Jimmy Carter is still alive

At 99, Carter is easily the longest living US president ever.

“We’re starting to plan the 100th birthday party,” said Jill Stuckey, a friend and neighbour who lives near Carter in Plains, a town of 700 people in Georgia.

No one counts Carter out anymore, especially since he miraculously survived melanoma that had spread to his liver and brain almost a decade ago.

Carter’s landmark birthday is 1 October, just ahead of the one of the most consequential presidential elections in US history.

Donald Trump, the Republican former president now standing trial for allegedly paying hush-money to cover up an affair with a porn star, is challenging incumbent President Joe Biden.

The 2024 presidential election stands apart from all others, and not only because a leading candidate is facing criminal charges.

Two chief concerns among voters are novel, too — the advanced age of the candidates (Trump is 77 and Biden is 81) and the fact they don’t know what’s true or false anymore.

Most major news organisations this year expanded the teams of people who fact check candidates and political ads because of the flood of misinformation and the inaccuracy of Trump’s statements.

“It’s not unusual for politicians of both parties to mislead, exaggerate or make stuff up. But American fact-checkers have never encountered a politician who shares Trump’s disregard for factual accuracy,” says Politifact, a fact-checking operation run by the nonprofit The Poynter Institute.

The Washington Post, the New York Times and others have documented tens of thousands of false or misleading statements by Trump since he became a presidential candidate in 2015.

Trump lies about even trivial things – even that it didn’t rain during his 2017 inaugural address, when it actually did. We and others in the crowd got wet. He also has made completely false statements about Russia, Ukraine, the economy and other big issues – and his often-inflammatory rhetoric has sharpened political divisions.  

His most dangerous lie is that he actually won his 2020 reelection bid and that Joe Biden is an illegitimate president. No matter how many times courts and others have said there is absolutely no truth to this, he persists.

“If you say it enough and keep saying it, they’ll start to believe you,” Trump said in a July 2021 speech in Florida, articulating his strategy.

Years ago, before Trump entered politics, the real estate developer tried to drum up interest in his new private club, Mar-a-Lago, by falsely saying that Princess Diana and then-Prince Charles had become members. Sure enough, that Trump claim was often repeated, bringing national attention to his club in Palm Beach, Florida. People plunked down piles of cash on a fake promise of seeing British royalty at the club’s swimming pool.

Today, about 70 per cent of Republicans — and 81 per cent of his strong supporters — believe that Biden prevailed in the 2020 election because of voter fraud, according to a recent Washington Post poll. Slightly more than a third of Americans overall believe this.

Trump has even convinced 51 per cent of Republicans that some cities tallied more votes than registered voters, a completely false statement that has nonetheless eroded faith in the democratic system. Trump’s fans also seem largely undeterred by the fact that Trump is facing indictments in four criminal cases.

Which brings us back to Carter. His signature campaign pledge in the 1976 election was that he would always be honest.  

“I’ll never lie to you,” Carter famously promised as he campaigned across America.

As news updates keep the country abreast of how Carter is faring, he is a reminder of how politics has changed.

In Carter’s day, there was no TikTok and Instagram spreading information and headlines, true or not, across the globe in seconds. There were no AI-generated fake campaign videos popping up on the computer screens of targeted voters.

While in the White House, and in his four decades as ex-president, Carter was seen as straight-shooter and a public servant. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his work on global democracy, health and human rights.

Carter got a shout-out at the recent White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, a massive, news-making event that Biden attended and comedian Colin Jost hosted.

“I’m not saying both candidates are old,” Jost said. “But you know Jimmy Carter is out there thinking, ‘I could maybe win this thing.’ He’s only 99.”

Carter spends his waning days in the modest Georgia home he helped build in the early 1960s. The armored Secret Service vehicle outside his front door is valued at more than his house itself. His wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, passed away last year.

Stuckey said Carter’s children are often with him and he likes to watch the Andy Griffith Show, a 1960s sitcom about a likable, fair sheriff who kept order in the small town of Mayberry. That TV show has become synonymous with nostalgia for a more innocent time – just as Carter has. He was a former Naval officer who served in World War Two. He appeared like a meteor on the national scene, a fresh face projecting hope and promising a better direction for the country. He looked younger than his 52 years.

Carter’s message of honesty and decency resonated because of what had just happened: the Watergate scandal. From the Oval Office, Richard Nixon had looked directly into the TV cameras and lied over and over, and when the country found out he resigned under pressure.

Carter’s 1976 election was a course correction. In 2024, Carter is a reminder that it can happen again.