Rock music couldn’t help Carter in 1980 — and showbiz won’t save Trump in 2020 – The Washington Post

Amid endless news of the Trump administration’s falsehoods about global crises, including the coronavirus pandemic and anti-Black racism, U.S. viewers of all ages most likely will be drawn to Wharton’s rose-colored chronicle of the unlikely alliance between a cardigan-wearing president and the hippest acts in Southern Rock. “Jimmy Carter Rock & Roll President,” and its groovin’ soundtrack, promises to be only the latest chapter in the peanut farmer from Plains cultural renaissance in recent years. This documentary, alongside other historical treatments, has recast Carter’s “failed presidency” as something more — a transformative moment in American politics and journalism that ushered in the media presidency and our modern-day image wars.

Wharton offers Americans a look at an oft-forgotten facet of Carter’s meteoric rise — and fall — in presidential politics. She charts how Carter’s miraculous path to the White House, as the newsmagazines framed it, centered on his campaign’s remarkable ability to harness the cultural appeal and authenticity of the unpretentious blues-tinged, jam-band sound that emerged south of the Mason-Dixon. However, Wharton misses an opportunity to make a finer point — one that is particularly salient in this moment — about the limitations of showbiz politics.

Carter and his wunderkind advisers, including pollster Patrick Caddell, campaign director Hamilton Jordan and press secretary Jody Powell, constructed a strategy to capture the White House based on the new rules of U.S. politics after the presidential nomination reforms and campaign finance rules introduced in the mid-1970s.

Carter and his Georgia mafia, as watchdog newshounds described them, strategically cashed in on a chummy relationship they had formed with Capricorn Records co-founder and CEO Phil Walden, just down the road in Macon. On a Stop-and-Listen Tour in 1971, the Georgia governor and Walden had formed an instant bond over music and politics. Both rising stars of the New South were keen to capitalize on their new political connections. As rock journalists later would report, Walden hoped to gain an up-and-coming politician’s ear on copyright reform and anti-piracy measures, and Carter wanted to harness the redneck chic of Capricorn Records’s top acts.

Behind the scenes, Carter helped push for copyright and anti-piracy reform in Georgia. With a little nudging from Walden, the Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker and the Charlie Daniels Band backed Carter with fundraising concerts that, according to Carter himself, played a pivotal role in his ability to triumph in the early primaries. By attracting media attention and raising money, the concerts contributed to the bandwagon effect that catapulted Carter to his status as the semi-consensus nominee by June 1976.

However, even as Carter was sewing up the nomination, the runaway success of Capricorn Records was beginning to fray. In the aftermath of Gregg Allman’s federal grand jury testimony in the drug-ring trial against his road manager John “Scooter” Herring, Carter’s campaign advisers encouraged him to downplay his association with Walden’s top act and even skip the Fifth Annual Capricorn Records company picnic that August.

But, at the end of the day, for Carter, personal loyalties outweighed political gain, and he remained loyal to Walden and Allman despite the political risks. In the final analysis, Carter had hitched his presidential cart to a faltering horse. Besieged by substance abuse, the break up of its top-act the Allman Brothers in 1978 and a national recession that took a heavy toll on the record industry, Capricorn Records was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1979 when its distributor PolyGram Records called in an earlier loan.

Carter too struggled for his political life in the lead up to his 1980 reelection campaign. He had adeptly exploited the idea of authenticity to get elected, but elite political reporters pierced holes in his image-craft operations. They quickly condemned Carter’s “secretary of symbolism” Gerald Rafshoon for the administration’s “cardigan gimmicks.” When met with an adversarial news media and domestic and international crises in the coming months, Carter and his campaign advisers soon realized the showbiz politics and the music-political complex that had helped win an election might not necessarily help him govern. In 1978, for instance, Carter sought to sell his square energy conservation policy through a hip logo affixed to all Capricorn albums, but amid his professional financial troubles and his personal battles with substance abuse, Walden’s influence in the music industry (much like Carter’s influence inside the Beltway) already had fizzled.

Although most historians attribute Carter’s failed presidency to the series of domestic and international crises that plagued his last year in office — most notably, the energy crisis-fueled recession and the Iranian Hostage Crisis — it was in fact news images of gas lines and the hostage crisis that contributed to the impression of an administration in disarray. Carter, whom journalists had hailed as a media genius in his first 100 days in office, struggled to control the media narrative of breaking news events as president.

With her lieu de mémoire, Wharton has offered global audiences a glimpse into the Carter presidency and how entertainment and celebrity appeal emerged as such a powerful part of American politics. However, by taking a closer look at Carter’s presidency, she reveals the limitations of showbiz politics, allowing us to gain a better understanding of the potential for images in the news media to upend the presidential image-making apparatus. As we navigate the first reality TV president’s permanent campaign, those lessons have never been more important.