The dictionary defines “nostalgia” as a “sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past.”
So, what is “Leader-Nostalgia”? It’s a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a leader from the past. How else to explain the outpouring of admiration – indeed, veneration – of Jimmy Carter?
To point out that the fervid response to his death at age 100 is astonishing is not for a moment to detract from his considerable, and multiple, attributes. No need for me to list them here, neither those evidenced during his brief presidency nor those evidenced during his extended post-presidency.
But let’s be honest. While Jimmy Carter was alive, he was, for decades, largely and widely ignored. Notwithstanding Jimmy Carter’s Nobel Prize; his deep, lifelong commitment to public service; his personal and political rectitude; and his disdain for the usual trappings of money and power; Carter always was, and so he remained, an outsider. He was never an insider: not even while he was in the White House, and certainly not after.
For better and worse, he was not part of the Washington establishment. For better and worse, he did not curry favor with the American people. And, for better and worse, once he returned to Georgia, which he did immediately after leaving the White House, he remained for the rest of his life at the margin of our collective consciousness. America moved on. But Carter stayed put. Though for many years he travelled widely, he and his wife and partner, Rosalynn, remained anchored in Plains – physically, psychologically, and spiritually.
JImmy Carter was a throwback – which explains the attention to him in death as not in life. A throwback to a time when America is remembered as being simpler. When America is remembered as being better. And when America’s political leaders are remembered as being much more virtuous than they are today. As much more interested then than now in serving the public as opposed to the self.
Impossible to ignore the timing. Jimmy Carter died on the cusp of Donald Trump becoing President of the United States a second time. To say the two men are at opposite ends of the spectrum – of every spectrum – is to say the obvious. Which is why our leader-nostalgia.