In a Washington Post op-ed, President Lyndon Johnson’s special assistant for domestic affairs Joseph A. Califano Jr. discusses the price for ignoring Johnson’s presidency.
Our nation — particularly Democrats — pays a high price for indulging in this amnesia. If we make Johnson’s presidency invisible, we break the chain of this nation’s progressive tradition and deny people an understanding of its achievements and resilience from the time of Theodore Roosevelt.
Worse, we lose key lessons for our democracy: that courage counts and that government can work to benefit the least among us in ways that enhance all of us.
Califano says that the “tragedy of Vietnam created a cloud that still obscures Johnson’s achievements.” Having watched the HBO special on Johnson a while back, I agree that we have ignored the enormous contributions that Johnson made.
When Johnson took office, 22.2 percent of Americans lived in poverty. When he left, only 13 percent were living below the poverty line — the greatest one-time poverty reduction in U.S. history. Johnson proposed and convinced Congress to enact Medicare, which today covers 43 million older Americans; Medicaid, which covers 63 million needy individuals; the loan, grant and work-study programs that more than 60 percent of college students use; aid to elementary and secondary education in poor areas; Head Start; food stamps, which help feed 27 million men, women and children; increases in the minimum Social Security benefit, which keep 10 million seniors out of poverty; and an array of programs designed to empower the poor at the grass roots.
[…]
He also threw himself into the fight against racial discrimination. In 1964 there were 300 black elected officials in America. By 2001, there were some 10,000 elected black officials across the nation, more than 6,000 of them in the South. In 1965, there were six black members of the House; today there are 42; the only black member of the Senate is headed for the Democratic presidential nomination.
As I look upon the achievements of the Johnson administration, I see a number of things which benefited me personally, things that I am grateful existed to allow me to grow and prosper. Without the foresight and fortitude of Johnson, can you imagine what America would look like today? Imagine no Voting Rights Act. Imagine no college grant or loan programs. Imagine no Fair Housing Act.
As bad as Vietnam was, it is beyond time for Americans – and Democrats in particular – to acknowledge the achievements of this man and recognize him for the giant that he was.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
I am slowly coming to totally agree with you about President Lyndon Johnson.
I grew up hating the man for putting millions of American service men and women in harms way and then abandoning them while at war by not even running again. Please keep in mind that I was raised a military “brat” (son of an enlisted man) and then enlisted in the armed services myself for a few terms. It was that one overwhelming issue that completely blocked my ability to see the other things he had done for our country.
As I have grown older, and learned that nothing is really black and white, I discovered that Johnson was not wholly and exclusively to blame for Vietnam. That Ike and Kennedy had both put some advisors into the country, that Kennedy’s cabinet, who largely stayed on to help Johnson, continued to advise President Johnson that he could not afford to be the President that lost Vietnam. That “Domino Theory” continued to hold such sway over think tanks and conventional wisdom of the time….
While I still don’t forgive Johnson his decisions that led more and more Americans into the war; I have also learned to look with open eyes at the many things he did do domestically for our country. Civil rights, addressing the needs of the poor, voting rights…. these contributions cannot be ignored. Like all leaders there is both good and bad, and eventually, I think history will give Johnson more credit than my generation was able to initially.
Johnson was a very great man and great president, who was sadly very vulnerable to people accusing him on being weak on defense.
I was fascinated with Johnson early on (and have remained so over the years) so I’m not really a good judge on how much the American political conversation really ignores him. So I’ll just chime in with a reinforcement of the point that he – personally – had as great an influence over what this country is today as any president. The Kennedy myth is what’s talked about, but it was Johnson that got things (good and bad) done. If you’ve never taken the time to listen to the taped phone calls from the Johnson White House, take a couple of hours and head over to the CSPAN site. The insight they give- into the era, the politics, and the man – can’t be beat.
Thanks for the welfare state, Lyndy.
And that that’s what Brian gets out of it illustrates why his perspective is so narrow as to be worthless.
I agree with Snolan. LBJ’s legacy was clouded for so long by the Vietnam War, which was immeasurably divisive in this country. But it was such a strange time, anyway, for reasons that would take too long to get into here.
I think, though, that it has taken progressives of that era far too long to reassess the man and his entire legacy. When we truly start to do that, it will be a sign of the healing from that era as well as reclaiming a much needed part of the progressive legacy.
Johnson was the last true progressive to hold the White House – Jimmy Carter ran as a fiscal conservative and Clinton as a free trader and DLC centrist Democrat. Indeed, it was Clinton who declared the era of big government over, all but renouncing the proud progressive tradition of FDR and LBJ. In fairness, I don’t think Clinton could have been elected during that time period if he hadn’t done this, and he was a successful president, who left this country with a strong economy and a budget surplus. But he wasn’t a progressive.
To ignore Johnson is to ignore the successes of the progressive era. To build a new progressive era and challenge the myths of the Reagan Revolution in light of its failures, it is necessary to reclaim Johnson and put him beside FDR, and JFK.
AIAW – sorry – your comment got hung up in my spam filter.
And I agree about Johnson being the last progressive President. Younger folks, who know little or nothing of the Vietnam War, should not be denied the knowledge of the tremendous accomplishments of Johnson.
President Johnson was a kennedy fill in, he lost the south for the democrates who can not have had democrate president without it example presidents carter,clinton who won southern states. mr. johnson would not fit in todays dems party because he wanted to win in the NAM. and would have he went all out, but held back surronded by kennedy adviors i know who wanted him taken down to make way for bobby kennedy, than again maybe we should thank him for gving us president Nixon,ford,reagan,bush h., bush w., maybe mc cain. all who would never win without the south.
MB,
I think your own viewpoint is very narrow, indeed too narrow.
Let me expand on Brian’s brief comment. LBJ’s “Great Society” ended up encouraging unfavorable consequences. Is it a good thing for a man to abandon his pregnant girlfriend to raise her child alone because by abandoning her the man ensures she qualifies for welfare? Isn’t it wrong for society to encourage the father to abandon responsibility for his child?
While sometimes single parent families are unavoidable, is it good for society for government to encourage this outcome by rewarding it?
I think some of the welfare reforms given to us by the Bill Clinton administration were warranted. Learn as we go, continuous improvement. Do not reward bad behaviour.
Gosh, LittleDavid, I couldn’t have deduced that at all. Thanks for your help. I mean, it’s not like that’s the worn-out attack example that’s brought out by no-tax nitwits every time a government agency wants to spend a dime. “Safety barriers on the road? Oh, noes! It’ll teach people to rely on government instead of their own driving skills! Welfare state!”
LD – I happen to believe that the outcome to which you point was quite unintended. Besides to harp on that in the fact of all of the other things that Johnson accomplished – Medicare, Head Start, college grants & loans, civil rights legislation, among them – is to cherry pick a single issue and not look at the whole.
Or are you saying that all of those things were bad?
I think we can sum up by saying that Johnson left a legacy of spectacular successes and spectacular failures. That will happen when one attempts spectacular things. It is a mark of greatness that he attempted such things. The mediocre attempt mediocre things, and the great attempt great things.
MB,
Can’t you build a better strawman than that?
I’d suggest folks check out “Flawed Giant – Lyndon Johnson and his Times” by Robert Dallek … while it was copywrited in 1998 I haven’t read anything that does a better job of covering the strengths and weaknesses, and the successes and failures of LBJ
Sure, Brian, but LittleDavid already did it. Sorry that you weren’t able to keep up.
~
And VirginiaDem, I’m sorry for what I’m about to do – I’m embarrassed really – but –
Copyright is NOT A VERB. It’s a NOUN.
(That wasn’t directed at you, individually. Just at a good portion of the Internets.)