Jimmy Carter and the malaise speech
How prescient and insightful was Jimmy Carter's famous 'malaise' speech. Ostensibly a response to the oil crisis, it also was a truly scathing attack on the pervasiveness of consumerism. He says our consumerism, our materialism have really gotten in the way of how we identify and see ourselves.
And 44 years later we are obsessed with likes, retweets and Instagram fame etc.
While he was down and out in the polls and increasingly beleaguered, it is still a great speech, almost sermon like.
Could you imagine Trump doing a televised address to the nation that would be this thoughtful and eloquent? He gave a fucking televised speech at the start of the pandemic and was a bumbling fumbling mess.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | September 22, 2023 3:57 AM
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America refused to grow up and fix itself and went running towards Daddy Ronnie in ‘80 and it’s been downhill ever after. I totally get why people voted for Reagan at that point in time, but it was a disastrous choice.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | September 21, 2023 11:15 PM
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R3 yes there is a clear lineage from Reagan to Bush to Gingrich to Bush Jr to Palin to Trump. It's like evolution but backwards.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | September 22, 2023 12:02 AM
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I recall a documentary about the 1970s where they said the speech was, according to polls, initially very well received by Americans. Then the pundits began tearing it apart with 'maybe the problem is the President', and it stuck. It was truly a missed opportunity.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | September 22, 2023 12:11 AM
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Americans in general react to truth and insight from their leaders by turning on them viciously. You can't give a hard truth or a warning to the American public; they'll just roll their eyes like teenagers and mock you. Conversely, the most ridiculous person to ever besmirch the Oval Office was hero-worshiped.
Yes, I'm American, too, and I was a child during the Carter Administration, and I remember being confused by the negative public reaction to a decent, unglamorous president with no "sizzle" but lots of smarts and heart. I'm still trying to understand why a near-majority of this country's voters are so childish, bigoted, and, by and large, stupid.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | September 22, 2023 3:57 AM
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