January 4, 1965—Lyndon Baines Johnson, fresh from an electoral landslide that gave him commanding majorities in both houses of Congress, prodded his former colleagues to pass a mass of social-welfare legislation designed to eliminate social and economic inequality, giving rise to the catchphrase that characterized his Presidency as surely as “The New Deal” had summed up Franklin D. Roosevelt’s: “The Great Society.”
Unlike the New Deal, the impetus for the Great Society derived not from an economic crisis but a moral one. The international community—and, indeed, more and more Americans—questioned how, in the land of the free, African-Americans didn’t enjoy the same opportunities as whites a century after the Civil War, and how, in a country enjoying abundant prosperity, poverty still existed in urban slums, rural Appalachia, and farms harvested by migrant workers.
Few Presidents have known the sting of poverty so well as LBJ, who experienced it firsthand when his father Sam, a scrupulously honest politician, couldn’t subsist on his state legislator salary in Texas. (The Johnsons’ Hill Country home lacked electricity and indoor plumbing.) Few Presidents have seen so directly how affirmative government could make a material difference to constituents, as when the young Congressman Johnson helped achieve electrification of the Hill Country. And few Presidents have so relished their role as legislator-in-chief, since LBJ had already been preparing for it as majority leader in the 1950s, when he amply earned the nickname given him by biographer Robert A. Caro: “Master of the Senate.”
Now, the ambitious, idealistic, profane, caring chief executive proposed to push, educate, and soft-soap his former colleagues, attempting to disprove the notion promulgated by historian James MacGregor Burns that congressional institutional roadblocks resulted in a “deadlock of democracy.” In the process, LBJ sought to pass legislation that would:
* end poverty;
Unlike the New Deal, the impetus for the Great Society derived not from an economic crisis but a moral one. The international community—and, indeed, more and more Americans—questioned how, in the land of the free, African-Americans didn’t enjoy the same opportunities as whites a century after the Civil War, and how, in a country enjoying abundant prosperity, poverty still existed in urban slums, rural Appalachia, and farms harvested by migrant workers.
Few Presidents have known the sting of poverty so well as LBJ, who experienced it firsthand when his father Sam, a scrupulously honest politician, couldn’t subsist on his state legislator salary in Texas. (The Johnsons’ Hill Country home lacked electricity and indoor plumbing.) Few Presidents have seen so directly how affirmative government could make a material difference to constituents, as when the young Congressman Johnson helped achieve electrification of the Hill Country. And few Presidents have so relished their role as legislator-in-chief, since LBJ had already been preparing for it as majority leader in the 1950s, when he amply earned the nickname given him by biographer Robert A. Caro: “Master of the Senate.”
Now, the ambitious, idealistic, profane, caring chief executive proposed to push, educate, and soft-soap his former colleagues, attempting to disprove the notion promulgated by historian James MacGregor Burns that congressional institutional roadblocks resulted in a “deadlock of democracy.” In the process, LBJ sought to pass legislation that would:
* end poverty;
* promote racial equality;
* improve education, making it, for the first time, a federal priority;
* revitalize cities;
* protect the environment (highway beautification was a particular pet project of First Lady Lady Bird Johnson).
The soft-soap element of the fabled “Johnson Treatment” was there for an entire nationwide audience to behold on TV, as the President invoked on “this hill that was my home” how he had been “stirred by old friendships.” He briefly addressed newcomers to Capitol Hill, many of whom had ridden into office on his coattails, in this manner: “You will soon learn that you are among men whose first love is their country, men who try each day to do as best they can what they believe is right.”
The Congress that LBJ was stroking—“the Fabulous Eighty-Ninth,” in the phrase used by historians favorable to their work—would, over the next two years, pass much of the sweeping legislation that LBJ proposed. From 1963, when he took office from the slain John F. Kennedy, to 1970, when the impact of LBJ's legislation began to take hold, the portion of Americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent, the sharpest decline over such a brief period in the 20th century.
Yet, after the fall of 1966, voters began to turn away from the architect of the Great Society and the party that did his bidding. Over the years, the gap between rich and poor would widen.
By the start of this decade, with the global recession still biting deeply, more and more observers have been given serious credence to warnings that the middle class is disappearing and the lower class swelling. (See, for instance, this interview with Yale’s Bruce Judson on WNYC-FM’s “Leonard Lopate Show”.) Even conservatives such as New York Times columnist Ross Douthat and Jim Manzi have recognized the threat that inequality poses to the nation in general and the GOP’s uncertain fortunes in particular.
All the more surprising, then, that the 45th anniversary of the announcement of LBJ’s breathtaking reordering of the American economic landscape has gone comparatively unnoticed.
Yet, after the fall of 1966, voters began to turn away from the architect of the Great Society and the party that did his bidding. Over the years, the gap between rich and poor would widen.
By the start of this decade, with the global recession still biting deeply, more and more observers have been given serious credence to warnings that the middle class is disappearing and the lower class swelling. (See, for instance, this interview with Yale’s Bruce Judson on WNYC-FM’s “Leonard Lopate Show”.) Even conservatives such as New York Times columnist Ross Douthat and Jim Manzi have recognized the threat that inequality poses to the nation in general and the GOP’s uncertain fortunes in particular.
All the more surprising, then, that the 45th anniversary of the announcement of LBJ’s breathtaking reordering of the American economic landscape has gone comparatively unnoticed.
Was his program a success? It depends on which type of economist you’re talking to, a liberal or a conservative.
What’s not really in dispute, however, is that within two years, Americans were backing away from the commitment LBJ called for. The following reasons might account for why it all came apart:
* Americans’ preference for divided government. The periods in which Presidents can act are relatively short. The four 20th-century Presidents who passed the most consequential domestic legislation—Wilson, FDR, LBJ, and Reagan—all ended up having their ability to pass further laws undercut by mid-term elections that strengthened the opposing party.
What’s not really in dispute, however, is that within two years, Americans were backing away from the commitment LBJ called for. The following reasons might account for why it all came apart:
* Americans’ preference for divided government. The periods in which Presidents can act are relatively short. The four 20th-century Presidents who passed the most consequential domestic legislation—Wilson, FDR, LBJ, and Reagan—all ended up having their ability to pass further laws undercut by mid-term elections that strengthened the opposing party.
* The chain reaction of the aggrieved white working class. Blue-collar ethnics and Southern white populists were among the foot-soldiers of the New Deal. But, as Thomas B. Edsall—formerly a reporter with the Washington Post, now political editor for the Huffington Post—pointed out in Chain Reaction, these two groups—resentful of busing, affirmative action, and other federal remedies to aid blacks and other minorities—came to perceive a pernicious linkage between taxes and the ‘60s rights revolution. Many in these groups began switching their loyalties—first to Richard Nixon, then, with less hesitation, to Ronald Reagan.
* The phantom menace of foreign competition. Virtually nobody saw it at the time, but Japan was moving decisively toward becoming more competitive with the U.S. Johnson and John F. Kennedy had been beholden to Big Labor for crucial electoral support. In this decade, while labor pressed for greater concessions, Big Business accommodated them, passing along inevitable cost increases to consumers. Bean counters instead of marketing or technological visionaries came into vogue in management. All the while, America was losing its edge in the auto and steel industries.
* The fracturing of families. Daniel Patrick Moynihan came under fire for pointing out the impact that single-parent families had on the black community. Yet, as Douthat has pointed out, the collapse of the two-parent household “disproportionately affects the poor and working class, depriving them of the social capital they need to rise.”
* LBJ’s penchant for bureaucracy. In one of the most insightful memoirs ever written by a White House aide, The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, Joseph Califano relates how the President lectured a group of nursing-home executives that when they design toilets for their residents, they should “make sure you don’t put the toilet rack behind them so they have to wrench their backs out of place or dislocate a shoulder or get a stiff neck in order to get their hand on the toilet paper.” No matter how admirable LBJ’s concern for human dignity might be, you have to wonder why an executive came to detail so exactly how his plan should be implemented, instead of leaving it up to the people involved as to the most cost-effective means of doing so. Imagine an army of such bureaucrats, similarly inclined, and you might begin to understand the building annoyance.
* The credibility gap. As time went on, the media began reporting more and more skeptically about the President’s uncertain relationship with the truth, or his “credibility gap,” starting with the mundane (a claim that an ancestor had fought at the Alamo) and proceeding to more substantive matters (the course of the Vietnam War). This undercut his moral authority.
* Guns vs. butter. LBJ had hoped to prosecute the Vietnam War on the cheap. Instead, he ended up igniting inflation. The strong economy that, he felt, made it possible for Americans to extend their hand generously to their neighbor was badly weakened, making the electorate restless.
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