Farewell and Following Seas: Thoughts on the Passing of Jimmy Carter

“I have one life and one chance to make it count for something... My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.” Jimmy Carter

Yesterday our country lost a great man, humanitarian, Christian and President. Former President Jimmy Carter died at the age of 100.

Carter was an oddity among American politicians and Presidents, he was a nuclear scientist and a man of great faith in God. He had tremendous integrity in and out of office. Unlike many politicians who use alleged “faith” God as scam to get elected, there have been many like that, even some that regularly attend church.

There are others who have tied God into their decisions to launch unjust wars. One of the first was William McKinley who after the defeat of Spain made his decision to annex the Philippines. As I described it in my book, “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: Religion and the Politics of Race in the Civil War Era and Beyond”:

McKinley was a doubtless sincere believer, and according to his words, he sought counsel from God about whether he should make the decision to annex the Philippines or not. For him this was not a mere exercise, but a manifestation of his deep rooted faith which was based on Manifest Destiny. Troubled, he sought guidance, and he told a group of ministers who were vesting the White House:

“Before you go I would like to say a word about the Philippine business…. The truth is I didn’t want the Philippines, and when they came to us as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them…. I sought counsel from all sides – Democrat as well as Republican – but got little help…. I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for guidance more than one night. And late one night it came to me this way – I don’t know how it was but it came….” [16]

He then went on to discuss what he supposedly heard from God, but reflected more of a calculated decision to annex the archipelago. He discussed what he believed would be an occupation of just a few islands and Manila, ruled out returning them to Spain as that would be “dishonorable,” ruled out turning them over to France or Germany because “that would be bad for business,” or allowing Filipino self-rule, as “they were unfit for self-government.”[17] The last was a reflection of the deep-rooted opinion of many Americans that the dark skinned Filipinos were “niggers.”

Barbara Tuchman described McKinley’s comments to the ministers:

“He went down on his knees, according to his own account, and “prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance.” He was accordingly guided to conclude “that there was nothing left to do for us but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos. And uplift and civilize and Christianize them, by God’s grace to do the very best we could by them, as our fellowmen for whom Christ died.” [18]

Likewise, President George W. Bush frequently used language in his speeches in which biblical allusions were prominent in justifying the morality of his policy, and by doing this “Bush made himself a bridge between politics and religion for a large portion of his electorate, cementing their fidelity.” [12]

Throughout the Bush presidency the idea that God was directing him even meant that his faith undergirded the policy of the United States and led to a mismatch of policy ends and the means to accomplish them. Former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. and historian Michael Oren wrote:

“Not inadvertently did Bush describe the struggle against Islamic terror as a “crusade to rid the world of evildoers.” Along with this religious zeal, however, the president espoused the secular fervor of the neoconservatives…who preached the Middle East’s redemption through democracy. The merging of the sacred and the civic missions in Bush’s mind placed him firmly in the Wilsonian tradition. But the same faith that deflected Wilson from entering hostilities in the Middle East spurred Bush in favor of war.” [13]

Now, Donald Trump uses language about God and promises to Make America Great Again to gain the absolute trust of his followers until they became his cult-like MAGA base. Over 80% of American Evangelicals voted for him in 2016, 2020, and 2024. They know the truth about him, but frequently bashed Carter, a Christian who lived his faith by serving others, supporting persecuted minorities here, and promoting peace, freedom, and democracy around the world.

I was in my junior year in high school when Carter was elected. I remember the multiple crises he had to deal with, most of which were created by previous administrations like dealing with runaway inflation, trying to heal the wounds of Vietnam, and the Iranian Revolution which resulted in the foreign policy disaster which doomed his Presidency, a crisis that Ronald Reagan made worse by undermining Carter’s attempts to bring home our hostages, adding a final ignominy to the end of his term.

Every Republican President since has derided Carter, as have elected Republicans and the pundits and political preachers. Even today I saw George Will doing that exact thing. Even Carter’s death doesn’t spare him their contempt and disrespect.

I admit that by 1980 I joined the cult of Reagan Republicans by voting for Reagan in 1980, and for every other Republican presidential candidate until 2008 when I realized the lies of George Bush, the bankruptcy of his policies, and the threat of religious extremism embodied by Sarah Palin, I left the Republican Party and voted for Barack Obama. I realized how they took advantage of Christian faith and turned me into a person that I no longer recognized.

That being said by the early 1990s I was beginning to admire Jimmy Carter for his accomplishments as President, his moral example of Christian service and his leadership around the world as a humanitarian, and promoter of freedom and democracy, not backed by military power.

Carter was a graduate of the Naval Academy and as a nuclear scientist was an early member of Hyman Rickover’s nuclear navy. He had a profound sense of duty and love for the country.

More than any other President, Jimmy Carter embodied the values that I hold most dear. He served his country, his state, humanity and God. No myth surrounds him like carefully crafted myth of Ronald Reagan written by his devotees. While Reagan rightly deserves credit for helping bring down the Soviet Union, he is not alone, over a period of 40 years, many others contributed to its fall and the liberation of Eastern Europe.

Likewise, Reagan’s administration deserves condemnation for making deals with Iran to supply the anti-Communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua, in exchange for hostages held by Hezbollah while supporting a right wing military dictatorship in El Salvador. The El Salvadorian military, supported by American CIA agents and clandestine Special Forces operatives unimaginable crimes, murdering thousands of people, including Catholic priests and Archbishop Oscar Romero as he celebrated Mass. Similar things happened in Guatemala.

But Carter forged a peace in the Middle East between Israel and Egypt. It is not his fault that it has fallen apart. He also put in place the weapons systems that guided U.S. military operations for a generation, and for which Reagan also gets far too much credit. In time, Carter will get all of the credit in history that he rightly deserves, but even more importantly, he will be remembered for the personal example he set as a humanitarian and Christian.

His post presidency record of accomplishments is long, and unlike any President since, he did not make himself rich. Instead, he lived humbly in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, with his wife Rosalynn, served as a Sunday school teacher. He served the poor through his work with Habitat for Humanity where he helped build 4390 homes in 38 years, even as he went to global hot spots to work for peace and democracy.

He and Rosalynn founded the Carter Center, a nonprofit human rights organization which took on a broad mission the alleviate human suffering. He helped oversee free and fair elections in dozens of developing countries and led global efforts to eliminate Guinea worm disease which spread through unfiltered water in Africa. Through his efforts the disease went from millions of cases in the 1980s and 1990s to just a couple of dozen by 2016.

After the attacks of 6 January 2021, he realized that democracy in United States was as endangered as it is in many countries. He wrote:

"I now fear that what we have fought so hard to achieve globally — the right to free, fair elections, unhindered by strongman politicians who seek nothing more than to grow their own power — has become dangerously fragile at home. … For American democracy to endure, we must demand that our leaders and candidates uphold the ideals of freedom and adhere to high standards of conduct."

He also noted: “When people are intimidated about having their own opinions, oppression is at hand.”

He lived long enough to vote in the 2024 election in the hope that Donald Trump would be defeated, but he died before Trump took office. His funeral will be in Washington, DC on January, 9th at the National Cathedral.

I entered the military eight months after Carter left office, but he ended up influencing me more than any president in my lifetime. And so in 2020 as a was preparing to retire from the military, I did what most retirees do and requested presidents who I served under to write letters for my retirement, and because I originally planned to join while he was in office, I asked for one from him, which I was presented with during my retirement ceremony. Since it was 2020 few if any people who served under him were asking for a letter from him. His came back hand signed, probably because it was so rare to get such a request. I keep it proudly displayed in my house. It is worth more than any amount of money to me. I have enough letters and certificates from government official to tell the difference between had signed letters and those done by machine.

Donald Trump claims to have made America great, but it was men like Jimmy Carter who did through their service and example. He understood something that Trump, his sycophants, or authoritarians around the world will never grasp: he wrote:

“A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It is a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity.”

Carter’s death hit me harder than any other President’s death. His death marks the end of an era. I don’t think that I will see another like him in my lifetime.

Rest In Peace Jimmy Carter.

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Thank you so much for reading and I hope that we can grow together in the looming peril of the new year.