"Unfortunately, when you have a society where you do have ubiquitous crime, you do need some kind of an authoritarian leadership."

"Not saying you need tyranny, not saying you need a dictator, but you need fucking laws and you need rule of law. And sometimes those people come off very harsh and very uncaring and unloving and you know, the total opposite for, like, the reason why people voted for Jimmy Carter, I think, 'cause Jimmy Carter represented like a, like, a genuinely sweet good guy. Right. But, like, look how that presidency was a disaster 'cause they were all working against him for sure. And on top of that, it's, like, hard to, like, you gotta gotta be a bit of a hard ass if you wanna run the world...."

 Said Joe Rogan, on his #2370 podcast, transcript and audio, here, at Podscribe.

Cement.

I'm slogging through the NYT material about these last days of the Biden presidency. The word "cement" keeps appearing:

1. "Biden Races to Cement His Legacy Through a Series of Actions" — "In the final days of his term, President Biden has issued a series of policy decisions intended to cement his agenda and, in some cases, make it harder for President-elect Donald J. Trump to put in place his own. The 11th-hour decisions, many of them executive actions, include measures on environmental justice, prison reform, immigration and foreign relations. Some are intended to preserve Mr. Biden’s legacy, while others are last-ditch efforts to expand his approach. Many are likely to be undone after Mr. Trump takes office next week. The actions have gotten the attention of Mr. Trump, who said on social media earlier this month that Mr. Biden was 'doing everything possible' to make the transition process 'as difficult as possible.' 'Fear not, these "orders" will be terminated shortly,' Mr. Trump added."

2. "Biden to Deliver Farewell Address, Capping a 5-Decade Political Career/The president has sought to portray his administration as transformative, but his speech on Wednesday night comes amid a backdrop in which he is not leaving on his own terms" — "The White House would not disclose what Mr. Biden plans to say in his speech, set for 8 p.m. Eastern. But in his final months he has been seeking to cement a legacy as a transformative president that stabilized domestic politics while bolstering America’s leadership abroad, one who ushered the nation out of a pandemic, made historic investments in infrastructure and clean energy, and worked to strengthen democratic institutions both nationally and globally."

If you were really transformative, you would have a legacy because the people saw what you did and lived through your era and were genuinely changed. You wouldn't need to cement anything. You wouldn't need to set up obstacles to try to slow down your successor.

Now, here's an appearance of cement in something from last week about Jimmy Carter: "A Legacy From Carter That Democrats Would Prefer to Escape/For decades, Republicans have reveled in invoking Jimmy Carter’s name to deride Democrats as weak — mockery that has influenced the way Democrats present themselves to voters":

"As the former presidents, first ladies, and vice presidents sat together at the National Cathedral on Thursday..."

"'Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that God put me on one of these rows,' Pence remarked. Media coverage scrutinized the small interactions among them, noting Pence’s handshakes with the Trumps and former Second Lady Karen Pence’s refusal to acknowledge either. 'He greeted me when he came down the aisle. I stood up, extended my hand. He shook my hand. I said, "Congratulations, Mr. President," and he said, "Thanks, Mike,"' Pence said. 'You’d have to ask my wife about her posture, but we’ve been married 44 years, and she loves her husband, and her husband respects her deeply.' The very public reunion was far from the only thing on his mind at the funeral. Before joining the Reagan Revolution and becoming a Republican, Pence had voted for Carter and was 'greatly heartened that there was a born-again Christian serving in the White House,'... Backstage at an event in 2015, Pence said he got to thank the 39th president for his service and commended how Carter 'spoke plainly about his faith in Jesus Christ' in office...."

Write Harvest Prude and Kate Shellnutt, in "Mike Pence Shares the First Thing He Said to Trump in Four Years" (Christianity Today).

"Yes, they spent 4 years in the governor's mansion and 4 years at the White House, but the other 92 years, they spent at home in Plains, Georgia."

"And one of the best ways to demonstrate that they're regular folks is to take them by that home. First of all, it looks like they might have built it themselves. Second of all, my grandfather was likely to show up at the door in some 70s short shorts and crocs. And then you'd walk in the house and it was like thousands of other grandparents' house all across the South. Fishing trophies on the walls. The refrigerator, of course, was papered with pictures of grandchildren and then great grandchildren. Their main phone, of course, had a cord and was stuck to the wall in the kitchen like a museum piece. And demonstrating their Depression Era roots, they had a little rack next to the sink where they would hang Ziploc bags to dry...."

The funeral for President Jimmy Carter.

The NYT is live-blogging the service at the National Cathedral, here. Excerpts:

It is unusual for five living presidents to be together in one place. Before 1991, there was only one other period in United States history, around 1861, when more than five presidents were even alive at the same time....

President-elect Trump has been talking almost nonstop to former President Barack Obama since the two sat down next to each other a few minutes ago. The conversation seems to be mostly one sided, with Obama listening and responding with shorter answers.

Joe and Jill Biden have arrived and taken their seats in the front row next to the vice president and Doug Emhoff.

While the cathedral is largely full, the congressional section has a lot of empty seats.

ADDED: There are 5 living Presidents and the oldest is the current President!

AND: We've all been trying to frame this joke:

Former President Barack Obama casually and amiably chats with Adolf Hitler as the latter is set to assume power in 11 days, end American democracy, and impose a white nationalist dictatorship. https://t.co/4tbj46yVk8

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 9, 2025

PLUS: There is nothing to be sad about here and there is no need to forbid humor.

ALSO: The only missing spouse of a President is Michelle Obama. Fortunately, Town & Country has the explanation: 

According to journalist Jeff Zeleny, speaking on CNN, she had scheduling conflicts. "I'm told by her advisors that she has scheduling conflicts," Zeleney said on the network's broadcast of the funeral. "She's still in Hawaii," he added.

She was scheduled to be in Hawaii! The last time I saw "scheduling conflicts" used as an excuse, it was Kamala Harris explaining why she wasn't going to do the Joe Rogan podcast. 

Respect for the recently deceased Jimmy Carter outweighed by unquenchable need to disparage Trump.

At The Daily Beast:

When a President dies, do we not review all of his work, the good and the bad? And at what point is the mentioning of the bad considered "hammering"?

“Nobody wants to talk about the Panama Canal now,” he said. “It’s inappropriate, I guess, because it’s a bad part of the Carter legacy.”

The president-elect offered some measured praise for the 39th president, calling him “a good man” and “a very fine person.” Not to let his point be forgotten, however, Trump reminded again that “giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a very big mistake.”...

Is that hammering? To speak of hammering before the body is in the ground creates a violent mental image. I find that disrespectful.

"He's a kindred spirit to me of a rare kind — the kind of man you don't meet every day and that you're lucky to meet if you ever do."

Said Bob Dylan, about Jimmy Carter.

"Toward the end of their time in office, Mr. Mondale said he and Mr. Carter talked about how they wanted their tenure to be remembered."

"'We came up with this sentence, which to me remains an important summary of what we were trying to do: "We told the truth, we obeyed the law, and we kept the peace,"' Mr. Mondale wrote. 'That we did, Mr. President.'"

From "From the Grave, Mondale to Eulogize the Man Who Made Him Vice President/Walter F. Mondale died in 2021, but he left behind the eulogy he planned to deliver at former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral" (NYT).

"Just remember, you’re a living organism on this planet, and you’re very safe."

ADDED: It really happened:

"We in the news media and chattering class mocked Jimmy Carter as a country bumpkin..."

"... with cartoons depicting him installing an outhouse next to the White House. His public approval dropped to 28 percent, and when Ronald Reagan succeeded him, the Reagans’ interior designer reportedly smirked about the need to 'get the smell of catfish out of the White House.' President Carter, a member of Congress lamented in 1979, 'couldn’t get the Pledge of Allegiance through Congress.' Rolling Stone described Carter as 'the great national sinking feeling.' Ousted after a single term, he wasn’t so much criticized as sneered at. Even Democrats like Bill Clinton treated Carter as an embarrassment who had undermined liberals and paved a path for Reagan. Yet all this speaks to our failure of discernment...."

Writes Nicholas Kristof, in "Jimmy Carter Deserved Our Thanks and Respect, Not Our Sneers" (NYT). That's a free-access link, so you can see Kristof's argument for respecting and thanking President Carter. And let it represent all the many columns that are going up right now, expressing that sentiment. It is a time for eulogy.

Reading "the great national sinking feeling" made me think of Carter's "malaise" speech. I'm surprised it didn't come immediately to mind upon hearing of President Carter's death, but it did not. The cliché got worn out over the course of 45 years. Carter lived so long one grew tired of reacting to the name "Carter" with the one-word outburst: "Malaise!"

Or had your reaction to hearing Carter's name over the years been 2 words long? "Killer rabbit."

I see The Onion went there:

Goodbye to Jimmy Carter.

"Jimmy Carter, 39th president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, dies at 100, his son says/The tenacious Southerner was turned out of office by disillusioned voters after a single term. But he had a brilliant post-presidential career as a champion of health, peace and democracy" (WaPo)(free-access link).

His wife, Rosalynn, died Nov. 19, 2023, at 96. The Carters, who were close partners in public life, had been married for more than 77 years, the longest presidential marriage in U.S. history. His final public appearance was at her funeral in Plains, where he sat in the front row in a wheelchair... 

When Mr. Carter left Washington in January 1981, he was widely regarded as a mediocre president, if not an outright failure.... In the summer of 1979, Americans waited in long lines at service stations as gasoline supplies dwindled and prices soared after revolution in Iran disrupted the global oil supply....

In November 1979, an Iranian mob seized control of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans as hostages. It was the beginning of a 444-day ordeal that played out daily on television and did not end until Jan. 20, 1981, the day Mr. Carter left office, when the hostages were released....

As the years wore on, the judgment on Mr. Carter’s presidency gradually gave way to a more positive view....

It's sad to need to say goodbye to the man who's been with us for so long. I remember walking to the polling place in 1976 and deciding, in the middle of the walk, that instead of voting for him, I'd vote against him. I did not trust him. In 1980, with that monster Ronald Reagan threatening us, I had to vote for him.

"[W]hile naming a new ambassador to Denmark — which controls Greenland’s foreign and defense affairs — Mr. Trump made clear on Sunday that his first-term offer to buy the landmass could, in the coming term, become a deal the Danes cannot refuse."

"He appears to covet Greenland both for its strategic location at a time when the melting of Arctic ice is opening new commercial and naval competition and for its reserves of rare earth minerals needed for advanced technology. 'For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World,' Mr. Trump wrote on social media, 'the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.' On Saturday evening, he had accused Panama of price-gouging American ships traversing the canal, and suggested that unless that changed, he would abandon the Jimmy Carter-era treaty that returned all control of the canal zone to Panama. 'The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,' he wrote, just ahead of an increase in the charges scheduled for Jan. 1. 'This complete ‘rip-off’ of our country will immediately stop.' He went on to express worry that the canal could fall into the 'wrong hands,' an apparent reference to China, the second-largest user of the canal. A Hong Kong-based firm controls two ports near the canal, but China has no control over the canal itself."

From "Trump’s Wish to Control Greenland and Panama Canal: Not a Joke This Time/In recent days the president-elect has called for asserting U.S. control over the Panama Canal and Greenland, showing that his 'America First' philosophy has an expansionist dimension" (NYT).

I didn't think it was a joke the first time he talked about Greenland. I don't think it's so much that he's an "expansionist." I think he's looking for American's bad deals and intent on renegotiating them. He's continually complained that other countries are taking advantage of us. Wanting to change that dynamic is not an "expansionist" frame of mind. The United States takes responsibility for the world's security — or purports to — and that exposes us to exploitation. Trump seems to think he's the one to straighten that out. You can say that's a bad idea, but please address that and explain why.

A question I'd like to ask Kamala Harris — it's the question that caused me to vote against Jimmy Carter in 1976.

And I had voted for George McGovern in 1972 and would go on to vote for Jimmy Carter in 1980. 

Here's the question: If you don't win this election, what will you do next?

For Kamala Harris, I mean after you finish your term as Vice President... unless you want to tell me that if you lose the election you'll exercise your power under the 25th Amendment and at least attain the distinction of becoming the first woman President and enjoy the solace of a short stint as the President, perhaps inspiring the nation to long for the full-term presidency we missed or to celebrate you for saving us from the last few months of depending on the declining husk of a President, Joe Biden.

What's the answer? You tell me. Not just what would she say to my question what will you do next. I can imagine an evasive or insincere answer. But what, really, do you think she will do? Will she — like Trump, after losing in 2020 — go on to challenge the winner every step of the way, right up to vying for the nomination and running again in the next election? Will she seek to represent California again, in the Senate or as Governor? Will she withdraw into memoir-writing and speech-giving or some fancy academic post? Could she do any of that successfully if she loses?

***

What did Jimmy Carter say that rubbed me the wrong way? He said he'd just go back to his peanut farm. It made him seem so small to me. And Gerald Ford was already President, so one did not need to try to picture him as President.

Trump's convention speech had 2 phases, both brilliant, but very different.

In the first phase, Trump describes the assassination attempt from his perspective and for what he asserts is the last time:

So many people have asked me what happened. “Tell us what happened, please.” And therefore, I will tell you exactly what happened, and you’ll never hear it from me a second time, because it’s actually too painful to tell. It was a warm, beautiful day in the early evening....

This fills 20 minutes and segues into an unrushed tribute to the man who died and the 2 other men who were injured. There's an iconic stage prop, Corey Comperatore represented in the form of his empty helmet and jacket. Trump kisses Comperatore's head and pats him on the shoulder then returns to the lectern to lead a silent prayer. Again unrushed (but not overlong). We see different members of the audience in different attitudes of prayer. (Jared Kushner, eyes wide open, looked straight ahead.) 

The first phase continued with the uplifting abstract material that Trump had promised to deliver. I've copied this section in full:

"The Return of Peace Through Strength/Making the Case for Trump’s Foreign Policy."

A column in Foreign Policy by Robert C. O'Brien, who "served as U.S. National Security Adviser from 2019 to 2021."

Trump was determined to avoid new wars and endless counterinsurgency operations, and his presidency was the first since that of Jimmy Carter in which the United States did not enter a new war or expand an existing conflict. Trump also ended one war with a rare U.S. victory, wiping out the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) as an organized military force and eliminating its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. But unlike during Carter’s term, under Trump, U.S. adversaries did not exploit Americans’ preference for peace. In the Trump years, Russia did not press further forward after its 2014 invasion of Ukraine, Iran did not dare to directly attack Israel, and North Korea stopped testing nuclear weapons after a combination of diplomatic outreach and a U.S. military show of force. And although China maintained an aggressive posture during Trump’s time in office, its leadership surely noted Trump’s determination to enforce redlines when, for example, he ordered a limited but effective air attack on Syria in 2017, after Bashar al-Assad’s regime used chemical weapons against its own people....

Much more at the link. 

"Normally, a president would use war rhetoric to prepare a nation for war against another nation. Donald Trump uses war rhetoric domestically."

Said Jennifer Mercieca, "a professor at Texas A&M University who has researched political rhetoric." 

That's the last quote — the parting shot — in a NYT article titled "Trump’s Dire Words Raise New Fears About His Authoritarian Bent/The former president is focusing his most vicious attacks on domestic political opponents, setting off fresh worries among autocracy experts."

How could you be a specialist in political rhetoric and not realize that war rhetoric is very common in political speech about domestic matters? There's the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on crime, and we're endlessly fighting and battling in political campaigns and in governing after the victories have been won in battleground states.

A Google search for "the use of war metaphor in political speech" gets over 13 million hits. For example, here's "The Rise Of The War Metaphor In Public Policy" from The Hoover Institution (back in 2019). Excerpt:

"She had been delivered by Mr. Carter’s mother, a nurse. And a few days later... his mother took little Jimmy to Rosalynn’s house, where he 'peeked into the cradle to see the newest baby on the street'...."

"He was not quite 3. Eighteen years would pass before the two would truly connect. But once they did, they became life and work partners, melding so completely that as president Mr. Carter would call her 'an almost equal extension of myself.'"

From "Rosalynn Carter, Politically Active First Lady, Dies at 96/A full 16 years before Bill and Hillary Clinton offered themselves to the nation as a package deal, she and Jimmy Carter worked as near co-presidents" (NYT).

"At diner, Obama brushes off question on Hamas. Says, 'Why can’t I just eat my waffle?'"

Something you may only half remember, reported April 21, 2008, in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Ron Johnson said that word that can get you in so much trouble: "purity."

I'm reading a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article that begins: "U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson has one main concern when it comes to the merger of the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf series: maintaining what he calls the 'purity' of golf."

What? Is that racist?! That's the static I had in my head as I read through many paragraphs before I could see the actual quote that contained that word, "purity":

"[Jimmy Carter] asked me to do his eulogy – excuse me, I shouldn’t say that."

Blurted our President, Joe Biden, quoted at CNN.

He went on a bit longer: "I spent time with Jimmy Carter, and it’s finally caught up with him. But they found a way to keep him going for a lot longer than they anticipated, because they found a breakthrough."