the creators of our national narratives require a
“usable past.” This month, we’ve seen one built on a foundation of decency
and respect, with the hope that this good man and his many good works might
eventually light our way back to a better place. On the night before
the funeral, I went to the Capitol Rotunda, where Carter lay in state atop
Lincoln’s catafalque. It was harshly cold and windy, but thousands of people
lined up outdoors, waiting as long as five hours to view the casket. I was
most struck by the age of those who came to pay their respects. Many were
born after Carter was president. I found this a source of hope as we amble
forward into the darkness. I spent much of the
day of the funeral just outside the National Cathedral on the makeshift MSNBC
set, freezing my butt off. I’m a hardy skier, but this was ridiculous. The
wind was so strong that the space heaters and electric blankets provided for
me and Andrea Mitchell had little effect. I wore the wrong shoes and feared I
might be getting frostbite. We looked as if we were sledding in the Arctic,
not broadcasting an inspiring national ritual, but fortunately, the camera
was on the flag-draped casket of the late president and the body language of
five of his successors. I don’t have any idea
what Barack Obama and Trump were chuckling over, but it doesn’t matter much.
Obama, sitting in the seat designated initially for no-show Michelle, was
doing his duty, which is to maintain a good enough relationship with Trump to
call him once or twice and at least try to keep him from doing something that
will seriously harm the country. The funeral itself,
which we were able to watch indoors, was moving and evocative. Every eulogy
and musical performance was first-rate, and I almost had an Our Town cry when Garth Brooks and
Trisha Yearwood (who built houses with the Carters) sang “Imagine.” Jason
Carter’s description of his grandfather greeting him in “short shorts and
Crocs” brought me a laugh of recognition. In September of 2015, I
was scheduled for my second of what became 12 interviews, this one at the Carters’ modest home in Plains, where
Jimmy, a master woodworker (one of dozens of skills), had built all of the
furniture. I learned that Carter, then nearly 91, had gone fishing that
morning and fallen fully clothed into a pond, spraining or breaking his
wrist. The Secret Service treated him, but I assumed the interview was
canceled. It wasn’t. He insisted that I (and our son, Tommy) come over. He
greeted us at the door in, yes, short shorts and Crocs and showed us where
he’d hung his wet shirt and jeans on a flapping clothesline in the backyard. Stu Eizenstat, Carter’s
domestic policy adviser, who began the efforts to revise the historical
judgment of Carter’s record as president, did a fine job in his eulogy
articulating that case. I was the first biographer outside the Carter circle
to advance that reappraisal, soon joined by Kai Bird, Stanly Godbold and
others. We are trying to do for Jimmy Carter what David McCullough did for Harry Truman, who left office derided as
mediocre before his stock rose sharply. Truman was Carter’s
favorite president, in part because he desegregated the armed forces, which
Carter believed propelled the civil rights movement. On the day he was sworn
in, Carter asked that Truman’s famous sign — “The buck stops here”— be placed
on his desk in the Oval Office. In our conversations, he clearly wanted me to
be his McCullough, even though I told him I’d be more critical. McCullough’s
book came out exactly 40 years after his subject left office, and so did
mine. Unlike Truman, Carter lived to read the long-overdue revisionism We had help in this
resurrection project from one Donald Trump. As the study of historiography
tells us, works of history and their reception are often heavily influenced
by the eras in which they are published. The reassessment of Carter — and his
appeal to younger generations — has a lot to do with the contrast to Trump.
As I wrote in October in The New York Times: The contrast could not be starker.
Trump is corrupt, chaotic and vulgar; Carter is honest, disciplined and
respectful. Trump is a physically big man who acts small; Carter is a
physically small man who acts big. Trump appeals to the worst in us; Carter to
the best in us. Trump is a nationalist and an authoritarian. Carter is an
internationalist and devoted to the promotion of democracy. Trump has told
thousands of well-documented lies; Carter promised in his 1976 campaign not
to lie to the American people and — despite plenty of exaggerations — never
did. Trump’s a grifter who
is selling gold watches; Carter’s an uplifter who lives in a modest home in
Plains, Ga. Trump thinks he’s really smart; Carter actually is. Trump is on
wife No. 3 and was found liable for sexual assault; Carter was married for 77
years and lusted only in his heart. Trump refused to release his tax returns;
Carter originated the practice. Trump botched his handling of the Covid
pandemic; Carter (with the help of Rosalynn) convinced most states to require
vaccination before children can enter school and has spent his
post-presidency eradicating diseases and otherwise advancing global health.” That only scratches
the surface of the contrast, which was driven home to me on Friday, when the
cruel con man I had seen the day before in the National Cathedral sitting
impassively while President Biden talked of “Character, character, character”
and “abuse of power” (one of the counts in both impeachments) was compelled
to appear virtually for sentencing in Judge Juan Merchan’s courtroom. My Amtrak train back
to New Jersey was delayed, so I didn’t get home until 2:00 a.m. and had to be
on a 6:00 a.m. train to New York in order to arrive in time at the Manhattan
Criminal Courthouse. It felt like old home week to be with the reporters I
hadn’t seen in the seven months since the jury foreperson said “guilty” 34
times. Merchan has been
criticized for not sentencing Trump last summer, before the election. But if
he had done so, the Supreme Court would likely have figured out another way
to delay accountability. And the sentence he
deserved was not in the cards. Jail for an older first-time offender—for
felonies that lead to imprisonment only 15 percent of the time — was always unlikely. Fines would have offered little justice. When Merchan
last spring fined Trump $10,000 (the maximum for ten counts of contempt), it
barely made the front page. And after the assassination attempts, community
service (my preference) was unworkable. So Merchan got
creative. “Conditional discharge”— a sentence that would have allowed Merchan
to haul the president into court at any time — would never have flown with
this Supreme Court, which we learned last week has four knee-bending
justices. They apparently concocted out of thin air some kind of immunity for
presidents-elect (or at least this one), as if they are princes, not private
citizens. But by writing on
January 3 that he favored "unconditional discharge,” Merchan gave Chief
Justice John Roberts a way to allow sentencing and stigma to move forward. In
the Supreme Court’s one-paragraph, 5-to-4 ruling, issued Thursday night,
Roberts wrote that “a brief virtual hearing” and a sentence of “unconditional
discharge” left a “relatively insubstantial” burden of time on the
president-elect. This showed that Merchan had shrewdly anticipated Roberts’
requirements. And sure enough, the sentencing on Friday took less of Trump’s
time than playing the back nine at his club in West Palm Beach. Trump will appeal, but
he’s not likely to get the case thrown out. Even this Supreme Court may be
loathe to reverse a jury verdict without any compelling constitutional reason
to do so. That means it’s a good bet the unCarter will forever be known as a
convicted felon, which is less than he deserves but still a life sentence of
disgrace. Meanwhile, the unTrump will live on as a moral exemplar — a model
for future generations of how we can do better. |
