President Carter left America a positive path through the Trump presidency

I grew up in a small rural village. Full of lovely, wonderful people. But I often heard — as I am sure you have, dear reader — my friends excuse the bigotry and small-mindedness of their relatives with this simple expression: “Oh, they’re of a different time.”

Well, Jimmy Carter was born 100 years ago in rural Georgia. And he supported civil rights for Black Americans his entire life.

He reminded me of my white grandfather, who was also from a small town and a “different time” and fully embraced his mixed-race grandson.

We are all creatures of our time and place. But as Carter showed us, that doesn’t have to stop us from doing the right thing.

Carter rose to the most powerful position in the world. As a public servant, “he helped advance the four great movements of the 20th century — civil rights, women’s rights, human rights abroad and the environment,” in the words of journalist Jonathan Alter.

Carter never used the presidency to enrich himself, either while he was in office or in the four decades since he returned to Georgia. He worked to make peace, promote democracy around the world, eradicate disease and build houses for poor people.

In all this, Carter was famously guided by his deep Christian faith, which led him to embrace humility and approach leadership as a service to all God’s people.

The contrast between the incoming president and so many of the religious leaders who have embraced or excused his corruption, cruelty and self-glorification could not be greater.

I’ve heard people respond in sadness to Carter’s death by suggesting that he was one of a kind or the last of his breed. In their despair about the direction our country is taking, they suggest that we are saddled for the foreseeable future with triumphant Trumpism and the aggressive white Christian nationalism that he has mobilized and manipulated to his benefit.

I don’t accept that.

Certainly, Trump and his allies are about to have the power to do great harm. I am offended that much of it will be done in the name of my faith. I am a progressive Christian and in D.C. I attend the Baptist Church where Jimmy Carter taught Sunday School while he was president.

As an American and an activist, I will do what I can, and work with everyone I can, to minimize that harm.

It's a cruel circumstance that Donald Trump will take office on the day we celebrate Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who demonstrated the power of an inclusive religious vision to call on Americans to build a beloved community. That power is still available to us.

Despite Trump’s narrow election victory, I believe most Americans will not support his team’s plans to dismantle protections for workers, families and communities and give unaccountable corporations and powerful billionaires even more power over our lives.

I believe that millions of American Christians will see efforts to reverse progress toward dignity and equality for all people as a betrayal of the example and teachings of the Jesus that Jimmy Carter worshipped.

Carter reminded me of another great American, Norman Lear: the founder of my organization, People for the American Way, who was born two years before Carter and died one year before him.

Lear saw the threat that an authoritarian religious-right movement could pose to freedom and equality in a multicultural country like ours. Lear, who was Jewish, worked to preserve secular government and the separation of church and state.

At the same time, he believed it was a mistake that progressive leaders did not speak more openly about the ways their own faith and values motivated their work to build a just and inclusive society. It created space for right-wing hucksters and Christian nationalists to wrongly claim a moral high ground for policies that exclude and harm others, to falsely assert that they alone represent authentic voices of faith.

Jimmy Carter was proof that they do not. He showed us a different path.

He was a committed Christian who was committed to the idea that political and religious leaders should strive to build a society in which all people could fulfill their dreams. Millions of us, of all faiths and no religious affiliation, share that vision.

It’s not surprising that a death like Jimmy Carter’s, especially on the cusp of the coming changes in Washington, feels to many like the end of an era. But another era is always beginning. New generations are always rising to responsibility and leadership.

This is our time.

Svante Myrick is the president of People For the American Way.

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