Jimmy Carter Was No Friend of Union Workers Like Me
jacobin.com
As a worker in the 1970s, I looked forward to a Jimmy Carter administration. By the end of his term in office, like millions of my union sisters and brothers, I felt betrayed.

… My labor friends like to comment today that “it all started with Reagan.” As if a switch had been thrown and a cascade of awful things was suddenly unleashed on us. No so fast. For me, a young blue-collar worker, the hellish years of Reagan started when Carter was elected. No doubt Jimmy Carter inherited a titanic mess; the 1970s were years when the many sins of the past were catching up with the United States. But Carter raised hopes and expectations that the unemployment and inflation crises would be confronted and working people would not be the victims. Instead, we all found out that Carter was the original “New Democrat,” long before we knew what that meant. It meant a Southern, conservative Democrat not beholden to “big labor” and “liberals.” …

  • @[email protected]English
    5•6 days ago

    He didn’t pretend Reagan was better?

    I didn’t vote to reelect Jimmy Carter. Union friends and Democrats alike pleaded with me. “It’s the most important election of your life! You have to vote for Carter!” Not me. I was already aware by then of the impacts that failed politicians and their politics can have on your life. My one little vote didn’t matter anyway, since after almost four years of the Carter presidency just about everyone I knew — and worked with — was voting for Ronald Reagan, an even worse alternative, anyway. If they were voting at all.

    Sounds more like he didn’t vote. Like much of the left (in both of these elections), he gave up entirely on the government and saw it as an other/enemy rather than something that could be reformed through a vote.

    • @BotzoEnglish
      5•6 days ago

      That’s a reasonable take. I might have had a bit of a knee-jerk to the “democrats abandoned the hard-working white guy” bit. The other editorial I read from them did better in its take on the legacy, if still shying away from any call to action.

      I do still stand by my criticism of this dude’s reflection. The “My one little vote didn’t matter anyway” bullshit is the same garbage that continually shifts the Overton window.