This Week In Southern History: Jan. 20, 1977 - Jimmy Carter is Inaugurated

Fair warning, there is some crass language in this piece, but I used it to hopefully serve my point…. if you don’t like it, hey, there’s always going to be another story:) - Corey

This week in southern history, we go all the way back to 1977, and here’s what the world looked like then!:

The Cause of the mysterious Legionnaire’s disease was found when scientists discovered a previously unknown bacteria. Do you remember the days when scientists could work diligently on a disease, and it wasn’t considered state propaganda? It was just considered… good? And also…. science? *Extreme Edith Bunker Voice* Those were the days!

Also, in 1977 to the delight of middle school boys everywhere, the rings of Uranus were discovered!

Speaking of sci-fi stuff, in 1977, the world of film and pop culture would be forever changed when a nerdy boy named George finally got to show the world his space opera, and we were introduced to Star Wars!

Also, from a galaxy far far away, in the Southwest Georgia town of Plains, population…. not a whole helluva lot, it was this week, in southern history, that farm boy Jimmy Carter was inaugurated as the 39th President of The United States.

President Jimmy Carter, aka The Rock and Roll President, aka that guy all our Papaws used to say was a huge Pu**y! I never knew why, but that’s certainly what we were told. When I was a kid, it used to blow my mind. “He’s from Georgia… how are they not proud of that?” I’d think to myself, completely unaware that to be a Democrat was akin to being a Devil Worshiping ax murderer…..The old people in town breathing with their mouths open hadn’t let me in on that little secret yet.

Now that I’m older, I’m still not sure I understand. Sure, as someone who identifies as mostly democratic, I guess I get how we are considered weaker, what with wanting to save the planet, provide better education to the less fortunate, and not wanting people to have to show their genitals to a portapotty bouncer just to take a sh*t where they wish to… but Jimmy Carter was a farmer for god’s sake!

So what was it exactly? Was it the fact that he served in The Navy? Huh? Was it the fact that Jimmy Carter actually served his country, unlike 99% of the people I see on social media waving the flag around like they are trying to start a drag race between two Hummers? Does that make him a huge pu**y?

Maybe it’s the fact that in 1946, he married Rosalynn Smith, and unlike the myriad of Senators and members of Congress that have come before and after him, he has stayed faithfully married to her in the 75 years since. If you arent keeping up so far, we have determined that being a faithful husband and serving your country are possible symptoms of being a huge p**sy!

Let’s keep exploring, shall we? When his father died in the 1950s, which very easily could have just been falling over in a dusty field as this was the past, Jimmy moved back home to Georgia to take over the family farm, as any p**sy would, I guess. While there, Jimmy, being the huge cowardly girly boy that we all know him to be, wasn’t content to just a simple life on the farm and instead opted to add community service to his list of duties. He joined several boards for the hospital, supervised education, and helped oversee the local library—what a f*cking piece of sh*t.

Later Jimmy would become a senator, then Governor, and then the Democratic National Committee campaign chairman for the 1974 congressional and gubernatorial elections. Ok, fair enough, it is possible for a piece of sh*t to do all that… bad examples.

Let’s get into his presidency and see why our Papaws hated him so much! Reading about Jimmy’s foreign policy in the Library of Congress, it seems that Jimmy really hated communism and pointed to it as the reason so many living under an anti-democratic regime had a poor quality of life. Well, surely to god, “F*ck communism” will play even to Jimmy’s adversaries in Washington, and that will make him popular with the…. wait… hold on… I’m reading here that this wasn’t a popular stance to take internally as the United States relied on many of these communist countries as allies in The Cold War. Huh. So, in this case, Jimmy should not have hated communism? Hating Communism is for p**sies. Got it.

Ok, so now we are coming up on this Iran situation, and sure, I can see where some of this is a little, um, ok, wow… but it’s the middle east, for god’s sake. Are we really going to fault a sumbitch for failing to bring peace to the Middle East? That’s like asking a kindergarten teacher to explain algebra and cure thumb sucking simultaneously. An impossible job if there ever was one!

Say what you will about Jimmy’s presidency, but the fact is that it’s almost impossible to refute that his post-presidency career has been one of the best there has ever been. The man is damn near 100 years old and is still out with a hammer building houses for the less fortunate and still teaching Sunday School before every service. Of course, it’s possible to fake being a good person for publicity. Politicians do it all the time. But in my experience, they are usually found out for who they really are. I think If you fake it for long enough, then you wake up one day to realize that you’ve become it.

Jimmy wasn’t a perfect President. He didn’t get reelected. He didn’t fix the middle east. But from where I’m sitting, he seems like a pretty good feller. It might be that you cant be one of those and be a politician for long.

As someone from Georgia who has often been called a P**sy, I’ll take the company of Jimmy Carter any day. We could use a lot more p**sies like him:)

Thanks for reading. Love y’all

‘Corey