From Scorn to Respect, Carter’s Legacy Evolved After His Presidency
The 39th president left the White House with his popularity in tatters. But four decades later, he is judged more kindly, in part for what he did after leaving office.
Jimmy Carter left office in 1981 as one of the most unpopular presidents in modern times, defeated for re-election and seemingly doomed to be remembered by posterity as a failed commander in chief with little to show for his four years in office.
“History will treat him more kindly than the American people did on Nov. 4,” Clark M. Clifford, the longtime consigliere of presidents and one of the capital’s so-called wise men, pronounced at the time. Then, having softened the blow, he added the shiv: “But there was nothing epochal about his presidency, nothing really remarkable.”
By the time Mr. Carter died on Sunday more than 40 years later, though, the first part of Mr. Clifford’s judgment appeared more salient. While not epochal, Mr. Carter’s presidency is now treated more kindly by many historians, a reassessment fueled not just by what he did in office but what he did after leaving office. Mr. Carter is still held out as a totem of failure by Republicans, still an attack line against Democrats like President Biden. But the passions of the 1970s have cooled, and the 39th president’s reputation has been helped to some extent by the travails of those who followed him in the Oval Office.
Mr. Carter has not climbed the ranks into the pantheon of great presidents by any means, but he is no longer consigned near the bottom of the heap either. In surveys of historians by Siena College, Mr. Carter rose from 33rd place in 1982 shortly after he left the White House to 24th place in 2022. With a half-dozen more presidents now included in the assessments, that means Mr. Carter, who was judged better than just six other presidents four decades ago, is deemed above 21 other presidents today.
“Most citizens will concede that he had an admirable post-presidential life filled with good works, but they quickly add that his presidency was a failure,” said Kai Bird, author of “The Outlier,” a fresh look at Mr. Carter’s presidency published in 2021. “Historians in recent years would disagree. His presidency was in fact quite consequential.”
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