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President Jimmy Carter was an antidote to politics as spectacle | Ro Khanna

I first met President Jimmy Carter at a sports bar in 1996 at the Atlanta Olympics. I was interning for the Carter Center in the same summer class as Jason Carter, his grandson. President Carter made a point to speak to every intern. He shared with us that he loved the Olympics because it represented a hope for peace and diplomacy. For a 19 year old, son of immigrants, this encounter was exhilarating. I left the internship in awe of American politics.

Jimmy Carter represented politics at its highest calling. He reminded me of my grandfather, Amarnath Vidhyalankar, an Indian freedom fighter who served in jail as part of Gandhi’s independence movement. They both shared a commitment to standing up for principle.

American politics is different these days. Ridiculing is in vogue along with making outlandish statements that go viral on social media. Colleagues on both sides scream at each other in hearings and cling to power long past their mental and physical primes. In frivolous political times like ours, Carter is a refreshing reminder that it is possible to have a politics of dignity and statesmanship.

In 2019, I went to Georgia to visit Carter with Representative Barbara Lee and to watch him teach Sunday school. At the pulpit, Carter talked about what he thought it meant for America to be a superpower informed by his own faith. He talked about how the might of a country is not determined by its military, but rather its ability to be a peacemaker.

It is no wonder that he won running on cutting the defense budget and investing in our infrastructure and our people instead. When he took office, he brought a new approach to foreign policy centered on universal human rights. He brokered the historic peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, signed the Panama Canal Treaty, normalized relations with China, and negotiated the SALT II arms control agreement between the United States and Soviet Union.

After his presidency, Carter continued to advocate for diplomacy on the world stage. I was drawn to the internship at the Carter Center because they were working against structural adjustment programs for developing nations, economic reforms that a country is required to make before receiving loans from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. This was in the 1990s and well before it was prevailing wisdom that imposing draconian conditions on countries by financial institutions doesn’t lead to sustainable development.

As my career advanced, Carter remained an inspiration. He was a leading voice against the Iraq war calling it “a war based on lies.” This brave stance propelled my first run for Congress at the age of 27 on an anti-Iraq war platform. Years later in 2016, I was honored to receive his rare statement in support of my candidacy saying, “Ro has the type of idealism, energy and deep commitment to public service that we desperately need in Congress.” I wasn’t the only candidate he supported that year. It came as no surprise when I found out he voted for Bernie Sanders, another revolutionary leader whose 2020 campaign I went on to co-chair.

Even in recent years, Carter remained a forceful voice for peace. When I introduced a resolution calling for a final settlement of the Korean War, I sat down with Carter to discuss developments on the Korean Peninsula and solicit guidance about how the next generation of policymakers can best pursue a pro-diplomacy agenda for America. In our meeting, Carter recalled meeting with Kim Jong Un’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, and the principles they had agreed to for denuclearization and peace. He also talked about his time as a Navy officer during the Korean War and why peace there felt personal to him. He asked me to convey this to the Trump administration and encourage them to pursue peace.

I once asked Phil Wise, Carter’s close confidant, if Carter had thought he would be president when he first announced his run. Wise laughed, “Of course he did.”

“Even when he was totally unknown?” I asked.

Wise said yes. Carter thought he’d succeed in whatever he would do. I remember visiting his elementary classroom in Plains where they pointed out his desk and marveling that America had produced not just a young man with such steely ambition but one who put it in service of our highest ideals.

At a time when coarseness, glib comebacks, and slickness is rewarded, Carter is a reminder that true ambition, what Aristotle called a “greatness of soul,” is about a determination to lead a life with dignity and leave the world more just. President Carter’s life is what still gives me hope for our nation.