Essay: Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan

“Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
On January 21, 1981, newly-sworn in President Ronald Reagan stood upon the West Front of the Capitol and proclaimed this famous sentiment.  This one line reflected the rise of conservatism throughout the 1970s, having just gained a clear mandate from Ronald Reagan’s landslide electoral college victory, defeating incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter by 440 electoral votes. All presidents since Reagan, both Republicans and Democrats have subscribed to Reagan’s political philosophy. As a result, the past 30-40 years of politics has been labelled the ‘Reagan Era,’ in which ‘Reaganism’ is the prevailing political ideology. In many ways though, the man whom Ronald Reagan defeated in 1980, Jimmy Carter, despite today being considered one of the most liberal Presidents in US history, was the first true President of the Reagan era. This is exemplified through much of Jimmy Carter’s politics: an anti-Washington mentality, vowing to reduce the size of government and the welfare state, and using supply side economics in an attempt to combat economic crises.
Throughout the 1970s the conservative movement underwent a massive surge in popularity, leading to the onset of the Reagan Era. This rise in conservatism reflected the populus’ general disdain for liberal politicians, claiming they were who were “unable to devise an effective policiesy” to combat the real and still present economic crises. Additionally, the social progress and left-wing activism in the issues of race, gender, and sexuality, invigorated the “Christian Right, which sought to restore what they considered traditional moral values to American life.” This coalition of workers disenchanted with liberal economic policy, religious fundamentalists, as well as libertarian, anti-government intellectuals, made up the base of the new conservative movement. This modern conservative coalition swept Ronald Reagan and his political philosophy of Reaganism into power in 1980.
The Reagan Era, which, as argued in this paper, spans from 1976 to today, is defined by an amorphous set of policies and beliefs espoused and popularized by Reagan that were continued by all subsequent presidents. For the sake of this paper, the Reagan Era is rooted in an anti-government or pro-outsider mentality, deregulation of industry, the dissolution of the welfare state, and the strengthening of the military. While all Presidents since Reagan have differed on specific policies such as abortion rights, specific levels of taxation, and the extent of social welfare, they’re all ideologically ideologies all fundamentally reflect Reagan’sfall squarely in the Reagan Era. While this paper argues that Jimmy Carter, not Ronald Reagan was the first President of the Reagan Era, it is still important to recognize Reagan’s deserved iconic nature andin his long lasting effects on American Politics. Unlike Jimmy Carter, who still identified as liberal, Reagan “made conservatism seem progressive,” associating it with the fundamental American value of “freedom.”
Despite having been a politician for 12 years, throughout his Presidential campaign, Jimmy Carter presented himself as an outsider to politics, as well as being and anti-Washington, botha key tenets of Reaganism. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush were all governors, Barack Obama was a Senator for only four years, and Donald Trump never held political office before becoming President. In every single case, except for Reagan defeating Carter, their opponents were Washington insiders. Jimmy Carter too, never held federal office prior to becoming President and defeated Gerald Ford, the incumbent President, former Vice-President and House Minority Leader. Throughout the 1976 election, Jimmy Carter “emphasized his separation from the Washington establishment,” as a means of presenting himself as an outsider, instead leaning into his history as a peanut farmer and Navy Officer. This was especially effective as Americans had great distrust of Washington “[a]fter the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal.”5
Jimmy Carter’s anti-Washington sentiment, similar to Ronald Reagan’s, was a a form of attacking traditionally liberal constituents. During the 1980 election and throughout his Presidency, Ronald Reagan spoke out against the “special interests” of Washington, instead claiming to be a candidate of “the people,” -and true “Americans.” These ‘special interests’ that Reagan attacked were not the industry lobbyists often thought of today, but rather “racial minorities, unionists, and others hoping to use Washington’s power to attack social inequalities.” Jimmy Carter also, too denounced the influence of special interests, which he believed controlled the “welfare state liberals” of Congress. Aand as President, Carter in turn “felt more comfortable with congressional conservatives.” Just like Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter’s anti -special interests sentiment was a veiled form of racism and anti-liberalism. During the 1976 election, former Democratic presidential nominee and “quintessential New Deal liberal,” Hubert Humphrey, criticized the anti-Washington sentiments of Jimmy Carter as “making an attack on government programs, on blacks, on minorities, on the cities,” claiming it was “a disguised new form of racism,” and “conservatism.”
Unlike his liberal colleagues who championed the expansion of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society, Carter was far more interested in a reduction and simplification of the welfare state, a view shared by almost all presidents of the Reagan era. In Reaganism, welfare and social services are seen asrepresent wasteful government spending -, ineffective social policy that “not only failed to alleviate poverty but also encouraged single motherhood and undermined the work ethic.” Under Ronald Reagan, funding dramatically declined for the social welfare programs of the Great Society such as “food stamps, school lunches,” and “low-income housing.” Bill Clinton exhibited these goals of Reaganism when he completely dismantled Aid to Families with Dependent Children, which according to Clinton, ended “welfare as we know it.” The beginning of the Reagan Era’s rollback of welfare began under Jimmy Carter who promoted “administrative reorganization” and decreased funding of the welfare state, to increase its “efficiency.”
Carter’s desire for for cutbacks to welfare spending came from his his broader belief in a massive reduction of what he viewed as unnecessary Federal bureaucracy, a belief consistent withconsistent belief among other Reagan Era presidents. In his inauguration speech, Ronald Reagan stated “it is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.” While traditionally a position of conservatives and libertarians, it is both reflected in Carter’s campaign and governance. In the 1976 election, Carter stated his desire to reduce federal agencies from “1,900 to 200,” and in his acceptance of the Democratic presidential nomination he expressed his desire “to eliminate waste,” and “to release… civil servants from bureaucratic chaos.” While unable to reduce government to the extent he desired, when faced with economic crises, Carter took the Reagan Era approach of decreasing Federal spending, completely inconsistent with the normalprior Democratic approach,position of increased governmental funding to deal with mass poverty and unemployment.
The defining domestic issue of Jimmy Carter’s presidency was his fight against stagflation, defined as rampant inflation coupled with stagnant economic growth., Hwhich he combatted this with supply side economics, an economic policy traditionally attributed to Ronald Reagan. Supply side economics, or ‘trickle down’ economics, “relied on high interest rates to curb inflation and lower tax rates,” as well as the deregulation of industry in order to stimulate economic growth.  President Ronald Reagan lowered the top marginal tax rate from 70% to 40%, a move that was not only a radical shift in taxation policy, but dismantled federal regulations on industry, and promoted conservative policies in the Federal Reserve. In Jimmy Carter’s acceptance of the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1976, he expressed his bold aspiration for a “complete overhaul of” the “income tax system,” which he regarded as “a disgrace to the human race.” Then, in 1978, though not the overhaul he desired, Carter “inaugurated tax cuts for wealthier Americans” in an attempt to fight stagflation. Additionally, during his Presidency, Jimmy Carter deregulated the “airline, trucking and railroad industries,” and established the Department of Energy in 1977 in order to deregulate natural gas. Carter’s sentiments on taxation and regulation differed dramatically from the policies of New Deal Presidents, both Democrat and Republican, and instead reflected the economic policies of the Reagan Era.
Both critics and supporters alike still consider Jimmy Carter to be an extremely progressive President. While Jimmy Carter fits within the Reagan Era, it is fair to say that he is on the more liberal end of Reaganism due to “his commitments to labor, blacks, women’s rights groups, environmentalists, and consumer organizations,” consistently providing federal appointments to African Americans and women, fighting for civil rights, and supporting the Equal Rights Amendment, a proposed and failed constitutional amendment which asserted legal equality between people of different genders. Despite his social progressivism, in his book, Keeping Faith, Carter admittedly self identifies as “a fiscal conservative,” but that is often overlooked due to popular remembranceopinion of him as a liberal.
On the right, Republicans claimed Carter to be extremely liberal in order to shift the country rightward. Toward the end of his Presidency, Carter was consumed by foreign crises in Nicaragua, Iran, and Afghanistan, which Republicans jumped on as prime examples of failures in Democratic, and liberal leadership. Despite a “3 per cent real increase in military spending,” during an overall decline in federal spending, Ronald Reagan, and other Republicans, purported the myth that throughout Carter’s presidency there was a decline in American foreign influence and dominance. By relating the global crises under Carter with liberalism, Republicans ensured the association of conservatism with strength and leadership. This too, was bolstered by the economic “national decline” under Carter, which conflictedcontrasted with the “affluence and economic growth” of his Democratic predecessors. Despite Jimmy Carter attacking fiscal issues and stagflation with more conservative, Reagan Era solutions, Republicans associated the economic decline of the United States with Jimmy Carter’s ‘liberalism.’ Reaganism, in turn, was promoted as the counter-ideology to Jimmy Carter’s failed liberalism, classifying Carter outside of the Reagan Era.
While Jimmy Carter was very different from Ronald Reagan in many ways, he was the first President to ascribe to the economicideologiesy that werewas later eventually deemed as Reaganism. Just as every single President in the Reagan Era besides George H. W. Bush, Carter consciously campaigned and governed against the Washington establishment., and similar to Reagan, Carter decried the corrupting ‘special interests’ that in reality groups fighting against social injustices. Jimmy Carter ascribed to the core doctrine of Reaganism – which is the reduction and simplification of government bureaucracy and domestic social spending. The economic policies of the Reagan Era such asof dramatic reductions in taxation and regulations began during the Carter Administration as well. Jimmy Carter is only considered liberal within the context of the hyper-conservative Reagan Era, but in comparison to his Democrat and Republican predecessors, Carter’s policies and rhetoric were truly unprecedented. After an era of large social spending, pushes toward increased equality, and a Washington-centric government, Carter changed the direction of the country, shifting the Democratic party rightward. Unable to embrace the conservative label as a socially liberal Democrat, Carter’s policies and rhetoric became the new definition of ‘liberal,.’ essentially pushing the democratic party more right. While he may not be the icon or symbol for conservatism in the way thatas Ronald Reagan was, it is clear that Jimmy Carter truy waswas truly the first president of the Reagan Era.