What Jimmy Carter's "malaise" speech tells us about his presidency.
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Jimmy Carter was different from other U.S. presidents. He was an outlier in all sorts of ways. Kai Bird is author of the book The Outlier, the unfinished presidency of Jimmy Carter. He grew up, you know, in very Spartan circumstances, no running water, an outhouse. He sort of, you know, was a president still from the 19th century. And then as a politician, he was a Southern white man who was a liberal.

And yet he was also a politician who cared not for the political consequences of his decisions. He just always wanted to do the right thing.

Carter's efforts to do the right thing led to political decisions that are still unpopular in some circles today, like negotiating the treaties that would eventually give control of the Panama Canal and surrounding land back to Panama. The U.S. had controlled the canal since its construction. Here's Carter speaking after signing the agreements in 1977. They marked the commitment of the United States to the belief that fairness...

And not force should lie at the heart of our dealings with the nations of the world. But perhaps his promise always to tell the public the truth is what distinguishes him from today's political climate. I'll never tell a lie. I'll never make a misleading statement. I will never betray the trust of those who have confidence in me. And I will never avoid a controversial issue.

In 1979, in the midst of an energy crisis and soaring inflation, Jimmy Carter told the truth as he saw it about what was happening to the country. It's clear that the true problems of our nation are much deeper, deeper than gasoline lines or energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession. And I realized more than ever that as president, I need your help.

Consider this as we continue to remember the life and legacy of Jimmy Carter. We look back at the speech that some historians refer to as the crisis of confidence or malaise speech and what that speech tells us about his presidency. From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly.

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It's Consider This from NPR. When American presidents address the public, even during times of strife, they often try to strike a hopeful tone. The things that unite us, America's past of which we're so proud. This nation is great because we built it together.

This nation is great because we worked as a team. As long as we never, ever stop fighting for a better future, then there will be nothing that America can not do.

And that was Presidents Trump, Obama, and Reagan hitting notes of uplift. Contrast to that with a speech from July 15, 1979. Height of an energy crisis, unemployment, inflation, and President Jimmy Carter spoke to what he saw in the spirit of the American public. The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence.

It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. That address became known as the malaise speech, and it's probably the most widely debated speech of Carter's career. Well, as we remember the 39th president this week, we wanted to look back at that speech and its legacy. So we called historian Kevin Mattson. He literally wrote the book on that speech, a book titled What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President? Kevin Mattson, welcome.

Great to be here with you. So I just ticked through some of the problems the country was facing when Carter came out and delivered this speech. Would you flesh out what was happening in the country in July 1979? What was the backdrop?

Well, OPEC was making it difficult for Americans to think that they could get gas at an affordable amount and get gas, period, because they're cutting off a lot of the oil that they exported to the United States and other countries of the West. And what I think is important about that is that

you know, obviously America feels like it's being beholden to a third world set of countries, to use a pejorative term, but is basically cutting off supplies. And what happens then is because of that, the impact is felt immediately on the gas lines that start to form, people rushing out to get gas as best they can. And one of the stories that I tell about the gas lines, we're

where I think you really see the kind of corrupt individualism that Jimmy Carter's going to decry, is a story of a woman who cuts into a little gas line and says, I'm pregnant, and so therefore I think I should go before other people. And she gets up out of her car to do something, and the two pillows that she had shoved up into her blouse fall down on the ground, making it clear that she was not pregnant.

And she was just playing for trying to get first place. And I think that that's the sort of thing that Jimmy Carter is reflecting upon himself is the corrosive element of individualism, self-interest, people who can't see a public good any longer. And that's, I think, what's deeply troubling to him. And that's the issue that he addresses in the speech.

So I read that Carter was originally scheduled to give a speech to address the nation on Independence Day. He canceled at the last minute. And then 11 days later, he comes out swinging with this speech. What was he trying to do?

Well, what he did between the cancellation of the original speech to the one that gets known as the Malay speech, he was basically trying his best to draw from some of the conversations that he decided to hold at Camp David. And this is a vast array of type of people, priests,

political leaders, civil rights activists, people like that across a broad spectrum. And he listens to what they say is wrong. And he then translates that into his own language to basically make an argument that I am a part of the problem, no doubt. He's not above it all. But at the same time, he thinks that the American people need to do some soul searching and ask themselves, how did we get into the position where there's this kind of rampant individualism that seems to be out of control?

So initially it went down quite well, right? His approval within hours, his approval ratings had jumped 11 points. Yep. And then what happened?

Right. I should point out that having spent a lot of time at the Carter Library, I was able to go through written notes that were being sent to the president from ordinary citizens about what they were going to do. One person said, I'm going to ride my moped to work. I'm not going to ride my car. Another person's talked about using a bicycle to get to work. People talked about keeping their thermostats lower than they usually would. It

I think that the speech hit people because it was a desire for citizen activity, at least in part, to solve the problem. And so he does quite well. He gets the biggest bump that he has had for quite some time. And he decides, for some reason or other, to fire his entire cabinet.

it, which just creates this maelstrom of despair and confusion on the part of the American people, because that didn't seem to really be what he suggested in the speech. And so his polls plummet after that, and he's back into the place that he was probably before, July 5th and July 15th. I mean, it's striking, because as I was going back and reading the actual text line by line of the speech, some of it

You can imagine President Biden delivering today. Let me let me play you one other little bit of the speech that leapt out to me. There is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media and other institutions. I mean, that part, the distrust of institutions like the media. Sadly, that feels really relevant. Was Carter was he just ahead of his time?

Um, I'm not sure if he was ahead of his time, because I think a lot of what he did to craft the speech was to reach out to different people. One case in which he had a dinner, this is before the actual speech is made. He has a dinner with a group of public intellectuals.

who gather together to talk about things like, you know, the corrosive element of individualism. Some people start saying to him, you should use the Puritan language of a covenant. You should, you know, basically call people together to form a city on a hill, which Ronald Reagan will also take up later in some of his early speeches. But I don't think he was necessarily ahead of his time. I think he just knew that he had to say to the American people that,

there's only so much that government can do. We need to change our kind of consciousness. And I think that's what in some ways makes it such a radical speech, because he's really saying the American consumer culture that has been central to our development, especially in the post-war years, is failing. It's creating bad values. It's creating more selfishness and self-interest than anything else. So I think he kind of

identified something that had been going on for a while throughout the 1970s, you know, the so-called me decade in Tom Wolfe's words. And I think he's like basically saying, okay, now is the time to face this kind of discussion about the problems of America that emanate during the 1970s and put it into bold language and attack the energy crisis at the same time. That's a big job.

The full title of your book argues that Carter's speech should have changed the country. Did it? I mean, did the speech ultimately change America, Americans' behavior in any measurable way?

I think that among some of those people that I've mentioned who were sending notes to the White House, there was a kind of flickering of some sort of enthusiasm for unity. But I think that, you know, some people ask the question, and I think it's a fair question, is it just too late in the game to really make a significant dent on the consumer culture that's creating so many problems as he sees it?

The other problem is that he can't seem to get across the point that he's not blaming the American people, which he will immediately be described as in the words of Ronald Reagan and Ted Kennedy, who's running in the upcoming primary against Jimmy Carter. Yeah, I mean Reagan in his campaign when he announced his presidency said, I find no national malice in the American people. It became a talking point for the opposition.

That's absolutely right. And the other thing that Reagan says in his inaugural speech is that not only what you mentioned, but also that we have the right to dream what we want to dream and hope for what we hope for. And we don't need sacrifice. Sacrifice is a bad word for Ronald Reagan, as it would be a positive word for Jimmy Carter.

Do we know later in his life, years after he delivered this speech, do we know how Jimmy Carter himself came to think of it? He said it was his best speech. He felt like he nailed it. You know, it was like it worked for him. He had said about the original plan for a speech. He said, I just don't want to and I don't know if I'm allowed to say this on air, but he says, I just don't want to the American people any longer.

I want to be realistic. I want to talk about some significant crises that the country faces. And I want to do that. And I think he thinks at the time that he's doing exactly that. If it hadn't been for the cabinet, you know, firings, who knows what might have happened.

Kevin Mattson is a professor of history at Ohio University and author of the book, What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President? Jimmy Carter, America's Malaise and the Speech That Should Have Changed the Country. Kevin Mattson, thank you. Happy New Year. Thank you. Happy New Year.

This episode was produced by Mark Rivers. It was edited by Justine Kennan and Jeanette Woods. Our executive producer is Sammy Yinnigan. Thanks to our Consider This Plus listeners who support the work of NPR journalists and help keep public radio strong. Supporters also hear every episode without messages from sponsors. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. ♪

It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. Want to hear this podcast without sponsor breaks? Amazon Prime members can listen to Consider This sponsor-free through Amazon Music. Or you can also support NPR's vital journalism and get Consider This Plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org.