Meh.. the majority of the deregulation that Reagan is credited with actually happened under Carter (craft beer, trucking, airlines, oil, nuclear, natural gas), he appointed Volcker specifically to beat inflation who then spiked rates to 17% which caused the slowdown that likely contributed to Carter's reelection loss..
Definitely was an economically conservative Democrat - he really did try to push for a balanced budget, but couldn't convince his own party on that issue. The reason Ted Kennedy primaried him in 1980 was because Kennedy considered Carter too fiscally conservative.
Economically, most national Democrats are about as conservative as Carter, if not further right. Carter is in many ways the progenitor of the neoliberal wing of the DNC; he brought back Progressive Era views that had previously been sidelined by the New Deal.
Socially, Carter is some probably slightly left of the DNC’s national position.
This doesn't sound right to me. The modern Democratic party isn't very fond of mass deregulation, balanced budget drives, or quantitative tightening, which is pretty much Carter's economic legacy. And while Carter's very socially left wing now, I doubt he supported, say, gay marriage, when he was president.
The difference is modern democrats are living in a world after 40 years of deregulation so it’s much less obvious whether further mass deregulation would be beneficial, Carter’s balanced budget emphasis was borne out of the mistaken idea that inflation was being caused by Federal deficits, and there’s no exceptional Left resistance to JPow’s rate hikes and tightening.
His other policies were largely in line with center-left policies of today, mediating conflicts, reducing dependency on foreign oil, renewables investments, expansion of federal health care support, massive expansion of parks and conservation land, established Superfund, supporting marijuana decriminalization. On gay rights, he was the first president to meet with any gay marriage proponents and he worked (with Reagan) to defeat the proposed California law that would ban gay people from teaching positions (history doesn’t repeat but it often rhymes).
he appointed Volcker towards the end of his term. Inflation had been a growing problem throughout all of the 70s. Read about Nixon's diastrous attempt at price controls. Ford had his WIP ("Whip Inflation Now") campaign.
Inflation was not fixed with just the hike in rates. It took well over a decade for it to come down to near zero rates. The hike in the fed fund rates sent the economy into stagflation. The economy was also aided by Reagan's tax cut package. It was passed by a Democrat House.
Reagan's tax cuts were passed in late 1986 and didn't fully come into effect until 1988.. here's the chart of Real GDP from before Carter to early Bush I:
The tax cuts were incidental to the better economy in the 1980s, and couldn't have caused it since they weren't in effect until well after things had recovered.
Noah Smith has a good post on the topic: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/much-of-what-youve-heard-a...