Over the last nine months or so, I’ve often thought of Jimmy Carter. The 97-year-old peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia, must be one of the happiest guys in America, today, given that he has lived long enough to see that he was only the second-worst president in the history of America.

For those who were not “fortunate” to live through the Carter presidency (1977-1981), you missed quite a treat. Gas shortages, high prices, lines at gas stations stretched for blocks. Fisticuffs, even, and overall bedlam gripped the nation. Unemployment and inflation were out of control, as well. Carter’s response?

His infamous “malaise speech.” Here’s an excerpt:

“The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will.

“We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.”

So who does that remind you of? I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count.

Fast-forward to Tuesday’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” and Tucker’s masterful takedown of Clueless Joe™ Biden and the overall message of today’s Democrat Party.

Tucker Carlson: The White House has new instructions for Americans – lower your expectationshttps://t.co/o9lC4iaI9K
Why should we lower our expectation is the government trying to make us dumb and stupid

— ali cao (@abc175601) October 20, 2021

Carlson echoed his opening monologue in an op-ed, published Wednesday morning.

We’re going to take you back about a year and a few months to the day America changed. You may have noticed it at the time, but this really was the pivot point.

It was the height of the BLM riots early last summer, and rioters in Minneapolis had just torched a bunch of different buildings, and standing right in front of them was an MSNBC reporter who was broadcasting live from the scene.

Night after night, we watched, as the festivities unfolded.

Now, the mob began by torching small businesses all through the city, including a liquor store, which of course, they looted first naturally. Then, as the rioting accelerated, they walked down the street and burned down the Third Precinct police station, the Minneapolis police station.

Now, as you saw that happen, you realize, ooh, this is a little different from anything we’ve seen before. We’ve seen riots before, in 1992. Following the Rodney King verdict, rioters in Los Angeles torched a lot of the middle of that city. But they didn’t burn any police stations because you can’t burn a police station because there are police there and they’re armed and they represent the law, they enforce the laws.

You can’t burn down a police station because if they let you do that, then you know the whole system is crumbled. And yet that’s exactly what happened just days into the BLM hysteria last summer. A police station was burning, and the implication of that was very clear:

This is why we don’t allow police stations to get burned because the message it sends is this: the police can’t protect you, They can’t even protect themselves. So the police aren’t in charge. Legitimate authority is gone. The mob is now in charge.

After playing a short clip of NBC stooge Ali Velshi standing in front of burning buildings while incredulously declaring the riots “peaceful,” Tucker fired up a clip of Velshi’s stooge colleague, CNN’s Don Lemon, and this “excellence in journalism” moment:

“[L]et’s not forget, if anyone is judging this, I’m not judging this. I’m just wondering what is going on. […] Our country was started because — the Boston Tea Party rioting. So don’t get it twisted and think ‘oh, this is something that has never happened before and this is so terrible and where are we and these savages’ and all of that. This is how this country was started.”

“Yeah, this is totally normal,” mocked Tucker:

“We’ve been dealing with this for hundreds of years. Sam Adams himself torched a Wendy’s and looted a liquor store before burning down a police station in downtown Minneapolis. It’s how this country started. We’ve always had riots and looting virtually every day. It’s totally normal.”

“That’s not true,” he continued: “In fact, it’s grotesquely untrue, and you have to be historically illiterate to believe it. Many people are, unfortunately, but it worked because propaganda does. That’s why they do it.”

“So instead of pushing back against this rioting, most Americans kind of went along with it. Well, it doesn’t look quite right to me, but this is how our country started. That’s what Don Lemon said. So I’m going to kind of go along with it. In other words, as your quality of life declines, you are instructed not to notice.”

Far be it from me to correct Tucker, but not “most” Americans  — half of Americans.

And then the analogies to Biden’s America — beginning with empty shelves:

“Got that? So if you don’t like the fact the shelves are bare in your local store, don’t throw a fit. Don’t be an entitled little tool. Lower your expectations, what did you expect in America? Come on. Bread lines, we’ve always had bread lines. It’s sort of charmingly retro, these bread lines.

“Don’t complain as your life becomes worse and as your country degrades. That’s the message, and not surprisingly, that message is coming directly from the people who are making your life worse and destroying the country. That would, of course, would be the White House.”

Tucker cited several more examples of the intentional degradation of America over the last nine months — nine months — under the “leadership” of the worst president in the history of the United States. 

“The White House has a very clear message for you,” Tucker said: “Shut up, Karen.”

“Stop complaining. Those arsons are an arsonist or mostly peaceful protesters. That treadmill? You don’t deserve a treadmill. Lower your expectations. Get used to it.”

Ah, the treadmill. I almost forgot.

When NYT reporter Michael Shear asks about the ongoing supply chain crisis, Psaki jokes about “the tragedy of the treadmill that’s delayed”

pic.twitter.com/Rw8iugBais

— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) October 19, 2021

Meanwhile, Jimmy Carter sits next to Rossalyn on their porch in Plains, Georgia, softly smiling to himself.