The 1980 boycott of the summer Olympics in Moscow was contemptible hypocritical politics from Jimmy Carter. President Carter made this unilateral announcement in January 1980, just weeks before the 1980 winter Olympics were to be begin in Lake Placid, NY; where Soviet Union athletes were invited to compete, despite the 1979 USSR invasion of Afghanistan, which was US president Jimmy Carter’s pretense for the Moscow summer games boycott.
In Lake Placid, the 1980 US hockey team defeated the mighty USSR machine and miraculously won the gold medal. The best sports documentary on these events is the ESPN 30-for-30: Of Miracles and Men (2015).
The Lake Placid Games were held from February 13 to 24, 1980, with the Miracle on Ice game (US 4, USSR 3) played on February 22. Note: this was a tape-delayed ABC broadcast, meaning most viewers already knew the US had won, but everyone still watched. Also note that US athletes were competing against Soviet Union athletes, while Jimmy Carter’s “Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan” ultimatum on a summer games boycott was lingering over the entire competition.
At that point you couldn’t find an American who would have supported a Soviet Union boycott of these winter Olympics, as it would have largely invalidated the US hockey gold. And that’s the point of the Olympics, if you don’t like someone, then beat them (fairly!) in the athletic arena and you can cheer. That’s better than killing people. Olympic competition is international by nature, and any boycott for political reasons does violence to that egalitarian principle.
I’ve spoken with a former track athlete who was affected by the boycott. His response was to compete under another flag, which he did, saying it was probably his only chance at Olympic glory. Years later, he had no regrets about what he did. Reading comments from others on Reddit, I discovered much of that same sentiment from others. Here are a few samples of popular comments in italics:
I hate it. Don’t involve athletes in geo political BS.
Trash move. Athletes work their whole lives for that shot.
One of my gym teachers in high school was an older gentleman who had qualified for these Olympics (weightlifting). You could tell when he talked about it that there was still lingering disappointment and regret, decades later. And understandably so.
I understand the reasoning, but in reality it did nothing but harm innocent athletes. No international policy changed as a result, just a bunch of people who worked their whole lives just to not be given their shot.
Worked with a guy who was on the men’s field hockey team. Never got another chance. Edit: I should add that because he was officially on the Olympic team, he was given lifetime access to any Olympic training facility. He said “whoop-dee-fucking-doo”.
I hated it. Athletes have a limited window.
My father, a life-long Democrat, but also a longtime track & field and Olympics fan, never forgave Carter for this. There were certainly other ways we could have protested the Soviet Union’s actions without destroying the dreams and athletic careers of people who had done nothing at all to deserve to be treated that way.
Jimmy carter being disconnected to the feelings of the American people! Color me shocked. Athletes that have one chance of competing in the Olympics being pawns in international politics is awful no matter who’s doing it.
———-
Jimmy Carter completely disregarded all this, and unilaterally insisted US athletes would not compete in the 1980 summer Olympics. It was never held to any popular support litmus test in the media; it was presented as an ultimatum from an unchallengeable authority figure.
Today, Jimmy Carter’s decision wouldn’t hold up in court, but back in that day, Olympic athletes didn’t have agents. Today, top athletes are professionalized by high school. Back then, the Olympics were billed as the most prestigious international competition of amateur athletes. Eastern Bloc athletic training & doping programs made a mockery of that Olympic principle, and when the NBA ‘Dream Team’ conquered Barcelona in 1992, the Olympics officially became professionalized.
ESPN currently has Jimmy Carter’s death in their news feed, and their portrayal of his 1980 Moscow Olympic boycott is one of him being a courageous leader. ESPN is completely clueless on international politics and out-of-touch with how American working people & sports fans feel about Jimmy Carter. The Democrats needed Jimmy Carter’s death to serve as (yet another) a temporary distraction from their party’s collapse in November, their ensuing surrender to Donald Trump, and all the other political realities they are trying so hard to avoid.
Wrap-up: It is always questionable in bourgeois politics whether it’s worse to be a weak president (Carter), or a disgraced president (Nixon). In short, Jimmy Carter was a weak president capable of only the most limited reforms, who was crushed by reactionary forces & ruling class interests in November 1980. Jimmy Carter won in 1976 as a liberal humanitarian, just as liberalism was dying out as a political force. “Stagflation” came into the political lexicon under his presidential watch, while his environmentalism, commitment to public education, defense of workers rights to decent jobs & wages, etc, were crushed by the forces of Reaganomics in the 1980’s.
Other notable Jimmy Carter presidential events include the Mariel boat-lift disaster in Miami, FL (April 15 to October 31, 1980), paving the way for reactionary anti-immigration reforms under Bush/Reagan. Cocaine Cowboys (2006) is a good documentary film with some insightful discussion on that.
Finally, no discussion of Jimmy Carter is complete without mentioning the hostage crisis with Iran. After the overthrow of the hated (US-backed) Shah through an Islamic-led revolution, 53 US diplomats & citizens were held hostage in Iran from November 4, 1979 until their release on January 20, 1981, the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated.
A bungled military helicopter rescue attempt on April 24, 1980, in which there were multiple US fatalities, further sunk Carter’s popularity. In September 1980, the Iran–Iraq War broke out, further overwhelming Jimmy Carter in any attempt to find a diplomatic solution with Iran under his administration.
In the 1980 election, where an Independent candidate (John Anderson) was allowed to debate and be on the ballot, the incumbent Jimmy Carter lost to Republican challenger Ronald Reagan: 489-49 in the Electoral College. The Democrats didn’t recover politically until Bill Clinton in 1992.
Perhaps Jimmy Carter’s most celebrated diplomatic achievement will be the last to be discussed here, his Camp David Accords, signed in March 1979 by the US, Israel & Egypt– explicitly excluding Palestinians. It was packaged by Jimmy Carter to the world as “a framework for peace in the Middle East”. Like other “humanitarian interventions” under Jimmy Carter, these feeble & myopic attempts at shuttle diplomacy were all quickly undone by monopoly capitalism & imperialism, and that is the legacy of Jimmy Carter.
The death of Jimmy Carter is an ironic reflection of the current political situation. President Joe Biden has ordered maximum effusive praise for the former Georgia peanut farmer who became US president. “He was a better ex-president than president,” is liberalism’s apologetic way of admitting Jimmy Cater was a failure, while conveniently & systematically overlooking those failures.
The collapse of Biden/Harris/Waltz in 2024 mirrors the political situation after Carter/Mondale got wiped out in 1980. Reactionary & predatory forces were/are working behind-the-scenes and licking their chops after the Democratic Party set the groundwork for the social, political & economic disaster to come. By Joe Biden’s order, through January 9, 2025, US flags are to fly half-staff in observance of this husk of liberalism that most Americans (rich & poor) despised.
…………….<><><><><>…………….