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Even Without Its Most Famous Son, Carter’s Hometown Remains a Destination

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Even Without Its Most Famous Son, Carter’s Hometown Remains a Destination

Plains has no major hotel, a single small gas station and only a couple of restaurants, neither of which is usually open for dinner. Still, for the longest time, the tiny town had something that no other place in Georgia did: Jimmy Carter making it his home.

Especially as Mr. Carter withdrew from public life, the town has had years to prepare for life after him. But now that he is gone — Mr. Carter died last month at 100 — the town is hoping that its prospects as a tourism destination have not been buried along with its most famous son.

The optimism in Plains is grounded in the experience of other small towns known almost exclusively for their ties to a former president, which history has shown can still attract a crowd decades or centuries after that president has died.

Hyde Park, which borders the Hudson River in New York, has a steady stream of tourists coming to visit Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidential library, home and gravesite. Tampico, Ill., has erected signs advertising itself as the birthplace of Ronald Reagan, trying to encourage people to take a brief detour on the way to Chicago to see the apartment where Mr. Reagan was born.

These towns and others are banking on the country’s enduring fascination with its presidents. particularly among the collection of history buffs who find the insights they can offer irresistible.

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“I recognized that there was something about getting to experience what they experienced and getting to see the world through their eyes,” said Joe Faykosh, a history professor at Central Arizona College.

He has visited all the available presidential birthplaces and homes and has interned at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center in Fremont, Ohio. He met the Carters in 2017 after the former president taught Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains.

There is no guarantee that the appeal will last forever, though. More than 100 presidential sites in big cities and backcountry towns attract thousands of visitors each year, but interest can fade as a president drifts further into history. In recent years, the reappraisal of historical figures and the sins of the past that has toppled monuments and renamed schools has also affected the appeal of historic sites.

Charlottesville, Va., has seen a decline in visitors to Monticello, the plantation that once belonged to Thomas Jefferson. Tourism officials there have adapted, broadening what had once been a largely generous interpretation of Jefferson’s history to a more complex portrayal, including his role in upholding slavery as an institution. They have also tried to market Charlottesville as an emerging wine region — an identity Jefferson had also worked to establish around 250 years ago.

“Leisure trips have focused in the past on kind of historical discovery, and now people — because of their relationship with history, because of the politicizing of history — have a different relationship with the past,” said Courtney Cacatian, the executive director of the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau. “A lot of people don’t seek it out as part of their vacation experience anymore.”

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Plains isn’t so worried about the judgment of history. Many in the community believe that people’s perceptions of Mr. Carter’s legacy will continue to be favorable. Americans remain divided about his performance as president. But the week of funeral events highlighted a widespread admiration for his character and the extensive work he did after leaving office to protect democracy, fight ailments like Guinea worm disease and provide support to impoverished people worldwide.

Plains has become somewhat stuck in time — a capsule capturing the lives that Mr. Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, had lived there, even while they were still alive.

There are no drive-throughs or supermarkets. The Dollar General downtown has a brick facade that makes it look like it has been there forever. Plains High School no longer has students — it is a site maintained by the National Park Service, just like the Carter family farm outside town and even the Carters’s home off Main Street.

It is a transformation the Carters have been deeply involved in. They created an exhibition at the high school about segregation. Visitors walking around the president’s boyhood home and farm can hear recordings of Mr. Carter sharing memories of his childhood, such as visiting his Black neighbors who lived in a ramshackle home nearby and the absolute joy he felt when he received a pony for Christmas.

“There’s just so many things that President Carter had his hands in,” said AB Jackson, a councilwoman in Plains.

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Sarah Wollenweber and her 17-year-old son, London, said that the amount of documentation of Mr. Carter’s life and where he grew up set Plains apart from other presidential sites they had visited across the country.

“He’s one of the last great presidents we’ve seen who is genuine and actually kind, so it’s been really great to experience this,” London said. He and his mother drove 12 hours from Bloomington, Ill., to see Mr. Carter’s coffin being carried through Plains last week.

“They dedicated the whole town to him and his wife,” he added.

Many residents believe the Carters were keenly aware of how much their presence attracted tourists and positively impacted the town’s economy.

From 2014 to 2019, when Mr. Carter was still routinely teaching Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church, at least 50,000 tourists a year came to Plains. Beginning in 2020, the number of sightseers dropped significantly, as the pandemic stymied tourism and the Carters’ health declined. But visitorship picked up again last year, with approximately 45,000 people coming through the town. That does not include the hundreds of people per day who descended on Plains after Mr. Carter died on Dec. 29.

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Over many years, Mr. Carter encouraged improvements to increase the appeal for tourists. He founded the Friends of Jimmy Carter, a nonprofit that owns the Plains Historic Inn, with its seven suites, as well as the antique mall below it. He was also instrumental in opening one of the town’s two restaurants: the Buffalo Café, which serves cheeseburgers, salads and pimento cheese sandwiches. And he convinced legislators to fund a train that would drop visitors off at his former campaign headquarters.

“He wanted to make sure that the town stays viable,” said Kim Carter Fuller, the president’s niece. “Whatever he could do within reason, he did.”

But Plains could only accommodate so much. The town is less than one square mile in size and has little public land to sell for development. There is also tension between wanting to attract more tourists and not wanting to disturb the town’s traditional way of life.

“We don’t really want to change Plains,” said Ellen Harris, a councilwoman. “That’s what makes us unique.”

Locals were grateful that the Carters chose to be buried at their home instead of at their presidential library in Atlanta, a decision they hope will help to maintain a steady stream of visitors. In the coming months, the gravesites of the Carters will be opened to the public. The modest ranch home the president and the first lady built in 1961 — where they raised their children and returned to after leaving the White House — will be made accessible to the public for the first time shortly after.

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Events with historical ties — like the city’s yearly peanut festival in September that pays homage to Mr. Carter’s roots as a farmer — will continue to be a draw, some say. There are also newer attractions. The latest, Apt. 9A, which opened for private tours in October, is the government-subsidized home Mr. Carter moved his wife and three sons into after his father’s death in 1953.

After a 2001 walk-through with Ms. Carter in the apartment, Annette Wise, who led the project, received donations and searched through thrift stores to find items to recreate the family’s modest furnishings at a time when they had almost no income. Paint chips in a closet helped her to track down the precise shade of dark green the Carters had painted their living room and later used in campaign signs.

Ms. Wise said she believes all the time and effort will ultimately be worthwhile.

“Plains is headed in the right direction,” said Ms. Wise, who is a member of the Plains Historical Preservation Trust and a founder and the president of the Rosalynn Carter Butterfly Trail. “They’ve left us big shoes to fill. But they’ve given us plenty of time to learn what to do.”

Rick Rojas contributed reporting. Kirsten Noyes contributed research.

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Opinion: Someday, most likely, the buck will stop with Trump

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Opinion: Someday, most likely, the buck will stop with Trump

Since taking office last month, Donald Trump has governed like a man with a sledgehammer and a checklist. He’s moving at a breakneck pace — executive orders flying, agencies gutted, norms obliterated. USAID workers? Put on ice. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? Unprotected. Low-flow toilets? Flushed. The Gulf of Mexico? No longer found on Google Maps. And that’s just a brief sampling.

Sure, the courts will put the brakes on some of it, but this is political whack-a-mole at its finest. That’s the genius of it: While first responders are scrambling to stamp out dozens of small fires, who will realize the whole city has burned down around them?

This is a stark contrast to the messier way things started the last time Trump won election. In 2016, he stumbled into the White House like a guy who had somehow wandered into the cockpit of a 747, started pushing buttons, and figured the autopilot would handle the rest. This time, he’s got a plan and a highly motivated flight crew — co-pilot Elon Musk, advisor Stephen Miller, Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought — and they are shutting down the “deep state” faster than a Georgetown cocktail party when the open bar closes.

Trump and Co. are using two time-tested strategies to pull it off: “flooding the zone” and “expanding the Overton window.” The first overwhelms the opposition with an avalanche of activity, so no single scandal sticks. The second is an old-school haggling trick: Start with something extreme, and when you scale it back just a notch, your new position — although still extreme by the standards of a few moments before — suddenly seems conceivable.

Take Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship. The courts will probably bounce it faster than a bad check. But by the time that happens, we’ll all be debating the mechanics of mass deportation as though that were just another line item in the budget. “Should we fix potholes or round up a few million migrants?” That’s how this game works.

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But here’s the thing: Throwing a million strings of spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks is exhausting. Not only for stunned onlookers, but also for the guys doing the throwing.

Think of it like a football team that sprints through their first 15 scripted plays, running a hurry-up offense with precision. Then reality sets in. The defense adjusts. The playbook runs dry. Suddenly, your players are gasping for air, getting sacked at every turn, and hastily throwing interceptions.

Which brings us to Musk’s plan to inject Silicon Valley’s “move fast and break things” ethos into government.

The problem? When you break things in government, lots of people get hurt — people who did not choose to speculate in tech investments or work at a startup. You can’t just gut the Federal Emergency Management Agency and then reboot it right before hurricane season and expect the federal disaster response to function. You can’t lay off half the FBI and then roll out a “patch” to protect national security as well as those experienced professionals did. And if you’ve decimated the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there’s no “undo” button available when the next pandemic hits.

Now, I’m all for cutting waste, streamlining bureaucracy and making the system work better. But any self-respecting conservative (as in “to conserve”) should understand that there’s a difference between fixing a leaky pipe and blowing up the water main.

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The problem with the “government should run like a business” mantra is that, in business, when things go south, you can declare bankruptcy, pivot to selling NFTs or just ghost your investors. Last I checked, the United States of America doesn’t have a “going out of business” option built into its framework.

And here’s the real kicker: When you take a sledgehammer (instead of a scalpel) to the government, guess who gets crushed under the debris? Well, everyone. But among the folks down there in the rubble you’ll find the very people who orchestrated the destruction.

The folks who slashed FEMA? They’ll be the ones on TV explaining to incredulous Trump voters why no one showed up to offer relief after the next Category 5 hurricane. The guys who gutted the FBI will be shocked — shocked! — when a major terrorist attack “somehow” slipped through the cracks. And the ones who slashed National Institutes of Health funding will fumble their way through a public apology when the next mystery virus starts making the rounds.

I know what you’re thinking: Trump has a remarkable talent for dodging responsibility, always finding someone else to blame. Whether it’s Musk or a Biden administration DEI hire — just as he did after the recent midair collision near Washington, D.C. — he’ll find a scapegoat. But at some point, the “You break it, you buy it” rule kicks in, and the buck stops with the president. Trump’s failure to respond adequately to COVID-19 likely cost him the 2020 election. In that moment, at least, he was held accountable. It could happen again.

Then again, it’s possible the next four years will pass without some major test or system failure that would spark a backlash. Maybe the rules don’t apply to Trump and everything will work out fine. Maybe he’s magic, in which case he is about to redefine everything we think we know about American politics. Again.

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Regardless of how this all shakes out, one thing’s for sure: Trump’s back. And this time, he’s not just pushing random buttons — he’s got a plan. Or at least a crumpled cocktail napkin with a zillion half-baked ideas scribbled on it.

And at the top, in all caps? “SHOCK AND AWE.”

Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”

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Trump Agriculture pick confirmed as president racks up Cabinet wins

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Trump Agriculture pick confirmed as president racks up Cabinet wins

President Donald Trump secured two more Cabinet confirmations on Thursday, including his pick to lead the Department of Agriculture (USDA), Brooke Rollins. 

Rollins was easily confirmed by the Senate shortly after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as Trump’s Health secretary.

Most recently, Rollins has served as president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) think tank, which she co-founded after Trump’s first term. 

In Trump’s first administration, she was his director of the Office of American Innovation and acting director of the Domestic Policy Council.

TULSI GABBARD SWORN IN AT WHITE HOUSE HOURS AFTER SENATE CONFIRMATION

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Brooke Rollins, U.S. President Trump’s nominee to be secretary of agriculture, testifies before a Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 23, 2025.  (Kaylee Greenlee Beal/Reuters)

The newly elected president announced his selection of Rollins for USDA chief in November, recalling she did “an incredible job” during his first term. 

“Brooke’s commitment to support the American Farmer, defense of American Food Self-Sufficiency, and the restoration of Agriculture-dependent American Small Towns is second to none,” he said. 

DOGE ‘PLAYBOOK’ UNVEILED BY GOP SENATOR AS MUSK-LED AGENCY SHAKES UP FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

A side-by-side of President Trump and the United States Department of Agriculture

A side-by-side image of President Trump and the United States Department of Agriculture (Getty Images)

“As our next Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke will spearhead the effort to protect American Farmers, who are truly the backbone of our Country. Congratulations Brooke!”

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The USDA nominee had a hearing before the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee last month, before advancing past the key hurdle. 

DEM LOOKS TO CODIFY NEW AG BONDI’S DESIRED CRACKDOWN ON ‘ZOMBIE DRUG’ XYLAZINE

Split image showing agriculture secretary nominee Brooke Rollins with Donald Trump and a sign outside the USDA

Brooke Rollins is sworn-in for a Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee hearing on her nomination for Secretary of Agriculture, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025, in Washington.  (Getty Images | iStock)

The committee decision to move her nomination forward was unanimous, giving her bipartisan backing going into her confirmation vote. 

Rollins is now the 16th Cabinet official confirmed to serve in Trump’s new administration. With the help of the Republican-led Senate, Trump has managed to confirm his picks at a pace far ahead of either his first administration or former President Joe Biden’s. 

TRUMP LANDS KEY TULSI GABBARD CONFIRMATION FOLLOWING UPHILL SENATE BATTLE

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Left: President Joe Biden; Right: President-elect Donald Trump

Biden and Trump during his first term lagged behind with confirmations. (Left: Pete Marovich/Getty Images; Right: Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images)

At the same point in his first term, Trump only had 11 confirmations and Biden had seven. Neither had 16 confirmed until March during their respective administrations. 

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Solutions: Here's how the Trump administration can curb housing costs

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Solutions: Here's how the Trump administration can curb housing costs

One reason American voters handed the country’s reins back to President Trump was the extreme inflation in housing prices that took place under his predecessor. The federal government has less influence over this issue than, say, California mayors and legislators — but whoever is in the White House can take certain steps to push prices down. The federal government can lower construction material costs, release more land for homebuilding and ensure that federal grants are used efficiently.

Unlike American manufacturing, residential construction has missed out on productivity improvements for decades. One reason is that building code updates, which are written by an industry group, increase costs more often than they decrease them. As a result, cost-conscious states usually stick with older, cheaper building codes. But that means they miss out on productive innovations. The Trump administration could start by creating a building code innovation module, consisting only of cost-decreasing updates, which states and cities could then adopt.

U.S. building codes have fallen behind peer countries in construction techniques for mid-rise buildings, which provide important, dense housing supply using little land. The administration could help California, Tennessee and several other states already in the process of identifying safety standards for the construction of four- to six-story buildings with a single staircase. A related innovation would adopt lower-cost elevator standards for small buildings, which would enable cost-effective accessibility in more new construction.

As the new administration sets tariff rates, it should balance construction costs among its priorities. The Biden administration doubled Trump’s original tariff on Canadian lumber, adding thousands to the cost of each new house. Cutting that tariff to its 2020 rate — or better yet, eliminating it and aiming tariffs at strategic opponents instead of America’s strongest ally — would bring immediate relief to builders and buyers. Instead, in his first few weeks back in office, Trump has scheduled higher tariffs on Canadian goods, including lumber, and added a 25% global steel tariff, which will make it much more expensive to build the next Trump Tower.

In addition to material costs, another factor that has driven up home prices and limited inventory is a chronic scarcity of construction workers, and the federal government has more control over this labor supply than states and cities do. Through immigration policy, the Trump administration could either aggravate the shortage or ease it, which would either raise or lower housing costs.

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In land use, as in construction productivity, the federal government plays a quietly influential role. Trump has proposed building new “freedom cities” on federally owned land across the country. That’s one of several ways that huge federal landholdings could be opened for housing and jobs relatively free of local politics and NIMBYism.

Another idea is to expand nationwide the successful Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, which allows the sale of federal land to support suburban growth. So far it has been limited to the Las Vegas area, where it has been successful and has generated funding to conserve and improve other valuable public land.

Other regulations and agencies influence the use of privately owned land. For instance, federal rules on storm water drainage are not only strict, but also complex and scattered. A first step would be to unify those rules in a single place. Once unified, they can be analyzed and streamlined as appropriate.

Some agencies, such as the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Defense, quietly influence local land use. An administration-wide directive could nudge them to affirm more homebuilding where appropriate rather than reflexively blocking it.

Yet the federal government’s most immediate connection to cities is through grant-making for a range of purposes. Many federal regulations require grantees to undergo expensive planning exercises to qualify for funding. Experience shows that the plans usually have no influence on subsequent actions. The new administration must ensure that money is used well by emphasizing outcome-based reporting for federal grantees instead.

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Some grants are openly ill-spent. Several states waste federal funding for removing lead paint hazards by preventing out-of-state workers from contributing to that work. And some of the richest cities skirt the rules of the Community Development Block Grant program, using funds in ways that make housing more expensive, not more attainable. Federal agencies can easily curtail these inefficiencies.

Even better, the Department of Housing and Urban Development should find funding to offer technical assistance to small cities and towns that want to allow more housing. When I advised Auburn, Maine, on its nation-leading reforms, the limiting factor was local staff time. For municipalities that share Auburn’s goals, HUD can be a valuable resource.

Regulators at the Federal Housing Finance Agency have an outsize role in determining who gets a mortgage and why. The agency should seriously investigate the possibility that its own well-intended regulations have cut off mortgage lending to working-class families. My colleague Kevin Erdmann argues that unreasonably strict credit standards have eliminated most buyers for lower-cost homes and created a new constituency for single-family rentals. They would rather buy, if anyone would give them a mortgage.

Despite these many touchpoints, Americans should remember that the fault is not in our presidents, but in ourselves, that we are underbuilding. In California, for example, obstacles to construction include strict local zoning, NIMBY resistance and laws that require builders to pay above-market wages and force landlords to collect below-market rents. Such factors have aggravated a housing shortage and contributed to outmigration, homelessness and even more deferred dreams. Federal innovation and efficiency can support local efforts but cannot replace them.

Salim Furth is a senior research fellow and director of the urbanity project at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

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