Part 2: 1979, Monster, Chiller, Horror Theatre!
Jimmy Carter, Solzhenitsyn and the limits of the Phillips curve. Ooooo... scary, I'm not just kiddin' ya this time. Seriously kids, so scary it's not even funny.
In “Part 1:The 1978 Midterms did not go so well, either” I opined that the times and the Biden presidency are a lot like the Carter years and that the 2022 midterms were lackluster for the GOP in the same way the 1978 midterms were: The electorate is slow to admit a mistake. I wrote the essay from Carter’s viewpoint, but the American people were the ones taking the hits. Will 2023 be our 1979? It already looks really scary kids!
Note: This essay is not meant to be injurious to President Carter who is in his last days. He was the wrong man for the job, but grounded in Christ and the right man for so much more. Let us pray for him, his family and our country.
When I think of 1979, I remember SCTV and Monster, Chiller, Horror Theatre. Joe Flaherty is a comic genius. His Count Floyd character is a hilarious take on the local, late-night “scary movie” host. Such hosts once roamed free across the UHF landscape of North America. The buxom Elvira being the most famous, perhaps. Count Floyd is really SCTV newsman Floyd Robertson who moonlights the underfunded and understaffed show that is never scary. No matter how hard poor Count Floyd tries, he and the audience are always let down. His staff blows it, or the station bought the wrong film. Sometimes there is no movie at all. So he tries to fake it. Count Floyd howls and exaggerates only to eventually admit that the material is “not so scary.” He is sincere and well meaning. Count Floyd really, really wants to please his constituency but events and incompetence make his efforts fruitless and embarrassing. President Jimmy Carter was America’s Count Floyd and 1979 was a Monster, Chiller, Horror Theatre.
Please watch some of the video below to get in the mood.
Above: Joe Flaherty and will crack you up
As 1979 went on, Carter’s situation became increasingly Count-Floydesque as scary events piled up and overwhelmed his plans. In the end, he tried to shame America into thinking that its biggest threat was its own lack of confidence. No amount of howling about success and greatness could fool the audience that the movie just sucked and the President should have planned better.
Perhaps the Carter’s leadership troubles in 1979 started in summer, 1978. Famous Russian dissident Alexandre Solzhenitzyn gave the commencement address to a dour crowd at Harvard University. In the speech, called “A World Split Apart,” the anti-communist Solzhenitzyn did not spare the West, and America in particular, his disdain of its lack of faith, conspicuous consumption and hedonism. The audience was slack-jawed at the insouciance and ingratitude.
He said mean and unflattering things about us, like:
A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost its civic courage… Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elites, causing an impression of a loss of courage by the entire society… Must one point out that from ancient times a decline in courage has been considered the first symptom of the end?
And
If, as claimed by humanism, man were born only to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to death, his task on earth evidently must be more spiritual: not a total engrossment in everyday life, not the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then their carefree consumption. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one’s life journey may become above all an experience of moral growth: to leave life a better human being than one started it.
Within a month people came around and soon many Americans, finally tilting away from stale 1960’s libertinism, were agreeing with the speech.
Solzhenitzyn’s speech rattled the public but it really polluted Carter’s precious bodily fluids. Carter was smart enough not to chastise the famous Russian directly so he “Plan R’d” First Lady Rosalynn to have press-combat toe-to-toe with the Ruskie. She came out swinging at the National Press Club a week later: "I am not a Pollyanna about the mood of the country, but I can tell you flatly: the people of this country are not weak, not cowardly and not spiritually exhausted."
But that is exactly how her husband would feel about the American people only a year later and he would tell us so right to our faces. We felt like we were just a bit of gilded gum stuck to the Nichomachian sandle.
Carter’s 19 January 1979 State of the Union speech tried to strike an optimistic tone even though the first of many disasters was happening as he spoke. On 16 January, Iranian Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was overthrown. Carter never mentions it. Nor did he mention the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) which was on the ropes due to some pugnacious housewives. He did, however, say THAT WHICH CANNOT BE SAID by any Democrat:
…we really need to realize that there is a limit to the role and the function of government. Government cannot solve our problems, it can't set our goals, it cannot define our vision. Government cannot eliminate poverty or provide a bountiful economy or reduce inflation or save our cities or cure illiteracy or provide energy. And government cannot mandate goodness.
That was the moment the American Left, the Ted Kennedy wing, knew Carter had firmly planted himself in the “center” in order to blunt the Conservative movement sure to challenge him in 1980. That, and failing to endorse the dying ERA. The American Left would not forgive this and Carter would pay for his sins.
Everything went wrong on Monster, Horror, Chiller Theatre. On 14 February, Adolph Dubs, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped by terrorists and executed during a rescue attempt by Afghan police (directed by the Soviet KGB) that same day.
The day after this humiliation and tragedy, Carter, likely off his game, insulted the President of Mexico in a speech meant to flatter. Carter started the speech with how much he and President Portillo had in common:
We both have beautiful and interesting wives, and we both run several kilometers every day. [Laughter] As a matter of fact, I told President Lopez Portillo that I first acquired my habit of running here in Mexico City. My first running course was from the Palace of Fine Arts to the Majestic Hotel, where me and my family were staying. In the midst of the Folklorico performance, I discovered that I was afflicted with Montezuma's revenge. [Laughter]
Smooth move, Jimmy. As Biden is senile, Carter was hapless. And it was bad moment to try to be funny. Carter and the Department of State were enraged by the Afghan tragedy and the U.S. began disengage diplomatically and withdraw foreign aid. Which is likely what the KGB wanted. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan a year later, capping off the fizzing fecal soda that was Carter’s foreign policy.
February was not through with Carter. Iran began its descent into Islamic theocracy with a short civil war that would eventually end with the Islamic Republic and the Ayatollah Khomeini in complete power.
March gave Carter a rare victory when Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed a peace treaty brokered by Carter at Camp David. The event was overshadowed some by the Three Mile Island nuclear accident three days later. The accident and its coincidence with the movie, The China Syndrome, later stunted nuclear power plant construction in the United States. Carter was the “energy” President, remember, having created the Department of Energy in 1977 and appointing former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger as the the first Secretary of Energy. Carter said in 1977 that the energy crisis was the “moral equivalent of war.” Nevertheless, the political damage done to nuclear power as an energy source was serious and scores of them were canceled over the next decade. Later in September, over 200,000 people would march in New York City against nuclear power.
The Camp David Accords ensured Carter’s place in history. But it did nothing to help the average American. Neither Egypt nor Israel were oil producing powers and OPEC still controlled prices via supply. The United States regulated oil and gas production and prices, which suppressed domestic companies from adding much supply. Carter, to his credit, had removed some regulation but refused to remove price controls. Instead, he focused on conservation measures and planned a windfall profits tax. He freaked everyone out when he submitted a “stand by” gas rationing plan March 1. Rationing, y’know, like WWII. Not cool.
The country and President Carter nearly made it through April unscathed. One day though, the hapless president, trying to relax by fishing near his home in Plains, was attacked by a ferocious swamp rabbit. Carter defended the gunwales of Fish’n Boat One with an oar. The incident was initially suppressed, but the lampoon press got a hold of it anyway. A photo of the event was not released until the 1980’s. The rabbit was real. oooooooooo… SCARY!
May offered the country a bit of good news: unemployment dropped to 5.6 percent, the lowest rate since 1974. Or was it bad news? Carter had appointed a new chairman of the Federal Reserve only a year before. The new chairman, G. William Miller, held inexplicable monetary ideas. Some Phillips Curve adherents (and the Fed Board were ALL adherents) said that low unemployment could cause inflation, not merely be coincident with it. Since 1970, the two variables had no correlation with one another. Even so, Miller had the idea that raising interest rates (reducing the money supply) would actually INCREASE inflation AND cause unemployment. Miller was even out-voted by the Federal Reserve Board when he tried to block a rate hike in 1979. That rarely happens among the Board and is essentially a vote of no confidence. Carter was certainly feeling some buyers remorse by May and Miller’s days were numbered.
Carter had hoped for another diplomatic coup 18 June when he and Soviet Chairman Leonid Brezhnev signed the SALT II treaty (strategic arms limitation talks). Carter would later withdraw the treaty from consideration and it would never be ratified by the Senate after the 1980 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Two days later, ABC news reporter Bill Stewart and his interpreter were murdered by the Nicaraguan Army. The killings were filmed by other news crews. Carter despised Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza and withdrew all U.S. support from Nicaragua. The Sandinistas, after all, promised “free elections.”
I think it is fair to say that by July, President Carter was at a psychological nexus. His political move to the center was sincere, but late, and he knew the left-wing was coming after him. At the same time, he was no conservative. Direct confrontation with the Soviets was not his style, nor was it the counsel of his Secretary of State, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who always brought some Helsinki Accords to a gunfight. Carter could not, or decided not to bear these many crisis without first asking the American people to sacrifice, as in war. So he did that 15 July.
The Crisis of Confidence speech, better known as the “Malaise Speech,” may be some of the most sincere words any President has ever said on television. The speech is also shining example of what a leader ought not to do. Much of the speech seemed to come from Solzhenitsyn himself: Americans are over-consuming, Croesians with no foresight and lack faith. You must watch it, rather than read it.
The country was at first offended by Solzhenitsyn, but later polls showed people were self-reflective enough to agree with him and respect the admonishment. The county could take an ass-chewing from the wise Russian, but not from its own President. Within days, the speech began to backfire. The American people had lost about 8 percent of their savings each year since 1970 and were facing an 11 percent loss in 1979 alone and it is THEY that needed to give a little more? No American President before or since has addressed the people in such a way. One may agree with most or all of his speech (it is easy to), but the total is less than the sum of its parts.
Four days later, after Anatsio Samoza fled Nicaragua, the Sandinistas took over and another communist flag was flying over another American state.
President Carter must be given some credit for taking on the status quo. He fired Fed Chairman Miller by promoting him Treasury Secretary. His replacement, Paul Volker, would inflict several monetary shock treatments that would eventually beat inflation for good (until recently) under President Reagan. And yes, the treatment was rough. Volker took the job in August when inflation was 11.8 percent.
Monster, Chiller, Horror Year was not finished with poor Carter. November was his mensis horribilis. Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran’s new leader, ordered citizens to demonstrate against the U.S. and Israel. They did so 4 November and stormed the U.S. Embassy taking 53 American hostages. A few days later, 7 November, Senator Ted Kennedy announced he would challenge Carter for the Presidency. A challenge to a sitting president for their party’s nomination is rare, but something we may soon see again. November ended with our embassy in Pakistan being stormed and burned by a mob who killed a Marine and an Army warrant officer. The mob was incited by Ayatollah Khomeini who said in a radio broadcast the U.S. had occupied the Grand Mosque in Mecca.
The ABC news coverage of the hostage crisis eventually became the famous, Nightline hosted by Ted Koppel. The show ran parallel with the presidential election. The crisis captivated the nation, ruined Carter’s presidency and reinvigorated American patriotism from its post-Vietnam doldrums.
It also caused and immediate increase in oil prices when Iran’s production tanked. This made Carter look less prescient than incompetent. The gas lines of 1973 returned. Few American companies were going to drill for oil with price controls and the threat of a wind fall profits tax. Ultimately, Carter didn’t believe in a free oil market and thus, we can deduce, despite all his Christian rhetoric, he really didn’t trust his fellow Americans. (Nine days after President Reagan’s inauguration, he removed all prices controls from oil and gas.)
It is unlikely 2023 will have as much Monster, Chiller and Horror as 1979. Brothers and sisters, we must pray that 2023 is nothing like that. However, the political landscape and economic features are much the same. Will the Democrat Party maintain its recent discipline and grant President Biden the nomination unopposed? What new and nasty geopolitical surprises will arise this year? Inflation may be slowing, but has the “expectation” of inflation taken root? If so, it isn’t over and won’t be over for a while.
And finally, are we happy? If Solzhenitsyn was right about us in 1978, have we not wallowed long enough in the shadow of Croesus? Can the nation reacquire or at least aspire to honor and virtue? Must we wait for the “end” to judge ourselves happy as Solon would say we must? I know we can do better.
1979 was no party, was no disco, and was not fooling around.
Enjoy the Talking Heads song from 1979. Topical then and now.
Vale!
I loved SCTV--much more so before it was bought by the US network and the gang had to censor themselves to fit into mainstream TV (they were much more iconoclastic and funny when they were nobodies here in Canada, imo). I was still pretty naive and didn't pay much attention to politics when Carter was president. But I do remember liking him as a human being and thinking he was somehow too "soft" to run the country. At the least, he was an intelligent, articulate man who clearly cared about the US.. And man, did he age over those 4 years!