It turns out all you need to do to totally whitewash your legacy is volunteer building homeless shelters after you’re out of office.

Forget the fact that this was the most powerful man in the country who maybe could have done something a tiny bit more impactful about homelessness while he was in office if he actually cared. No, it’s all okay because he volunteers. East Timor? But look at this house!

If an average person helps build a house, it is commendable. Though it is still a massive failing of the government that it was necessary. An ex-president doing it is just trying to assuage their guilt at best.

The East Timor genocide wikipedia page doesn’t even mention the US 💀

It was perhaps a reflection of the active subversion of the Carter human rights policy by the foreign policy and defense establishments that, during the Carter years, human rights abuse reached its peak in Argentina and Nicaragua, and reached new and unprecedented levels (to be exceeded only in the Reagan years) in Guatemala and El Salvador.

The United States’ response to the pogroms and death camps of Argentina, the creeping demolition of Nicaragua, and the rustic genocide in Guatemala was largely one of silence, smoke screens, quiet diplomacy, and business as usual.³²

The U.S. government, on balance, did nothing to stop mass murder by its allies. But the nominal aid cuts provided an effective alibi, while a significant part of the United States’ apparatus without question contributed directly to the slaughter through military aid, advice, and the global screen of diplomatic defense against impolitic criticism.

(Source.)