45 years ago: President Jimmy Carter makes his most important speech

[malaise]

https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/07/15/45-years-ago-president-jimmy-carter-makes-his-most-important-speech/


On July 15, 1979, and faced with some of the lowest approval ratings of any White House administration, Jimmy Carter delivered the most important speech of his presidency from the Oval Office.

The speech since has become known as the “malaise speech,” and the “national malaise speech,” but historians most commonly dub it, the “crisis of confidence” speech.

Here it is, in its entirety.
Full speech at link

[keep_left]

1. You've posted the Carter speech before--to your credit, no complaints here.

I guess it fits your DU handle, "malaise".

I remarked on your earlier post as well.

The writer and historian Morris Berman has identified the "Crisis of Confidence" speech, and the reaction to it, as a crucial turning point in postwar American history. Berman has discussed Carter's address in many talks and interviews as well as in his "American Decline" trilogy (The Twilight of American Culture, Dark Ages America, and Why America Failed).

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217660503#post1
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217660503#post3 (download at this link)

The "malaise" speech--which never actually mentions the word--is in the same storied and prophetic tradition as Eisenhower's 1961 Farewell Address. Unlike Eisenhower, however, Carter was ridiculed for decades, largely by the then-ascendant neoconservatives. In more recent times, historians have revisited the "Crisis of Confidence" address and found a great deal of merit there. Had the nation treated Carter with less derision and a more open mind, we all would be a much different and better place.

[malaise]

2. That was mere coincidence

😀
Carter was way ahead of his time. Big oil and the Cons won.

[keep_left]

3. Yeah, you actually explained your "handle" in that same thread...

...(post #5). And yet, here you are posting the "National Malaise" speech again--what is it that Agent Mulder said? "Why do all these coincidences seem so contrived?!".

Yes, you're right about Big Oil and the neocons. Carter was indeed ahead of his time, and the neocons became experts at manipulating a then-nascent cable news media--not to mention the "legacy" media--into constant attacks on Carter. They also started up a lot of their "think" tank infrastructure during that same era, particularly the Committee on the Present Danger. As a result, Carter's address never got a fair hearing. Only in recent years has it been "rehabilitated", so to speak.

[malaise]

4. I like Carter

Even though I am an atheist. He’s a decent human being.