In the spring of 1980, I entered the voting booth for the first time. I was a senior in high school, and the Democratic Party was experiencing a heated presidential primary race between incumbent President Jimmy Carter and his challenger, Sen. Ted Kennedy. I was 18 years old, and like so many at that age, I felt I knew it all. I saw Carter as a bumbler who had mismanaged domestic and international affairs. So I cast my ballot for Kennedy.
Though Carter won the 1980 Democratic nomination, on November 4, 1980, he lost his re-election bid to Gov. Ronald Reagan, ending his presidential tenure after a single term. He and First Lady Rosalynn Carter left the White House on January 20, 1981, and returned to their home in Plains, Ga. We didn’t know the phrase at the time, but Carter was, essentially, cancelled.
Read More: Jimmy Carter Was More Successful Than He Got Credit For
The world looks very different today—and so, too, does the man who was turned out of office all those years ago. Five decades later, Carter is viewed as a humanitarian and a statesman; a reputation that eluded him during his 1980 campaign. With Carter’s passing, we should take a moment to reflect on a person who showed incredible grace and grit in a post-presidential life and career. Those of us in the trust building business, in particular, should consider how his status changed so significantly—and what lessons we can learn.
In fact, I’ve found that there are four takeaways from Carter’s reputation restoration:
First, time will reveal the truth. During Carter’s re-election campaign, the President’s inability to free the 52 Americans being held hostage at the American Embassy in Iran became a central issue. His approval ratings plummeted to 31% during the period. Some have since suggested that if the hostages had been released prior to the election, it would have boosted Carter’s reelection prospects— yet the hostages were not released until January 20, 1981, minutes after Reagan’s inauguration. We learned why only recently. In 2023, The New York Times revealed that Reagan ally and Texas political giant John B Connally, Jr., took a private trip to the Middle East during the 1980 campaign with a message for heads of state: Iran would get better treatment from Reagan than Carter, so they should hold the hostages until after the election. That’s exactly what they did, and Carter was denied a victory that might have sent him back to the White House. This revelation certainly reframes history—and recasts Carter’s role.
Read More: Freeing the Hostages Wouldn’t Have Gotten Jimmy Carter Re-Elected
Second, dream new dreams. After they left the White House, the Carters didn’t gaze into the rearview mirror with anger or bitterness. They returned to Georgia and pursued new careers and projects with gusto. They became authors and university professors, and started the Atlanta-based Carter Center—an organization that embodied their shared devotion to humanitarian causes.