Jimmy Carter’s Light Exposes Donald Trump’s Darkness
You’re not fooling me, Jimmy Carter. You did that on purpose! Dying when you did, I mean.
You chose late December to grab the global political spotlight, hoping to once more make a statement with the only earthly move you had left: checking out. What better way to make people ponder the state of political integrity in America than to reflect on Carter just as the kakistocracy of Donald Trump is moving its arrogant billionaires, corporate grifters, and ideological tyrants into our White House?
Sure enough, media coverage of Carter’s death highlighted his modest life in Plains, Georgia, and the personal values of fairness and honesty that led him to a lifetime of roll-up-your-sleeves humanitarian efforts. What a damning contrast to the tawdry greedfest on display at Mar-a-Lago, with supposedly respectable corporate executives flocking to “get theirs” in Trump’s sell-off of government favors and public offices.
And how amazed Carter must have been to see the gilded Trumpers flagrantly rejecting any pretense that theirs is to be a government of, by, and for the people. He even saw Elon Musk—the prancing prince of plutocratic pomposity—practically move into Trump’s Florida mansion to shape the new government. To put a gloss of legitimacy on Musk’s self-serving role, Trump grandly named him head of an imaginary federal office he calls the “Department of Government Efficiency.” This “DOGE” should be pronounced “dodgy,” for it doesn’t actually exist and has no authority. But Musk is nonetheless flitting about, officiously announcing that he will eliminate major programs that benefit people, while increasing government funding for—surprise!—corporations like his.
Even in death, the light of Jimmy Carter’s public integrity exposes the public corruption coming from Trump’s darkness.
Making Work Work for Workers
As a writer, I get stuck every so often straining for the right words to tell my story. Over the years, though, I’ve learned when to quit tying myself into mental knots over sentence construction, instead stepping back and rethinking where my story is going.
This process is similar to what millions of working families in the United States are going through this year, as record numbers of them are shocking bosses, politicians, and economists by stepping back and declaring: “We quit!”
Most of the quits are tied to very real abuses that have become ingrained in our workplaces over the past couple of decades: poverty paychecks, no health care, unpredictable schedules, no child care, understaffing, forced overtime, unsafe jobs, sexist and racist managers, tolerance of aggressively rude customers, and so much more.
Specific grievances abound, but at the core of each is a deep, inherently destructive executive-suite malignancy: disrespect. The corporate system has cheapened employees from being valuable human assets worthy of being nurtured and converted them to a bookkeeping expense that must be steadily eliminated. It’s not just about paychecks; it’s about feeling valued, feeling that the hierarchy gives a damn about the people doing the work.
Yet, corporate America is going out of its way to show that it doesn’t care—and, of course, workers are noticing. So unionization is on the rise, millions who were laid off by the pandemic are refusing to rush back to the same old grind, and now millions who have jobs are quitting. This is much more than an unusual unemployment statistic—it’s a sea change in people’s attitude about work itself, and life.
People are rethinking where their story is going and how they can take it in a better direction. Yes, nearly everyone will eventually return to work, but workers themselves have begun redefining the job and rebalancing it with life.