Person

Kevin Mattson

Bylines

How the Ghost of Jimmy Carter’s Presidency Haunts Everything Biden Says About Supply Shortages

The last from-the-top critique of American overconsumption generated a massive backlash.

by Kevin Mattson via Slate on October 22, 2021
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Remember Punk Rock? Probably Not...: The Real Culture War of 1980's America

When most people hear the word “punk,” they think of drug addled, nasty behavior. The truth is, it was driven by a visceral hatred for the president.

by Kevin Mattson via HNN on August 30, 2020

"What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?": Jimmy Carter, America's "Malaise," and the Speech that Should Have Changed the Country

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Front cover of Kevin Mattson's book, "We're Not Here to Entertain: Punk Rock, Ronald Reagan, and THE REAL CULTURE WAR of 1980s America."

Mapping Punk Rock in the Early 1980s

The nationwide spread of a counterculture.

by Glenn Dowdle via Northwestern University Knight Lab on August 15, 2022

The Dead Kennedys against a graffiti wall.

Punk Versus Reagan

A new book on American punk paints the movement as the last gasp of left-wing cultural resistance in the 1980s.

by Alexander Billet via Jacobin on November 9, 2020

The White House.

Sociology and the Presidency

In 1979, Carter's "malaise speech," shaped by sociological insights, sought national unity but clashed with Reagan's appeal to individualism.

by Matthew Braswell via The Fifth Floor on October 25, 2013

Jimmy Carter in the 1970s visiting a town in Brazil that commemorates Confederate expats.

Jimmy Carter, 1924-2024

As an individual, Jimmy Carter stood as a rebuke to our venal and heartless political class. As a politician, his private virtues proved to be public vices.

by Tim Barker via Origins of Our Time on January 1, 2025

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