As fucked up as the economy is right now, it doesn’t hold a candle to the 70s. People freak about 7% mortgage rates right now, they started there in the 70s and went up to 13%-ish by the time Reagan was elected. The shit show started under Nixon, but people seem to blame Carter. Probably because of the time he had the audacity to ask Americans to turn their thermostats down. (I was just a bit too young for all this, so this is all filtered through what my parents told me.)
Combine that with the Iran hostage crisis, and the fact that Carter was too honest for his own good, and he didn’t stand a chance in 1980 against a charismatic opponent who wasn’t afraid to bend the truth now and then.
I found this link to a good overview of it all. It seems to be part of some course (there is a quiz at the end)