According to the former president, Americans are now experiencing “a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors.”

  • markr@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Yup. He was the first neoliberal democrat president and his presidency was pretty shitty. On the other hand his post presidential time has been spent well, and his willingness to speak openly about this country is appreciated.

    • circuscritic@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Willingness to talk truth to power only matters if you’ve had no power. Not when you had all the power, choose to use it to advance the goals of elites and the powerful, and screw over an entire nation.

      Him regaining his “voice” now is worth nothing and people pretending otherwise is the same type of logic that allowed Dubya to be rehabilitated in the eye of public opinion.

      Yes, his Habit for Humanity has helped thousands. His role as president hurt hundreds of millions. How do you justify those scales as anywhere close to being balanced, much less even being worthy of note?

        • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Lol, nothing. He ran a decent presidency, especially post-Watergate when faith in the post was at an all-time low, and was consistently attacked from the right throughout – to the point that Iran did not release the embassy hostages until the day their candidate, Ronald Reagan, was inaugurated, as a final FUCK YOU to Jimmy Carter.

          I was a young adult during Carter’s term, and while IMO he made a couple missteps (firing his cabinet, the hostage rescue attempt) he actually did really well overall during the era of severe OPEC gas and oil shortages, and none of what you would call his “mistakes” were based in fraud or corruption. The above is off the top of my head, but I was paying attention and I genuinely can’t think of any big scandals involving him or his behavior.

          EDITED TO ADD link to the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978: it had unforeseen consequences, but was a genuine effort to break up the airline monopolies and lower airfare prices. It was not even remotely the catalyst of economic armageddon; that’s just overtly misrepresentative shitposting. Even Justice Breyer had compassionate words to say about it (last section):

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act

        • circuscritic@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          The neo-liberal economic order started with Carter, he knocked over the first domino of deregulation and financializaton of the American political and economic systems.

          • twisted28@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I have always felt the country was captured by business interests when Reagan was talking to bushes in the Rose Garden.