As LBJ was Honored by Civil Rights Leaders, Liberal Democratic Era Revs Up

The assassination of President Kennedy set the stage for the legislative victories of President Lyndon Johnson, in particular, the long stalled civil rights legislation. Civil rights and other leaders came to the University of Texas LBJ Library to celebrate the 50-year anniversary of these laws.

Johnson’s reputation is burdened by the Vietnam War and his unreconstructed Cold War viewpoint. But, equally controversial at the time and a burden for Democrats through most of the 1970s and 1980s, was Johnson’s unreconstructed adoption of the New Deal solution to poverty.

The huge Democratic victories in the 1964 election empowered Johnson and liberal Democrats to pass a flood of legislation creating programs, agencies, and departments with associated spending that became the “Great Society” (commencement speech of University of Michigan 1964).

Not only did the Vietnam War destroy the Johnson presidency, but the cost of guns and butter and a backlash to the liberal activism was used in constructing Richard Nixon’s Silent Majority and war on crime. It also led to the long Neoliberal debate in the Democratic Party as to the efficacy of big government solutions to social problems and their tendency to produce unintended consequences.

The Democratic Party’s dominant liberal wing is preparing for a new war on poverty. And, there’s no doubt the current liberal era launched with the Democrats retaking the House in 2006 and the election of Barack Obama would already be recognized as the next high point of liberalism after the FDR and LBJ administrations, but for Washington gridlock and the aftermath of the 2008-09 financial crisis.