With the recent passing of President Jimmy Carter, news outlets and historians are proffering their views on his Presidential legacy. Among these is his “Malaise Speech” and notoriety for being the first rock n roll president. Fans of the Rolling Stones will recall that the band memorializes the accessibility of rock musicians by the Carter Administration to “the White House lawn” in their song Respectable from their 1978 album, Some Girls.
Because of Carter’s precedent, celebrities shilling for candidates became a common occurrence. For example, it was due to events at a Presidential fundraiser that The Eagles broke up.
Well, I heard some people talkin' just the
other day. And they said you were gonna put me on a shelf. But
let me tell you I got some news for you, And you'll soon find out it's
true. And then you'll have to eat your lunch all by yourself. (The Eagles, Already Gone)
Originally from Gainesville, Florida, multi-instrumentalist
Don Felder had been brought in to supplement The Eagles sound and, indirectly, replace
another Gainesville resident and founding member of the band, Bernie Leadon. As
an aside, Felder claimed to be the guitar teacher of another Gainesville rock n
roller, Tom Petty. Petty suggests Felder actually taught him how to play the
piano. Furthermore, the brother of Eagles founding member Bernie Leadon, Tom Leadon
was in Petty’s pre-Heartbreaker band, Mud Crutch. Anyway, during a fundraiser
for presidential candidate, Alan Cranston, after being thanked for his support,
Felder replied, “You’re welcome – I guess.” An argument ensued while the band
was on stage over Felder’s comments and an infuriated Glenn Frey disbanded the
group for 14 years.
Another legacy of Carter’s time in the White House was his call
for the American people to engage in self-sacrifice. Notably, it was in his
Malaise Speech that Carter asked the American people to choose self-sacrifice in
the interest of the nation. After the speech, Carter’s approval ratings briefly
went up and then plummeted: being easily replaced by Ronald Reagan in 1981. A lesson
learned.
Readers will recall that in his inaugural speech, John
Kennedy famously stated, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what
you can do for your country.” Similar calls for sacrifice were proffered by
Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower. But not today.
The letter that you wrote me, made me
stop and wonder why. But I guess you felt like you had to set things
right. Just remember this, my girl, when you look up in the sky, you
can see the stars and still not see the light.
Continuing with the rock motif, Jim Morrison, singer for The
Doors, captured the state of the American mind today when he said, “I don’t
know what’s gonna happen , but I hope we get our kicks before the whole
(outhouse) goes up in flames.”
During his tenure in the office, Lyndon Johnson’s Guns & Butter policy argued that Americans could simultaneously fight poverty by supporting his Great Society program (butter) and fight the Vietnam conflict (guns) without sacrifice. Both ventures came up short.
Well, I know it wasn't you who held me down.
Heaven knows it wasn't you who set me free. So oftentimes it happens
that we live our lives in chains, and we never even know we have the key.
In the modern era, we can fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and, at the same time, lower taxes. During his time in the White House, George W Bush added $500 billion to the national debt every year: annually Obama added $1.08 trillion, Trump added $2.1 trillion, Biden added $1.8 trillion. Gone are the days of self-sacrifice and heaven help the elected official who suggests otherwise.
Today, we lionize Jimmy Carter’s post-Presidency for his compassion and simple life. And yet today, despite a $36,000,000,000 national debt, amid a government that asks nothing of us, we stand in line to embellish our grievances and bemoan the state of the Union. Perhaps we should install a tax to pay off the national debt. Something like a ½ of one percent tax on wealth every year that goes strictly to pay down the national debt. Now I know what some are thinking, another idea from a tax and spend liberal. To which I respectfully reply, no brother, you’ve already spent the money. I’m just asking you to pay for it.And I'm already gone: and I'm feelin' strong. Woo-hoo-hoo, my, my, woo-hoo-hoo