The presidential dissident

In the 1970s, the Nobel committee made statements about the Soviet menace by giving Nobel prizes to Russian dissidents like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
What's their implication when the Nobel peace prize goes to Jimmy Carter or to Al Gore?  Are we the new menace? Do they feel they have to prop up our dissidents?

While the Soviet dissidents were truly outside the system -- Solzhenitsyn was a physicist who was arrested for bad-mouthing Stalin in private letters -- our dissidents are failed presidents and presidential candidates.  Consider also the very likely possibility that two families will be in the White House for a consecutive 32-year period, and it is hard to escape the conclusion that political power and the ability to be heard is very closely held in America.

And yes, I know the Nobel peace prize is awarded by the Norwegians; the other Nobels are by the Swedes.  So, the organization honoring Al Gore is different from the one that honored Solzhenitsyn (he won in Literature).  But it is all part of the same zeitgeist.