Would HIV/AIDS still have existed if Jimmy Carter won a second term?

Could a second-term Jimmy Carter have prevented HIV?

  • Yes

    Votes: 36 18.8%
  • No

    Votes: 155 81.2%

  • Total voters
    191
I highly doubt that a Carter Presidency would make too much difference from OTL. Yes, he's pro-gay rights NOW. But in 1980, 1981? As has been pointed out, he was the first modern Evangelical President. Someone talked about the Moral Majority - to some extent he was part of the Moral Majority, and only broke with that crowd due to disputes over integration of universities. He may have been all about the disadvantaged, as Democrats tend to be, sure. But remember that plenty of Democrats, especially in the 1980s, would draw a distinction (justified or not) between, say, black people on the one hand, and LGBT people.

I don't think a Carter Presidency is going to change much practically, except perhaps less inflammatory rhetoric. It's simply sociologically unlikely.
 
Yup - going from a former Governor of California who'd overseen several early gay rights milestones, had worked in Hollywood, had a lesbian couple nanny his children and who considered one the openly-gay Rock Hudson to be his best friend, to a LITERAL Southern Democrat from Georgia and ordained Baptist minister whose ties to evangelical Christianity was part of the reason why the GOP made some early reaching out to the Moral Majority types - things very well might have gone worse.

There is a reason why Jimmy Carter was nearly successfully primaried from the left by Ted Kennedy in 1980.

Carter gets to enjoy some warmth from revisionists because he more or less stayed completely out of politics and the national spotlight aside from endorsing Mondale in 84 well into the mid 90s, when Bill Clinton asked him to negotiate with North Korea (god help us all if Carter handled HIV/AIDs as poorly as he did the Norks), so we don't have a whole lot of statements from him during this era. He's a blank slate, but given what we know of him in OTL, the likely picture of Carter's handling of AIDs isn't a rosy one.

As far as gay rights, as late as 2014, Carter was opposed to certain aspects of gay marriage, thinking it should be limited to civil unions and decided by the states, he was VERY late to the party, given there were already Republicans with more liberal views than him.

As for HIV/AIDS, well, look at the work done by the Carter Center's anti-disease efforts. He deserves a lot of credit for work done through the center to eradicate guinea worm, and helping with efforts to wipe out a disease like mumps and rubella... but not on HIV/AIDs. The first medical efforts by the Carter Center were in 1986, but it would take almost 20 years before it's first HIV/AIDS efforts, as part of a partnership with the Bush II State Department.
 

CalBear

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Ronalc could have listened to his public health officals that the strange disease is likely to be sexually transmitted and start a federal campaign promoting condom use.
Really?

Hell, Playboy magazine (at the time, arguably still the arbiter of everything sex-related in American culture) actually ridiculed the idea of condoms to combat AIDS (in it "advisor column" it actually answered what was, in retrospect, a very smart question about condoms and AIDS, with a dismissive answer that included as the closing line "dear God, we're back to rubbers"). When the health department in San Francisco closed the bathhouses in 1984 much of the Gay community (in what was probably the more gay friendly city in the United States at the time) LOST THEIR COLLECTIVE MINDS. They were closed down, and within 12 hours most of them reopened. NO ONE wanted to believe that AIDS was what it actually was, a sexually transmittable FATAL DISEASE (which at time, it was, you contracted it, and you were a dead man walking, worse, most people treated victims like they had Pneumonic Plague, something that lasted for YEARS).

No one wanted to know, no one wanted to see, people were utterly terrorized that they could die from a mosquito bite or using public toilet; nit because that made a lick of sense, but because it was better than accepting the truth of the thing.

I lived in the Bay Area at the time. Reagan got the blame for the weak policy. San Francisco's Board of Supervisors, who were further to the Left than the Politburo, were just as bad.
 
Really?

Hell, Playboy magazine (at the time, arguably still the arbiter of everything sex-related in American culture) actually ridiculed the idea of condoms to combat AIDS (in it "advisor column" it actually answered what was, in retrospect, a very smart question about condoms and AIDS, with a dismissive answer that included as the closing line "dear God, we're back to rubbers"). When the health department in San Francisco closed the bathhouses in 1984 much of the Gay community (in what was probably the more gay friendly city in the United States at the time) LOST THEIR COLLECTIVE MINDS. They were closed down, and within 12 hours most of them reopened. NO ONE wanted to believe that AIDS was what it actually was, a sexually transmittable FATAL DISEASE (which at time, it was, you contracted it, and you were a dead man walking, worse, most people treated victims like they had Pneumonic Plague, something that lasted for YEARS).

No one wanted to know, no one wanted to see, people were utterly terrorized that they could die from a mosquito bite or using public toilet; nit because that made a lick of sense, but because it was better than accepting the truth of the thing.

I lived in the Bay Area at the time. Reagan got the blame for the weak policy. San Francisco's Board of Supervisors, who were further to the Left than the Politburo, were just as bad.

I think it's because people look at the much better response in Britain, Australia and Spain (starting with the Don't Die of Ignorance campaign). Of course, that was in 1986-87, Britain wasn't in the middle of a religious revival, and even that was rather late in the game after their authorities got to see the United States and much of the Continent of Europe as object lessons on how not to deal with the crisis.
 

thorr97

Banned
Carter started his presidency when Stonewall wasn't even a decade in the past. By 1980 the gay community in America had only really just started finding a home within the Democratic Party's different minority groups and it still wasn't a comforting or all welcoming home at that. By the late 70s the gay community, when it even paid any attention to politics, was more along the lines of "gay liberation" ideology - similar to black liberation or women's liberation in its overall views - and was actively hostile to the idea of being part of a major national party like the Republican Party OR the Democratic Party. Into the 80s it was more or less instant political death for a politician of any major party to have anything even remotely good to say about homosexuals. "Gay baiting" to discredit a political opponent was a common tactic among BOTH the Republican AND Democratic Parties. Yes, today, the Democratic Party has long supported gay rights and counts the gay community as one of its most loyal coalition members. But it wasn't always so. And thus the revisionism that things "would've been better if it was the Democrats in charge" back in those early days is exceptionally incorrect.

One other aspect to consider here is how things might've been worse with Carter instead of Reagan is that there'd most likely have not been the political gain for the Democrats to make about AIDS. In OTL, Reagan steadily increased the amount of money for AIDS research in each of his budgets. In turn, the Democratic controlled Congress would add even more money to those AIDS research efforts. This, to demonstrate just how much more they "cared" about the issue. With a Democrat in the White House at that time there'd have been less of a need to "one up" the Republicans on the issue. And thus the Democrats in Congress might not have felt any reason to increase the funding beyond what Carter submitted to begin with. Doing so wouldn't have been a weapon they could've used against the Republicans and there was plenty else that money could've been spent on which would've earned the Democrats a political gain.

Something else you have to remember is that social conservatives vastly outnumber gays in the US. VASTLY outnumber. And in the early 80s there was a reaction to the "flower power" counter culture of the 60s that was followed by carnality and hedonism of the 70s. This took the form of social conservatism rising all across the country and not just solely among the Republicans. There were plenty of lifelong Democratic voters who were every bit as socially conservative as Falwell and who were every bit as disapproving of liberal social mores of the day. Jimmy Carter's deep religiosity was a truly appealing issue for those voters and he'd have been quite mindful of them in any response to AIDS and the gay community.
 

CalBear

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Carter started his presidency when Stonewall wasn't even a decade in the past. By 1980 the gay community in America had only really just started finding a home within the Democratic Party's different minority groups and it still wasn't a comforting or all welcoming home at that. By the late 70s the gay community, when it even paid any attention to politics, was more along the lines of "gay liberation" ideology - similar to black liberation or women's liberation in its overall views - and was actively hostile to the idea of being part of a major national party like the Republican Party OR the Democratic Party. Into the 80s it was more or less instant political death for a politician of any major party to have anything even remotely good to say about homosexuals. "Gay baiting" to discredit a political opponent was a common tactic among BOTH the Republican AND Democratic Parties. Yes, today, the Democratic Party has long supported gay rights and counts the gay community as one of its most loyal coalition members. But it wasn't always so. And thus the revisionism that things "would've been better if it was the Democrats in charge" back in those early days is exceptionally incorrect.

One other aspect to consider here is how things might've been worse with Carter instead of Reagan is that there'd most likely have not been the political gain for the Democrats to make about AIDS. In OTL, Reagan steadily increased the amount of money for AIDS research in each of his budgets. In turn, the Democratic controlled Congress would add even more money to those AIDS research efforts. This, to demonstrate just how much more they "cared" about the issue. With a Democrat in the White House at that time there'd have been less of a need to "one up" the Republicans on the issue. And thus the Democrats in Congress might not have felt any reason to increase the funding beyond what Carter submitted to begin with. Doing so wouldn't have been a weapon they could've used against the Republicans and there was plenty else that money could've been spent on which would've earned the Democrats a political gain.

Something else you have to remember is that social conservatives vastly outnumber gays in the US. VASTLY outnumber. And in the early 80s there was a reaction to the "flower power" counter culture of the 60s that was followed by carnality and hedonism of the 70s. This took the form of social conservatism rising all across the country and not just solely among the Republicans. There were plenty of lifelong Democratic voters who were every bit as socially conservative as Falwell and who were every bit as disapproving of liberal social mores of the day. Jimmy Carter's deep religiosity was a truly appealing issue for those voters and he'd have been quite mindful of them in any response to AIDS and the gay community.
Social conservatives still vastly outnumber gays. Many of them, along with the middle-of-the-Road and the Liberals simply have stopped being quite as closed minded on the subject.
 

thorr97

Banned
Social conservatives still vastly outnumber gays. Many of them, along with the middle-of-the-Road and the Liberals simply have stopped being quite as closed minded on the subject.

Indeed. But that perspective is sadly lacking within the gay community today. Further discussion of that however, is a subject well out of bounds for this forum.

As related to the OP however, the point being that for either Reagan OR Carter to have done more would've run straight into the social conservative movement when it was at its most powerful.
 
Would an earlier parallel to Ryan White be a more effective catalyst for slowing the spread of AIDS?
 
When the health department in San Francisco closed the bathhouses in 1984 much of the Gay community (in what was probably the more gay friendly city in the United States at the time) LOST THEIR COLLECTIVE MINDS. They were closed down, and within 12 hours most of them reopened.

Thanks for bringing that up, I had forgotten about that.
 
More than just the bathhouses, at the time, the LGBT community was one of the last real outposts of the 60s "free love" sexuality, where it was pretty common to have many partners in a short amount of time - which basically was ideal for spreading something like HIV/AIDS, much to the misfortune of the gay community.

Considering what an utter uproar there were over measures like attempting to close the bathhouses, even if we had a way of knowing the modern ABCs of HIV/AIDs prevention - Abstinence, be faithful, use a condom - I imagine efforts to push such efforts would have gone over even more poorly, perhaps seen as an effort by the community as a way to make them conform to the lifestyle of "the breeders".

What finally forced change in OTL was the massive death tolls caused by HIV/AIDs, with a large chunk of the bathhouse/free love part of the gay community dying, and that many of the surviving members of the LGBT community being the monogamous ones - I'm trying to think of a less callous way to put it, but attrition literally forced the gay community to make the transition. You immediately saw same-sex marriage become a focus of LGBT groups when it had barely been on the radar before, as well as an emphasis on a sort of respectability politics. It's one of the cruel ironies of the impact of HIV/AIDs the LGBT community - that the groups that survived HIV/AIDs were the ones who, previously outside the mainstream of the LGBT community, were the ones best suited to eventually advance the community in the eyes of the general public.
 
So there’s been a lot thrown at Jimmy Carter here (coupled with accusations of revisionism towards Reagan; the juxtaposition of which seem at best disingenuous). After a very little digging I came up with a first result that should please people in that it is highly unsatisfying- the mark of a true academic result!

No, it’s not on AIDS, being from 1979. But it is a piece of thorough-going political sausage-making from the Carter re-election campaign: proposed answers to questions from a a gay rights group. Apologies for linking a pdf.

It seems clear from this that
1) 1979 liberals tended to behave like it was 1979
2) water is wet

But also that the party line bromides of the 1990s had already entered the standard Democratic liturgy. There was no break of Baptist fire holding it back, it was there, it was set.

What sent me looking was the VERY MANY suggestions in this thread that Carter was a secret agent of Falwellian social conservatism. It seemed like bollocks, turns out it is bollocks.

I get it, Reagan fans. You felt yer guy was under attack, you got defensive, you lashed out. But you knew you were producing more noise than heat (I consider this metaphor more blended than mixed, thank you very much).

Incidentally the document DOES confirm Reagan’s commitment to at least one of these bromides. I encourage you to go out and find more, if you’re interested. What I don’t think you’ll find is anything confirming the (possibly trollish) assertion that Carter was pushing a Baptist-fueled anti-gay agenda.

Happy 4th
 
While we now know that AIDS had been around the 1920's and that certain mystery deaths prior to the 80's were in fact AIDS related,I don't exactly know what Carter would'v done that was different to Reagan. Probably more promotion of condoms and maybe more education. What's needed was the knowledge that AIDS was not exclusive to gays,drug users or hemophiliacs. I believe that Carter would'v been more compassionate and outspoken or at least we wouldn't have been so dominated by conservative agendas that preached Abstinence Only without more education. What I remember most about that era was that MTV's music videos and pornography of all things talking about condoms being the safest way to have sex, the politicians of that era damn sure weren't! Oh,and you could get some information from a few Sex Ed teachers,Planned Parenthood or the local clinic,which helped out tremendously with teens. People fail to realize how ignorant the general public was about AIDS in the 80's unless someone worked in the medical field. Or how gleeful certain evangelists were about 'God's Punishment' to the 'sinful gays and drug users'. It usually took the death of a loved one or celebrity to get people to open their eyes. Anyway,maybe Carter would'v been more open in acknowledging the AIDS crisis,but it still would'v spread.
 
It usually took the death of a loved one or celebrity to get people to open their eyes. Anyway,maybe Carter would'v been more open in acknowledging the AIDS crisis,but it still would'v spread.
The biggest difference is that Carter would have been a compassionate Christian, while Reagan supported the judgmental Christians. Yes, the disease would have spread just as much at first, but an attitude difference at the top would not have hurt.
 

thorr97

Banned
The biggest difference is that Carter would have been a compassionate Christian, while Reagan supported the judgmental Christians. Yes, the disease would have spread just as much at first, but an attitude difference at the top would not have hurt.

Carter in office after 1980 would've been "compassionate" but still facing the rise of social conservatives - in the Democratic Party as well as in the GOP - and also facing a Democratic controlled Congress with no incentive to "lead the way" in funding increases for AIDS research.

This, versus Reagan's terms where he consistently increased funding for AIDS research despite those "judgmental Christians" and also with a Democratic controlled Congress that now had every incentive to "one-up" the Republicans by increasing AIDS research funding on top of what Reagan requested.

So, again, I'm not seeing Carter's presidency as making things any better than Reagan's on this issue.
 
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