{"id":478870,"date":"2026-05-11T08:34:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T08:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/478870\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T08:34:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T08:34:16","slug":"peanut-farmer-intellectual-jimmy-carter-was-just-what-americans-needed-they-still-need-his-ilk-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/478870\/","title":{"rendered":"Peanut farmer-intellectual Jimmy Carter was just what Americans needed. They still need his ilk \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fifty summers ago, Plains, the southwestern farm town of 700 in Sumter County, Georgia, was the epicentre of US<\/a> politics. Through the hot months, several downtown buildings had been commandeered for Jimmy Carter<\/a>\u2019s surging presidential campaign.<\/p>\n

The railway depot served as the headquarters. Across the street, the small fuel station belonging to the candidate\u2019s brother Billy had become an unofficial hangout and work station for the print and broadcast journalists on the 1976 election trail who had tracked south to spend a summer in the syrupy Georgia heat. <\/p>\n

Visitors who pass through Plains today will find both buildings just as they were then. If the gas station is an emblem of 20th-century America, then Billy Carter\u2019s place is a timepiece, with a Coke machine and rusting retro pumps that no longer serve fuel but are preserved as part of the station\u2019s standing as a historic, listed building.<\/p>\n

All presidents come from somewhere. It was Plains\u2019s fate to produce Jimmy Carter, a farm boy intensely interested in both the local and the universal (he studied nuclear physics), who ascended, through a peculiar combination of an unorthodox persuasive charm, farsightedness, timing and resilience, from local politics to the White House within a decade. <\/p>\n

After he returned, wracked following his defeat to Ronald Reagan<\/a> in 1980, he never stopped using his influence as a humanitarian and somehow sublimated a global reputation within his desire to persevere with the ordinary, small-town Georgia life. <\/p>\n

\u201cAfter he was elected president he never drove a car again. Can you imagine that?\u201d Mark Minick told me. It\u2019s a profound point. Driving a car is a rite of passage, particularly for Americans from the country. It was a privilege Carter had to forsake. <\/p>\n

Minick is a member of the Friends of Jimmy Carter Historical Society, a volunteer group working to reflect Plains\u2019s importance in the life of the 39th US president. Because Carter lived until he was 100<\/a> in December 2024, they all knew him. He was out and about, shadowed, of course, by his Secret Service team \u2013 \u201cAlways,\u201d Minick says \u2013 and the home he and Rosalynn shared was secured by heavy metal gates bordering the property, but he was still a regular face in the crowd until the past few years. <\/p>\n

\"JimmyJimmy Carter\u2019s hometown of Plains, Georgia. Photograph: Nicole Craine\/The New York Times <\/p>\n

Rosalynn Carter, also from Plains, had died in November 2023<\/a>, aged 96. They are buried in a memorial garden beside the family home. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt has definitely been a change,\u201d Minick says of the past few years. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor me personally, for everyone close to the Carters, it is hard to get used to just not seeing them in Plains. Because if you were in Plains you had a very good chance of running into Carters. They were so much a part of downtown living, in the restaurant, they were always in attendance at our board meetings, festivals, fireworks … they were there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because the office of US president is so revered in American life, Carter could never quite step out of his own achievement. In Plains, the community learned to adapt to the duality of the man and the former president. After his death, the news networks returned in earnest and collected a series of revelatory little gems. <\/p>\n

\"PhilipPhilip Kurland, owner of the Plains Trading Post in Plains, Georgia. Photograph: Nicole Craine\/The New York Times<\/p>\n

\u201cHe cared,\u201d Philip Kurland, who runs the Plains Trading Post, a political memorabilia shop, said in an interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went from a not-too-good downtown to the point where every storefront here has an active profitable business. They were regular down-to-earth people. He had a temper. I\u2019ve been yelled at. Rosalynn was quite forceful in how she expressed herself. But the biggest thing to me is just by my relationship with them \u2013 they have made me a better person.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Jimmy Carter obituary: Former US president was unwavering champion of civil rights and a peace broker in the Middle EastOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Jan Williams, a friend of the Carters for decades, told a story of a church dinner they attended as worshippers at Marantha Baptist Church. The former president had noticed a young boy sitting by himself, and sat down to say hello. Williams watched as the young boy told him \u2013 in no uncertain terms \u2013 to get up; that this was his mother\u2019s spot. Carter was convulsed with laughter as Williams teased, \u201cMaybe not as important as you thought you were\u201d.<\/p>\n

Carter\u2019s spirit has, in an oblique way, coursed through Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s second term as president. To begin with, his funeral, on January 9th, 2025, took place in a snow-set Washington National Cathedral and had the effect of bringing together all the living presidents \u2013 Trump (then yet to be inaugurated for his second term), Joe Biden<\/a>, Barack Obama<\/a>, George W Bush<\/a> and Bill Clinton<\/a> \u2013 and recently defeated candidate Kamala Harris<\/a>, as chief mourners. <\/p>\n

Just as he had in his campaign year, Carter provided an electric conduit between the capital city and this hitherto obscure Georgia town he had put on the map. Yes, he would lie in state in the Rotunda, but then the funeral procession would return to Georgia, and it would be a small-town affair. <\/p>\n

\"RosalynnRosalynn and Jimmy Carter at their home in Plains in 2017. Photograph: Dustin Chambers\/The New York Times<\/p>\n

Laurence Wright wrote a reminiscence in The New Yorker<\/a> shortly after Carter\u2019s death about a visit he paid to Plains in 2011. He was planning on writing a play about the Camp David summit hosted by Carter, in 1978, for Menachem Begin, Israel<\/a>\u2019s prime minister, and Anwar Sadat, the president of Egypt<\/a>. <\/p>\n

He found a man who was vitally alive, engaged and curious. Carter became testy with his driver when he failed to navigate the latticework of back roads out to his boyhood home. And he showed the writer an abandoned farmhouse that had terrified him in his boyhood because even then it was said to contain what the former president described as \u201chaints\u201d.<\/p>\n

If Israel and Iran<\/a> defined Carter\u2019s foreign policy travails as president, so too do they dominate the headlines and narrative today. Just as there was an oil and fuel price crisis in Carter\u2019s presidency, so there is today. In some ways, Carter\u2019s single term had been neglected by the historians until the release of Kai Bird\u2019s in-depth 2021 biography, aptly titled The Outlier, and the dust has yet to settle on the significance of his century-long contribution to US life. <\/p>\n

There is a neat symmetry to Carter\u2019s story and to Plains\u2019s quietly glowing presence on the American interior. It remains something of a conundrum as to how a 1920s farm boy reared in the atmosphere of a deeply segregated southern community emerged as such an enlightened advocate \u2013 and a unifying figure \u2013 during a time when the US was fraying. <\/p>\n

Nineteen-seventy-six was no ordinary year in the US. The bicentennial of the country\u2019s Declaration of Independence arrived at a moment when trust and inherent confidence were still reeling from the Watergate scandal. <\/p>\n

Carter \u2013 sunny, an outsider, a peanut farmer-intellectual, a religious man, disarmingly and sometimes foolishly candid, stubborn \u2013 was just what Americans needed. Among those poking around Plains that year was William Eggleston, the photographer and uncanny seer of the beauty within the everyday American landscape. He travelled from Memphis to Plains in October 1976 and produced an imperishable collection of photos titled Election Eve. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Jimmy Carter\u2019s Irish intervention facilitated the enormous involvement of his successorsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The images are of a sun-blanched and painfully evocative pastoral land, and somehow bottle the tension of who might win. When Trump is telling people about the lost \u201cgolden age\u201d, it seems likely that many people are imagining some approximation of the landscape captured in that collection.<\/p>\n

\"JimmyJimmy Carter has coffee with his brother Billy at a peanut warehouse in Plains after voting in the 1976 presidential election. Photograph: George Tames\/The New York Times <\/p>\n

Plains inevitably changed after Carter became president. It became an indelible reference point in the national subconscious. For a while, the town was so busy that his brother Billy was both a quasi-celebrity and a media dream. While he inherited the family intelligence, Billy enjoyed a laid-back life. There\u2019s wonderful footage of the younger Carter being interviewed near Plains during the late 1970s as he speculates on the meaning of the descriptor with which he was often branded: good ole boy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a hard thing to define \u2013 I don\u2019t know exactly what one is. I guess other people think of a good ole boy as one who drives around in pickup trucks, which I do, and drinks beer instead of liquor in public which I do, and stand around and just … tell lies to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

But then he is asked about how his hometown could adapt to the fact of having given the US a president. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think Plains will pretty well stabilise. Plains, one day it was nothing, next it was probably the most famous town in the United States. And we, them, us, went wild for a while. But then it stabilised and I think we will keep it as it is now.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what happened. The Carters, bruised after the 1980 election defeat, left Washington for the solace of home. The US roared into the 1980s, shaking off the Georgia president\u2019s preachy, ardent insistence on the right thing for the collective. Time in Plains moved at its own moseying pace. Billy Carter died of cancer in 1988, aged just 51. Jimmy Carter\u2019s indefatigable work and belief in the advancement of human rights was recognised with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. <\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the president and Mrs Carter came back to Plains, those campaign places did turn into sites of interest,\u201d Minick says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe depot never did go back to being a depot. But this year it will be restored to as close as possible to the night of the election.\u201d<\/p>\n

Minick was four years old on the January morning in 1977 when the Peanut Special, an Amtrak train, brought the Carter family and friends from Plains to Washington in advance of his inauguration \u2013 an idea and image that seems quaint and fabulous now.<\/p>\n

\"JimmyJimmy Carter’s hometown of Plains, Georgia. Photograph: Erik S Lesser\/EPA<\/p>\n

\u201cMy biggest memory is my dad and two other gentlemen were the first leg of driving that Peanut Special train. So, I do remember being in Plains with my mom and her parents watching the train leave, and how big a deal that was.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some ways, Plains has been caught in a wilful time-warp in which Carter, the irrepressible candidate, is always on the threshold. It\u2019s a tiny place with an omnipotent story. Half a century on, the United States prepares for its 250th celebrations<\/a> in fretful mood. As the heat intensifies on the midterm elections, tens of millions of political action committee money is flooding in and manipulating the course of primary elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething has truly been lost in politics,\u201d Minick says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has become a money game now. It is very unfortunate, because even with television and social media now, the average guy can\u2019t get to know a candidate now. With president Carter and the peanut brigade … how can you not feel you know a person when you have one-and-one contact with a man campaigning for president? And it\u2019s true, the Carters stayed in the homes of people in different towns just to save money.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0The Irish Times view on the death of Jimmy Carter: America mourns a bygone eraOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In the years to come, more and more visitors will come to Plains. There are already plans to open the couple\u2019s former home to the public, as the Carters wished. <\/p>\n

Three years before he died, Carter wrote his final opinion piece for the New York Times<\/a>. Its closing paragraph reads: \u201cOur great nation now teeters on the brink of a widening abyss. Without immediate action, we are at genuine risk of civil conflict and losing our precious democracy. Americans must set aside differences and work together before it is too late.\u201d<\/p>\n

That clarion call prompted an extraordinary outpouring of readers\u2019 comments, many of whom had been in their teens when Carter was elected. One woman, having campaigned for Carter, recalled her surprise when she received an invitation from Rosalynn to attend the inauguration. \u201cBecause we really were college poor, I did not go to Washington for that glorious day,\u201d she wrote in the comments.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom, who I thought would be overjoyed about her only daughter (me) getting an invitation to a presidential inauguration, hardly said a word. She was a true Republican, all right. The differences between us, how did that happen? But today, as I read and study Carter\u2019s words here in the Times, I look at my Carter inaugural invitation, old as it might be, like me now, old. And I realise I did the right thing way back then even, I stood up and walked and worked, even far away from Georgia, for a great man, a great politician, a great President, Jimmy Carter. And boy! I\u2019m proud.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe hearse carrying Jimmy Carter passes through downtown Plains on January 9th, 2025. Photograph: Nicole Craine\/The New York Times <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Keith Duggan’s US road trip: The Texas town where James Dean struck oilOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Keith Duggan’s US road trip: Home of Steel Magnolias retains its slow, distinct rhythmOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Keith Duggan’s US road trip: How a New Mexico mountain town became home and final resting place of Dennis HopperOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fifty summers ago, Plains, the southwestern farm town of 700 in Sumter County, Georgia, was the epicentre of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[4750,4749,9,10,356,13,14,94029,6,18929,71,69967,172573,11,12,15,16,5282,5,40572,91984,7,8,107,168249,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-478870","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-barack-obama","9":"tag-bill-clinton","10":"tag-breaking-news","11":"tag-breakingnews","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-george-w-bush","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-iran","18":"tag-israel","19":"tag-jimmy-carter","20":"tag-keith-duggan","21":"tag-latest-news","22":"tag-latestnews","23":"tag-main-news","24":"tag-mainnews","25":"tag-new-york-times","26":"tag-news","27":"tag-ronald-reagan","28":"tag-the-new-yorker","29":"tag-top-stories","30":"tag-topstories","31":"tag-us","32":"tag-us-250","33":"tag-world","34":"tag-world-news","35":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116555026805706317","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}