Jimmy Carter’s cardigan-clad gloom

[Eartha]

Dear all,

How should I understand the underlined?

Thanks in advance.

Eartha

PESSIMISM about the United States rarely pays off in the long run. Time and again, when Americans have felt particularly glum, their economy has been on the brink of a revival. Think of Jimmy Carter’s cardigan-clad gloom in the inflation-ridden late 1970s, or the fear of competition from Japan that marked the “jobless recovery” of the early 1990s. Both times the United States bounced back, boosted on the first occasion by Paul Volcker’s conquest of inflation and on the second by a productivity spurt that sent growth rates soaring in the mid-1990s even as Japan stalled.

 

[Mr_Ben]

In the photo, you can see President Jimmy Carter wearing a cardigan in the White House to demonstrate that he was practicing energy conservation. In the 70s this was depressing for many Americans who thought that energy supplies were limitless and that the USA should never be so poor that they couldn't heat the home of the President.

To clarify the vocabulary, to be clad in something means to wear it or be decorated with it, and gloom is depression. So his sweater (cardigan) was a symbol for America's depression and anxiety at that time.

 

[SoothingDave]

It was also a symbol of Carter's ineffectiveness. Rather than offering solutions to the economic and energy-related problems, he just put on a sweater.

 

[konungursvia]

Actually, he was the greatest human being to be president in the twentieth century, in my view. He just wasn't decisive in that office. But a great human being. Look at the Carter Foundation today.

 

[Tdol]

In the photo, you can see President Jimmy Carter wearing a cardigan in the White House to demonstrate that he was practicing energy conservation.

Do cardigans have any negative associations in the US- in the UK, people wearing cardigans, like sandals, can be looked down on by some commentators- Andy Williams rather than Frank Sinatra.

 

[SoothingDave]

They have a connotation of being for "old" people. But in Carter's case, it was symbolic of just giving up, of having no other viable options.

 

[Barb_D]

I'm locking this thread. Commentary about the effectiveness or non-effectiveness, greatness or non-greatness, etc. of fomer President Carter is of no relevence to the English.