In terms of state events, America has less than most countries. We have our holidays and such, but few days of national reflection. We have that right now with the passing of former president Jimmy Carter. It's that reflection that does cause us to remember that while Jimmy Carter was a decent man, he was, with few peers, the worst President in our history.

What's remarkable about Carter's rise is that he theoretically answered the country's needs at the right moment. Americans were emerging from the wreckage of the Watergate scandal, Gerald Ford correctly pardoned Nixon to end the nightmare of that scandal, and everyone wanted to move on. Inflation was taking over in the 1960s, and we were just emerging from the Vietnam War.

For the first time in the post-World War period, Americans held a strong distrust for their government and leaders. Jimmy Carter represented a break from the norms that controlled the country prior. He was an evangelical from the South and provided integrity at a time when the country was short on it.

For all his positive traits, Gerald Ford bore the electoral weight of the Nixon administration. Republicans got wiped out in the ensuring midterms, and the 1976 election represented a chance for all Americans to weigh in on what happened. In any other environment, you'd expect Republicans to get wiped out. Carter won a tight race, with only two points separating the two in the final tally, with Carter winning 297 electoral votes.

Instead of representing a new era for Democrats, who had gotten wiped out by Nixon in consecutive elections, Carter served as the final gasp of the New Deal coalition. For a generation, Democrats represented the working class against the elites; taking up FDR's call, Carter represented the end of that.

In his eulogy of Carter, George Will remarked, "Jimmy Carter's melancholy fate was to be a largely derivative figure: He was a reaction against his elected predecessor and the precursor of his successor. Richard Nixon made Carter tempting; Carter made Ronald Reagan necessary."

Instead of pushing the country forward, Carter stumbled backward. His Middle East policies, for which he was most known, condemned the country to skyrocketing gas prices and economic war with OPEC. Inflation ran hot with that. In response to this and many other societal ills, Carter had no answers.

The 1976 election represented a country in crisis, and it never got a savior in that moment. Carter could only talk about economic malaise and what we couldn't do as a country. 1976 was the last presidential election Democrats would win until Clinton in 1992.

Carter was swept out in 1980, only winning 49 electoral votes to Reagan's 489. He also lost the popular vote by nearly 10 points. His fate was barely better than that of his Vice President, Walter Mondale, in 1984. Carter destroyed the Democratic Party for a generation and ended the New Deal coalition.

Americans looked at his legacy of Middle East meddling, poor economic performance, and no answers for anything and vowed never to return. Carter's legacy continued past his presidency, as he tried to conduct bizarre foreign policy adventures, often at odds with whoever occupied the White House.

That's what makes this state funeral moment weird. We are correctly venerating one of our presidents who has passed away. However, in remembering his legacy, it is difficult to name anything noteworthy that he did that was good. The moment he walked into demanded a response to history, and he never delivered. The country got it four years later in Reagan.

The press is quick to talk to the Carter family and lionize him as a Democrat. The New York Times has published fantasies like "What if Reagan Had Been More Like Carter?" and "America Needs More Jimmy Carters."

I agree with them in terms of personal morality. We need people willing to step into their communities and build as Carter did with Habitat for Humanity. However, there's a reason Carter's legacy is what it is. He's the worst present in modern history and in the bottom ten of all time. Americans resoundingly rejected his politics—for good reason.

His death reminds us of the awful world he led and the lack of answers he had for it. The ultimate irony is that his spiritual successor is likely Joe Biden, who will deliver a eulogy to the man he most embodies in presidency styles. We don't need any more Jimmy Carter.

We could use more of the men who followed him. Reagan answered the call his country needed and returned a belief in America that we'd lacked under Carter. I wish his family well during this time, and he deserves the send-off he's getting from the country as one of our presidents.

But no one wants to re-live another Carter presidency. Nor should we.