Jimmy Carter was too spiritually intelligent to be a good politician.
Ryan Holiday makes the point in his talk to the sophomore class at the US Naval academy in April of 2024 that whether Jimmy Carter was a great president is debatable but the idea that he was a great person is not when you look at this life and career through the Stoic lens of justice.
Holiday defines justice, as related to Jimmy Carter, as a personal virtue tied closely to honesty, integrity, and a desire to do the right thing even if it is not popular. Holiday makes the case that Carter tried to do his best and do the right thing and it cost him his re-election.
Americans have a history of killing the advocates for justice such as Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcom X, John Lennon and many other lesser known honorable people who advocated for and acted on the right thing.
When you compare the integrity of presidents like Dwight Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama with the corruptness of presidents like Richard Nixon, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump an observer might be mystified at the inability of American voters to choose leaders of integrity. It seems that integrity and politics don’t mix well in America and that says something about our culture and society build on slavery, genocide, misogyny, racism, homophobia, and a certain degree of xenophobia.
Americans don’t seem to favor justice when it is defined as personal integrity, honesty, fairness, and doing the right thing. Instead, Americans favor profit, winning, and status. This basic choice for bad values contributes to great pain, suffering, and harm in our personal, family, and social lives.
The problem in America is the low level of spiritual intelligence. Mother Theresa said that while the US is one of the richest countries in the world materially it is one of the poorest spiritually.
Jimmy Carter might not have been the greatest politician, but he, at least, had a modicum of spiritual intelligence which made him stand head and shoulders over most politicians.
Is there anything about Jimmy Carter’s character that you admire and would like to emulate and would like your children and grandchildren to emulate?