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I think his presidency is best described as super conservative and ineffectual. The country was only a couple of years out of Vietnam and 18 months post watergate. The American electorate were pretty demanding of some honesty from the top and Carter was that at least. He was certainly an intelligent person, but couldn’t build a coalition within Congress. Tip O’Neill was the speaker of the house and he made things difficult for the administration.
The economy was in a recession or near recession, the landscape of the Middle East was becoming radicalized as the Shah was deposed and the Islamic crazies in Iran were taking over. OPEC demanded a greater share of the oil pie and when they didn’t get it, shut down production.
The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1980. At the time that was seen as the Russians taking over the world and that was perceived as American Foreign Policy weakness. But the Russians became stuck in that hellhole for a decade.
His administration was environmentally conscious, expanding the national park service. No soldiers died in foreign wars under his administration and that was a big deal after being in constant conflicts for decades. He brought Begin and Arafat together to try to seek some sort of peace, but that failed. He deregulated several industries: railroads, trucking, airlines. Signed a capital gains tax cut and was a hard line anti abortion man. So in reality, Jimmy Carter was a conservative, who implemented a lot of conservative ideas.
Lot of other reasons why his administration was a failure but the above is probably enough.
When he left office he was humble and continued being the man from Plains, GA. A great human who lived a long, wonderful life.
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