Crisis of Confidence

Former President Jimmy Carter’s July 15, 1979 speech on America’s confidence amidst the energy crisis of that era came to epitomize what was later broadly perceived to be a failed presidency. Forty years later, the speech remains a stunningly earnest sermon from the future Sunday school teacher that — just maybe — was in fact gospel in its diagnosis of a profound crisis of the American spirit, rooted in materialism. Telluride-native Gabriel Lifton-Zoline illustrates Carter’s words with archival footage that seems to precisely validate everything he said.