For decades the right has loved to shit on Carter, but history has been kind to him.
Look at the POTUS rankings by professional historians and he ranks between 18th and and 34th best, but mostly in the 20's

For the record, Carter deregulated far more than Reagan ever thought of.

The entire telecommunications industry was deregulated under Jimmy. Carter signed the Motor Carrier at which deregulated all of trucking. He took federal control off the airline industry with the Airline Deregulation Act in 1978, and also deregulated rate setting and other things under the Cargo deregulation Act at a couple years later. Pipelines and later railroads were significantly deregulated under Carter.

He was the first to require agencies to consider the economic impact of their rulemakings, and while he couldn’t get through Congress it was in force while he was in office.

But the Right hated him because, you know, Democrat, plus he injured himself with the “malaise” speech (which never actually contained the word “malaise”) and by telling people to turn off their Christmas lights. Americans don’t like to sacrifice. Inflation threatened to destroy the country, and both Nixon and Ford made feckless attempts to control it, and Carter first appointed William Miller but quickly realized that was a mistake and bounced him in favor of Volker, who told him that a recession would be required to do it. Carter said OK, but hoped it would be over by the time of the 1980 election. It wasn’t, Reagan talked tough, and the rest is history.