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Comment by senkora | Hacker News Reader

LBJ was an odd president. There’s his personal habits that are highlighted in the article, which were… strange. There’s his domestic policy, which was highly effective: he created medicare and medicaid, expanded civil rights, and caused the realignment of the Democratic and Republican parties to their modern state (before him, Democrats were more conservative than Republicans). He won the electoral college 486 to 52 and was overwhelmingly popular. And then there was his foreign policy, which was terrible: “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” was a common chant as the Vietnam War dragged on.

Unlike other commentators, I wouldn’t draw any conclusions about the presidency or the US from LBJ other than that sometimes very weird people win positions of power and proceed to do very weird things with that power.

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Robert Caro dedicated the second part of his life writing a biography of LBJ. He started in the 70s and is apparently still working on the 5th (and last!) volume.

I wonder if he mentions the shower somewhere?

Yes, this article is borrowing liberally from Passage of Power (2012), the fourth book:

> Lucy’s father was not as pleased with his new quarters. Two days after the Johnsons moved in, he told West, “Mr. West, if you can’t get that shower of mine fixed, I’m going to have to move back to The Elms.”

> “He didn’t sound as if he were joking,” West was to say. And after the President explained that the water pressure was inadequate, and that he wanted the same elaborate, multi-nozzle arrangement that he had had at his former home, he repeated his threat to move out. Then, “without a smile, he turned on his heel and walked away.”

> A few minutes later, Mrs. Johnson asked West to come by the room she had chosen for her once, a small sitting room with one door. “I guess you’ve been told about the shower,” she said, with a smile, and repeated to West what she said to all Johnson employees. “Anything that ... needs to be done, remember this: my husband comes first, the girls second, and I will be satisfied with what’s left.”

> As he became acquainted with the Johnsons, West was to write, “I soon could see that had been her life’s pattern.” Nothing, he came to see, could “faze her.”

You might be interested in reading The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro book series about him. It's incredibly well written and engaging, while also being academically rigorous, well researched and well documented. It's an (incomplete) 5 book biography-ish, maybe 4000+ pages - but also somehow a riveting page-turner.

Did he expand civil rights out of his own interest and volition or because there was pressure from the Civil Rights Movement? Wasn’t he a racist himself?

As for the Vietnam War: I guess it was easier for the US state to let the domestic population have civil rights compared to ending the Vietnam War and risking the “contagion” spreading. It’s easier to kill non-nationals on the other side of the world compared to continuing to violently crack down on domestic protests for civil rights.

(Kennedy didn’t have a nice record in Vietnam either, even though he is apparently the anti-deep state crusader if you listen to enough rock songs or whatever...)

I don’t know if "weird" is the right conclusion when you can factor in outside influences.

Was LBJ a racist himself? I expect so. Was he deeply committed to civil rights? Yes, without question.

Johnson regarded the war in Vietnam as something he had inherited from Kennedy. He regarded it as politically impossible to cut losses and pull out--the Republican Party beat on the Democrats for years over China, a more obviously lost cause.

Kennedy was younger, richer, and better looking. Then and since many Americans (and not only Americans) have confused their fantasies about him with history.

Johnson grew up poor and spent time teaching Mexican immigrant schoolchildren. He was from the South and far from flawless, but there are many anecdotes from throughout his life that showed that civil rights was a cause dear to him.

We should praise leaders for doing what the people want instead of what they might want themselves.

Okay. I’d rather give the credit to the nameless activists that forced the issue to the table and made segregation politically untenable. But I’m used to "leaders" getting credit for good things and the populace the stick for bad things.[1]

I'm doubtful that these leaders do these things because they are "listening" rather than because they are forced to. Or what, politicians are cynical power brokers (a common view, and correct) except on this issue? The leaders behind the State violently crack down on protests until they have a sudden epiphany and realize that demonstrating against segregation was good.

[1] Civil Rights was to Johnson’s credit, apparently, while the Trump Presidency was due to “stupid voters”

> [1] Civil Rights was to Johnson’s credit, apparently, while the Trump Presidency was due to “stupid voters”

People say Trump did X, Trump did Y, people don't say Trumps voters did X or Y. So I don't think so, the leaders gets most of the credit and the blame in the publics eye. In some cases the people on the ground gets credit and blame, but in most cases the leaders gets most of it.

The Caro biography claims that LBJ basically rescued the civil rights bills with his ability to get things through the senate. Kennedy had been on a path to failure because he didn't pass a budget first.

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