Since LBJ supported Brazilian Coup D'Etat of 1964, as a Brazilian I would give him and almost every President of this thread a Horrible Person vote since the American Foreign Policy tends to be a lot of intrusive on Brazilian's public life, although I can't put all the blame on the American people. Ironically, I believe that LBJ would have had much more ideological similarities with Mr. Goulart than with the Presidents of the Civil-Military Dictatorship that we have had in Brazil from 1964 to 1985.
So, for the purpose of this forum and for the purpose of this kind of thread, I tend to vote as an American Voter.I don't really appreciate Lyndon B. Johnson methods and I am not a fan of Machiavellian Politics either. Moreover, I'm in most of the cases staunchly against war and I would never support the Vietnam War but I don't think I can give LBJ a Horrible Person vote because this man had a great record when it comes to Domestic Policy. Hence, I will give him an FF vote.
Yes, LBJ was wrong about Vietnam but many others were and he didn't tried to use this conflict as a campaign tool just like Richard Nixon did, in 1968, destroying the Peace Accords, and in1972, by using the Vietnam War against McGovern.In many ways, Vietnam is a greater problem and LBJ cannot hold the responsibility for many of the things that happened there.
LBJ was a wheeler-dealer in many ways. This was a good thing and a problematic thing. His capacities as a negotiator where key to see his thousands of progressive ideas pass in Congress but his insistence that everything could be solved with this kind of "You help me and I help you, but if you don't I kill you" strategy was not really helpful for his Foreign Policy. He thought that the Bombing Halts, the Escalation and the increase in participation of American forces coupled with a huge set of investments plans in Vietnam would make both sides of the war go to the table. But he didn't know who he was dealing with and Hoi Chi Min was really not the kind of guy that can be easily dealt. Summing thins up, Wheeler-dealers don't go well with Revolutionaries.
However, just as the DevotedDemocrat pointed out, when it comes to Domestic Policy, LBJ's Great Society made many of the things that Truman desired on his Fair Deal initiative. This was the guy that invested a lot on higher education in the United States, this was the man that invested a lot on American infrastructure and, more importantly, he was the man that passed two significant Civil Rights Bills and that created both Medicare and Medicaid. It was the apogee of Progressivism and it was definitely one of the fairest eras, economically speaking, to live.
The Middle Class destruction is LBJ fault? Give me a brake of baloney!
Now, regarding to this baloney, I cannot say that about Nixon but the existence of a Middle Class and a strong Middle Class is, in many ways, a result of government action towards social justice and the reduction of inequalities. I could understand a libertarian or a conservative economist saying that Liberal Policy is the reason why the economy was not doing well but I can't understand why would someone blame LBJ for the Middle Class collapse.
In a very enjoyable book of Paul Krugman, The Conscience of a Liberal, Mr. Krugman shows with thousands of facts how the Movement Conservatives were the main responsible for the weakening of the Middle Class. Although technological development and the increase of free trade could in fact raise income inequality, the significant dismantling of Social Security and welfare mechanisms by Presidents like George H. W Bush (more shyly) and, especially, Ronald Reagan are the main reasons why the Middle Class has been reducing since the early eighties.
Middle Class was always stronger when welfare investments were greater and we can check that on History. The "Golden Era" of American Capitalism, the early 1900s, was also one of the eras with greater economic disparities of American history and unsurprisingly it was also the era where welfare was almost non-existent, then we have the crash of 1929 and after that a strengthening of the Middle Class specially after the WWII, all of that with greater investments of government in people's standards of living. FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, LBJ and even Nixon (with some reservations) faced an America with a strong market based economy but also with a strong Middle Class. I'm not sure about Gerald Ford's and Jimmy Carter data, but the Middle Class remained pretty stable and the economic downturn of the final seventies and early eighties were largely caused by the oil prices and by miscalculations of monetary policy. And then we have the gutting of the Middle Class once more, Reagan, Bush I and Shrub slashing social expenditure while increasing military expenditures and raising regressive taxation and Slick Willie being a Moderate Hero failing to pass significant progressive reform.
Poll
