It’s weird that I know about Johnson’s Johnson long before I became aware of all the legislation that passed while he was in office:
Civil Rights Act
Voting Rights Act
Medicare/Medicaid
Food Stamps (and other social programs)
Immigration & Nationality Act
National Endowment for the Arts
Public Broadcasting Act (PBS/NPR)
various education & environmental bills
That dick got a lot done…
And also started the war in Vietnam…
Kind of a complex legacy, but holy shit that’s a lot of good domestic work, ESPECIALLY for a single term president (plus the year following JFKs assassination).
He didn’t start the war in Vietnam, he just ramped it up way more than Kennedy did. The US would have been a much better country if Johnson had focused on his great society platform instead of Vietnam.
Someone far more educated than me can correct me but I believe he was kind of politically wedged on Vietnam. He had to do it to sure up support domestically from my vague recollection. That isn’t to say he was correct or right to do it. Vietnam is a blight on LBJ’s record.
The oversimplified explanation is he had to appear tough on communism to avoid be criticized domestically amd abroad. He was a staunch anti-communist, worried that the US failing to shore up the South against the North would cause other “developing democracies” (Western friendly war lords and despots) to question American guarantees and look the the Soviet Union as a sponsor instead. The goal was to help South Vietnam reach a point where they could deal with the Viet Cong without much US assistance. But that was essentially an impossible task as every action to eliminate opposition further delegitamized the government in Saigon.
Morally it was absolutely the wrong play, and politically i would say it hindered his domestic ambitions as Vietnam quickly spiraled out of control under his administration. He was put between a rock and a hard place and had to answer for Truman and Eisenhower’s failed choice to support the French reoccupation of Indochina after WW2. The US had committed to the path in 1954 and LBJ’s memoirs indicate that, while he resented having to escalate in Vietnam, his ideology offered him no other choice. I don’t think that absolves him of the ocean of blood on his hands, but I am sympathetic to the impossible choice.
Civil Rights Act
Voting Rights Act
Medicare/Medicaid
Food Stamps (and other social programs)
Immigration & Nationality Act
National Endowment for the Arts
Public Broadcasting Act (PBS/NPR)
various education & environmental bills
Folks, the way you carry yourself and behave to others matters. Everyone thinks of LBJ as a generic president, or ,as a crude man. All that legacy, people don’t pay attention to. Similar stuff will happen to Biden’s presidency, he was more progressive than people give him credit for, but his “ice cream, Jack” and gaffes , alongside Trump’s bullying are getting him put to the sidelines of history.
Also, among these lines, being an extraordinary gentlemen from an unexpected background and being sandwiched by two buffoons before and after his terms, does a lot for Obama’s image. He’s more middle of the road than he is perceived to be.
Agreed on the oddity of it. I definitely have known of the story about pissing on a secret service member’s leg (though the story said he was directly pissing on it, not that it was the ‘spray’) since I was a young kid. It made it into a trivia book I was reading.
It’s weird that I know about Johnson’s Johnson long before I became aware of all the legislation that passed while he was in office:
That dick got a lot done…
And also started the war in Vietnam…
Kind of a complex legacy, but holy shit that’s a lot of good domestic work, ESPECIALLY for a single term president (plus the year following JFKs assassination).
He didn’t start the war in Vietnam, he just ramped it up way more than Kennedy did. The US would have been a much better country if Johnson had focused on his great society platform instead of Vietnam.
Someone far more educated than me can correct me but I believe he was kind of politically wedged on Vietnam. He had to do it to sure up support domestically from my vague recollection. That isn’t to say he was correct or right to do it. Vietnam is a blight on LBJ’s record.
The oversimplified explanation is he had to appear tough on communism to avoid be criticized domestically amd abroad. He was a staunch anti-communist, worried that the US failing to shore up the South against the North would cause other “developing democracies” (Western friendly war lords and despots) to question American guarantees and look the the Soviet Union as a sponsor instead. The goal was to help South Vietnam reach a point where they could deal with the Viet Cong without much US assistance. But that was essentially an impossible task as every action to eliminate opposition further delegitamized the government in Saigon.
Morally it was absolutely the wrong play, and politically i would say it hindered his domestic ambitions as Vietnam quickly spiraled out of control under his administration. He was put between a rock and a hard place and had to answer for Truman and Eisenhower’s failed choice to support the French reoccupation of Indochina after WW2. The US had committed to the path in 1954 and LBJ’s memoirs indicate that, while he resented having to escalate in Vietnam, his ideology offered him no other choice. I don’t think that absolves him of the ocean of blood on his hands, but I am sympathetic to the impossible choice.
Folks, the way you carry yourself and behave to others matters. Everyone thinks of LBJ as a generic president, or ,as a crude man. All that legacy, people don’t pay attention to. Similar stuff will happen to Biden’s presidency, he was more progressive than people give him credit for, but his “ice cream, Jack” and gaffes , alongside Trump’s bullying are getting him put to the sidelines of history.
Also, among these lines, being an extraordinary gentlemen from an unexpected background and being sandwiched by two buffoons before and after his terms, does a lot for Obama’s image. He’s more middle of the road than he is perceived to be.
Agreed on the oddity of it. I definitely have known of the story about pissing on a secret service member’s leg (though the story said he was directly pissing on it, not that it was the ‘spray’) since I was a young kid. It made it into a trivia book I was reading.