Biden faces 'uncanny' Carter comparisons as one-term Democrat leaving amid inflation, Middle East crisis

He's a one-term Democrat who's leaving office amid domestic discontent with inflation, a Middle East hostage crisis and a Republican renegade replacing him.

Yes, it's President Biden, but it also sounds a lot like the late Jimmy Carter. The parallels between the two are "uncanny," Richard Moe, who was the Chief of Staff to Carter's vice president Walter Mondale, told The New York Times.

"That Mr. Carter would depart the scene at this particular stage of Mr. Biden’s presidency, however, evokes a certain sense of déjà vu: another one-term Democratic president whose aspirations for another term were damaged by inflation and struggles to win the release of hostages held in the Middle East before he leaves office," The New York Times' Peter Baker wrote.

Of course, while Carter was cast out of office in a bruising defeat to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980 that he never got over, Biden didn't get the chance to win re-election, watching his vice president Kamala Harris lose to President-elect Donald Trump. 

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President Biden and the late President Jimmy Carter. (AP)

Biden, who came into office in a similar fashion to Carter by fashioning himself as a figure of moral clarity after Trump's tumultuous first term, was pushed out of seeking a second term after a disastrous debate in June. His raspy, halting demeanor underscored to even his own supporters that he lacked the fitness to serve another term.

Another Carter aide, Stuart Eizenstat, said the 39th president was doomed by "the three I's": intraparty warfare, inflation and the Iran hostage crisis. 

Carter was weakened by an unsuccessful primary challenge in 1980 by Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, and 44 years later Biden was unable to overcome his own party's pressure to step aside. 

"They both faced the fact that they were dealing with divided Democratic parties," Eizenstat told The New York Times.

Their terms in office were marked by high inflation – it was even worse in the late 1970s than the 2020s – and Carter was bedeviled by Iran, while Biden's term was defined by the progressive infighting over Israel's war against Hamas and the ongoing hostage situation after Oct. 7, 2023. 

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President Jimmy Carter and then-Sen. Joe Biden at a fundraiser during the 1980 campaign. (Getty Images)

Biden paid tribute to Carter after his death on Sunday, calling him a "remarkable leader" and man of high character. Biden, then a young U.S. senator from Delaware, supported Carter early in his longshot 1976 bid for the White House. 

Baker also wrote in the Times that "they both saw themselves as straight shooters in a world of spinners, and both of them made their mark early on as more moderate Democrats only to shift to the left over the course of their lives." However, Biden's invocation of Carter's "decency" as something Trump could learn from irked conservatives on Sunday.

Carter has received media plaudits since his death for his humanitarian, post-presidential work that included fighting horrific diseases in Africa and building homes through Habitat for Humanity. Some observers have also suggested he was judged too harshly for his presidency, which was viewed as a failure at the time but has been viewed through a different lens in the decades since.

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Biden is grappling with what his legacy will be as he leaves office with the Democrats in tatters and Trump ascendant. He hopes his lone term is also viewed more favorably at some point, given how some modern-day observers think Carter's widely derided presidency wasn't as bad as it seemed. 

President Joe Biden speaks at the 2024 White House Tribal Nations Summit at the Department of the Interior in Washington, on Dec. 9, 2024.  (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Carter has received praise in retrospect for deregulating major industries and his efforts on conservation, while Biden wants more credit for, in his view, pulling the country out of the throes of the pandemic and signing major progressive legislation. Yet Harris' loss was a reflection on the country's economic anxieties, and Biden's pardon of his son Hunter was a blow to his reputation after his repeated promises not to do so.

National Review's Philip Klein did not join the chorus of Carter praise after his death, saying he was a terrible president and an even worse former one.

"Carter’s true legacy is one of economic misery at home and embarrassment on the world stage," he wrote. "He left the country in its weakest position of the post–World War II era. After being booted out of office in landslide fashion, the self-described ‘citizen of the world’ spent the rest of his life meddling in U.S. foreign policy and working against the United States and its allies in a manner that could fairly be described as treasonous."

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CNN conservative commentator Scott Jennings said Sunday that Biden will leave office in "disgrace" and will only be remembered for high inflation, the chaotic pullout from Afghanistan, and pardoning Hunter.

There are major differences between Carter and Biden also, not the least of which is their ages as they leave office. Carter departed at the age of 56 and had decades to pursue post-presidential endeavors, while Biden leaves the White House at age 82 as the oldest ever commander-in-chief.

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In fact, he noted as he eulogized Carter on Sunday, he's known the late president for "50 years."