this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2026
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Back in 1980, a lot of people didn't want to vote for Carter because he wasn't progressive enough on South Africa.
Slapping a big ol' "citation needed" on that simultaneously hyperspecific ("Carter's foreign policy toward South Africa", barely a footnote) and weasel-wordy ("a lot of people didn't want to vote") claim. Like, are you talking about Namibian independence? Apartheid? The arms embargo? Turnout was 54.2%, down only 0.9% from 1976.
How many American voters in 1980 not only took foreign policy toward South Africa into account, not only were hesitant or unwilling to vote because of it, but were hesitant or unwilling in the face of Carter's opponent Ronald Reagan?
I'm not saying you're making shit up. I'm saying that "a lot" has to be doing some enormous lifting – to a point where this alleged contingent of voters would've been functionally inconsequential even in a hypothetical 1980 election that Reagan didn't win by a landside.
You've got 1980 and 1984 mixed up.
Reagan was close to Carter and the third party candidate in 1980.
43.9 million for Reagan, 35.5 million for Carter, and 5.7 million for Anderson.
It was an electoral landslide.
In 1984 Reagan had survived an assassination attempt.
That was a massive win in terms of actual votes.
54 million for Reagan and only 37 for Mondale
Reagan received 50.7% of the popular vote; Carter received 41.0%. That's quite substantial, even considering that Anderson's 6.6% likely hurt Carter somewhat more than Reagan in the popular vote. And for the metric that actually matters, Reagan won 90.8% of the vote – a complete blowout.
Respectfully, I tried to be really polite about the claim you never cited and never answered for, but I take offense at being called "mixed up" about electoral history by someone who baselessly posits that "a lot" of Americans in 1980 gave enough of a shit about Carter's foreign policy toward South Africa to make them reluctant to vote for him.
Have a nice day
From Google, so probably not 100% accurate, but this seems about right.
I won't use the term "far-left", but there is and has always been an outspoken, powerful minority among progressives that makes a LOT of noise about not compromising. At all. On any issue. The right suffers this phenomenon, too, but right-leaning voters don't seem to split their votes quite as noticeably as the left.
It was easy to lose faith in Carter, though, because his presidency was plagued at every turn. The energy crisis was frustrating to many Americans, as was the insane inflation. Carter had a tiger by the tail from Day One in office, and he never got it under control.
So you just asked Gemini, provided no actual, auditable source, and apparently expect anyone here to take that as anything but a joke.
If you're too lazy to find a source, then why are you even participating? If I wanted an LLM to crank out a hallucination for me, I could do that on my own.
Um, no. I expected that one of two things would happen:
A knowledge expert would come by and offer more detail and/or correction
Nobody would care
Apparently, I should have prepared myself to be publicly shamed for trying to add to the conversation. Perhaps you missed the part where I said "...but this seems about right", and then offered my own analysis. My personal thoughts about the presidential administration that I fucking lived through, of articles I read in real time from a newspaper that was dropped at my door every fucking morning. You want me to source the Kansas City Star from 1976 -1980? Or my civics class in high school? Ted Brokaw? Dan Rather?
To you, Carter is ancient history. To me, he is a vivid living memory. I was a student during his administration; I remember his policies. His picture was hung in more than one classroom.
Setting aside how embarrassing this whole LLM thing is:
That's 100% possible these days. I can't find jack shit to support the original statement after about 20 minutes of reading, and I don't know how you propose there's going to be anything but circumstantial evidence at best, but I guess it's better than copy–pasted bullshit from an LLM followed by "that sounds right in my anecdotal opinion".
Specifically, The Kansas City Star from 1976 to 1980 – the only thing you've cited that actually approximates a traceable source but that you apparently thought (practicably) wasn't – seems to have zero evidence that Carter's foreign policy on South Africa was even remotely controversial enough (let alone specifically not progressive enough) to have any meaningful impact on votes.
Articles on the subject are sparse – mainly the Associated Press who report South Africa's situation and sometimes (usually minimally) cover Carter's involvement. The opinions that do exist are basically neutral on Carter's involvement (and even if they weren't, we loop back to circumstantial evidence). Even looking specifically around the time of the election returns nothing. Having looked through several dozen articles across those four years, this is all routine coverage of international geopolitics. It's not even close.
Maybe you're misremembering. Maybe you thought I'd have to go spelunking through microfilm in a Kansas City library to call you on this. I'm assuming the former. Either way, I appreciate something tangible regardless of intent, even if it's wrong.
Yeah...I forgot what the original statement was. But I just spent the last hour in an internet rabbit hole, reading about Carter's administration. Was fun, love ya, thanks for coming to the show.
I'll try to do better next time.
I want to make that part of My worldview but first I need a source
You do know that there are human beings alive today who were of voting age when Carter was President?
Do you think you could find our man an article about someone discussing Carter not being progressive enough at the time on south africa in some form of print media?
You mean, do a Google search?
Yes, please, do search for the correct terms to find an article to argue your point, it very much helps your argument. If there was an link to an article in your first post, this thread would have been very different.
You realize that I have no idea what sources other people find credible, or what the level of evidence would be needed.
For example, if I were to cite an article where Hunter Thompson bemoaned the lack of political sophistication of the voters, that might satisfy some people but not others.
You clearly aren't getting it and I checked the rest of your messages, so I'm rescinding my benefit of the doubt. Last comment.
So, it's okay for you to demand clarification but I can't?
Sorry to have wasted your time.
I don't have access to them, I'm in Australia. I need a source.
https://www.loc.gov/item/2023270647/
The Village Voice was a local New York City newspaper that covered politics and the arts.
That's not a source, that's a newspaper. Newspapers publish articles, which are sources. Cite an article.