It is a tale of two ex-presidents in the news now.
One man — Jimmy Carter, now a 98-year-old in hospice care — served as the 39th president. He opposed segregation and supported racial integration as governor of Georgia. As president, he brought about the Camp David Accords that produced peace between Egypt and Israel and earned both countries’ leaders the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978. He called America’s fight against the Arab oil embargo and energy crisis the ” moral equivalent of war.” In the post-Vietnam War era, he gave amnesty to all draft evaders epitomizing his Christian belief of forgiveness. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his work in leading The Carter Center that promotes human rights, monitoring of elections, and eradication of infectious diseases. A humble, respected man who helped many.
The other man — Donald J. Trump, age 76 and the 45th president — made his career as a “successful” businessman although his company has been involved in more than 4,000 state and federal legal actions and six bankruptcies. According to Wikipedia, he “promoted conspiracy theories and made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics.”
Trump signed a popular tax cut law, rescinded environmental protections, banned people from several Muslim-majority countries from immigrating into the U.S., withdrew the U.S. from the Paris agreement on climate change and from the Iran nuclear deal. He promoted false claims about the COVID-19 pandemic and contributed to more than 450,000 unnecessary American deaths. He is the only president to be impeached twice for trying to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and for inciting an insurrection when he urged his supporters to march on Congress to stop the counting of Electoral College ballots of the 2020 election.
He lost the election but falsely claimed he lost because of non-existent election fraud. He is now under indictment by a New York district attorney based on accusations of falsifying business records, the first ex-president to have been charged with a crime. A boastful, vain man without credibility who has done much to enrich himself and his family.
Any questions?
Mac Herrling
Bradley