I understand politics are a controversial topic, but I like to remind everyone to avoid name-calling and other uncivil behavior. Your comments will be removed.
America at that time was very conservative. Then Nixon was exposed as a criminal and Ford pardoned him, which was a hell of a one-two punch to the psychy of your average American at the time.
So the next guy the got to vote for was the most Christian innocent candidate they could get their hands on. But that's now who they really wanted. They loved Nixon, everything about him, they just didn't like that he to ot exposed as a criminal.
He was beat by one of the most popular presidents of all time. Hindsight being what it is, he was beat by one of the most destructive presidents of all time.
My father is a lifelong democrat. My mother is a naturalized citizen from Great Britain. I was in high school during Jimmy Carter's presidency. I was mocked in high school for making a presentation where I advocated for disarmament.
All that being said, the presidency of Jimmy Carter was one of the scariest and most upsetting presidencies I can remember. I had never experienced inflation of that level before. The gas shortages and rationing and concern about whether we were going to have the ability to carry out the basic functions we needed to complete was real. It was the first experience we had with worldwide terrorism, and there were over 300 Americans being held hostage in a foreign land with no sign of progress.
Jimmy Carter was no doubt a good man. I believe he was woefully underqualified to run the country. I know that he is lauded these days, but I'm telling you from the perspective of someone who lived through his presidency, it was not a good time for me or my family.
As one of the posts here makes clear, he wasn't even good from a Democrat point of view.
It's interesting because it was after my time but hindsight kind of showed he was right in principal but wasn't a great statesman and couldn't do the political calculations behind the scenes to rally his own party much less unit both sides.
I vaguely know about Ollie North and how the hostage situation before his second election run sabotaged his campaign but that seems to be more a nail in the coffin rather than the only reason for his failure.