The passing of Jimmy Carter at the age of 100 feels like a fitting moment to reflect on the seismic shifts in American politics over the past half-century. Carter, a man of quiet moral conviction, embodied a transitional era, a bridge between the New Deal Democrats and the Reagan Revolution. I came of political age during these very transitions and vividly remember the 1980 election as it played out on the BBC news. Carter’s presidency ended in a whimper against the outsider that was Ronald Reagan.
Carter’s presidency, while often criticised for its failures, stagflation and the Iran hostage crisis, was underpinned by decency and public service. His post-presidency humanitarian work cemented his reputation as a figure of integrity. Yet his tenure also marked the end of the “big government” era. With Reagan’s victory in 1980, a new paradigm emerged: one of deregulation, tax cuts, and a more muscular American foreign policy. Reagan reset the political table, turning what was once extreme into the new mainstream. As Michael Donahue put it, “Carter represents all that was good about that period of time, say 1945 to 1980, and Reagan is his polar opposite, a dividing line between two Americas.”
Misha Leibovitch, who appeared on the show three years ago, shared his “40-Year Theory,” which suggests that U.S. politics follows a cyclical pattern. This theory still resonates with me. Every four decades, the system undergoes a major reset, ushering in a new political paradigm. In this framework, Carter was an “ender,” the last gasp of New Deal liberalism. Reagan was the “transformer,” setting the agenda for the next forty years. In this cycle, Biden feels like another ender, bookending the neoliberal era that Reagan began.
Enter Trump, the new “transformer.” His election, love it or loathe it, marks a sharp departure from political norms, much like Reagan’s did. Whether through populist rhetoric or rejection of international consensus, Trump capitalised on a deep cultural and economic discontent that had been simmering for years. He didn’t just reflect an American political mood; he brought it into the political mainstream and galvanised it. “Trump is the anti-Obama,” Olisa Jones noted. “He’s not just challenging the policies of the past; he’s tearing down institutions and rebuilding them in his image. We’re in a political zeitgeist moment, and Trump is the symbol of that global movement.”
Zee Cohen Sanchez highlighted a critical point about the state of the Democratic Party in this new era: “There’s no path forward for centrism. Biden barely won in 2020, and that was based on fear of Trump, not a strong, bold new vision. If the left wants to win, it needs to lean into a populist message, not try to hold on to some mythic middle ground.”
This resonates with the reality that American politics is polarised, and candidates who offer bold, clear messages, whether on the left or the right, have captured the public imagination. “People want conviction politicians,” Jones argued. “Whether it’s Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump, the electorate craves leaders who stand for something, even if it’s controversial. Kamala Harris lost because she felt too polished, too much like continuity.”
Meanwhile, the role of billionaires in politics has only grown, as evidenced by Elon Musk’s entry into government under Trump. “The system needs a wrecking ball, and Musk is the guy with the sledgehammer,” Donahue remarked. But Olisa Jones raised an important counterpoint: “We’ve seen this movie before. You can’t just walk into government and run it like a business. The U.S. budget is trillions of dollars, with countless stakeholders. If Musk thinks he can engineer his way out of this, he’s in for a rude awakening.”
The lessons from these political shifts are clear: eras don’t end quietly—see Hoover to FDR or Carter to Reagan—they shatter. In their wake, they leave new coalitions and ideologies. For Democrats, the challenge is to decide whether centrism, once the path to victory, still has any currency in today’s political climate when so many Americans are angry. The right has succeeded in melding blue-collar discontent with corporate power, a coalition solidified by figures like Musk.
Carter’s death reminds us of the moral clarity that once seemed possible in politics. But the Reagan-to-Trump arc demonstrates how quickly political paradigms can shift. As Zee Cohen Sanchez aptly summarised, “We’ll be stuck in this MAGA circle until we decide to do something about it. The game has changed, and we need to change with it.”
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