Dez Prez Rankings: Guns 'n Butter

#18 of 39:
Lyndon B. Johnson (36th president)
1963-69
Democrat



Like Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson was both an outstanding and horrible president. He was a political giant of the last century, running the Senate when he was majority leader with spectacular skill and influence. LBJ’s narcissism and desire to be the loudest kid in the room were legendary. He was a psychiatrist’s dream patient. (Once when someone marveled at JFK’s skills with the ladies, Johnson exclaimed “I had more women by accident than he ever had on purpose!” Evidently LBJ's extracurricular activities did indeed rival Kennedy's.)


ABOVE: The Johnson Treatment (I recommend clicking on the image above for an enlargement of this series of photos, where Johnson works over Sen. Theodore Green). LBJ was infamous for turning the screws on legislators to get what he wanted. He cajoled, threatened, complimented, reasoned, raged, and otherwise convinced lawmakers to go his way

John Kennedy had talked a big civil rights game, but had actually accomplished very little in that area. Surprisingly, it was LBJ, the old-school Texas politician who had grown up in the Jim Crow South, who did more for civil rights than any other president other than perhaps Lincoln. Taking advantage of the nation’s grief and unity in the immediate aftermath of JFK’s assassination, LBJ pushed through the monumental Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended racial discrimination and segregation in public places (restaurants, movie theaters, businesses) and employment. Soon after that, he forced through the Voting Rights Act of 1965, ending Southern tactics such as literacy tests to prevent Blacks from voting. He capped it off with the Housing Act of 1968, outlawing racial discrimination in housing.


ABOVE: LBJ was the closest ally of the Civil Rights movement in the 60's

Race wasn’t the only social issue that he tackled. His Great Society program marked the most significant domestic program since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Johnson created Medicare and Medicaid, gave substantial federal aid to schools, created Head Start, started food stamps, created significant environmental and consumer protection laws, and created public radio and television. Most of this is good, but I have concerns regarding the long term sustainability of these government programs. Once a government program is created, it is only expanded. It can hardly ever be scaled back, becoming an entitlement. In fact, LBJ’s Great Society is what really rejuvenated the conservative movement in reaction to it, starting with Nixon, and going strong through Reagan, Bush Sr. and even Clinton. Without LBJ, there may have been no need for a Reagan Revolution.

So far this record should catapult LBJ into the Top 10 of presidents, but then there was Vietnam. Eisenhower first committed us, JFK expanded that commitment, but it was LBJ who expanded it into a full scale war. LBJ and his administration believed in the Domino Theory, which stated that if we lost one Southeast Asian country to communism, then the entire region would go Red. He used the bogus Tonkin Gulf incident to get his sweeping Gulf of Tonkin Resolutions passed in Congress, giving the president broad war-making powers. It is unclear whether LBJ personally knew that the Tonkin Gulf incident was actually a misunderstanding, but at the very least he knew that it was not the full scale attack that he made it out to be. Fearing that he would be the first president to ever lose a war, he stubbornly escalated the war and troop levels, often concealing from the American people the actual number of troops he was sending. Johnson lost credibility with the American people and the country fell into a violent division at home (both over the war and racial riots). During the bloody election year of 1968, LBJ announced that he would not run for another term.


ABOVE: These are from the LBJ White House Tapes. LBJ spends 5 minutes ordering new pants. I love from about 1:55-2:40. I was going to post his announcement that he would not run again, but this one is better.

LBJ left the White House a broken man. While proud of his domestic and civil rights accomplishments, Vietnam claimed another casualty in addition to the almost 50,000 young servicemen who were killed. LBJ spent the remaining few years of his life drinking, smoking and falling into a deep depression.



Pros:
* Civil Rights Acts ('64, '65, '68)
* Skilled politician who was able to get his agenda passed
* Great Society (Medicare, Medicaid, federal aid to schools, Head Start, food stamps, environmental and consumer protection laws, public radio and television)

Cons:
* Great Society also created entitlement state that has needed to be reformed
* Vietnam