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His reputation changed in the early 2000s, as more historians and
Americans started to look beyond Vietnam in assessing his tenure. The tide
started to turn as much more attention was focused on the sheer breath of
domestic accomplishments that he left behind. Lectures, books, films, and
television reintroduced Americans to the nation’s thirty-sixth commander
in chief. They told the story of a savvy, indefatigable politician who knew how
to make the levers of Washington work in a way nobody else could. Most famous was
the “Johnson Treatment,” where the six-foot-three Texan would literally hover
with body and spirit over colleagues until they gave him the answers he wanted.
The recordings of his White House telephone conversations provided an
unprecedented glimpse into how Johnson wielded power when nobody was looking.
And he got results—the scope of domestic legislation was astounding. Working
with an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress, when the internal balance of power
temporarily shifted from Southern conservatives to Northern liberals, Johnson
pushed through legislation addressing poverty, health care, civil rights,
voting rights, open housing, immigration, elementary and secondary schools,
higher education, food insecurity, the environment, cultural institutions,
public television, and much more—nearly two hundred pieces of legislation in total.
As compared with the war, Johnson’s domestic accomplishments seemed much
more relevant as we moved into the twenty-first century. During an age of
immense dysfunction in Washington, his political skills became a roadmap to
how power could be made to work. For every news story that Americans read
reminding them that nothing was getting done on the big issues of the day, LBJ provided
the best evidence available that there was a different road the nation could
travel on. Government could work. Presidential power could be effective. Our
disjointed and fragmented system did not have to be, even if no one doubted
change would be hard. President Barack Obama was reportedly frustrated when
advisers kept talking to him about learning more about what LBJ would do; Obama
reminded them that he never had anywhere near the congressional majorities his
predecessor enjoyed after 1964. He might well have added that he, Obama, faced
an implacably right-wing and oppositional Republican Party, whereas the GOP of
Johnson’s day included numerous moderates and deal-makers.
In the post–Ronald Reagan era in which the nation had shifted to the
right, LBJ’s domestic society also offered a powerful narrative for liberals as
to how the federal government could be an extremely effective force for dealing
with inequality, injustice, and insecurity. When Johnson started his
presidency, Americans who were 65 or over very often fell short of being able
to pay for their hospital stays. After Congress passed Medicare and Medicaid in
1965, the insurance to cover those costs was guaranteed by the federal
government, paid for through Social Security taxes.
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