Sunday, April 23, 2017
The Late Stages of Carter's Presidency
President Carter had a fairly successful early presidency because he brought honesty and traditional values, something that had been lacking in the White House for the last few terms. However, it started to go downhill with his malaise speech. At first it seemed like a great thing because his approval rating had shot up and the people that didn't like him were starting to accept him. But when they learned that he fired all of his staff so he could start anew, they took it as a message that the people were at fault for the problems in America. This made many Americans angry with him, which only escalated with the Iran Hostage Crisis. His inability to bring them home, especially when the attempted military extraction failed when two helicopters crashed when lifting off, greatly hurt the image the public had of Carter. Finally, he didn't campaign very much because he was trying to get the hostages home, so he lost the presidential election in a landslide to Reagan.
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In my opinion, President Carter's "malaise" speech heavily backfired on him and his presidency. If his speech was about how the American people were lacking confidence (which was why they weren't enjoying their lives), he should have set a better example for the people rather than firing his own cabinet (this clearly showed a lack of confidence on his part). He could have done it possibly because of his own lack of confidence and genuine desire to "start over" with new people, but I think that what he did was viewed by the public as a bad thing. If President Carter had not fired his entire cabinet, what do you think he should have done?
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