Except it was Carter...
Whether or not anyone could have stopped that doesn't matter, ppl attribute this to him.
A President usually sets the tone and direction of policy, but avoids personal accountability for the details for a variety of reasons.
My childhood church group (all Republicans, I’d guess) used to build houses with Habitat. It’s kinda hard to think poorly of Carter when he built something that does so much good.
I wonder if the loud, vitriolic right wingers make it seem like the right thinks as a united, extreme block, when maybe there’s a large, quiet group that is not well represented? Not sure. I may also just be in a bubble of reasonable centrists. My left wing and right wing friends are pretty centrist in my estimation.
Often referred to as the "silent majority".
> My left wing and right wing friends are pretty centrist in my estimation.
I think this is many (?most?) people's experience, whilst media (social/traditional) are geared towards demonizing both "sides", to increase engagement. I say "sides", because most people's opinions skew left/right depending on the issue in question, rather than fitting perfectly into the stereotypical archetypes.
They are all voting for Trump and the Trumpists. How moderate are they?
Johnson was a sociopath, who gave us Medicare, Medicaid, desegregation, and “standardization of computer communication.”
Your point made, however: it takes a true monster to survive American politics.
Speaking as a left-leaning resident of Georgia, it seems obvious to me that Jimmy Carter is not all that well-loved by his own political party:
* Part of this is because he made the mistake of bringing his own people when he went to Washington, instead of populating his administration with more federal insiders.
* Part of it is because he lost, and no one likes a loser (I'd say that Carter's place in the Democratic Part is similar to that of George H.W. Bush, without the legacy of an heir going on to serve two terms).
* And I believe that part of it is because, on the heels of the Civil Rights Act and the re-alignment it ushered in, Democrats were never all that genuinely enthusiastic about having a white Southern leader. It took 12 years of futility for them to embrace Bill Clinton (see point above, about how people more fondly remember Presidents who win re-election). And even Clinton's legacy has picked up a lot of tarnish over the past decade.
His election was like Clinton and administration like Biden.
I was a Carter fan before it was cool, seems like more and more people are coming around and revisiting his legacy.
Nor should we care. It is of far greater significance to be a good parent or a Gary Flandro than to be President.
That's what the sociopaths want you to think. Look at the most successful people politically, who got the most done - Lincoln, FDR, MLK, etc. They weren't sociopaths. The recent sociopath at the top of the ticket underperformed their own party.
Cancel culture is dangerous, but being tolerant of some behaviours (which of course are much more specific and contextual in this case) was also his downfall
This applies to almost every job. You need soft skills to be successful.
Reagan's first act was to sign an Executive Order eliminating all oil and gas price and allocation controls.
The gas lines vanished literally overnight (and I'm not exaggerating) and never returned. Boy do I remember that.
Carter could have done that. But he simply didn't understand economics.
Sadly, Biden is considering having the government control fuel distribution again.
Btw, the oil price controls were a Nixon initiative, continued by Ford. Carter did not invent them, he just didn't remove them.
Reagan was the beneficiary of the collapse of the OPEC price war internationally.
Something Carter could have done at any time. But he didn't. Reagan did.
> he just didn't remove them
That's right, for 4 years he didn't. He gets the blame for it for those 4 years.
Remember, Reagan did it on his first day in office. Carter could have done it the day before.
If you lived through that transition (I did) it was wonderful to have the gas lines disappear overnight and never return. Thank you, Reagan!
It was during the Nixon administration that price controls and rationing of gasoline were introduced, in response to the OPEC oil shock of 1973 (crude oil prices had been set by government since 1971). You mention Reagan's executive order, but that was just closing the stable door after the horse had bolted; Carter began the phaseout of the Nixon-era price controls in 1979.
https://www.nytimes.com/1979/04/06/archives/carter-to-end-pr...
All your article shows is Carter simply didn't understand the problem. Reagan did.
Not mentioned is the DOE also controlled allocation of gasoline to filling stations. That was quite a disaster. Reagan ended all that nonsense with the same EO.
Isn't it interesting that Biden is going down the same path? He'll fail just like Carter.
I might observe that Carter's 'dinking around' also reduced the federal government's budget deficit, which increased sharply under the Reagan & Bush administrations, along with the national debt.
From "TheU.S. Petroleum Crisis of 1979", PHILIP K. VERLEGER, JR.
>...On February 28, 1979, DOE published the following notice in the Federal Register: "It is essential that refiners enter the spring driving season with adequate gasoline stocks to meet seasonal demand requirements. We recognize that gasoline stocks are currently at adequate levels for this time of year, which is usually a period of low demand. Recent industry data indicate that total stocks are now in excess of 265 million barrels, which is less than last year's record high levels during the same period but above the average levels of previous years. Our concern is that these stocks not be drawn down precipitously as soon as the impacts of the Iranian shortfall are felt by refiners. Refiners are urged to keep stocks high enough to meet expected demand during the 1979 summer driving season, even if it is necessary to restrict somewhat the amount of surplus gasoline that is made available to purchasers currently" The implementation of these instructions had the effect of restricting the volume of gasoline available to service stations to between 80 and 90 percent of 1978 levels. This reduction was greater than the reduction in total gasoline supplies.
>...In April 1979, DOE ordered the fifteen largest refiners to sell 7.8 million barrels of crude oil to smaller firms that were unable to obtain supplies on the world market at competitive prices. …These transfers probably reduced the volume of gasoline produced in the second quarter because the refineries that purchased the crude oil had only a limited capacity to produce gasoline, while the refineries that sold it could have produced more. ...In addition to reducing the supply of gasoline, the buy/sell program appears to have affected the geographic distribution of crude oil and gasoline. This is because the primary recipients of the crude oil were refineries in the Midwest and the gulf coast areas, while the sellers were companies that were marketing throughout the nation.
>...…In April, DOE turned its attention to the low stock of distillate fuel oil … Two impacts were observed on domestic markets. First, excessive stocks of heating oil were accumulated. Second, companies may have been influenced to increase gasoline stocks in anticipation of the mandator yield controls that DOE threatened to impose. These controls specified the percent of refiner output that had to be heating oil. Such controls were designed to curtail the output of gasoline. By building higher gasoline inventories, refiners could smooth out the month-to-month distribution of gasoline despite the controls.
>...Price controls on gasoline may have also created an incentive to withhold gasoline from the market when the prices of crude oil were rising rapidly. …In summary, the refiners had the capacity and the knowledge to take advantage of this opportunity. Ironically, the instructions from DOE to the companies were to do precisely what was most profitable.
>...In addition to encouraging the buildup of stocks, DOE may have added to the shortages by creating an incentive to reduce the output of crude oil. Although it is difficult to estimate what domestic supplies of crude oil might have been in the absence of any restriction, a DOE announcement in November that control levels of the base period were to be reviewed may have constrained production in the first half of 1979.
A gas station had to apply to the DOE to get gas, and write a paper justifying this. I know this because a friend bought a gas station. He couldn't get a DOE allocation because the gas station across the street filed an objection with the DOE that no gas was needed for the new owner. So his gas station sat with no gas for 6 months or so.
That's Carter's energy policy. Well meaning, but completely wrong.
Let's go back to what happened - Carter didn't fix it in 4 years. Reagan did overnight as his first action. Reagan gets the credit.
Read also Carter's policy proposals for energy. All terrible, just like Biden's.
Gawd, what an awful proposal.